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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
The Art of “Speaking Silently”: The Debate around Cinema and Pantomime in the 1910s and 1920s
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Cinéma & Cie
Elena Mosconi
2003/03/01
Università Cattolica
2036-461X
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The Art of “Speaking Silently”: The Debate around Cinema and Pantomime in the 1910s and 1920s
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THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”: THE DEBATE AROUND CINEMA AND
PANTOMIME IN THE 1910s AND 1920s
Elena Mosconi, Università Cattolica - Milano




Introduction

  The issue of the relationship between cinema and pantomime needs to be located
within the emerging and often confused critical and theoretical debate born in the
birth and childhood of cinema. The main characters within this debate, as is well
known, are critics, playwrights, intellectuals, polygraphs, and educated men of various
cultural and social extractions who contributed to this discussion initially in newspa-
pers and then in specialized journals. Over the years, this wealth of publications would
considerably increase the variety of arguments appearing in the first books devoted to
cinema. Often these contributions are solicited from the outside: an intellectual is
called upon, urged to break a cautious silence and contribute to the controversy around
the artistic status of cinema. Other times, other people might freely express their opin-
ion motivated by the desire to spread a personal point of view on the new expressive
medium, its development, and its aesthetic potential: in both cases, such reflections
hardly produced organic, accomplished, and definitive thinking. Nevertheless, this
debate is full of prophecies, forecasts, tentative definitions, aesthetic projects most of
which would not be accomplished either because they proved unviable, because of the
difficulty of realizing them, because of the different direction that cinema will under-
take as a commercial medium, and finally – as we will see – because of the overwhelm-
ing predominance of sound.
  Within the multiplicity of possible directions, I have chosen to privilege theories of
cinema in relationship to pantomime: an expressive form perhaps less noble or credit-
ed among the major arts, but whose various genres link successfully with cinema’s; an
expressive form, furthermore, that, like cinema, has been defined as “silent theater.” An
analysis of these prophecies, disseminated here and there in various contributions,
reveal the presence of some basic recurrent themes, especially within the Italian debate:
the problem of analogies and differences between the two media, the issue of moderni-
ty, attention to the actor’s gestures, and the theorization of sound. I will try to establish
how and why a variety of theories, even those predominantly focused on production,1
will prove unsuccessful. Finally, I will mention an issue that would deserve to be more
fully addressed elsewhere and which will be only touched on here: the hypothesis that
the major influence of pantomime on cinema was exercised at the level of production
rather than at the theoretical level, and that this production was deeply influenced by
specific national artistic traditions.
  At this point I would like to examine the main tenets of the theoretical discourse
from the point of view of the periodization suggested by Alberto Boschi, who divides

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                                                             THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”

early film theory in three phases: the first phase (from the end of the Nineteenth to the
beginning of the Twentieth Century) is characterized by the predominance of reflec-
tions on technical aspects and by the issue of the reproductive power of the medium; in
the second (stretching from 1910 to 1915), emphasis is given to the consideration of the
status of cinema as an art; finally, in the third (1915-early ‘20s) and “moving from the
comparison between cinema and the other arts, the pioneers of theoretical discourse
began to outline the specific traits of the new medium, thus preparing the terrain for
the classical debate.”2 While mindful of the extreme fluidity3 of this distinction, it can
be claimed from the outset that, simultaneously with these phases, also the interpreta-
tion of the relationship between cinema and pantomime acquire a different form and
depth, transforming from a simple pretext for a linguistic analogy (immediate, because
neither medium implies the use of words) to an increasingly deep inquiry into the pos-
sibility of establishing foundational approaches to their aesthetics.
  Another preliminary question concerns the definition of pantomime: the long histo-
ry of this art and its multiple expressions – from the Roman pantomime to the comme-
dia dell’arte, from the “white” pantomime to the English one, from the choreo-drama to
the Russian ballets – evoke a variety of meanings that make it difficult to retrieve a uni-
vocal and direct idea of the term.4 Similar to the theater-cinema debate, reference is
made to the media’s structural elements, namely, to the silent dramatic representation,
where mimic movements and dance, sometimes with musical accompaniment and
narrative comment, express action. Drawing on this shared meaning of pantomime it
is possible to inquire into its similarities with cinema.


Analogies

   In a 1918 article, having been asked an opinion about cinema as an art, the renowned
critic Silvio D’Amico provocatively claims that the “cinematograph doesn’t exist”, since
it is nothing other than the most ancient form of expression, “a silent representation
realized only with gestures: and its name is pantomime!”5 This tardy claim gives an idea
of the tight network of exchanges between cinema and pantomime.
   References to the analogy between the two expressive forms are widely spread, espe-
cially in the early 1900s, as Alain Carou believes.6 The analogy is also functional, as it
were: its aim is to institute relationships between cinema and the traditional estab-
lished arts sin hopes that cinema too would be acknowledged as one of them. Or, alter-
natively, as in the case reported above, to deny its specificity.
   A typical example of analogy evoked in order to elevate cinema’s artistic status is the
syllogism proposed by Roberto Bracco, playwright and author of numerous subjects at
the roots of the famous realistic strand of Italian cinema. He advocates the link between
pantomime and cinema with the following argument: since cinema is pantomime, and
“pantomime has never been denied the title of Art […] the cinematograph can also be
art.”7 The explicit objective of this statement is to build the foundation for the under-
standing of cinema as an art.
   Where conditions allow it, the analogy is expressed through a history of the pan-
tomime, from its Greek origins to the present. This is the case in the work of two inter-
esting authors, Pietro Gariazzo and Anton Giulio Bragaglia. With The Silent Theater,
the former, screenwriter and manager of a production company, anticipates by ten

                                                                                        ­37
ELENA MOSCONI

years Anton Giulio Bragaglia, supporter of Photodynamism, innovator in cinema and
theater, and whose interest for the pantomime is expressed both theoretically, in works
such as Evolution of Mime and The Sound Film,8 and practically in works such as La
Fantasimina, (realized with Sebastiano Arturo Luciani), The Knights’ Dance (Il Balletto
dei Cavalieri), The Gipsies (Gli zingari), Epileptic Cabaret (with Marinetti), staged at the
Theater of the Independents.
  Gariazzo and Bragaglia lead the way into a journey through centuries-long history of
pantomime by drawing frequent comparisons with its contemporary situation and the
cinema. Usually, this is a way to address some questions related to film aesthetics, and
identify, in the classical ideal of pantomime, a model for it.
  An interesting example is the famous argument between French reformer Noverre
and Italian choreographer Angiolini, which Bragaglia presents chauvinistically.
Among the many reasons for this controversy, Bragaglia gives particular emphasis to
their disagreement about the usage of intertitles, prologues, or spoken comments. After
a detailed presentation of their different positions he concludes:

  in agreement with Angiolini we also think that a film or a ballet that “is not understood
  without recurring to the program is a ill-conceived and ill-executed work; that a program
  that says what the art of pantomime cannot explain is a ridiculous work; that it serves noth-
  ing other than as an evident proof of the ignorance of those who cannot see how far the art
  of gestures can reach.”9

  Bragaglia expresses his ideal of cinematic purity by invoking the reflection of the
1700 Florentine choreographer. Anytime he sees cinema being plagued by uncertain-
ties, possibilities for different developments, Bragaglia chooses the solution that guar-
antees the highest degree of faithfulness to the art of pantomime, which he regards as
cinema’s origin and destiny.
  As a result, his reasoning creates a peculiar short circuit whereby the pantomime rep-
resents at the same time the beginning and the end of the artistic accomplishments of
cinema: returning to pantomime is a necessary condition if animated photography is to
be acknowledged among the arts.10 Thus, the a priori limitations imposed to the devel-
opment of cinema become quite clear: this aesthetics of equivalencies runs the risk of
placing cinema in a state of constant subordination to pantomime as its model.
  However, there is another latent issue, which Bragaglia’s words bring to the surface: the
analogy between cinema and pantomime rests – besides what has been said so far – on
some sort of intrinsic “weakness” that they share and that consists in the tendency of both
to contaminate themselves with other forms or expressive media, whether it is the the-
ater, the spoken word, dance, or music. In short, cinema and pantomime tend to compro-
mise their expressive purity and autonomy in order to enrich their communicative
potential with any possible means. “The history of pantomime” and by extension of cin-
ema, argues Bragaglia, “is an interrupted alternative to the multifaceted collaboration
proposed to the ‘mute’ art by the word and, in different degrees, by dance […], which
deforms and alienates from its being the spiritual and delicate art of Terpsichore.”11
Cinema and pantomime are weak arts, corrupted by an original sin, and therefore always
seeking a surplus of expression and emotion that they borrow from other arts (spoken
word, dance, music, theater…). As a consequence, Bragaglia maintains, they lose their orig-
inality, risk failure, and jeopardize their very identity.

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                                                             THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”

Modernity of gesture

  As already shown, many theorists share the tendency to refer to the long tradition of
pantomime so that they can credit cinema with artistic dignity, regarding it as the last
evolutionary stage of an uninterrupted chain of artistic works and expressions. These
cinema critics’ need to explain the new by relying on the old12 – or as Antonio Costa sug-
gests following Umberto Eco, to proceed with approximation, first associating the nov-
elty to something known, and then introducing greater specifications – is quite clear.13
  Nevertheless, the analogy between cinema and pantomime triggers also another
interesting comparison of a sociological nature between aesthetic forms and the
moment in time that produces them. In this sense, cinematic pantomime is interpret-
ed as the outcome of a need of the times, a fundamental trait of the Twentieth century
sensibility.
  The first modern trait can be found, naturally, in the mechanical and reproductive
nature of the medium, a new spatial and temporal synthesis made possible by the new
technology. The most original element, however, is the fact that cinema transforms
bodily expressions, clearly modernizing them. In this case, the modernity of the medi-
um, combined with the modernization of its means of expression, greatly augments
the spectators’ experience of innovation. Within the all-encompassing perceptual bal-
ance created by modernity, within the intensity of a life ruled – as Benjamin shows –
by visual shocks14 “the rapid gesture that establishes itself with the precision of a
monstrous figurative clock, exalts the spirit of the modern spectators who are already
used to a fast living.”15
  There is more to it: the priority of the gesture frees the art form from the dominance
(and subordination) of the spoken word, which characterized the previous century, and
restores its intrinsic universal value.
  With this point of view, the argument put forth by Pietro Gariazzo, the author of The
Mute Theater, appears stronger. Upon drawing a sketch of recent technological
progress and the speed that characterizes it, he claims that the arts interpret the needs
of modernity “by becoming more synthetic, seeking forms of greater and faster expres-
sion”: in this way the cinema “no longer enclosed in the narrow confines of the verbal
forms, from its silent shadow, confronted by a musical rhythm, speaks to everybody
with the simple and universal language of gesture, and can easily be considered as the
expression of the need for theatrical speed.”16
  Gariazzo expresses a common opinion, namely, that miming, the evocative gesture of
the actor, render cinematic language understandable beyond linguistic differences,
national boundaries, or differences in education: cinema enacts the universality of the
gesture and overcomes the limitations of the spoken or written word. The second char-
acteristic of the cinematic gesture, for Gariazzo, is its immediacy: in cinema “the ges-
ture is the thought become action: the sensation itself is being exteriorized, made visi-
ble;”17 it reaches the mind of the spectator directly, making itself comprehensible, with-
out the mediation of a conceptual or linguistic codification. This statement clearly
reveals the utopia (or the over-simplification) of naturalistic acting.
  All theoreticians, still searching for defining categories and an appropriate lexicon,
are struck by the unprecedented power of the gesture as revealed by cinema: Canudo
talks about the actor’s capability to translate an emotion, an action, a sensation into a
living movement.18 The actor becomes the necessary link enabling the pantomime to

                                                                                        ­39
ELENA MOSCONI

take place: his body, as already suggested by Noverre, becomes a speaking body. Man
becomes visible – to paraphrase Balázs – through his body and the mimic gesturing.19
  In some passages of his extensive work on the subject, Antonio Giulio Bragaglia both
recuperates Gariazzo’s position and moves beyond it, by connecting it to the issue of the
1900s Zeitgeist: in the new century the opposition that the theoretician of
Photodynamism regards as the most irreconcilable, is once again that between word
and gesture. Cautiously committed to the defense of silent cinema’s pantomime in the
years of the advent of sound, Bragaglia erupts in a venomous denunciation of the
anachronistic “resistance” of the word: he asserts that “today’s ears are already full of
words upon words” and maintains that “word’s decadence is marked by the very char-
acter of nineteen hundreds’ sensibility.”20
  We are not that far from the meditations of some theoreticians of modernity, such as
Simmel, for whom “modern art lives immediately the very sense of our life; it is much
more faithful to reality than any imitation, because it is not only truthful but truth
itself.”21 And cinema finds itself confronting reality without the mediation of word,
both complicit in and testimonial to the world’s changing makeup. This prompts
Bragaglia to claim, with an effective metaphor, “the silence of the modern art is the liv-
ing resting place against the assaults of reality.”22


Differences

  While some critics continue to celebrate the identity between cinema and pan-
tomime, a more specific awareness of the differences between the two expressive forms
slowly begins to spread. These differences will be augmented by the most acute film
critics and by the first attempts to systematize an aesthetic of cinema. It is not by chance
that, usually, this way of putting pantomime at a distance precedes the enunciation of
a precise aesthetic project for cinema, however utopian: while what cinema is not is
strongly underlined (and in this case it is pantomime), what it should be is also power-
fully established so that its expressive originality can be fully pursued.
  Let us examine the exemplary – under this respect – trajectories of Ricciotto Canudo
and Sebastiano Arturo Luciani. In an enthusiastic and programmatic 1908 essay, The
Triumph of the Cinematographer, the former – writer, poet, critic and European play-
wright – articulates some precocious thoughts about cinema: among the different issues
examined (some about the specificity of the medium, other of an aesthetic nature),23
there are references to the theme that I have been addressing: “The cinematographer –
Canudo claims – is therefore theater of a new Pantomime. It is consecrated to painting in
motion, and contains the full manifestation of a most singular creation, realized by men,
who are for this reason of a new kind: a new Pantomime, a new dance of expression.”24
According to Canudo, the elegant prose, the frequent recurrence of synaesthesiae, and the
foreshadowing tone of the discourse25 attenuate the awareness that is nevertheless sur-
facing: with cinema, another art has appeared under the guise of the “modern
Pantomime.” Some years later, while he perfects his famous conception of cinema as the
seventh art, synthesis of the arts of time and the arts of space, Canudo distanciates him-
self even more from pantomime and all the other mimodramas, considering them a nour-
ishment for cinema during its inexperienced youth,26 but from whose constraints it had
slowly freed itself. The aesthetic ideal that cinema should conform to, this time enunci-

­40
                                                                 THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”

ated explicitly by the critic from Bari, is the “visual drama,” a work capable of translating
the Wagnerian aspiration to the Gesamtkunstwerk. Along this line, pantomime follows
cinema at a considerable distance because – still according to Canudo – it is an imitative,
illustrative art, destined to represent stories, ideas, emotional states, but incapable of spir-
itually evoking them through the abstract procedures of visual drama.27
   Sebastiano Arturo Luciani, scholar and musician, as well as critic for a number of
prestigious journals, moves from a different position, reaching a perspective not too
dissimilar: he begins by observing some similarities between cinema and pantomime,
such as the extreme popularity of both and their capability to effect social processes,
producing, for example, phenomena of stardom. However, this analogy is comprised
within a fundamentally negative vision: Luciani considers both cinema and pan-
tomime as decadent expressive forms, both guilty of having tried to incorporate or sub-
stitute for other arts, poetry in particular. He nevertheless sees a possibility of amend
for cinema, more than for pantomime, in the modern mimic musical drama, where
music is the element leading the representation. Luciani refers to the Russian Ballets as
an example where music has freed itself from the constrains imposed by choreography:
similarly cinema, by relying on the musical element, can produce a representation that
is free, inspired by it, and authentically poetic:28 the impressionist drama.
   More clearly – and more programmatically – in his 1928 volume, titled The
Antitheater, Luciani denounces the fact that the development of film aesthetics and
film art has been delayed by the serious prejudice of “those who persevere in consider-
ing this newest art form, created by modern sensibility, as a drama in which words are
not heard, or, at best, as a pantomime cinematically reproduced.”29
   Beyond specific outcomes, which should be examined also in relation to their effects
on cinema’s production, I think we can detect a common core in the argumentation of
both intellectuals: the desire to move from pantomime in order to go beyond it, toward
the search for other specifying elements that would allow cinema to become a new and
original expressive form: an art synthesizing different perceptual experiences (musical
and/or visual), no longer reproductive pantomime, but accomplished “drama”.


Destines: pantomime and sound cinema

  In the wake of the advent of sound cinema, the debate on cinema and pantomime
revives for the last time: this is the dismay of the two forms of silent art, both under-
taking a common and unavoidable journey towards decadence. The first signs of the
technological revolution of cinema precipitate the debate on the use of sound, on the
value of the spoken word, and the related aesthetic transformations of cinema: theo-
reticians and critics take positions against or in favor of sound cinema often evoking
the similarities between cinema and pantomime. Two examples of opposed positions
can clarify the meaning of this alternative and the use, once again instrumental, of pan-
tomime to support one’s convictions.
  Marcel Pagnol, playwright and theoretician of the “filmed theater,”30 was one of the
more determined supporters of sound and of the power of the word in film. Drawing on
already established arguments, Pagnol talks about early cinema as a mechanically
reproduced pantomime, whose possibilities are limited. Sound provides cinema with
new possibilities: it frees the actors from the necessity of using exaggerated and unnat-

                                                                                             ­41
ELENA MOSCONI

ural gestures, and attracts cinema under the protective wing of theater. Sound works as
a divide between pantomime and theater, locating cinema alternatively on each side of
this divide. Pagnol concludes:

  1. Silent film was the art of impressing, fixating, and spreading pantomime. 2. As the inven-
  tion of the press had enormous influence on literature, similarly the invention of silent cin-
  ema had great influence on pantomime: Charlot, Gance, Griffith, René Clair have renewed
  the pantomime. 3. The spoken film is the art of impressing, fixating and spreading theater.
  4. The spoken film, which brings new resources to theater, must re-create theater.31

  Therefore cinema, no matter whether it is theater or pantomime, has the effect of
reviving and renewing the higher arts on which it depends.
  Within the group of the cautious defenders of silent cinema, we have already met
Anton Giulio Bragaglia, who devotes more space to the reflection on the relationship
between pantomime and film in his two volumes written between 1929 and 1930.32
The structure of this impressive study, especially the Evolution of Mime, reveals the
author’s intention: proving the relationship between cinema and pantomime, is, as we
have seen, the condition for reinforcing the necessity of silent cinema. Therefore, from
his introductory chapter, Bragaglia claims that sound breaks the link between cinema
and pantomime. “As the theatrical pantomime has become drama once mouths have
been opened, similarly the cinematic pantomime will become something else once it
adopts the spoken word; it will easily be something beautiful […] but it will no longer be
cinema, nor it will belong to the pantomime’s genre.”33
  Sound is much more limiting, because it stops cinema’s development as an art that
has reached great accomplishments: the trajectory of the “simple theatrical pan-
tomime” that has become “pantomime in itself” and has culminated with the “silent
theater,” undergoes, with the introduction of the word, a drastic fall. “The pantomimist,
highly refined in cinema, regresses in his footsteps and becomes mime, thus necessari-
ly losing, because of the word, the originality of his mimetic expressions.”34
  Bragaglia then ventures into prophecy and foresees the success of sound film, des-
tined to be appreciated for its realistic nature; but he also predicts that alongside it,
silent cinema will continue to exist and to emphasize its poetic vocation, because “the
Pantomime, Poetry’s mysterious creature, has a magic charm that is superior to any
verisimilitude, and therefore it is immortal.”35


From Theory to Practice

  So far I have sketched an outline of the main issues concerning the relationship
between cinema and pantomime: we have noticed how different attempts to formulate
a film aesthetics by drawing on this link (or on mutual differences) lead to theoretical
statements hardly applicable, for naïveté or for lack of awareness of cinema’s means of
expression, or because of the lack of interest towards the pure cinema encouraged by
theoreticians. We have understood how different prophecies about a pantomimic cine-
ma have remained – in most cases – mere auspices and unrealized projects.
  This does not preclude the fact that at the level of production pantomime effectively
entered into cinema. As correctly observed by Claudio Camerini, the influence of pan-

­42
                                                                      THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”

tomime needs to be detected – besides the move of actors from pantomime to cinema (the
most famous and international is Maria Carmi’s)

  at the level of characters: cinema has revived classical characters such as Pierrot, to whom
  many films are devoted […]; at the level of subject matter, by drawing the screenwriters’ atten-
  tion to the typical themes of classical pantomime, especially in the realm of comedies; at the
  level of acting, by enlarging the sphere of action of mimic and suggestive language, and at the
  same time directing the potential of the repertoire of gestures towards more precise and
  restrained effects; at the level of representation, by directing the mise-en-scène towards a sobri-
  ety that contrasts with most contemporary production and by stimulating the linguistic
  research to find new representative solutions, especially elliptical and metaphorical.36

   The analysis of the theoretical debate suggests another possible line of inquiry that I
will only mention here. Besides the white pantomime, which culminates with the
notorious Histoire d’un Pierrot,37 besides the acting of comedians trained in the pan-
tomime and another number of influences suggested by Camerini, the Italian tradition
of pantomime expresses itself also with the pantomimic dance, following the example
of Manzotti’s great choreographies,38 very popular at the turn of the century. The influ-
ences of pantomimic choreography on cinema are not merely limited to the film trans-
position of the Excelsior Ballet realized by Comerio in 1913 with the La Scala dancers,39
or to the citations (“in the manner of”) of the same dance in films such as Giornalissimo
by Ugo Falena (1914).40 Rather, and more in general, they extend from the reproduction
of the mimicry of the masses, to choreography, to the spectacular and scenographical
dimension of films.
   It is precisely from this pantomime, with the assistance of opera, that the interest for
the composition of masses and for spectacle is born: a tendency shared by all genres –
although very evident in the historical genre – whose echo is found in the theoretical
debate. As early as 1907, an anonymous newspaperman believes that cinema’s ambition
is not to become art but choreography, and explicitly indicates Manzotti as the model:

  Choreography is […] the soul of cinema. The audience wants to have a good time, that is, be
  struck by the spectacle of greatness, of wonders, and comedy. The spectator will watch sim-
  ple scenes, with few characters, with more or less interest, but he will soon be tired. His spir-
  it, instead, will appreciate the agitated mass on screen […] To bring all this together, howev-
  er, a really talented choreographer is needed […] Manzotti’s skills.41

  The influence of pantomime on cinema is maybe appreciated by looking into the
mimic of masses, the representation of choral movement, for the first time visible
through cinema not unlike the manifestation of the small gesture, or the character’s
face. This is a different direction, which might contribute to illuminate another issue,
such as the relationship between pantomime and cinema from the perspective of
national identity42. This is what a patriotic Gariazzo seems to suggest, when he talks
about the historical genre:

  the great historical film has proven the uselessness of word and this is because it is a specta-
  cle seen from a distance, essentially choreographical. … The representation of events in
  ancient Rome has introduced the taste for grandeur […] and this taste has become a necessi-

                                                                                                    ­43
ELENA MOSCONI

  ty that has spread on all production […] Its success – Gariazzo continues – has opened the way
  for composing predominantly mimic subjects.

  And, while we fundamentally know that this did not give a definitive linguistic or
expressive impulse to Italian cinema, we also know that it at least tried to interpret “our
dreams, our ideals, seen under an heroic light.”43 Once again prophecies seem destined
to fail: not only in film theory but also in film practice, the season of cinematic pan-
tomime ends very soon, even before producing its best results.

                                             [Translated from Italian by Alessandra Raengo]



1 I draw the definition of production-oriented theories from F. di Chio, “La teoria americana e
   lo specifico del cinema muto”, Lo Spettacolo, no. 4 (October-December 1992), pp. 514-516.
2 A. Boschi, “Le origini della teoria nel cinema”, in G. P. Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinema mon-
   diale. Teorie, Strumenti, memorie, vol. V (Torino: Einaudi, 2001), p. 374; on the periodization
   of the theoretical debate in early cinema see also A. Boschi, Teorie del cinema. Il periodo clas-
   sico (Roma: Carocci, 1998), pp. 27-50 and specifically concerning the French debate see, R.
   Abel, French Film Theory and Criticism, vol. I, 1907-1929 (Princeton: Princeton University,
   1988).
3 Boschi acknowledges this fluidity describing it as “an uneven, not at all linear, trajectory.”
   See A. Boschi, “Le origini della teoria nel cinema”, cit., p. 374.
4 Later, particularly in the late ‘30s, the different meanings of the term pantomime are sub-
   sumed in the notion of pantomimic gesture, whose best examples, as is universally
   acknowledged, are Charlie Chaplin’s performances.
5 S. D’Amico, “Il cinematografo non esiste”, In Penombra, no. 4 (September 1918), pp. 135-137.
6 A. Carou, “L’Autre Art muet. Pantomime(s) et cinéma en France”, in L. Quaresima, L. Vichi
   (eds.), La decima musa. Il cinema e le altre arti – The Tenth Muse. Cinema and the Other Arts
   (Udine: Forum, 2001), p. 525.
7 R. Bracco, Tra le arti e gli artisti (Napoli: Giannini, 1919), pp. 301-302; this essay, titled
   “Cinematografo”, appeared in L’Arte Muta on 15 July 1916. For more information on the
   relationship between critics, theoreticians and the pantomime in Italy, see my “La pantomi-
   ma nel cinema muto italiano. Il caso de Il ballo Excelsior”, in M. Canosa (ed.), A nuova luce.
   Cinema muto italiano. I (Bologna: Clueb, 2000), pp. 217-231.
8 P. A. Gariazzo, Il teatro muto (Torino: Lattes, 1919); A. G. Bragaglia, Il film sonoro (Milano:
   Corbaccio, 1929) and A. G. Bragaglia, Evoluzione del mimo (Milano: Ceschina, 1930).
   Information on Bragaglia’s activities are found in S. d’Amico’s (ed.) Enciclopedia dello spet-
   tacolo, vol. II, (Roma: Le Maschere, 1954), pp. 975-979.
9 A. G. Bragaglia, Evoluzione del mimo, cit., pp. 158-9.
10 Writing in the journal Lux and as early as 1908, Roberto Bracco argues that the artistic form
   that cinema will accomplish in the future “will be nothing other than pantomime, which,
   on the other hand, finds its roots in the theater and in other developments of stage per-
   formances.” R. Bracco, “I nuovi orizzonti del cinematografo”, Lux, no. 1 (December 1908).
11 A. G. Bragaglia, Evoluzione del mimo, cit., p. 11.
12 R. Canudo, “Le Septième art et son esthétique”, in L’Amour de l’Art (1922). I’m quoting from
   the italian translation in R. Redi (ed.), L’officina delle immagini (Roma: Bianco e Nero, 1966),

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                                                                       THE ART OF “SPEAKING SILENTLY”

     p. 84: “The miserable mistake of our cinematic production relies precisely in this confusion,
     which manifests itself in the vile need to link new things to old ones just in order to accept
     them at once, without taking the time to define them or understand them.”
13   A. Costa, Teorie del cinema dalle origini agli anni Trenta: la prospettiva estetica, in G. P.
     Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinema mondiale, cit., p. 417.
14   W. Benjanin, “Über einige Motive bei Baudelaire”, in Schriften (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp,
     1955); English translation “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire”, in H. Harendt (ed.),
     Illuminations. Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 155-200.
15   R. Canudo, “Il Trionfo del Cinematografo”, Giornale Nuovo (25 November 1908), now in G.
     Grignaffini, Sapere e teorie del cinema. Il periodo del muto (Bologna: CLUEB, 1989), p. 108.
16   P. A. Gariazzo, Il teatro muto, cit., p. 12.
17   Ibid., p. 129. In chapter VI of this volume, devoted to mimic gesture, Gariazzo gives a rough
     classification of types of gestures. He divides them in action movements, character move-
     ments, instinctive movements, descriptive movements, complementary movements.
18    R. Canudo, “Chronique du septième art. Vedettes du cinéma”, Paris-Midi (27 August 1923),
     Italian translation in R. Redi, op. cit., pp. 135-138.
19   Within the extensive bibliography on actor’s gestures and pantomimic acting, let me recall B.
     Brewster, L Jacobs, Theatre to Film: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (Oxford: Oxford
     University, 1997); R. Pearson, Eloquent Gestures: the Transformation of Performance Style in the
     Griffith Biograph Films (Berkeley: University of California, 1992); L. Vichi (ed.), L’uomo visibile.
     L’attore dalle origini del cinema alle soglie del cinema moderno – The Visible Man (Udine: Forum,
     2002). See also Francesco Pitassio’s doctoral dissertation Ombre silenzose. Teoria dell’attore cine-
     matografico negli anni Venti (Bologna, 2001) whom I would like to thank for his kind suggestions.
20   A. G. Bragaglia, Il film sonoro, cit., p. 169.
21   G. Simmel, “Rodin”, in Philosophische Kultur (Leipzig: 1911). I am quoting from the Italian
     translation in G. Simmel, Il volto e il ritratto, (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985), p. 214. On this sub-
     ject see D. Frisby, Fragments of Modernity. Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel,
     Kracauer and Benjamin (Cambridge – Oxford: Polity Press – Basil Blackwell, 1985); F. Casetti,
     Il cinema, per esempio. La nascita e lo sviluppo del cinema tra Otto e Novecento (Milano: Isu
     Università Cattolica, 1999); L. Charney, V. R. Schwartz (eds.), Cinema and the Invention of
     Modern Life (Berkeley – Los Angeles – London: University of California, 1995).
22   A. G. Bragaglia, Evoluzione del mimo, cit., p. 213.
23   G. Grignaffini, op. cit., p. 59 and followings.
24   R. Canudo, “Il Trionfo del Cinematografo”, Giornale Nuovo (25 November 1908), now in G.
     Grignaffini, op. cit., p. 109.
25   See G. Grignaffini, op. cit., p. 25.
26   R. Canudo, “Le Septième art et son esthétique”, L’amour de l’art (1922). I am quoting from
     the Italian translation in R. Redi (ed.), op. cit., p. 85.
27   “Expressing life as a whole, with its infinite range of emotions, aspirations, failures, and tri-
     umphs, using the eternal play of light, understanding beings and things only as forms of
     light, harmonized and orchestrated according to the animating idea of action: this is the
     secret, the glory of Visual Drama. This way there won’t be ‘plays’ or ‘pantomimes’ any
     longer: this is the highest, most spiritual work among our aesthetic creations.” R. Canudo,
     “Le Septième art et son esthétique”, L’amour de l’art (1922). I am quoting from the Italian
     translation found in R. Redi (ed.), op. cit., p. 90.
28   S. A. Luciani, “Impressionismo scenico”, Apollon, no. 3 (April 1916), also in R. Redi, C. Camerini
     (eds.), Tra una film e l’altra. Materiali sul cinema muto italiano 1907-1920 (Venezia: Marsilio,

                                                                                                      ­45
ELENA MOSCONI

      1980), pp. 279-282. “Here is the direction the cinema could undertake, thus developing originally:
      realizing, beyond theatre, the stage musical drama, that is, a representation where the visual ele-
      ment is not so much constituted by the actor’s gestures, but rather by real and fantastic land-
      scapes, harmonies of lights and colors, that alone can render vaguely, as music does, emotions and
      sensations. We would then have a newest form of representation where musical impressionism
      would be fully integrated with the impressionism of the scene: in one word, the impressionist
      drama.” This essay is completed by “Poetica del cinematografo”, Apollon, no. 4 (1 May 1916).
29    S. A. Luciani, L’Antiteatro. Il cinematografo come arte (Roma: La Voce, 1928), p. 9 and 17.
30    See A. Boschi, L’avvento del sonoro in Europa (Bologna: CLUEB, 1994), pp. 30-33.
31    M. Pagnol, “Cinématurgie de Paris”, Les Cahiers du Film (15 December, 1933), also in M.
      Lapierre (ed.), Anthologie du cinéma. Rétrospective par les textes de l’art muet qui devint par-
      lant (Paris: La Nouvelle Edition, 1946). Excerpts can be found also in A. Boschi, L’avvento del
      sonoro in Europa, cit., pp. 30-33.
32    For Bragaglia’s general opinion about sound cinema see A. Boschi, L’avvento del sonoro in
      Europa, cit., pp. 25-29. Here I am rather interested in highlighting the relationship between
      sound cinema and cinematic pantomime.
33    A. G. Bragaglia, Evoluzione del mimo, cit., p. 16.
34    Ibid., p. 204.
35    Ibid., p. 222.
36    C. Camerini, “La formazione artistica degli attori del cinema muto italiano”, Bianco e Nero,
      no. 1 (January-March 1983), pp. 9-43.
37    See C. Camerini, “L’Histoire d’un Pierrot”, Immagine. Note di storia del cinema, n. 7 (January
      – March 1984), pp. 23-26. Among the other Italian films inspired by the character made
      immortal by Deburau: Il romanzo di un Pierrot (tit. alt. Pierrot innamorato, M. Caserini,
      Cines 1906); Cuore di Pierrot (Pineschi, 1907), Buonasera Pierrot (Ambrosio 1908), Gelosia di
      Pierrot (Rossi & C., 1908), Pierrot all’Inferno (Cines 1908 – realized in 1906), Cuor di Pierrot
      (R. Bacchini, Vesuvio-Film, 1909), Pierrot geloso (Cines, 1910 – realized in 1906); I due
      Pierrots (A. Brunero, Brunero prod., 1915); Pierrot (D. Karenne, Karenne Film, 1917).
38    See under “Manzotti” by G. Tani in S. d’Amico (ed.), Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, vol. VII,
      (Roma: Le Maschere, 1960), pp. 79-82. On the popularity of pantomimic dance in Italy see also L.
      Tozzi, C. Celi, A. Testa, “Il balletto in Italia”, in A. Basso (ed.), Musica in scena. Storia dello spetta-
      colo musicale. L’arte della danza e del balletto, vol. V (Torino: UTET, 1995), pp. 39-162.
39    See F. Pappacena (ed.), Excelsior (Roma: Di Giacomo, 1998), and my “La pantomima nel cin-
      ema muto italiano. Il caso de Il ballo Excelsior”, cit., pp. 226-231.
40    The metalinguistic angle developed in Ugo Falena’s film is quite interesting: “A curious char-
      acter has invented special eyeglasses that will permit to see animated the characters he talks
      about [a failed newspaper] …. The film is composed by a great number of gags in which pub-
      lic figures from articles about national and international politics, life-style, theater, crime,
      sports, and literature jump from the articles and animate their description. To conclude:
      Excelsior Ballet, with Apotheosis of Journalism and the Fourth Estate…” Rugantino, La Cine-
      Fono (11 July 1914), quoted in A. Bernardini, V. Martinelli, “Il cinema muto italiano. I film
      degli anni d’oro 1914”, Bianco e Nero, no. 1-2 (Torino: Nuova Eri, 1992), pp. 238-239.
41    Pellicola, “La cinematografia è un’arte?”, La Rivista Fono-Cinematografica, no. 9 (December
      1907), also in R. Redi, C. Camerini (eds.), op. cit., pp. 35-38.
42    See J. Deslandes, “Victorin Jasset, 1862-1913”, in Anthologie du cinéma, t. 9 (Paris: L’Avant-
      scène/C.I.B., 1976).
43    P. A. Gariazzo, Il teatro muto, cit., pp. 119-122.

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