My mind is very much taken at the moment by the use of the stencilling technique in early films, so today’s post continues the butterfly thread that started on Saturday.
That post mainly focused on serpentine and butterfly dances, yet more ballet inspired by butterflies were already popular in Italy in the early 1900s, as this image taken from the 1908 Polvere di Pirlimpinpin that featured 600 extras and costumes by Caramba.
Unfortunately, this image is in black and white, but if you're looking for coloured butterflies, check out the stencilled colours in the short film embedded at the end of this post, Tit for Tat (La peine du talion, 1906) by Gaston Velle.
Influenced and inspired by Georges Méliès, Velle directed films for French Pathé and for the Italian Cines in the early 1900s, shooting over 50 films - some of them documentaries - between 1903 and 1911. He arrived at Cines with set designers Dumesnil and Vasseur and the cameramen Vauzèle who was an expert in special effects, collaborated with Italian director Mario Caserini and went back to Paris in 1907.
Tit for Tat follows the fate of a butterfly collector and his assistants who end up in a wood populated by vaudeville dancers in colourful outfits. There are some wonderful chromatic effects in the film when the collector checks out the butterflies he captured, but the film is also ironic and entertaining with the two assistants transformed into grasshoppers and the collector being pinned to a giant cork by a revengeful butterfly court.
"Tit for Tat" is included in one of the special screenings at Tate Modern during the Fashion in Film Festival on 3rd December.
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