Salomé (1922) – Hooptober Challenge #5
Requirements:
- Decades (5/8) – 1920s
- LQBTQ+ Connected Film (1/1)
I wanna talk about the integrity of silent films. Originally, I started watching Salomé on YouTube. It was a nice, crisp version of the film. It had a score set to it of psychedelic drone music that was simultaneously engrossing and distracting. I wondered, “Is it too much?” With silent films, it’s really easy to get distracted. The music, like with any movie, can make or break your enjoyment of a silent film. I decided to give it a go… for about 15 minutes. Jury’s still out on whether or not I could’ve hung with the score – what made me shut it off was that there was a commercial break every couple of minutes. No warning, no foreplay– just an abrupt and jarring advertisement to take me out of this classic story in a film over 100 years old and chuck me headlong back into the modern era.
So then I found a copy of it on The Internet Archive (if you’re not familiar with the site and their mission, I highly urge you to check it out). The clarity of the film wasn’t as sharp, but it was still very doable. But the score? I really did not enjoy it. It sounded corny, and it sounded boring all at once. It got me thinking… if there wasn’t a score passed out to the musicians accompanying a silent film, what made the players play what they played? How different is the experience of each moviegoer for a silent film depending on the music they had accompanying it? I mean, if someone was playing ‘Yakkity Sax’ over the film on repeat, it would feel a heck of a lot different than a drone score or an orchestra or something else. And I can’t for one second imagine that each moviegoer could separate the sonic experience from the visual, objectively.
Check Out J.M. Brandt’s Upcoming Comic: ‘Swallower of Shades’
I was so bothered by the music that I paused the film and contemplated putting my own music on over the movie. And I started thinking about what might go well with it. And I started thinking about how it would affect my experience of the movie. What if the cues didn’t match up well? What if the timing was serendipitous and managed to line up perfectly? Could I write a review of a movie properly if I altered my own experience so uniquely? I went to the missus (a bit more of a traditional film nerd than me) and asked her about it. She said I should power through the Internet Archive score for it – that that was how more people would be experiencing the movie, and so my review would be truer to everyone else’s experience.
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear (I think I would’ve liked to have thrown something like Earth or the Emma Ruth Rundle/Thou album on top of it). But it did make sense, and so I went with it, and I continued to not like the music. And I continued to work hard at not letting the score sour my enjoyment of the movie. If anyone reading this wants to comment, I’d appreciate your thoughts on the legitimacy of putting your own soundtrack over a silent film.
The film starts out with a narrative introduction. It got me thinking… is a narrative introduction (think the written preamble to the Star Wars films) a cop-out? Does it cheapen the work because the work is not able to speak for itself? I struggle mightily with stories that don’t do a good job of organically explaining themselves. Why? Because I get tempted in writing a backdrop to the stories I create and hem and haw my way out of it each and every time. Because I get annoyed if a movie or a comic or a TV show clumsily introduces itself with bad dialogue or with obvious signposting or, sometimes, with a narrative introduction. I think I’ve settled on it being an acceptable device if used in moderation. But I also think I’ve settled on enjoying being dropped into a cohesive world or situation with no prep and trying to figure it out myself.
Anyhow, the narrative introduction features a line I really liked… and that I figured would play a prominent role in the film itself: “The Mystery of Love is greater than The Mystery of Death.”
The story of Salomé is a biblical one. I wasn’t familiar with it. But apparently, it is the story of the execution of John the Baptist (known in the movie as Jokanaan). It takes place in the Palace of Judea – where Herod, the Tetrarch, has slain his brother and married his brother’s wife, Herodias. Salomé is the daughter of Herodias and is lusted after by Herod.
RELATED: Exclusive: Cinemonster Talks 10 Years of Hooptober on Letterboxd
Salomé acts like a prototypical manic pixie girl in the movie. It’s unclear to me whether that’s because that’s how her character is or if it’s because she’s supposed to be underaged. In a story about a palace this dysfunctional, it wouldn’t be surprising if Salomé was supposed to be way too young. Basically, she has the eye of both Herod and the captain of the palace guards but acts oblivious to both (or, at best, annoyed by it all).
Salomé winds up finding the prophet Jokanaan in the dungeon of Herod and falls in love with him. She demands that she be able to talk to him, and it causes a severe dilemma in the palace guards and servants – they owe their lives to the princess as much as any royal, but Herod has forbidden anyone to interact with the holy man. Salomé takes to the guards, refusing them about as well as you’d expect any noble to – she throws a fit and acts in a completely disgusting manner about the whole thing. Her ire and the ethical problem it poses for the court is so difficult to bear that it causes one servant to throw himself off a cliff in a really neat cutaway.
She finally gets her way and fawns over the prophet Jokanaan. He spurns her, for he is only interested in receiving the word of god. Salomé doesn’t take too kindly to the rejection and, in typical spoiled princess fashion, becomes obsessed with demanding the head of Jokanaan for his slight.
The film itself is fascinating. It is filmed in many ways like an overly extravagant stageplay. The costuming and makeup are lush. The lighting is dramatic and, in many ways, ahead of its time. There are a few camera angles and shots that presage more modern filmmaking techniques. There were some neat effects throughout the film: a shadow of death that was simple to do but executed nicely, a cut-to image of Salomé in the midst of painted peacocks in a great surrealistic moment, and the aforementioned suicide jump, to name a few.
The acting style was interesting. It was overly dramatic in the way of all silents, but the performers also had a laconic and tired casual element that felt like what you’d get in an arthouse flick.
The costuming and hair were ostentatious and had several flourishes that were very much of its time. Salomé, for much of the film, wore a skullcap with large balls on it that reminded me of a VR mocap suit. Herodias a a large, curled mane of hair that makes her look like a predatory lioness (and yes, I know female lions are not the ones with manes). The guardsmen looked plucked straight from an art nouveau poster for some non-existent liqueur.
In the film, Herod goads Salomé into dancing for him – agreeing to grant any wish she has (he keeps pushing her to ask for half his kingdom). She relents, and her dance was hilarious. She goes full avant-garde popster like a Lady Gaga – a costume (and wig) change, a retinue of bizarrely-robed dancing ladies, and odd angular poses. But when she actually dances? It looks like a drunk five-year-old high on the attention of every adult at the dinner party. I don’t know if it was on purpose or was supposed to be funny or what. There was very little grace or fluidity to Salomé’s movements, and certainly very little (if any) choreography. It felt like Alla Nazimova (who also co-directed and produced the film) got sauced and went ham.
The dancing was supposed to be licentious (part of the moral of the story in the bible is, I think, that dancing is sinful and leads to lust). So there were cutaways that were a funny touch in an otherwise dramatic film – one wise man nudging another knowingly, another wiseman bugging his eyes out, and other palace attendants snickering and talking shit to one another.
Nazimova’s performance as Salomé was excellent. She went from naive to thunderous to evil and duplicitous to triumphant in her vindictiveness with equal believability (for a silent). I did, at times, get annoyed by the hyperdramatic acting style of the other performers– especially the thrusting and mewling depiction of love and obsession the captain of the guard had for Salomé. The prophet Jokanaan seemed like a complete madman, and it was great. There is a deeply disturbing moment when he is freed to talk to Salomé where she continues to throw herself at him, and he is just standing stiffly, staring up in manic glee (I think he was supposed to be hearing god at the time).
RELATED: ‘Kwaidan’ (1964): Hooptober Challenge Review #2
The film does have some really unfortunate blackface that you’re going to have to overcome. The executioner is in blackface but also in a very racist-feeling costume – so in a weird way, I’m glad they didn’t make a Black man stoop to dressing up in it. There’s also a couple of kids in blackface that rubbed me the wrong way. I know it was de rigueur at the time, but that doesn’t stop me from getting the ick from it.
I went into Salomé knowing only that it was a 101-year-old adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play. After watching the movie and enjoying it, I found some fascinating information about the director/star Nazimova and then-sham husband (and co-director) Charles Bryant. The production, too, was a gigantic financial disaster that damaged Nazimova’s career. According to Kenneth Anger, the film’s cast was composed completely of queer actors as an homage to Oscar Wilde. I don’t know if it’s true, but that would be a really epic fact if so.
If you haven’t seen a silent film, I don’t know that this is the one I’d recommend first. But I do urge you to give silent films a shot. And once you’ve adjusted to how the water feels, give this a go. Just maybe add your own soundtrack to it.
We’re hardworking geeks who love to geek out, but we can’t do it without you! If you enjoyed this article and want to see more like it, please consider tipping our writers. Also, as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.