Cabiria

This is one grand looking and made movie, with plenty of mass sequences, impressive sets and costumes and a story that just screams epic.

It's pretty nice to see how some early film-makers got influenced by this movie. Film-makers such as Fritz Lang, D.W. Griffith, who were also all pioneers by themselves. They were obviously inspired by some of the sequences, its scale, sets and compositions, since this movie in some of its sequences show some definite similarities to some sequences in movies such as "Metropolis" and "Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages". Only in that regard you can already call this movie an innovative and important movie. Its sets, compositions and just overall way of story-telling were all quite new and innovating for its time. It's also the first ever movie to use a dolly-track system, which provides the movie with a couple of nice moments as well.

The movie its story is very epic, since it's set at many different locations, with also many different characters. It features historical well known figures such as Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Scipio, Archimede, Massinissa, which makes the movie real interesting but is also one of its weaker points, since it makes the movie and its story-telling a bit disjointed at parts.

It perhaps also makes the movie feel overlong in parts, even though the movie is only about 2 hours long (well, depending on which version you'll watch), which is actually quite short for an epic movie, especially for one that got made early in the 20th century. 4 hour epics from the same time period are no rarity. The movie just goes on for a bit too long with some of its sequences. After a while you get the point but the scene will just go on and on. It doesn't always makes this an easy but pleasant movie to watch.

But overall the movie of course is pleasant as well as impressive, not only because of its visuals but also because of its story that is actually quite adventurous, as long as it knows to focus on the movie its key players. It's adventurous in the same way as a movie like "Ben-Hur" for instance.

Also especially when you realize that this is an 1914 movie, it's a real excellent, innovative and interesting, fun movie to watch.

8/10

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Three hundred years Before Christ, the volcanic Mount Etna erupts during an earthquake, destroying the Sicilian palace and estate where little "Cabiria" (Carolina Catena) lives. The young heiress manages to escape through a secret stairway leading underground, carried by nursemaid Gina Marangoni (as Croessa). When the dust clears, little "Cabiria" is believed to be dead and buried in the ruble. After escaping the devastation, she and Ms. Marangoni are sold as slaves, in Carthage.

Next, "Cabiria" is to be sacrificed as a burnt offering to "Moloch", a brazen God who likes to eat children.

Nurse Marangoni tries to save the girl, but is whipped for her efforts. She enlists help from Roman patrician Umberto Mozzato (as Fulvius Axilla) and his loyal dark-skinned slave Bartolomeo Pagano (as Maciste). With the muscular Mr. Pagano leading the charge, they rescue "Cabiria" from the fiery jaws of death. Obviously, this makes the God and his minions angry. The trio hideout at an inn while the plot thickens. Shuttled once more, "Cabiria" grows into a beautiful young woman, Lidia Quaranta (as Elissa).

Written, produced, and directed by Giovanni Pastrone, "Cabiria" is a classic early spectacular.

Most famous was Mr. Pastrone's use of camera tracking shots; this movement of camera increased the scope, and excitement, of motion pictures. He likes screen movement, as you'll see. This film also features Mr. Pagano's star-making role as the long-running character "Maciste". In fact, Pagano and Mr. Mozzato are the real "stars" of this story; after they save "Cabiria" from sacrifice, you care more about seeing them - especially "Maciste" - than you do about the frequently disappearing "Cabiria".

******* Cabiria (4/18/14) Giovanni Pastrone ~ Umberto Mozzato, Bartolomeo Pagano, Lidia Quaranta, Italia Almirante-Manzini

This was a confusing, yet highly important, one to watch. I have to say that I haven't watched a silent film in a long time so adjusting to the many, many differences was a struggle. I found the captions to be really lacking in clarity. I appreciate the beauty of their writing but I'm not really trying to decode poetry when watching a silent epic, you know? It's not even that, really, it was the constant introduction of new names without describing who they were or what the hell their problem was. I was under the impression that the captions would describe what was about to happen, but really they just introduced it, which meant that I understood a bit of what was happening before their mouths kept moving and their arms started flailing and fights started happening and I was lost again. I definitely wish I had a historian in my room just quietly explaining where these ancient cities were and why everyone was so upset all the time. I could Google it while watching but I have a strict rule against touching my phone while a movie is on. Try to read up on the context surrounding the story before watching if you can.

Anyway, the sets were grand even by today's standards and that impressed me a lot. Even the special effects they utilized were outstanding, because at that time in cinema, they weren't special effects as much as they were visual tricks that the filmmakers had to figure out and pioneer on their own essentially. I really liked the Maciste character and I wasn't surprised to find that he was extremely popular when this movie came out, too. The naked children everywhere and live birds flying around a set that is actively crumbling and in flames was bananas! It made me wonder how many people/animals died on sets back before there were regulations. The story had many complexities to it and that was cool. It definitely deserves it's title as an epic. It is not an easy watch, but it is a worthwhile one. No doubt it was piloted by a strong plot. I agree with the many others who have said that this is a must-see for people who truly love film. I definitely recommend it and am happy to have it in my movie collection.

1914 was quite a year. Charlie Chaplin made his film debut, WWI began -- and set the stage for a lot of what happened in the 20th century -- and my great-grandparents immigrated to the United States (sorry, I couldn't resist adding that last one).

But that year also saw the release of Giovanni Pastrone's "Cabiria". This epic depicts the kidnapping of a Sicilian girl following an eruption of Mt. Etna, her sale into slavery in Carthage, and a Roman nobleman's quest to rescue her. It's like nothing that you've ever seen before.

The movie has drawn controversy due to its depiction of the Romans as pure and the Carthaginians as monstrous (thereby glorifying the idea of Italian supremacy). To be certain, producer Gabriele d'Annunzio's ideology influenced Benito Mussolini, although d'Annunzio had no actual association with Il Duce.

Regardless of that, the movie is still a fun -- and visually breathtaking -- romp. Maciste got his own series of movies. The ones immediately after "Cabiria" starred Bartolomeo Pagano, and then there was a new series in the 1960s.

Anyway, really cool!

Without Gabriele D'Annunzio's florid commentary this film would have been substantially shorter, while the hammy "silent film" acting and melodramatic storytelling lags far behind Scandinavian cinema of this period. But technically this super-production from Italy otherwise blazes a colossal trail that plainly led the way for the silent spectacles of Griffith, DeMille and Lang; while the sense of fun of the action scenes (particularly a scene depicting the formation of a human pyramid to scale a wall) anticipates Fairbanks at his jauntiest.

Beginning with the eruption of Mount Etna (and a lot of toppling pillars) the pace never lets up. Next comes a truly hair-raising scene depicting infants cast into the flaming maw of a statue of Moloch (whose Temple - with three round windows that make it's façade resemble the face of an enormous spider - is one of the many deliriously stylised designs that obviously later inspired Lang and others during the early twenties); while later we see Archimedes gleefully incinerating the Roman fleet with history's first death ray during the Siege of Syracuse. Throw in the boisterous crowd scenes and graceful tracking shots director Pastrone innovatively employs throughout (far more elegant than Griffith's work of the same period) and we have the template for the historical epic as it existed for the next half-century.

'Cabiria' also displays a major advance in the use of special effects that marks a decisive break with the trick films of Georges Méliès. Skillful use is made throughout of double exposures to make the action and the locations look even grander in scale than they already are (such as Hannibal crossing the Alps). And there is an additional bonus in the form of an extraordinary dream sequence that anticipates by ten years Walter Ruttmann's 'Falkentraum' sequence in Lang's 'Die Nibelungen'.