An awful moment
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | An awful moment |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1908 |
| length | 12 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | David Wark Griffith |
| script | David Wark Griffith |
| production | American Mutoscope and Biograph Company |
| camera | Arthur Marvin |
| occupation | |
| |
An Awful Moment (German: A terrible moment ) is an American film drama of the director David Wark Griffith from the year 1908 . The screenplay was also written by David Wark Griffith, the silent film is a production of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company .
action
An Awful Moment begins in a courtroom when the judge receives the jury's verdict, the defendant Matteo Rettazzi is brought in and learns the guilty verdict. The accused is led out again, whereupon Flammetta, Matteo's wife, jumps up in the courtroom and protests. With wild gestures, she insults the judge and others present and is finally expelled from the room.
After his working day, the judge walks home and is greeted with joy by the family, his wife and young daughter. Christmas is just around the corner, because the tree is already festively decorated. The judge has brought presents and the wife wants to present her husband with a gun. This escaped the fact that Flammetta followed him home. After getting to the judge's house, she climbs up the facade, breaks a window and gets in. In the meantime, the judge sits in his study, nods occasionally, and spends some time with his wife and child. Flammetta discovers the rifle and pursues a perfidious plan of revenge: in the presence of the sleeping little daughter, she overpowers her mother, who has already gone to bed (in the United States, the gifts are only given on Christmas Day), tied her to a chair and gagged her she. The rifle remains pointed at the mother in front of her and the trigger is attached to the door so that if it is opened the mother will be shot.
The judge also wants to go to bed when he discovers and overpowers the burglar in his study. In the meantime, the little daughter wakes up and loosens the cord from the door handle. The judge immediately rushes into the room and frees his wife, whom he almost shot by the trap. Two policemen appear and lead the failed murderer away. The family happily celebrates Christmas and the daughter receives particularly rich gifts.
Production notes
An Awful Moment is a one-reeler on 35mm film that is 737 feet long . The film was registered with the United States Copyright Office on December 10, 1908 , and was released in theaters on December 18, 1908.
In this film, David Wark Griffith used a sequence of three rooms, here the judge's study, the hallway and the living room, as a structural element to increase tension.
criticism
The Moving Picture World published a brief synopsis in its December 12, 1908 issue. The reviewer described the plot as a series of exciting and imaginative scenes that keep the viewer enthralled. The settings followed one another in a seldom seen continuity. Only with a view to the promotional effect was the plot from the trade journal The Nickelodeon attributed it was based on the activities of the Italian-born Black Hand Gang , which was the epitome of organized crime in New York City at the time. The organization does not appear in the film, but the film is only partially transmitted.
Available on the Internet user-generated or poorly edited film databases such as the Internet Movie Database describe the two criminal protagonist as gypsies ( gypsies ). That is not true. In fact, the portrayal of the convicted defendant and his wife thirsting for vengeance fits into a series of films by director David Wark Griffith, shot between 1908 and 1913, in which the racist stereotype of the poor, criminal, southern (mostly southern Italian or specifically Sicilian) immigrant is constructed is reproduced. This is expressed in the hairstyle and clothing of the actors, broad mustaches , jackets or vests with elaborate applications, wide-brimmed peasant hats, for women headscarves, wide skirts and flying scarves in presumably many bright colors. Other stereotypical elements are the wild gesticulation (which far exceeds the usual level in early silent films), the delinquency , which here defines the framework and the core of the plot, the lust for revenge and the classification of the plot in the real events of the Italian mafia.
Web links
- An Awful moment in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ An Awful moment in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Joyce E. Jesionowski: Thinking in Pictures. Dramatic Structure in DW Griffith's Biograph Films . University of California Press, Berkeley 1989, ISBN 978-0-520-06792-9 , pp. 72-73.
- ↑ To Awful Moment . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 3, No. 24, December 12, 1908, p. 507, digitized .
- ^ A b Amy E. Borden: Mary Pickford Meets the Mafia . In: George S. Larke-Walsh: A Companion to the Gangster Film . John Wiley & Sons, 2018, ISBN 978-1-119-04166-5 , pp. 23–40, here pp. 28–29.