Carmen

The relationship between cinema and opera has always been a bit on-off, but occasionally has yielded some good things. Cecil B. De Mille was one of the first filmmakers to acknowledge the similarities between the two mediums, creating what was perhaps the first true opera film.

The casting of renowned opera star Geraldine Farrar was more than just a publicity stunt. Screen acting was still in development, but opera acting – which is similar in that plot and character must primarily revealed visually through gesture and presence – had been going for centuries. Farrar fits right in on the screen, giving a realistic performance with a touch of dynamic dramatics – the style that De Mille favoured and that was central to his silent era work.

Farrar apparently enjoyed the freedom of not being so constrained by the music, and being able to act in her own time. However, De Mille's Carmen is still very much an adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera, rather than Prosper Merimee's novel. It not only follows the opera's libretto more closely than it does the original text, certain key sequences do appear to have been staged to fit Bizet's music – in particular the final climactic scene. Funnily enough, when Raoul Walsh made his Carmen the same year, he deliberately based it on the novel, not the opera, as Fox could not afford the hefty fee for the rights to the libretto. Sadly Walsh's version, which he goes into some detail about in his autobiography, is lost.

In Carmen we can also see the De Mille style which made his silent films so watchable was really beginning to mature. One of the best things about his silent pictures is the sparseness of the intertitles. Not only are they used purely when necessary, De Mille also ensures they are spaced out we are never bombarded with them. Whereas many silent films might have a title when a character asks a question, followed a few seconds later by another title giving the response, with De Mille each title stands alone. If two characters are talking to each other, the majority of the conversation will be conveyed by gesture, expression and context. This means that the flow of each scene is not broken up. A good example is when Don Jose and Carmen are dancing in the tavern, Don Jose hears the bugler calling him back to his post, he is reluctant to go, but an officer persuades him. Whereas many other directors would have interrupted this sequence with two or three speech titles, De Mille credits the audience with the ability to be able to read the scene visually, which allows us to really watch the performances.

De Mille was also coming along in his handling of crowds scenes – the extras in the cigarette factory and the bullring look particularly naturalistic, although he perhaps needed a bit more practice and drawing the audience's eyes to the most important part of the frame. Another De Mille trademark makes an early appearance here too – the scene in which Carmen has her fortune read is shown with "Rembrandt lighting", that is with actors illuminated while that background is shrouded in darkness. This not only gives a moody atmosphere, it also isolates characters, really focusing us upon their performance.

Good as he was, De Mille was certainly also a rather pompous and pretentious figure, and it seems his contemporaries were already onto him. Charlie Chaplin's brilliant Burlesque on Carmen expertly skewers the seriousness of De Mille's vision (the parody is clearly based on this version, mimicking the sets, costumes and even some of the camera set ups). In his autobiography Walsh also talks about rushing out his version in order to upstage his rival (although he was a single day late). The self-important De Mille was probably more or less deserving of this derision, but he still made some great films. It is also interesting that De Mille, Walsh and Chaplin all took on Carmen at this time, as it was these three very different directors who would now take over from Griffith as being at the forefront of cinematic development.

An hour to tell the tale of Carmen the gypsy tease may not seem much, but this is a nicely succinct version with some very appealing tinting - blue for the smugglers, reds and pinks for Carmen. Geraldine Farrar is a little too much on the overacting side at stages, but she makes a passionate and fiery little Carmen who scratches and bites her way through life. Wallace Reid is a charming Don Jose, driven mad with love to the tragic conclusion. The video version I saw has some Farrar arias tacked on with stills from the film, and the whole is extremely affecting. Joan the Woman is better but this is still a fascinating little piece.

Hard to imagine trying to make a silent film out of an opera, but DeMille manages to pull it off, more or less. Opera star Geraldine Farrar plays the title role; she leads a young officer (Wallace Reid) to ruin. Of course, she gets hers in the end ... or in the chest, in this case.

Farrar is okay in her part, but really excels when she is in beyotch mode. Reid seems little more than window dressing at the start, but he gets more interesting as he gets more ticked off. Farrar plays him like a cheap drum.

A mid-thirties Pedro de Cordoba plays a bullfighter; it's interesting to see him this young. There is also a good catfight between Farrar and another gypsy.

The version I saw on YouTube was tinted and restored, and contains themes from the opera.

Cecil B. DeMille's CARMEN is one of the most entertaining of Hollywood's 1910s output. The visuals are simple but atmospheric, and the acting is marvelous. Geraldine Farrar is a natural in front of the camera, giving her Carmen an easy sexuality and playful attitude that come off as rather contemporary, nothing at all like the nostril-flaring vamping you'd expect from a movie of this vintage. Wally Reid is a likeable and passionate lead.

I've revisited this movie about three times and it never disappoints. With the sister release of even more visually innovative THE CHEAT, 1915 seems to have been a golden year for the young DeMille.

And once again, people other than DW Griffith were breaking new ground in 1915.

If anyone is ever looking for an introduction to opera - then they could do much, much worse than this abridged version of Bizet's "Carmen". Telling the story of the anonymous temptress (Geraldine Farrar) who helps her smuggling friends by seducing the erstwhile incorruptible "Don José" (Wallace Reid) so they can continue to ply their trade. Soon, the poor captain is ensnared in her trap and when he kills his brother to help her, finds himself in the soup, so to speak. Whilst the detail of the story is largely lost here, the gist remains and the performances from the truly world class soprano Farrar and from Reid do their job fine. The design of the production is also quite effective: it hasn't the static look of so many of these early stage-to-screen adaptations - especially around the torero scenes - and, of course, it has the wonderful score to underpin it. The inter-titles are sparing - we get most of the plot from their expressions and the music, and that largely works well too. It is a bit clunky at times, the big crowd scenes are a bit confusing but the cat-fight is quite fun and it offers enough of a soupçon of the original, quite visceral, story to make it well worth watching.