As is my custom, I tend to jump feet first into a project like this, going for the emotional substance of the film without doing any research. So now, unable to really let go of the music (which still runs through my head), I'm learning something about Alla Nazimova, who made the film (she was the producer and co-director as well as the star).
Fortunately there is an Alla Nazimova Society website that is full of information about her.
Nazimova seems to be an inspiration for Norma Desmond's character in Sunset Boulevard (made by Billy Wilder in 1950) since Desmond refers to portraying Salomé on film (you can watch that clip here). I don't think that Theda Bara's portrayal would have come to mind since her 1918 film was lost (except for a two-minute highlight reel that only came to light recently).
Alla Nazimova was born in Yalta (in Crimea) in 1879 as Adelaida Yakovlevna Leventon, and died in 1945 in Los Angeles. Once billed as the world's greatest actress, she is also (posthumously) considered the "founding mother of Sapphic Hollywood." She was also a violinist.
Alla's father hid the fact that the family was Jewish, and would not let his daughter perform as a violinist under her family name (her father was a merchant, and having his daughter perform as a musician would damage his reputation), so she took the performing name of Nazimova after a character in a popular novel (Children of the Streets). She went to Moscow when she was seventeen to study acting with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, who was associated with Konstantin Stanislavski.
Nazimova left Russia for New York in 1905, met an agent, and became a star on Broadway (and a customer of Caswell-Massey, which has a beautiful tribute to her). She made her first silent film in 1916, and then headed off to Los Angeles to make more.
Salomé is extremely rich in visual and dramatic content. The (slightly edited from the original) dance section that I set starts about forty-one minutes in, and lasts for about ten minutes. I find (for obvious reasons) the music that goes with the version of the film that I linked to above distracting, so I prefer watching it with the sound turned off. Maybe some day I will set the whole film.
The Wikipedia article about the film mentions that it was the last film that Nazimova produced, and may have been the first "art" film made in the United States. It was not associated with any studio and was considered a failure at the time. The benefit of that kind of "failure" means that it can have a life as one of the treasures that remain in the public domain. You might enjoy following the links in the Wikipedia entry to learn about the film's cast (I certainly did).
Unlike Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Nazimova had a vibrant career in sound films and in the theater after her life as a silent film actress and producer.
1 comment:
I saw Nazimova's Salome some years ago - it's so good!
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