The Last Days of Pompeii (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/29/2016

The Last Days of Pompeii was the third film from 1913 that we watched as part of our chronological movie viewing. As you might guess from the title, it was set in the Roman Empire in 79 AD, approximately 1,950 years ago (but only ~1,850 years from when the film was made), and was the first historical costume feature of this type we’ve seen -- though at this early stage, almost every film we see is a “first” of some sort or other. It has several largish Roman sets, and although there were some painted backgrounds, they seemed intended, if not actually to fool the eye, at least to be unobtrusive, rather than a Méliès-like upfront theatrical artifice. Some of the climactic scenes, when Pompeii was (spoiler!) being destroyed, were reasonably impressive as spectacle, with columns collapsing on people, and lots of panicked extras. There were also scenes in a gladiatorial arena with actors interacting with what were clearly real lions, showing that when CGI is not available one can easily achieve the same effect with nothing more than a callous disregard for human life. Overall the film was quite melodramatic, and it seemed like a bit of a waste of the dramatic period setting to have everything boil down to a love triangle, but one can see the filmmakers reaching towards a certain type of epic template.

Next week we’ll watch our final film from 1913: Ingeborg Holm. The viewing spreadsheet is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT