Cleopatra (Charles L. Gaskill, 1912)

Cleopatra (Charles L. Gaskill, 1912)

Cast: Helen Gardner, Charles Sindelar, Mr. Howard, Pearl Sindelar, Miss Fielding, Miss Robson, Helene Costello, James R. Waite, Mr. Osborne, Harry Knowles, Mr. Paul, Mr. Brady, Mr. Corker. Screenplay: Charles L. Gaskill, based on a play by Victorien Sardou. Cinematography: Lucien Tainguy. Art direction: Arthur Courbault. Film editing: Helen Gardner.

D.W. Giffith's The Birth of a Nation is, judged by its racism, an odious film, but to appreciate why it's also a cinematic landmark you have to see films like the 1912 Cleopatra, produced by its star, Helen Gardner. Although Cleopatra tells its familiar story well, it never comes off the screen the way Griffith's did. Where The Birth of a Nation is fill of action and movement and suspenseful cutting, Cleopatra is static: When her ship arrives at Actium, it's a stage ship pulled into frame from stage left, and when it departs it moves off stage right. There is a rudimentary attempt at montage late in the film to serve as an account of the defeat of Mark Antony by Octavius, but for the most part Cleopatra is a series of tableaus in which the actors gather in cramped compositions around its star. Gardner was in her late 20s when the film was made, but she's a rather matronly Cleopatra, owing in part to the costumes that fail to provide her with a waist. She brings a set of stock gestures from her work on the stage, throwing her arms into the air to express every emotion from desire to dismay. Since most of their loving takes place without benefit of closeups, there's no chemistry to be found in her scenes with her handsome but wooden Antony, Charles Sindelar. Nevertheless, Cleopatra deserves to be regarded a landmark, too, as one of the first feature-length films made in America. Gardner was also a pioneer, apparently the first woman to form her own production company, thereby paving the way for stars like Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson.