Pearls, subverting patriarchal power, and even a shot to the leg: we chat to Invisible Women about SALOME (1922)
Frequent HippFest blog-readers and avid fans of silent cinema will be well aware that we are presently in the thick of our 2023 Taste of Silents season: a short programme of silent films with live musical accompaniment, designed to allow cinema-curious audiences to dip a toe into the captivating world of silent film.
In today’s episode, released in celebration of Silent Movie Day, we share a fascinating conversation on the final title in the season SALOME (1922), between HippFest podcast-wrangler Christina Webber and members of archive activist film collective Invisible Women: Rachel Pronger, Camilla Baier and Lauren Clarke.
Invisible Women are an international collective who seek out and champion the work of women and filmmakers with marginalised identities who have been overlooked, un-credited or left out of the history of cinema. By drawing attention to these forgotten stories, they aim to reinsert female voices into the story of film.
And in today’s release this is certainly the case!
The conversation covers the visual splendour of the film, its oddness, sexiness, and humour, plus its contemporary resurgence and queer and feminist reclamation. The discussion also paints a vivid picture of Hollywood at this time, and some of the inidivudals behind the movie. Alleged to be an entirely queer cast, SALOME (1922) is a perfect example of the type of subversive networks that were able to operate at the start of the 1920s, and how despite being overlooked in film history, women like Alla Nazimova and Natacha Rambova were able to achieve incredible success.
We hope you enjoy this conversation, learn a lot, and feel inspired! Please do remember to rate, review, and share the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival Podcast (available on all major podcast platforms) so that more audiences will discover it.
Various relevant links
- More about the HippFest Taste of Silents season
- Book to watch SALOME (1922) in-person at the Hippodrome (Bo’ness)
- Book to watch SALOME (1922) via online live-stream (available for 48 hours)
- Find out more about the work of Invisible Women and join the mailing list
Show transcript
Alison Strauss: Hello and welcome to episode 8 of the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival Podcast, or HippCast for short. Today’s episode reaches you in the thick of our autumn Taste of Silents season, a short annual programme of silent cinema with live music at the Hippodrome, designed to offer cinema-curious audiences a taste of the wonders of silent film.
Alison Strauss: In recent years we’ve been able to broadcast selected events online for our HippFest at Home audiences too, which has been a wonderful way to keep connected with everyone outside our core dates in March. Last week, people thronged to the Hippodrome and were captivated by Hitchcock’s last fully silent silent, THE MANXMAN, and of course the sublime accompaniment by Stephen Horne.
Alison Strauss: Still to come in the current season, we have THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, with accompaniment from HippFest favourite Mike Nolan. This celebrated film was released in 1920, and for the next hundred years, the film’s nightmarish jagged sets, sinister atmosphere, and psychological overtones have sent ripples amongst countless horror and noir films.
Alison Strauss: I do hope some of you podcast listeners can join us. Our final screening in our current Taste of Silents season will be SALOME, or Salome, depending on how you pronounce it, from 1922, and that’s the film we’re going to hear about today. A Hollywood picture unlike anything Hollywood had ever dared make before.
Alison Strauss: Based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, it’s a well known story and one which has resurfaced in cinema a number of times. This adaptation is rich with fabulous costumes, stylized sets, and stars Alla Nazimova as Salome, the flamboyant superstar of the silent era, mesmerizing as the barefoot dancer who beguiled a king and beheaded a prophet.
Alison Strauss: Our screening of SALOME takes place on Friday October the 20th, and will be accompanied by the brilliant musical duo: Jane Gardner on piano and Hazel Morrison on percussion. The event will be presented in venue and broadcast live for online audiences worldwide. It will remain available for a further 48 hours to cater for varying time zones and busy lives, so if you’re keeping up to date with our podcasts, -you should have time to book your ticket and tune in.
Alison Strauss: Now, who better to discuss this film than archive activist film collective Invisible Women, who seek out and champion the work of women and filmmakers with marginalized identities who have been overlooked, uncredited, or left out of the history of cinema.
Alison Strauss: Invisible Women will be joining us in Bo’ness to introduce the screening, but meanwhile our wonderful podcast wrangler Christina Webber was fortunate enough to chat with all three members of the collective ahead of that screening, about the context of the film’s creation and more contemporary queer and feminist reclamation.
Alison Strauss: I will hand over to Rachel, Camilla and Lauren who will tell us more about Invisible Women and dive into the dazzling world of SALOME… take care.
Christina Webber: Hello everyone. It is so lovely to chat to you today. For those listening I’m here with the members of Invisible Women. And first of all, I would like to ask you to just introduce yourselves. That would be amazing. So we’ll start with you, Rachel, if that’s okay, just through the order of my screen.
Rachel Pronger: So, um, So I’m Rachel Pronger. I’m a writer and a curator and a film programmer and a member of Invisible Women. I’m Originally from Yorkshire, um, lived in London and Edinburgh for a while, and I am currently speaking to you from Berlin.
Camilla Baier: Um, hi, I’m Camilla Baier. I’m originally from Berlin, but I live, I’ve been living in the UK for 11 years in Scotland to be specific, and I’m now based in Edinburgh. And that’s where I’m speaking to you from as well today.
Lauren Clarke: And I guess I’m the last one. Which is very fitting because I’m also the newest member of Invisible Women. I’m Lauren, and I’m a film programmer and researcher, and work with like various festivals across the UK and North America. I’m originally from Toronto.
Lauren Clarke: Um, but have been based in Scotland for eight years now, eight years. Oh God, I think that’s how long, um, Glasgow specifically. And I’m actually, and I’m speaking to you from, my hotel room in London right now.
Christina Webber: That’s so exciting. A truly international mix. Thank you for that. I was wondering if, I guess, collectively, you’d like to explain to our listeners what Invisible Women is and why you set it up and what you’re kind of aiming to do…
Rachel Pronger: I might start if that’s okay, guys? Invisible Women is an archive activist feminist collective. We originally began as a project attached to our master’s thesis, so basically I met Camilla while I was studying film exhibition with Camilla in Edinburgh and we decided one night over glasses of wine to work together on a project as part of the master’s and that project evolved into the pilot screening of Invisible Women.
Rachel Pronger: So we basically came from a place of being very interested in feminism and film history. Um, and we also, I mean, when we met, it was 2017. So it was just before the kind of ‘Me Too’ wave hit. And we were a moment of feeling very, kind of angry about the way that film culture was not talking about women directors from history and behaving as if when women did direct films that it was some kind of like new novelty.
Rachel Pronger: So we were very much about trying to raise awareness amongst audiences of the historical contribution of women to film history.
Rachel Pronger: We did a pilot screening, which took place in a small art gallery in Edinburgh, and in that screening we showed historical work made by female filmmakers from Scotland, from Canada, and from England, and spanning from the 1920s and that kind of set the tone for the sort of way that we approach archive, which is very much about drawing connections across geography and through time.
Rachel Pronger: And, and that pilot screening. We were amazed because it was completely full. We just, we thought it would just be our friends and family there. And it was full of people we’d never met who were interested in this idea. So that was really exciting. And I think Camilla and I realized that we were on something.
Rachel Pronger: So then over the next few years, we worked together, just kind of doing occasional DIY pop up screenings, um, kind of in various places across the UK. And then, um, during the pandemic, we had time to kind of… sit and think about what we wanted the collective to be, and it was around that time that Lauren joined us as well, and we started talking about how we could turn Invisible Women into a resource that is not just screenings, it’s also kind of editorial, and framing films, and writing about films, um, and just finding lots of ways to kind of spread this, the story of women in film effectively, and then when we emerged from the pandemic and began being able to do public screenings again.
Rachel Pronger: Because we’ve been talking a lot on social media about the project, and we’d launched a newsletter and things like this, suddenly there was this really high demand. So since then, we’ve just been constantly presenting work kind of across the UK and also internationally as well. So it’s been really exciting.
Rachel Pronger: Lauren, do you want to add anything from your perspective?
Lauren Clarke: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s been super exciting. I think just sort of the way that Invisible Women has sort of grown over the years, especially because before I joined, I was a massive fan of all the work that they were doing. So I was really excited to kind of get the -opportunity to get involved.
Lauren Clarke: And I think after joining and then with the pandemic and us kind of, you know, really sort of taking things forward, it’s been really exciting to kind of see all the different ways we’ve infiltrated the film scene and like building all of our, building all these new relationships and just being able to like get the work out into the world.
Lauren Clarke: And we’ve also worked as researchers on documentaries and things like that. So we’ve been able to really sort of, you know, try our hand at lots of different things. So it’s been really, really an exciting process and we just keep kind of like building and taking on more work and it’s really great to see the appetite there because I think this kind of lack, um, that Rachel is sort of speaking about this sort of was like, you know, really a lot of the sort of inspiration, you know, um, it feels like at least there’s a lot more collectives that are doing this sort of work and there seems to be more of an appetite for it.
Lauren Clarke: So it’s, it’s really exciting.
Christina Webber: It’s so great to hear that the appetite is so big and also just not to sound patronizing but well done for doing all that because that’s a huge amount of different avenues of work, you know, like that’s a lot of different skills and skill sets and I think it’s really encouraging to hear that there’s such an appetite for it because it, it shows that it’s worthwhile, you know? And, and that all this hard work you’re doing, people are really receptive to and want to see these films or want to learn about these filmmakers. So sadly, you know, it might be a hundred years behind in some cases, but it’s great that that appetite is there now. So thank you so much for explaining all of that and introducing the amazing work you do, but today we are here to talk about one particular film, part of our Taste of Silents season coming up, uh, 20th of October. We’re screening this at the Hippodrome. And the first thing I need to ask is how, what is the actual correct way of pronouncing Salome? Is that correct? Salome?
Camilla Baier: I mean, I, I say
Christina Webber: Salome.
Lauren Clarke: Salome. Salome.
Rachel Pronger: Yeah, that’s what I would say also.
Rachel Pronger: I mean, it is a silent film, so we can’t tell you how it’s pronounced, necessarily. There’s interpretation there, I think…
Christina Webber: Okay, great. Thank you. So, how did you guys find out about this film and how did you kind of first see it?
Camilla Baier: So we, we’ve been big fans of SALOME for a while. And, um, basically we found out about the film’s kind of creator and director, Alla Nazimova, when we were doing research into other film collectives across, feminist film collectors, collectives across time.
Camilla Baier: And a really interesting story there is that Alla Nazimova and, um, maybe Lauren or Rachel can talk a little bit more specifically about her in a bit, but she was a theater actress and director and a multi hyphenated, basically, diva of early Hollywood, who had created a group of collaborators around her.
Camilla Baier: And… That’s how we first found out about her and then about the film when we were doing this research into other feminist film collectives. So we’ve actually been researching around the history of this film for a really, really long time. And then we were, as a result of this, we were asked by Cinema Rediscovered this year when there was a beautiful restoration made of the film.
Camilla Baier: And they, at Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol, were screening this film with live music, they asked us if we would like to introduce the film and also have a post screening discussion with another expert on silent cinema, Pamela Hutchinson, which we did, and which was really amazing.
Lauren Clarke: It’s, it felt very special that that particular screening, I think just because it was the first time we’d all also seen it on the big screen, and we had been wanting to watch it for so long. So it was really exciting to finally get to have that communal experience in the cinema with the piano accompaniment. And it was like, that’s the way that you need to experience it.
Lauren Clarke: And I also think because there’s such intricacies in the piece, and just being in that space, like that, having that shared experience takes you in a whole, like, It was amazing. I think I felt very like emotional watching it because we’ve literally been talking about screening it for years. So it was like this really exciting thing that was finally coming to fruition.
Christina Webber: It’s true. I think it’s. It’s so hard as well to communicate how special silent film with live music is in a cinema setting when someone hasn’t experienced that before. It’s such a hard thing to describe. So I totally get that that would have been really, really special.
Christina Webber: We’re very lucky in the sense that you will also be introducing our screening in October. And the screening will take place in the Hippodrome, Scotland’s oldest purpose-built cinema, and will be accompanied by Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison, who are two fantastic silent film musicians. So , I am super excited about seeing it in that very special setting. I wonder, for people who haven’t seen it, or maybe even haven’t heard of it before, how would you summarize the film?
Lauren Clarke: So, I think it’s kind of really interesting to think a little bit before kind of going right specifically into the film, the summary, just a little bit of the kind of context around it.
Lauren Clarke: I think that’s some of like the most sort of interesting side because it was… the film itself was made at the height of Alla’s career, you know, and, like, for a time, actually, Alla Nazimova was actually one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, which I think is a really interesting thing to, um, to kind of consider.
Lauren Clarke: And she ran her own production company and worked with lots of women from her sort of sewing circle, which Camilla touched on earlier, working with the likes of June Mathis and, um, Natacha Rambova, who is the costume designer on SALOME. And sort of the majority of her work was really made within the sort of like mainstream mechanisms of Hollywood, but which she was also a pioneering figure around specifically queer female aesthetic.
Lauren Clarke: Um, and SALOME is like a perfect example of that with its kind of like beautiful art deco sets and these sort of like these stunning costumes and all this sort of dance and very sensual elements. It feels like a very sort of sexual experience almost? Um, and the film itself was the second film that Alla financed herself where she directed, produced and stars in the piece, but interestingly enough, the film is actually billed as Charles Bryant was listed as the director, but all the sort of evidence suggests that that was just the cover.
Lauren Clarke: And it was very much directed by Nazimova herself. And the film itself , in terms of the plot line, it’s an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, which heavily draws its inspiration from the biblical story of King Herod’s execution of John the Baptist, which was done at the request of his stepdaughter, Salome, who he also harbours a lot of kind of feeling for. Um, so that’s sort of like, I guess, a bit of it in a nutshell.
Lauren Clarke: And we have this beautiful quote , Ala Nazimova says: ‘In Russia, you can make love on stage in the wildest way, but you must not touch on politics or religion. Here you have to be very conventional in love-making, but you can say anything you please about politics and religion’. I think it’s like a really interesting way to think about the piece in terms of contextualization of like what that meant when she was sort of speaking about that.
Christina Webber: It’s so fascinating to know, as you say, more about the setting, the scene around the film at the time and how it came to be. Is there anything else that anyone wants to add to that kind of backdrop, that you’ve wonderfully described?
Camilla Baier: I mean, and there, there is so, so much to add. Like, for example, with that quote that Lauren just said, it’s, um, really interesting considering that she was a Russian emigre to the U. S. at the time. She was a Jewish Russian theater actress who left Russia with her theater group, uh, via Europe, to then become an incredible star in, in the New York theater scene at the time, which is incredible considering her story and also because she had an incredibly turbulent childhood as well.
Camilla Baier: And, and you can really see how she basically took all that trauma and then bundled that and threw that all into her art. And then being, you know, this really kind of venerated theater actress when she’s relatively young, this is we’re talking about her late 20s, early 30s, and then going across stateside to then become the highest paid actress in Hollywood.
Camilla Baier: And we’re talking about a time when we had people like Mary Pickford, you know, working at the same time. And Alla Nazimova was still the highest paid actress in Hollywood. So here’s again, something that we’re really passionate about this story is that this is, um, somebody who was at a height of her career and obviously celebrated for this and paid, you know, because a lot of the time, uh, money is what decides the value of someone and not really spoken about because, you know, if, even if you’re not into silent cinema, you will probably have heard of Mary Pickford, but you probably, a lot of people probably won’t have heard of Alla Nazimova.
Camilla Baier: So that’s why we’re so passionate about championing her story. Because it is one of those cases where they were just written out of – not written out of history – but maybe not given the space in the history books or the film books or the film history books um that they that they should have.
Rachel Pronger: Yeah, I think all that is really, really important to talk about. I think Alla Nazimova’s status as a emigre artist in Hollywood at this time is really interesting and fascinating, especially given like the, you know, the direction that history goes in, the fact that she was Russian, like lots of different elements there.
Rachel Pronger: I also think It’s important to highlight. I mean, I know Lauren mentioned it briefly earlier, but, Nazimova was a bisexual woman, probably. I mean, obviously definite labels shift over time, but it appears that she was bisexual. She had lots of different relationships with men and women across her life.
Rachel Pronger: But I think what is really interesting about her as well as that she was part of this group of women, many of whom were queer who formed a kind of unofficial support group/ collective, however you want to refer to it, in Hollywood at this time, it’s often referred to as ‘the Sewing Circle’. Um, so she was part of a group alongside people like Natacha Rambova, who would go on to design SALOME, we’ll talk about her in a little bit.
Rachel Pronger: And also the screenwriter, Jean Mathis, Anna May Wong, all these people who were really fascinating, creative, queer women in Hollywood during this period. Most of whom… We don’t really talk about much anymore. And I think that that in itself is a really fascinating story of sisterhood and solidarity because these women created work for each other, they offered each other opportunities, they were kind of undercutting some of the male power in Hollywood at the time by creating their own networks. And that feels to me like a very contemporary thing to talk about actually, like that feels super relevant to now. I also wanna briefly mention, so Charles Bryant is listed as a director of the film, as Lauren says, to all intents and purposes, it appears that that is basically just a name that’s used so that Nazimova can create the work she wants to create, and there’s a, a man’s name on it. Charles Bryant was also Nazimova’s husband for a period. And again, for all intents and purposes, it looks like they were both queer people and it’s effectively kind of like a… A beard situation where they were creating a respectable front so that they could live their lives.
Rachel Pronger: So I think that is also an interesting dynamic that’s at play in this, in this film.
Camilla Baier: There was some, uh, anecdotal evidence as well saying that Charles Bryant would show up on set and then he’d shout action and then he’d leave. Just so they can actually really tick off that he did some work on, on the film.
Christina Webber: That is kind of the dream job is to turn up, set things in motion and then politely exit. That’s all. Yeah, so fascinating, my knowledge is so limited on this and it’s amazing to think of that network of people, as you say, undercutting or subverting power and money. It feels so contemporary because that kind of situation I feel is still going on today.
Christina Webber: And so it’s incredible to think that when this film was made, that that was happening and that they were so successful. That’s a really useful kind of backdrop. Thank you so much.
Christina Webber: I hope audiences keep all that in mind when they see the film and go ahead and do independent research about all of these filmmakers and designers and, you know, industry women that haven’t been talked about enough and should be better known. We mentioned Natacha Rambova briefly there, and it would be interesting to maybe talk about the look of the film?
Christina Webber: I think generally silent cinema can look quite different for contemporary audiences to what they’re used to seeing. I think a lot of silent film sets, especially can look really unfamiliar.
Christina Webber: And SALOME is quite a stylized looking film from the bits that I’ve seen. So I wonder if you wouldn’t mind talking a little bit about the influence of the set design and the costumes and the look of the film?
Camilla Baier: Um, yeah, we touched on the partnership between Alla Nazimova and Natacha Rambova which I find really interesting here because that was again, one of those examples where Alla would bring other women under her wing and then, make them part of, of her group of collaborators and, the really interesting story here with Natacha, who was actually born into a Mormon family in Utah and then, uh, and was called like Winifred… some other name, and then she’s like, no, I’m going to be Natacha Rambova!
Camilla Baier: And she became a ballet dancer under the tutelage of a very renowned, uh, choreographer, Theodor Kozlov. And he would actually become the art designer for a lot of early films. But what he would do is he used Natacha Rambova as a ghost designer because her designs were actually much more beautiful than the ones that he was creating. And for a previous film that Alla was directing, he sent Natacha Rambova with, with her designs for Alla to check them. And then she wanted Natacha to do some changes. She was like, send that back to your master and, and bring me back the changes that I’ve asked for. And she just did them on the spot.
Camilla Baier: And then Alla was like: Right. So actually you’re the mastermind behind this. She hired Natacha to become part of her… and that was, I think on a silent called BILLIONS. And then she did CAMILLE, and then she did SALOME after that and then became part of Alla’s entourage, in a way, and would work on most of her films and she took inspiration from the original illustrations from Oscar Wilde’s book, which were done by Aubrey Birdsley. They’re incredibly beautiful. If you compare them, you can see really the inspiration. And yeah, she, she went on to work as a set designer with Alla for, for many years, and then later she would have her own haute couture shop in Manhattan.
Camilla Baier: So her story is an incredibly interesting one. But yeah, maybe one of you guys want to specifically talk about, about the film. I just find Natacha’s story so fascinating. And I love that story, especially what, what Rachel had said about, um, kind of men trying to take credit for all the work that women were doing at the time.
Camilla Baier: And that’s like the perfect example.
Rachel Pronger: Camilla, isn’t the Kozlov, there’s the, the Kozlov shooting story also though, right? Which kind of really, well.
Rachel Pronger: Can you tell that quickly? Cos you tell this really well.
Camilla Baier: Yeah, so, so after Alla decided to to fire Kozlov as her designer and take on Natacha Rambova, one has to say that, Rambova and Kozlov had had an affair as well. And so when she goes back to him and says: first of all, I’ve taken your job. And second of all, I’m leaving you. He said, um, no, you’re not.
Camilla Baier: Um, I’m paraphrasing here. But basically she tried to leave him and he shot her in the leg. And I have to say that apart from being a designer, she was also a ballet dancer. So, um, she not deterred, however, Jumped out of a first story window to get away from him, got into a cab that drove her straight to the set of CAMILLE I think it was at the time, which is another Alla film, where one of the, I think one of the cameramen took the shot out of her leg, and then they all went back to work and eventually she met Rudolf Valentino and married him and Kozlov was not to be part of the story again. But it’s a very crazy dramatic story which fits very well into the, into the, um, uh, Hollywood narrative, I think.
Christina Webber: I mean, you’d hope getting shot in the leg would earn you a day off, but I don’t know, like, that’s one of the few ones where you’d be like, surely you get the day off in this scenario, but, um.
Christina Webber: Wow.
Rachel Pronger: But when I hear stories like this, it makes me think like, what was Damien Chazelle thinking of Hollywood Babylon when he could just have done a Alla Nazimova biopic of all the people in her orbit, which could have been amazing.
Rachel Pronger: But I think it captures something about the, the like, madcap mood of this period in Hollywood… like it’s not yet become the super slick corporate machine, like it’s lots of eccentrics and artists and weirdos still in Hollywood, which is partly how women are able for a period of time to create work because things are not being quite – there are studio bosses and there are people with power – for sure, and there’s studio bosses of men, but there are still ways that you can create quite crazy work in Hollywood at this time without it going through loads of committees and necessarily being restricted in that way. So I think that that story kind of captures some of the weird lawlessness of this particular period of time. Um, just to talk a little bit more about the film itself.
Rachel Pronger: So not only does Alla Nazimova make, you know, make a film effectively as a director and the producer and the main star and create something that is like completely authored by herself and by Natacha Rambova, they’re the two big authorial stamps on this film, but they create a film together that is ridiculous.
Rachel Pronger: Like it’s an avant garde art film. It’s sometimes described as the first art film, because it is really crazy, like the way that it looks, it looks like art deco come to life. If you see, if you literally just Google stills from it, that in itself should be enough to make you want to watch it because there are some crazy costumes.
Rachel Pronger: She wears this fantastic kimono at one point. She wears a, a kind of a wig hat thing that’s full of pearls that it’s really, there are some really amazing looks. And the other thing I would say as well is that Nazimova is playing a teenager, like the character of Salome is supposed to be a teenager, but at this point, I think she’s 44, like she’s in her mid forties.
Rachel Pronger: So in itself, that, there’s some guts to that, to cast herself in this role. And it’s also part of what makes the film, I think, feel so subversive and powerful because the story of Salome is quite a misogynist story of a young girl who is desired by lots of people who uses her sexual power and then is punished for it.
Rachel Pronger: But the way that Nazimova does it, Salome’s still a victim and there’s a tragedy to it, like there’s definitely a tragedy to the ending, but she has power because she is not an ingenue, like she’s a very elegant, beautiful, graceful woman, but she’s clearly got a bit of power to her and that changes the whole balance of the film, I think.
Lauren Clarke: Yeah, completely, completely agree. I also, yeah, I feel like I need to have another moment of appreciation for that headpiece with all the pearls. Like, it’s just like, oh, my God. But no, I think it’s really interesting, this idea of like the age and her reclaiming that power. And even though, like, you say there is that sort of element of tragedy, there’s something in her stature and how she composes herself in this piece where she’s, you know, she’s kind of pulling all the strings a little bit. And, and it’s, it’s just stunning to watch it kind of unfold on the big screen.
Lauren Clarke: Like it’s a magical experience.
Rachel Pronger: And I think that the scene that typifies that, I mean it’s quite weird to talk about scenes in this film as well because it’s all shot on one set and it flows like a stage play, there is a definite theatricality to it. But the sequence that obviously everyone is like waiting for is the dance of the seven veils, right?
Rachel Pronger: And the way that she does it is, it pushes the limits of what you could have done at that time in terms of like a sexy dance like there we’re not in Hay’s Code era hollywood yet and there are people doing very daring things but there’s still censorship and there’s still limits to what you were able to to show. But you get the sense of the sexiness of the the dance but the way that Nazimova creates the intense sexual tension of the scene is that there are all these intercuts to eyes and gawping faces and the focus is really more on the audience in that sequence and their reaction to the dance. And their reaction to the dance shows you how you should react as an audience member, even though what you see is particularly by modern standards, not necessarily that racy, even though Nazimova is a very sexy person.
Rachel Pronger: I think that that’s really clever, the way that it creates that relationship between the dancing Salome and the audience on screen and that again is a really modern thing to do. Like this is a few years before, for instance, METROPOLIS -which has a very famous sequence of eyes intercut to look at a woman who is sexually attractive, and it’s often used, that sequence, as an example of the male gaze in cinema, like it’s quoted in the the famous Laura Mulvey essay on the male gaze where she kind of originated that phrase.
Rachel Pronger: But actually Nazimova kind of does the same thing in the early 1920s. And she’s doing it as a female director shooting herself as well. So I think that is really interesting. And again, feels really modern and quite subversive. She’s kind of highlighting the male response to her, and in that way, she’s also shining a light on the audience members in the cinema, who might well also be reacting in the same way. So that feels like, actually like, a pretty daring avant garde thing to do. Whether she’s consciously doing that within that political framework is like, kind of irrelevant, I think. Because we haven’t got the language yet to talk about it. The idea that male gaze is not being talked about.
Rachel Pronger: Cinema is a really new art form. But I think it’s a really… Fascinating proto-feminist moment in cinema that hasn’t had enough attention actually.
Rachel Pronger: I think it’s important to note, and this is to do with the circulation history of, of work, that like, so I don’t know if Laura Mulvey had seen SALOME but it’s certainly true that a lot of silent films were kind of lost and then, many of them lost forever, and then some were rediscovered later.
Rachel Pronger: And for instance, SALOME, I haven’t been able to find much information about the exhibition history of this film beyond the last few years. I’m sure it was occasionally shown in different places. But it’s something that has not circulated as widely as a lot of other texts of that era and part of the reason why it has begun to circulate again is that queer and feminist history because there’s a revival of interest and that happens in cycles.
Rachel Pronger: So it’s, it’s quite a complex historical story as well to talk about how these films circulate, especially pre YouTube. This is why, like, as much as YouTube is full of terrible things, it’s also full of silent films. So I do feel like some kind of like, well, we do actually do need it for film history reasons, because some of these films are so good that you can watch it.
Rachel Pronger: Yeah, I mean, obviously there’s lots of copyright issues and various issues with that, but it does mean that at least we, we can, as independent researchers, stumble across it and be like, what is this? Get a chance to watch it.
Lauren Clarke: And I think that that’s part, you know, it’s all part of that sort of research process and finding, you know, finding out about these films, especially when, as you say, they have not circulated and there isn’t a lot of, um, there isn’t a lot of records to show where it’s, what its exhibition history is and, you know, how, um, where it’s gone since then.
Christina Webber: I think this. Is a perfect way to actually lead on to my final two questions, but they’re kind of interlinked. It’s like one very big question, I guess, which is to ask you a little bit about how the film was received at the time, but also thinking about that exhibition history. Maybe you could talk a little bit on the kind of recent contemporary resurgence of this title and that reclamation of the film in really recent years, and just, you know, why it is, maybe partly why, why that’s happened, but also why audiences should be clamoring to see this and why it’s still relevant to contemporary cinema goers?
Christina Webber: Big question. Sorry. That’s a multi pronged big question. They’re all big prongs as well. Apologies.
Christina Webber: I know, it’s such a big question, isn’t it? I guess, like, essentially to kind of, you know, we all have so much to kind of say around this, but I think, like, originally, obviously, like, it was kind of considered a commercial flop at the time, like, and I think, didn’t it almost bankrupt Nazimova at the time, or it was, like, quite close, wasn’t it?
Christina Webber: Or am I making that up?
Rachel Pronger: No, Lauren, you’re right. It basically forced her production company out of business, effectively. So she kind of gambled everything on this film, and as I think Lauren mentioned at the start, she was at the height of her career really, but she was also a woman in her mid 40s who had had, you know, this period of success and you see it particularly in this period of time in Hollywood, careers are made and broken extremely quickly. It’s always a bit like that in Hollywood, but I think it feels like almost extra fast at this period in time. The film was a flop commercially and didn’t manage to secure enough distribution basically, there weren’t people that were willing to, to get it onto the distribution circuit.
Rachel Pronger: And Nazimova really struggled to get it seen and effectively that forced her to wrap up her production company eventually, and to move out of the film industry, and then she returned basically to stage. Camilla, jump in.
Camilla Baier: Um, yeah, when the talkies started, she became a, she became an actress. After she folded her production company, she did still work as an actress in talkies. However, none of these talkies are still around. So, there is actually no record of… Like, no record we can, no media we can see of her working as a, as an actress in talkies, but she did work as a, as an actress. Not incredibly successfully, nothing compared to, to where she was at, at the height of her career as a silent film actress. And then after that she, she would go on and, and, um, go back onto the stage and work as an actress until, until the end of her life. I think maybe one, one thing to, to, to talk about in terms of the budget of her film as well is that her set designer and costume designer, um, kind of contributed also to the crippling budget because she had all of… uh, so Natasha Rombova did all these beautiful designs, but she also wanted to see them kind of executed to the absolute perfection, which meant that she had all the fabrics and all everything that they used imported from Europe and all these fabrics and all of that came with a cost, which helped tank the budget for the film, basically, and also made it basically impossible to recover that cost, especially with what Rachel said, the kind of difficulty getting it distributed and getting it screened.
Lauren Clarke: And then I guess thinking a little bit about, um, this sort of resurgence and this kind of new reclamation of, of the piece. Like, I think part of this has definitely come through a lot of research around probably like the Sewing Circle and doing a lot more research into that area and, and, um, the interest in queer cinema. And then there’s just been, you know, this rediscovery of, of her work and as Rachel mentioned, like, it’s been kind of considered this sort of, um, sometimes called the first art film, and it was also sort of rumored, like, it sounds like it was probably true, but there’s no actual hard evidence to say that pretty much everybody involved in the production was queer, and there’s just been this real excitement and energy around the film, and I think that that’s what’s maybe sort of spurred on a lot more contemporary screenings that have happened.
Christina Webber: And why do you guys personally think that it’s worth going to see at the cinema with music? Like, what is it right now, like, not right now, on October the 20th, but why is it worth… Why is it worth that resurgence?
Christina Webber: Like, what is it about the film that you think drives that? Obviously the setting of how it was made and the Sewing Circle and everything surrounding the film, but also why do you think it’s just worth going to see at the cinema as a piece of entertainment?
Lauren Clarke: I called it like a visual feast for your eyes at one point because it’s just like, The imagery and obviously when you have the music accompaniment, it’s just it’s something unlike I’ve ever, ever really seen. And to be fair, I think that was 1 of my 1st experiences of seeing a silent film with an accompaniment, which is a sad thing to admit.
Lauren Clarke: But it was it was amazing. And I think there’s something very special specifically about that experience. And the film itself is just… the textures and layers to it, the costumes and the, this sort of like sensual dance that happens through it, like it’s just, there’s so many different aspects. I think it’s just something you need to, uh, you need to experience on the big screen. I, unfortunately, as much as we have, you know, talked a little bit about YouTube and that kind of experience, I think you really have to have this one on the big
Lauren Clarke: screen.
Rachel Pronger: I think as well, when you watch it with an audience, it’s a completely different feeling, because when you see this film, especially because it’s a film about people watching someone, being the extra layer, you know, watching a film about people watching a thing, that in itself is quite cool.
Rachel Pronger: I think that creates an interesting interaction. And, because of how ridiculously over the top this film is in places, like in terms of the visual opulence, but also in terms of the, the very, at times stylized and exaggerated performances, it’s also quite funny to watch, like we were laughing quite a lot when we watched it in Bristol because there are just moments that are very hilariously overstated in a kind of amazing way.
Rachel Pronger: And also the way that it’s satirizing, um, a certain kind of, pervy old guy. It’s very funny from that point of view, like, seeing, um, Herod being gross, basically, in this, like, very over the top way. It’s, uh, quite funny and absurd to watch. And then ultimately, I think it does have an emotional payoff as well.
Rachel Pronger: So it does a lot in a small space of time. I would also say it’s a really great example of silent film that feels edgy and weird and alive and doesn’t in any way feel dusty, or old fashioned, it feels like. a really contemporary avant garde piece of work still. So I think it’s a great example of how we can watch these films not just as museum pieces, like they have a artistic life beyond that.
Camilla Baier: Absolutely, um, SALOME is one of those films where you can say , like you can come for the costumes, or you can come for the dance elements, or you can for the beautiful set pieces, and I think especially with the event at the Hippodrome. I mean, what more beautiful cinema than the Hippodrome to watch, you know, a silent film gem?
Camilla Baier: And then with the live accompaniment as well, what I find so beautiful about these films is that we get a chance to see this film the way it was seen a hundred years ago. But with the live music, it’s, it’s always different, you know, we watched it in Bristol with the accompaniment of Meg Morley and how kind of her, um, interpretation and her music.
Camilla Baier: And now we’re going to see it with Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison, which is going to be a different experience as well. So I think that, yeah, the kind of, the event element of this film is, is going to be just as special as the film itself.
Christina Webber: Oh, that’s amazing. Thank you so much. I’m really excited about the film now. So thank you. Not that I wasn’t before, but I’m freshly excited. And I think that is such a core part of what the Taste of Silents season is about, is showing audiences that silent film, as you say, they’re not museum pieces and that they’re, they’re artworks that still have creative life, with new accompaniments and each event is individual and, yeah it’s fantastic that, that we get to do this and that everyone gets to enjoy it.
Christina Webber: Um, so thank you so much. Uh, I’m conscious that that’s probably all we have time for, and I’ve already eaten extra time away from you. So, um, I think that’s more than enough to get people absolutely, um, super excited about the screening. And I just want to thank you all so much for coming and chatting to me about it today.
Christina Webber: We will see you again very soon, uh, in October and I can’t wait to see you then.
Alison Strauss: Listen out for more episodes, like and subscribe wherever you are listening. We would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help us reach a bigger and broader audience.
Alison Strauss: A final request. HippFest needs help, and you might be our missing link. We rely on grants and sponsorship for more than 80% of HippFest costs to bring you great films with live music and much more. Could you or someone you know benefit from a sponsorship slot in this very podcast? If so, then please get in touch by emailing hippfest@falkirk.gov.uk.
Alison Strauss: We’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much.
The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival 