A Midsummer Night's Dream

Early cinema produced scores of Shakespearean-based films, showing mainly highlights of his works. Vitagraph Studio's Dec. 1909 release of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was the very first film to present the entire framework of a Shakespeare play.

Co-directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton, who provided the special effects, this effort is remarkable considering they had to unfold the play within a one-reel (11-minute) time limitation--which was the rigid standard in Nickelodean theaters during those days. The film did drop a few details of The Bard's play, but all in all, the Vitagraph movie touched upon the main points, including the numerous romantic relationships.

Seen as one of the two very young fairies were the Costello sisters. The oldest (five-years-old at the time) was Dolores Costello (in the middle of the bottom photo). Dolores would have a successful silent movie career and be nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silver Screen." More fame would come to her when she married actor John Barrymore and gave birth to actress Drew Barrymore's father, John Drew Barrymore. The marriage lasted only five years, from 1930 to 1935. Her film career ended after early film makeup affected her face and it was too noticeable on the screen to be camouflaged.

Silent films are a strange object of consideration for the contemporary film critic. Some of them are classics, pieces of cinematic art which belong among the best films of all time and which must be seen by any serious film buff. Others are downright dreadful, only valuable as historical objects. It is in-between these two categories where A Midsummer Night's Dream's cinematic debut belongs.

Stage veteran Charles Kent, along with co-director J. Stuart Blackton, does an adequate job at bringing this legendary piece of dramatic literature to the silver screen for the first time. The theatre man brought a few of the bard's plays to the silver screen for the first time, with A Midsummer Night's Dream being his second after Anthony and Cleopatra a year earlier. Being his second adaptation, it doesn't do much in the way of directorial innovation.

However, the editing shows signs of some innovations that were taking place at the time. An early example of special effects was used to transform Bottom's head into an ass, while the fairies are made to appear and disappear using the same splicing effect. For this editing innovation and foresight alone, A Midsummer Night's Dream's cinematic debut is worthwhile.

The Vitagraph Company produced at least nine film adaptations of Shakespeare's works during 1908-1909, and they were behind the 1910 "Twelfth Night" also included on the Silent Shakespeare video. According to historians Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio, thirty-six such one-reel adaptations were made in the US alone from 1908-1913, with still more being imported from Europe ("How Many Times Shall Caesar Bleed in Sport", included in "The Silent Cinema Reader"). Some of the earliest feature-length films were Shakespearian, too, including "Cleopatra", "Richard III" (both 1912) and "Antony and Cleopatra" (Marcantonio e Cleopatra)(1913). As Pearson and Uricchio, as well as others, have pointed out, these adaptations were an effort by the movie industry to lend cultural legitimacy to its product at a time when the art form still wasn't mainstream and faced threats of public censorship. Other literary and theatrical sources were adapted in addition to Shakespeare in an effort to win over the haughty.

As for this particular film, for what it is, it's not bad. It's an extremely truncated adaptation, with wordy title cards explaining proceeding action, which was common in early narrative films, especially literary/theatrical ones. In addition to the title cards, the filmmakers relied on audiences already being familiar with the play, which is another reason so many of these early films are based on popular literature and theatre. At least, this "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was photographed entirely outdoors, which freed the production from being stagy. There's also some substitution-splicing and superimpositions for fairy tricks. It's a rather average film for its time—nothing exceptional.

The filmmakers of this one were also responsible for other Shakespearian films, especially J. Stuart Blackton, who worked on all nine of those Vitagraph films and a few more Shakespeare adaptations apparently made by other companies. Blackton was a noteworthy film pioneer, who started out working for the Edison Company, was the key founder of Vitagraph and made the early animation film "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (1906) and the amusing "Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy" (1909), among other pictures.

I'm becoming convinced that it is extremely difficult to bring Shakespeare to film without doing some major translations, at least using modern notions. There's just too much invested in the spoken language itself from whence all the stuff flows that is normally associated with the cinematic.

I've been looking at several silent treatments. Naturally enough, they fall flat. But this one doesn't because it emphasizes the play of the "mechanicals." The abstraction of that play on film, the jumping and gesticulating is along the same lines as ALL the acting of that day, but double.

If you were going to try a film, the best plot device is the play within the play (of any of his plays that have this). And the best abstraction strategy is to just take his existing exaggeration and exaggerate it.

It is all a matter of what you are tricked into falling in love with.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This adaptation of Shakespeare's play was one of Vitagraph's prestige productions from 1909. Like all adaptations of the Bard, it's pretty confusing if you don't know the play – and possibly not too clear even if you do. Vitagraph attempts to keep the viewer up to speed with what's taking place on screen with lengthy titles which don't really help at all. The film makes good use of real locations – mostly a forest near to the studio, and there is also some reasonably impressive (for the time) trick photography. The ass's head however is something of a disappointment it has to be said – I've seen better at school plays. The last third of the film has been lost apparently, but I honestly don't think that will affect your viewing pleasure too much.