L'uccello blu

The Blue Bird (1918)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Poor children Mytyl (Tula Belle) and Tyltyl (Robin Macdougall) are visited by a fairy (Lillian Cook) who takes them on a trip to see what's really important in life. THE BLUE BIRD was directed by Maurice Tourneur, a highly visionary director who actually does a very good job with the look of this film as it's certainly one of the more impressive films visually from this era. This was actually the first version of this story that I've ever seen, which is somewhat shocking considering how many there have actually been. This is basically a fantasy-adventure film as the children and the fairy go searching for the "Bluebird of Happiness" which they are hoping will cure a sick nature. The film really does seem like a darker version of THE WIZARD OF OZ and it's funny because if you've seen any early version of Oz you'll remember that many of the animals were played by humans in costumes and that's the same case here. I've read many reviews that say this makes a film look silly but I'd disagree. I'm going to guess that at the time people were very use to this practice and I'd argue that in today's time it doesn't look silly but instead it adds a surreal effect to the film. Another gimmick is that the kids are able to view the souls of various objects including fire and even bread. The visual effects here aren't ground-breaking and they're not among the best I've ever seen but they are still impressive for the time. I found the performances of the two leads to be very good as was Cook at the fairy who really gives a comforting performance. I think there are some pacing issues in the film and even at just 80-minutes the film is a little slow at times. With that said, it's still an interesting visual film and for that it's worth viewing.

Its basic purpose is to remind the colors, flavors and emotions inspired by the play of Maurice Maeterlinck. Indeed, the coherence of story is a serious problem, compensanted by the admirable expresions of imagination, fantasy, a sort of ingenuity. In same measure, it is unfair to ignore the context of its aparition - the end of war, the return to peace and the enthusiasm crowning IT. And this is, maybe, the fair perspective to see it, not ignoring the performances, atmosphere, solutions for images from play. A beautiful film, maybe more a version for the familiars with play text, poetic, sweets, just realistic. So, just delightful.

There seem to be only a few directors of cinema's infancy whose films are worth much attention; Maurice Tourneur is one of them. His films may not always be the most entertaining, but most of them that I've seen contain something that interests. "Alias Jimmy Valentine", for example, has major story problems, but the heist scene is outstandingly filmed for 1915. Here, too, the allegorical messages (the bluebird is happiness and such) are too sappy at times, but then there's an inspired shot or something else innovative.

The dark, flickering transfer of a deteriorated, bleeding print surely takes away from much of the visual qualities of this picture, but some of the photography and the color tinting shines through. Tourneur had some preparation for the dreamland journey of this film with the dream climax in "The Poor Little Rich Girl" of the previous year. The wonder and imagination of a child are well affected. Despite its age, the film's best element is still apparent; I think that is its awareness. Perhaps, most obviously, this film is comparable to "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), but more so to the 1914 trilogy, which Baum produced. The animal costumes are especially reminiscent, as are the cheap, but nice-looking backdrops and sets. Showing even more awareness are the trick shots in the way of a Méliès fantasy and the final shot where the boy turns to the camera and directly addresses the audience concerning the film's parable. So, to an extent, Tourneur overcomes the wear of age and the kiddy bluntness of the allegory.

The Belgian author and symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck was a very popular literary figure of his day. His play "Pelléas et Mélisande", in fact, inspired at least four well-known musical works by Fauré, Schönberg, Sibelius and, most famously, the full-length opera of the same name by Claude Debussy.

The heavy symbolism of his plays including his "fairy" play, "L'Oiseau Bleu" (The Blue Bird.) from 1909 apparently intrigued the public in the first part of the 20th century. But when his works were placed on the Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books, they, naturally, became even more popular!

There have been many film versions of "The Blue Bird", most notably, the unsuccessful 1940 version with Shirley Temple and the 1976 Russian-American disaster with Elizabeth Taylor. The present film is a 1918 silent film by the renowned French director (working in America at this time.) Maurice Tourneur.

The cast of this film is unfamiliar to present-day audiences. The little girl who played Mytyl was Tula Belle (Hollingshead); she was born in Norway (to an American father at least.) and died in California in 1992! The boy Robin MacDougall seems to have made only this one film and the rest of the cast are not likely to be alive in 2007 as they'd mostly have to be well over 100. So this is a fascinating look at long-gone film techniques and acting styles.

The DVD is based on an obviously deteriorated print but restored, as well as possible, at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Various scenes were tinted in accordance with the theories of what each scenes' mood was meant to be. The "special effects" were adequate for the period but obviously not up to modern computer-generated effects.

The characters are generally allegorical with actors portraying the personifications of Light, Night, Dog, Cat, Water, Milk, Bread etc. The lengthy scene with unborn children clearly mirrored the ideology of the time that one has a duty to have many children. A similar scene with the voices of unborn children in the Richard Strauss opera (1918 coincidentally.) "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" (The Woman Without a Shadow"), a similar ode to fecundity, shows the obvious influence of this play and probably mirrors the attitudes against Margaret Sanger and her birth-control followers. (But Sanger largely prevailed, at least in the U.S.)

Another obvious influence of this play is on the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz". In Judy's last speech, she realizes that if happiness can't be found at home "in your own backyard", it can't be found at all. There was also a popular but now rather campy song made popular by Jan Peerce in 1948, "Bluebird of Happiness". (He did an earlier version in 1935.) This DVD is an important reminder of these old attitudes and it certainly has its moments of beauty. On the whole, though, it is, in my opinion, rather of a "hoot". The acting is strictly of the period and everything else about it is quite dated.

As it is well-known among silent film connoisseurs, the fine Arts were an essential influence on silent films in general and Herr Maurice Tourneur's work in particular. His beautiful oeuvres gave him fame and prestige around the world from his French period in the mid 10's to his career in the USA.

"The Blue Bird" (1918) tells the story of two poor children, Mytyl and Tyltyl, who are led by the fairy Berylune in the search, around a fantastic world, for the blue bird of happiness. The film belongs to Herr Tourneur's American silent film period, and in this movie it is possible to watch all his artistic virtues in full display. This early astounding production is striking even today for its great artistic merits. The film was based on a book written by the Belgian poet Herr Maurice Maeterlinck and maybe Herr Tourneur during his young days could have illustrated it due to his earlier career as a book illustrator or… MEIN GOTT!!! Perhaps he even read it! In any case, Herr Tourneur adapted and transferred the fairy tale story to the silent screen in a superb way.

The film exudes classicism and even romanticism, artistic subjects that Herr Tourneur know very well how to employ in the world of fantasy. There is amazing art direction, elaborate decors and costumes and witty technical effects, not to mention the inventiveness that can be seen in every shot of the film and in the beautiful, exemplary photography of Herr John van den Broek and Lucien Andriot that captures the atmosphere of the classical fairy books through a cinema lens in a masterly way.

Probably the story can be considered as affected, even innocent in this modern time but even that has a special value in artistic terms for this film; that baroque taste and out of date atmosphere fit perfectly in the story that moves from the real to the dream world, from the real to the unreal. Herr Tourneur's interpretation of this fantastic universe is a prodigious work, imaginative and inventive and shining with brilliant artistic merits.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must listen to the gracious caw of the Schloss crows.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/