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The Temptation of Saint Anthony (film)
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Wikipedia article
'The Temptation of Saint Anthony' is an 1898 French short silent film by Georges Mlis. The film, featuring Mlis and his frequent collaborator Jehanne d'Alcy, is a version of the traditional artistic subject of the temptation of Saint Anthony, showing Anthony the Great's faith and chastity tested by visions.
Synopsis
Saint Anthony's devotions in a cave are disrupted by sudden appearances from young women, whom he banishes in attempts to return to his prayer book. The saint kisses a skull relic only for it to transform into a woman, who is rejoined by the others to encircle him before vanishing. The saint kneels before an image of Christ on the cross, only for this to transform into one of the women. He is finally saved by the appearance of an angel who returns all to normal.
Production
The popular artistic subject of Saint Anthony's temptation had already been filmed in 1896 by Eugne Pirou, including the imagery in which the crucified Christ is transformed into a temptress. In Mlis's version, he himself plays Saint Anthony, and Jehanne d'Alcy appears as one of the three temptresses. The special effects are worked using multiple exposures and substitution splices. The cave backdrop is an early forerunner, in broad high-contrast brushwork, of the intricate grotto sets that feature in many later Mlis films.
Themes
'The Temptation of Saint Anthony' is one of two Mlis films with a religious main theme; the other, 'The Devil in a Convent', was released the following year. Both films have a strong anti-clerical bent, with film historian John Frazer commenting that 'The Temptation' "is interesting because of its satiric, even heretical overtones". Mlis almost certainly agreed with the anti-ecclesiastic emotions prevalent during the Dreyfus affair in 1898 and 1899; Mlis supported Alfred Dreyfus's case, accurately judging him to be innocent of his supposed crimes, while the Church opposed Dreyfus. Mlis's film series 'The Dreyfus Affair', made during the same period, likewise took a strongly pro-Dreyfus stance.
Release
'The Temptation of Saint Anthony' was completed in the winter of 18981899. It was released by Mlis's Star Film Company and numbered 169 in its catalogues; the earliest English-language listing gives the title as 'Temptation of Saint Anthony', without an initial article. According to Mlis's later recollections, when the film was shown at one Paris fairground, the Foire du Trne on the Cours de Vincennes, the Prefect of Police took umbrage at the sacrilege and had the film removed from the bill.
References
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