Thais

Right, so the director is a famous futurist photographer. Google his name and go see some superb pictures. But his film here, isn't much of Italian Futurism. Classical story from a 19th century novel, and the feature relies way much on intertitles. Our protagonist, the libertarian Thais, lives in a studio made up of abstract stuff, with a suicide chamber she made herself (good old 1890s!). Those backgrounds we see for a couple of minutes are the main interest of the film, and are all that is modern in the picture. Pretty much like Caligari (1920), the kind of picture that could have been a theater play, the usual fare of the days back then. I thought that the fact the director was a noted photographer could bring up interesting stuff. It turns out there's some interesting shots toward the finale, but otherwise you wouldn't want to look at this one except for historical purposes.

Bragaglia apparently wrote a manifesto of futurist cinema in 1916. I wonder if the picture followed the manifesto, and what's inside it.

For some reasons, the version I saw was in french. It's a good thing since I can read that, but the film must be Italian.

"Futurism" was an avant-garde artistic movement, created in 1909 ( as you can see your grandfathers were long haired and dangerous youngsters for a while ) that demands a rejection of tradition and the past while exalting technical innovations, especially the mechanical ones, present and future. This avant-garde artistic movement ( literature and music genres) found great acceptance in Italy where many artists developed the Futurism postulates.

Herr Anton Giulio Bragaglia was a notable Italian Futurist who began experimenting with photography and published an important manifesto as a theoretical basis for Futurist photography, "Fotodinamismo Futurista". In addition to his career as set designer Herr Bragaglia had a short but intense film career, "Thais" being his debut as a Futurist director.

In any case "Thais" is a film that combines in a strange way classicism and the ( Futurist ) modernism, a paradox since we know that the Futurists were people who rejected tradition and the"Thais" story is a very conventional one. It tells of a "femme fatale" who toys with and uses her admirers for her capricious purposes with the expected tragic ending. Classicism can be seen too in the beautiful images from evocative landscapes sequences as the ferry at the river or Bianca's race to the abyss ( "Naturalism" reminiscences?... ) or Herr Charles Baudelaire's poems ( "Impressionism" reminiscences? ) Only at the end of the film do we see the "Futurist" influences in the highly stylized and geometrical décors in which our heroine suffers her particular punishment, a sequence in which Herr Bragaglia's talent as a set designer is put to good effect.

For those reasons for this German Count "Thais" is a kind of interesting film catalogue of many artistic movements ( curious artistic duality ) strangely mixed, a display of the spirit of those innovative early years that grants the film an artistic and remarkable balance as a whole.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must retrieve his conservative Teutonic influences.

Bianca Bellincioni Stagno is an expert dancer. Of Slavic origin is the countess Vera Preobajenska, eccentric writer with the pseudonym of Thais.She likes to give crazy looks, but she does not love anyone with sincerity and she enjoys collecting lovers. Thais invites Count San Remo to seduce him too. The house is decorated in a futuristic style, with hypnotizing geometric patterns, repetitive elements on the walls like the eyes of a peacock's tail. Bianca falls from the horse, because disappointed by the Count who loved inside her, she launches into a wild ride on horseback. Thais feels guilty for this. Thais wants to die in the poisonous gases in his room, but his survival instinct lights up even though Thais dies in despair and madness. The possessiveness towards people changes when a loved one dies because of her sort of collecting of lovers as if they were puppets. It 's like though a puppet difficult to add to the collection, for the other is a crazy love and indirectly the puppet triggers a deadly chain reaction

This is the first film directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, a pioneer in Futurism photography and cinema Futurism was a mostly Italian artistic movement, emphasizing contemporary concepts of the future. The film's prologue states that it includes images by Futurist painters to strengthen the classic narrative in order to evoke in the viewer stronger emotions than those created by mere film images.

The film contrasts naturalist outdoor views of horse riding, horse carriages and motor cars, in particular a car crossing a river on a small ferry, with indoor views with sets designed by renowned Futurist painter Enrico Prampolini. As the film progresses and Thaïs becomes more and more irrational, the geometric and symbolic motives of the sets take an increasing importance and the film becomes almost abstract.

See further analysis and a link to the full film at:

a-cinema-history.blogspot.com/2013/12