I do laundry one day a week, usually Sunday. Laundry time is my time to watch the TV I want to watch. If the kids come in they know I'll put them to work, so they tend to stay away. If they're still not deterred, putting a silent film on usually clears the room.
My youngest is curious though. She will hang around and watch for a few minutes here and there. When she came in this past Sunday and saw what I was watching, she stayed longer than usual. My heart swelled with hope that maybe she was interested in watching something more cultural and historical.
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"Why does she have lights in her hair?" my daughter asked. "This music is creepy. Is this supposed to be a scary movie?"
It's not supposed to be a scary movie, but she was on to something. Salomé (1923) is one of the the most bizarre movies I've ever seen, up there with Eraserhead (1977), Naked Lunch (1991), and Santa Sangre (1989).
In its review, at the time, Photoplay Magazine said, “A hothouse orchid of decadent passion . . . You have your warning: this is bizarre stuff.” (Turnbull)
The movie is a cinematic adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_Nazimova
The movie stars Alla Nazimova, a Russian immigrant to the U.S., who, for some time, was one of the most famous, highest-paid actresses in the film industry. She went a bit off the rails with Salomé though. She produced the film, and likely had a hand in every part of its creation.
If Salomé had been made today, she would have found an audience for it. She would have been lauded as an avant-garde filmmaker.
Part of the problem in 1923 was that Nazimova was one of “the most notorious Hollywood lesbian actress[es] of all” (White 1999) and she ran with almost every prominent lesbian in Hollywood, as well as connecting with gay male cultural icons such as Oscar Wilde and Rudolph Valentino. Not only that, she had begun to "embody a gay sensibility" that crept into every aspect of her work, which proved to be beyond the taste of her mainstream audience (Horne 2013).
The minimalist set design and costumes were created by Natacha Rambova (another Russian emigré, and Alla's "good friend"). The Art Nouveau style of artist Aubrey Beardsley was not what audiences expected either (especially of a biblical epic). IMBD.com
The costumes were most bizarre, starting with Nazimova's wig of lighted, bobbling baubles.
There were enormous headdresses, some worn by child-actors who were treated as pets in the film, stiff dresses with elongated shoulder pads, bare chests with nipple stickers, and men in drag.
I couldn't stop watching it.
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It is mesmerizing and disturbing at the same time. The actors move like dancers. The music is eerie, a discordant arrangement of notes that accentuate the hedonistic, macabre scenes. The cinematography and lighting are deliberate and haunting. And then of course there are all those costumes, weird peripheral characters (including those little pet children), and the salacious gaze of Herod and some of his cronies who are clearly shocked at the events and trying not to get excited.
The film flopped badly, and sadly, Nazimova could not recover from the losses. She made a couple more movies after that, but
was unable to recover financially. She ended up leaving the movie industry and returning to the theater. https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-alla-nazimova/
I folded clothes very slowly that Sunday, transfixed by Alla Nazimova's movements and expressions, and everything about Salomé.
My daughter, however, didn't last long. "OK, I'm out of here," she said as she hopped off the bed. "This is the weirdest one yet."
Sources:
On Netflix, episode 11 of Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers:
Salomé. Prod.: Alla Nazimova, dir.: Charles Bryant, sc.: Alla Nazimova as Peter M. Winters, ard/cos. : Natacha Rambova (Nazimova Productions. US 1923)
Horne, Jennifer. "Alla Nazimova." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013. <https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-ws0b-qz98>
Turnbull, Martin. "Salomé." Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/salome.pdf
White, Patricia. “Nazimova's Veils: Salome at the Intersection of Film Histories.” In A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema. Eds. Jennifer Bean and Diane Negri. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002: 60-87.
