Martin Scorsese has called "Cabiria" the first epic, and has said that the achievements in epic filmmaking attributed to D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille instead belong at "Cabiria" filmmaker Giovanni Pastrone's feet.
As often with silent films, I found myself wondering how contemporary audiences must have reacted to it. Its spectacle is, after all, amazing even now. There are extraordinary moments to go with the awe-inspiring sets and sense of grand scale. Take for instance the scene in which we witness the Carthaginians sacrificing children to their god, Moloch, "the god of copper". We see a giant metal statue whose chest is opened to reveal a fire. A child is actually stuffed in there, and the chest is shut again, making the statue belch fire as if the child was swallowed whole!
What would people in 1914 have made of this? Some of them, I imagine, must have thought they'd just witnessed infanticide.
Cabiria, our protagonist, narrowly escapes this hideous and paganistic fate, when Bartolomeo Pagano, one of the first ever movie stars, comes to her rescue.
Pagano is in blackface, a fact we observe to our shame, understandably. But his character is also a hero. Is this the first black hero ever presented on screen?
Seeing a child die before her means that Cabiria is in real danger. Modern audiences know that heroes of stories don't die in the opening scenes. Were 1914 audiences so sure? The tension must have been nail-biting.
Alas, this might have been the last time I really felt something watching "Cabiria". Its grand spectacle keeps us at a distance, emotionally and physically, from its characters, and I lost the titular Cabiria after this. I just sat back and admired the sights.
As often with silent films, I found myself wondering how contemporary audiences must have reacted to it. Its spectacle is, after all, amazing even now. There are extraordinary moments to go with the awe-inspiring sets and sense of grand scale. Take for instance the scene in which we witness the Carthaginians sacrificing children to their god, Moloch, "the god of copper". We see a giant metal statue whose chest is opened to reveal a fire. A child is actually stuffed in there, and the chest is shut again, making the statue belch fire as if the child was swallowed whole!
What would people in 1914 have made of this? Some of them, I imagine, must have thought they'd just witnessed infanticide.
Cabiria, our protagonist, narrowly escapes this hideous and paganistic fate, when Bartolomeo Pagano, one of the first ever movie stars, comes to her rescue.
Pagano is in blackface, a fact we observe to our shame, understandably. But his character is also a hero. Is this the first black hero ever presented on screen?
Seeing a child die before her means that Cabiria is in real danger. Modern audiences know that heroes of stories don't die in the opening scenes. Were 1914 audiences so sure? The tension must have been nail-biting.
Alas, this might have been the last time I really felt something watching "Cabiria". Its grand spectacle keeps us at a distance, emotionally and physically, from its characters, and I lost the titular Cabiria after this. I just sat back and admired the sights.