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MUSEUM of DREAMWORLDS

MUSEUM of DREAMWORLDS

Silent Antiquity Films in the BFI National Archive
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The Way of the Cross (Original)

1909

Alternative Titles

Weg Des Kreuzes (Alternative)

BFI identifier

24476

Synopsis

No main title. A group of Christians march through Rome. Meanwhile, Valerius gambles and drinks with his friends. He leaves his friends and comes upon the Christian meeting and falls in love with Leah. This is noticed by Gallia, the lover of Valerius. When the Christian group is attacked by a mob, Valerius rescues Leah and takes her home. He is followed by the slave of Gallia who has been given instructions to follow them. The next day Valerius attends a feast at Nero's palace. Gallia gives information about Leah to Nero and she is brought to the palace to be tormented. Valerius escorts her home although his advances are spurned. The next day Gallia prompts Nero to decree the death of all Christians. Valerius warns Leah and her family and they escape to the catacombs before the arrival of the soldiers. Leah's brother is sent for food. However, he is noticed by Gallia and captured. Under torture on the rack he reveals Leah's hiding place. Valerius visits the catacombs and tries to persuade Leah to leave, however her place is with her family and the Christians. As he leaves he sees the soldiers arriving and insists Leah be tried before Nero. Leah refuses to renounce her religion and she is condemned to death. She is taken to the arena. Valerius too goes to the arena where gladiators are fighting. Leah and the other Christians are led through the arena. Valerius rushes to see her but again she refuses to renounce her faith. Valerius falls to his knees and sees a vision of Leah holding her cross. He then sees Gallia holding a glass of wine for him. This is followed by a vision of the Cross and he decides to join Leah in the cell ready to be thrown to the lions pacing in the background. Leah persuades Valerius to give up his sword and another vision of the Cross appears. The Christians are then led into the arena, Leah holding aloft her cross and accompanied by Valerius (877ft). Note: German titles. (Shotlist)

Production Country: USA
Production Company: Vitagraph Company of America
BFI Category: Fiction
Source: N/A

Cast

Rose E. Tapley (Leah)
Maurice Costello (Valerius)
William Humphrey
Edith Storey (Gallia)

Credits

Production Company: Vitagraph Company of America
Supervisor: J. Stuart Blackton
Script: Madison C. Peters

Film Technical Information

Original Length: 900 ft
Length of BFI Viewing Print: 877 ft
Support: Viewable
Black and White
Format: 35 mm , 16mm BW Positive, Mp4

Comments on the print:

This film print, with German intertitles, appears to be unique to the BFI. The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) lists no other archive as holding a copy. The Library of Congress only has paper print fragments in its Vitagraph collection. The BFI nitrate master is tinted. The black and white viewing copy runs to 9 minutes 34 seconds with flash title cards (in length, 877 feet).  According to The Moving Picture World the film's original length was 900 ft on its release in August 1909.

For further details on all the elements the BFI archive holds, see here https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150019097

 

1909- The Way of the Cross (Vitagraph)

The Vitagraph Company, established in New York City in 1897 as one of the first film production companies in the United States, had begun making film versions of historical narratives and literary classics in 1908. After several adaptations of Shakespeare and well-known ancient themes (Virginius, Saul and David) early in 1909, they produced The Way of the Cross in the summer of 1909. The basic premise parallels that of the Polish novel Quo Vadis, naming the Roman military officer protagonist Valerius instead of Vinicius, the Christian woman Leah instead of Lygia. But the conclusion parallels more closely the English melodrama The Sign of the Cross in that these protagonists submit to martyrdom in the arena to conclude the story. Director J. Stuart Blackton employed his characteristic scheme of creating multiple sets (17) and filling them with as many as 50 actors and extras in a single scene (e.g., the gladiatorial arena). The film resembles some of the others on this website by including black slaves and a tableau modeled after a widely familiar Gérôme painting. The lone copy of the film is held by the BFI, albeit with German intertitles as it comes from the Joye collection.

THEME - The Imperial Gaze: Nero in the Early Years of Cinema

Nero has occupied the cinema screen more than any other figure of Roman history, creating for spectators a multisensory experience of the emperor as image, movement and sound. The background of these Neros goes back to his wide circulation in the cultural imaginary of the nineteenth century, in restagings of operas and plays as well as the performance of new ones, in paintings and postcards, novels, circus shows and lantern slides. But, across the first decades of the twentieth-century, cinema shaped its own Neros better to suit the specificity and needs of the medium, its changing technologies and industrial practices, and the differing cultural contexts of his reproduction. This essay puts the four prints in the BFI archive that concern Nero - namely, Nero or the Burning of Rome (Nerone o L’incendio di Roma, 1909), Way of the Cross (1909), Quo vadis (1913) and Quo vadis (1924) - within the context of the eleven silent films about the Roman emperor that have survived from the early years of cinema. The essay reflects upon differences that emerge between these cinematic representations across time and nation and, in doing so, explores more broadly why silent cinema was so attracted to him.