Tarantellen af Napoli

Tarantellen af Napoli
(Tarantella in Napoli)

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[Dr, Juan v, De la Sierra]

Delightful-so glad that this is preserved. What joy! And the quality.

[Brendan C. Burchill]

My knowledge of Danish silent film is slight and almost entirely second-hand, having been acquired from reading books and articles on this subject. However, I am very glad to have seen this charming, very early Danish film. It is a dance film and, in it basic description, it is not all that different from those that were produced for the Edison kinetoscope in the middle-1890's. It shows two people, a man and a woman, dancing. That is all.

"Tarantellen af Napoli" is a particularly fine example of a dance film. It show many of the subtle charms that one might associate with a dance film from this early period in film making.

For instance, while this film was made in 1903, it shows certain differences (maybe, improvements is the right word) over the kinetscope films. The movie shows two people dancing at once. This creates a more dynamic visual scene than one individual dancing at a time, as was often the case with the early Edison Company films of Annabelle Whitford.

In addition, I liked the settings in this particular film. The set in which actors appear resembles the kind of backdrop and furniture that a nineteenth-century portrait photographer would have used to make formal still photographs. It is a generic backdrop of a living room with a few plants painted on the walls to act as an embellishment. This kind of backdrop may seem uninspired, but brings to my mind the kind of living room entertainments that must have taken place in the homes of wealthier families in Europe and the United States before World War One. At the risk of sounding nostalgic, I will say this kind of setting evokes a simpler time, while also drawing attention to real focal point of the film, the dancers.

Returning to the fact that this film has two dancers rather than one, I would like to say that there is something charming and ingenious about this particular film. In general, short dance films like "Tarantellen af Napoli" are classified as part of the cinema of attractions, a kind of film making that priviledged subject matter and staging that proviledged the visual senses of an audience and amusing combination of different talents to generate a sense of surprise. Dance films are some of the most appealing of these early attractions, perhaps because there was some way to amplify the dance by coupling with some attraction, some other source of movement that could preoccupy the audience's eyes. In some ways, even the earliest dance subjects involve more than just one person. The Edison films of Annabelle Whitford and otehr serpentine dancers were usually color-tinted, an effect that seemed to supply a secondary source of visual delight that augmented the action on screen. Many of these dancers were lit in such a way that their diaphanous dresses cast reflected and transmitted light in ever-changing ways. In certain later dancing films, like Alice Guy's "Winter," which was made about the same year as Tarantellen af Napoli" dances would take place on sets where falling snow flakes create a secondard source of movement, while dancer expresses emotions with her face. Multiple sources of movement do appear in early dance films.

"Tarantellen af Napoli" is not perhaps the most richly layered of the early dance movies that I have seen, but it is delightful. It also acknowledges the charm of havind two dancers appear on screen at once, creating a rapport that is a simple but human form of cinematic attraction. I recommend this movie to any person who likes dance films from this early phase of film making.