Theatre to Cinema

Not since A. Nicholas Vardac published Stage to Screen in 1949 has there been such a significant study of the complex relationship between theater and early narrative film. While Vardac saw nineteenth- century theater as “proto-cinematic” (striving for spectacular effects without film’s technological means), Brewster and Jacobs “believe that the cinema strove to be theatrical,” in other words, “to assimilate a particular theatrical tradition, that of pictorialism”.

This tradition, as they define it, goes beyond the mere influence of painting on theatrical mise-en-scene and frame composition; staged and cinematic pictures become “part of the narrative structure” itself. In making their argument, the authors look alternately to theater and to film history.

In treating stage history, Brewster and Jacobs trace nineteenth-century theater’s preoccupation with pictorial effects in staging and acting, paying special attention to actors’ use of poses and tableaux. In contrast to the Aristotelian focus on action, they stress models of dramaturgy that conceive of “narrative as a series of pictorially representable moments”.

In their analysis, they isolate fascinating American productions: the proliferation of stagings for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the sensational on-stage burning of a building in Boucicault’s The Poor of New York (1857), and Belasco’s extraordinary lighting effects, such as the slow sunrise for Madame Butterfly (1900).

Perhaps most importantly, they detail modes of gestural acting, a form largely neglected after acting techniques that grew from Stanislavsky’s ideas became predominant. Brewster and Jacobs insightfully and persuasively reject criticism which opposes gestural acting as “histrionic” to more familiar styles labeled “realism.”

As they state, “Because posing was keyed to genre and situation, and effectively coexisted with other, more fluid, uses of gesture, it does not make sense in our view to define it theoretically as opposed to realism, or historically as a precursor which was eventually superseded by the realistic acting style”.

Their treatment brings renewed respect to acting that precedes Stanislavsky.

In treating cinema history, they probe how film’s technology “necessarily transformed staging and acting techniques”. Through detailed readings of filmed scenes with theatrical analogues, such as Edison’s film of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903), compared with later versions by Vitagraph (1910) and World (1914), they trace the cinematic adoption of stage pictures. In shot-by-shot analyses, such as ones from Klovnen (The Clown, 1917) and Lyda Borelli’s performance in Ma l’amor mio non muore! (But My Love Does Not Die!, 1913) contrasted with Asta Nielsen’s in Die weisse Rosen (White Roses, 1915), they reveal transformations of gestural acting that take place as a consequence of the camera.

They also discuss actors’ necessary adaptations to changing spatial and temporal conditions created by camera and editing, especially in the American context.

By examination of the pictorial in early film, they challenge what they call “an over-emphasis on the development of editing technique.” Neglecting theatrical pictorialism, in their view, “has worked to focus attention on filmmaking in the USA at the expense of Europe … where developments in staging and acting played a more important part” .

Theatre to Cinema represents a major step forward in the study of undertheorized aspects of film. Not only do Brewster and Jacobs take a new, and long overdue, look at the relationship of theatrical staging to early cinema, they also treat acting as an important locus of cinematic expression. Their study hopefully will lead to others that treat theatrical impulses in cinema and film acting as viable realms of inquiry. Beautifully illustrated, which makes the careful and detailed arguments all the clearer, Theatre to Cinema belongs on the shelves of theater and cinema scholars alike.