The essence of goodness is being short, the essence of evil is height and long noses. Every child should know this.
The silence and paucity of dialog cards in Cinderella (1914 – yes, a silent movie) forced me to pay more than normal attention to the gestural content of this movie, and the sometimes ambiguous content of these old scenes illustrating this old folk tale, whatever might be said about their competence at telling that familiar story, brought into a vivid relief the alternate view of this story.
Classically interpreted as a karma story, the problems for the tale begin with the observation that the Prince’s motivations in searching for a wife do not end with the normal urge to have a wife and a family, but with the additional and unusual duty to continue the royal line. This leads to the question of how Cinderella’s future will turn out, since she’s potentially reduced to the role of breeding stock for the royal family, and no matter how nice the royal family might be, a monarchy is difficult to justify, a priori, as a governmental system. History has indelibly taught us that no family has consistent access to the sort of wisdom required to run a country, even a small country. In fact, the most difficult task a country faces is discovering how to reliably find policy-makers who will wisely lead the country forward.
With this in mind, Cinderella then moves from her initial role as the oppressed daughter, barely a member of the family as her step-sisters have pride of place, into a role where she’ll enable a ruling family to continue their reign, which may end up wrecking the country.
And what of her qualifications? While it’s inarguable that the fairy-godmother selects her for, shall we say, promotion based on her kindness, this is accentuated through contrast with her wicked step-sisters, who mistreat her and others. Why is Cinderella the victim? Once again, the motivation is based on blood lines, as Cinderella is a virtual Outsider in her own family (in this version, where is dear old Dad anyways?), now headed by the equally wicked stepmother. This innate reliance on blood relations in both principal families of the story speaks to the evolutionary drive to propagate the genes which have so far resulted in successful progeny, with little regard for the more abstract concepts of justice which better society.
But back to her qualifications, and, at least in this portrayal of the story, it appears to consist of her beauty and her apparent financial endowment, which is the illusion provided by the fairy godmother. There’s no apparent appreciation of the intellect or wisdom she might bring to the problem of ruling a country.
In other words, taking this story to heart is to revert to an older, unenlightened time. Don’t do it.
It’s a fun production to watch, and I counted at least four nose prostheses during the movie; the still, above, suggests a fifth I missed during the performance. If it were only the wicked stepmother and her daughters bearing the devices, then we could take them to suggest how to identify the bad guys, but the King & Queen also have them, so either this hypothesis is falsified, or there’s a lot more going on behind this story than is present in most renditions of this story. Special effects are charmingly effective, and if I thought Prince Charming looked a bit like a doofus, no doubt he was quite the hot pistol when the movie is made, as the actor, Owen Moore, was married to lead Mary Pickford at the time.
But the real treat of the movie was the live musical accompaniment. We saw this at the Music House Museum in Traverse City, MI, in an informal cinema setting, and the music was provided by Dave Calendine, an accomplished organist who basically played what he felt was appropriate for each scene. He later explained to my Arts Editor that this was how the movie was originally presented 104 years ago (precisely!), and that he considers it an art form worthy of resurrection.
I wouldn’t quite recommend it, but we had a lot of fun. If you can see it at the Music House Museum, do so, and if they invite you upstairs to inspect how one of their music machines work, take it. We were fascinated at the elderly machines, still slogging along.
