Wladyslaw Starewicz is one of Russia’s earliest filmmakers, and someone I’d never heard of before sitting down to watch this film. I had no real expectations, and knew nothing about the film before pressing play, so I was shocked to find I was watching a puppet animation starring bugs! Had I known anything about Starewicz, I should have expected just that. Meet the beetles!
The early part of his directorial career was spent creating puppet animation films, using dead animals and insects as puppets. He got the idea to do this after trying to film two stag beetles fighting, but couldn’t because the lighting necessary to film them was hot enough to kill his stars. He recreated the fight using the dead beetles, whose legs he replaced with wire to allow for him to pose them for stop-motion animation. As far as we know, that short film, Lucanus Cervus, made in 1910, is the first puppet animation film to have ever been made. His enduring masterpiece however, is The Cameraman’s Revenge.
It tells the story of a beetle who embarks on a trip to the big city, presumably for something work-related. Once there, he visits a night club, but one that looks more like what we’d now call a strip club. On stage dances a dragonfly. Once her routine is done, she sits with her grasshopper boyfriend, but Mr. Beetle is smitten, and he pushes the grasshopper out of the way and strikes up a conversation with Miss Dragonfly. She understands him! She really, really gets him! Off they go to a nearby hotel for a night of passion, not knowing that Mr. Grasshopper, who happens to be a movie cameraman, has followed them, and is filming their love-making through the keyhole.
Meanwhile, back home, Mrs. Beetle is having some fun of her own. She’s invited another beetle over, an artist no less, and pretty soon they’re getting romantic. Naturally, Mr. Beetle returns home and catches his wife in flagrante delicto. He chases away the artist, and after a fight, he forgives his wife. Having patched things up, they head out to see a movie. What’s playing? You guessed it— Mr. Beetle and Miss Dragonfly, as seen through a keyhole at Hotel Amour. Now it’s Mrs. Beetle’s turn to be mad!
I don’t own a copy of this film, and had to watch it on YouTube. As silent dead bug puppet animation films go, I’d have to say this is my favorite.
Next I’m watching: The Musketeers of Pig Alley [1912], directed by D.W. Griffith.
The Cameraman's Revenge (Oct. 27, 1912)