The last days of Pompeii (1908)

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Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (with Dutch subtitles)

The Last Days of Pompeii ( Italian Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei ) is a short film and early monumental film by Luigi Maggi and Arturo Ambrosio from 1908 and with a running time of 16 minutes.

action

Set in AD 79, the film traces a series of love and dramatic events that the protagonists Nidia, Arbace and Glauco experienced against the backdrop of a blooming Pompeii , which is, however, seriously endangered by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius .

Production notes

Arturo Ambrosio, a photographer who founded one of the first Italian film studios in Turin , and one of its technicians, Luigi Maggi, who quickly stood out as an actor and director, conceived an ambitious project with their studio in 1908: to shoot the most spectacular film of the time The Last Days from Pompeii .

The producer hired the screenwriter Arrigo Frusta to adapt Bulwer Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii for the cinema. It was the second film version of this book after it was brought to the screen in 1902 by Robert William Paul , one of the pioneers of British cinema.

Everything is disproportionate in this film, from the length of the script (for 1908, a four-reel, 366-meter film was a very long film) to the spectacular sets designed by Ettore Ridoni .

Most obvious is the energetic direction of Luigi Maggi, who gave certain scenes an intense dramatic effect. Some of these scenes are unforgettable with their special effects and special effects like the eruption of Vesuvius or the escape of spectators from the circus who are hit by fragments of glowing lava. While the cinema was otherwise still significantly influenced by the theater, for example with sets that usually consist of painted canvases, these producers succeeded in redesigning the film genre using new special effects, the ambitious sets and models, and the mass movements played by the actors.

The film was released across Italy at the same time. In Rome alone it was shown in 14 rooms for its launch. It was the first major success of the Italian film industry and would remain one of the most important in the world until World War I. Hundreds of copies have been exported worldwide, including the United States, and the reception was unanimously positive from both critics and the general public. The film was soon to be copied and paved the way for Italian cinema.

Technical specifications

occupation

  • Luigi Maggi: Arbace
  • Lydia De Roberti: Nidia
  • Umberto Mozzato : Glauco
  • Ernesto Vaser: owner of Nidia
  • Cesare Gani Carini
  • Bartolomeo Pagano
  • Mirra Principi: Ione

Individual evidence

  1. Sergio Toggetti: Un'altra Italia. For a history of Italian cinema. Cinémathèque française 1998 ISBN 2-900596-25-4 , p. 22.