Homosexuality in early silent film
Dickson experimental sound film (1895)
(AKA THE GAY BROTHERS)
This is the first film to feature a glimpse of homosexuality. It is also rare because it is one of the first pieces of early experimental film to survive to this day.
ECLIPSE: COURTSHIP OF THE SUN AND MOON (1907)
DIR. GEORGES MELIES
FRANCE
RUNTIME: 9 MINS
The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon is an early silent fantasy film created by Georges Méliès. It is in black and white, no tinting, and was released in France in 1907. Méliès started out as a magician and was a pioneer in filmmaking, especially in terms of his creation of special effects (Giannetti, 7). This particular film, like so many of his others, was written, directed, and starring the talented filmmaker (Web, IMDB). The Eclipse runs a total of nine minutes and, when it was first released, it would have been viewed (generally by the middle class) in a Nickelodeon. Nickelodeons were small theaters where audiences saw an hours worth of short films for a nickel (Giannetti, 10).
The film begins with an astronomy professor giving his students a lecture about a forthcoming eclipse. After the lesson both he and his students climb up to the tower to a large telescope where they watch a male ‘Sun’ and a male ‘Moon’ inch closer to each other. The closer the two get the more suggestive their sideways gazes and facial expressions become. The sun licks his lips and the moon does the same; while doing this they ‘make eyes’ at each other. They eventually ‘eclipse’ and the moon’s eyes roll back into his head and he bites his lips in apparent ecstasy. The astronomer is so enthralled he accidentally falls from the tower and his students rush to his aid. They find him facedown in a barrel, wackiness ensues, and the film ends with the professor fainting in a chair.
We consider this film to fit into the experimental category because its use of gay subject matter. Homosexuality was something that was not typically seen on film during the silent era. We chose this film because of the implied homosexual encounter. It may be between a cartoonish Sun and Moon, but it is still relevant because it is one of the first glimpses of homosexuality on screen (Jess-Cooke, 20). The only film before it to have a similar context is the Thomas Edison film The Gay Brothers, directed by William Dickson in 1895, which featured two men dancing together. The Gay Brothers film could have been two straight men dancing for a camera test for Edison, its context is subjective, and so this is why we chose Méliès The Eclipse; the implied homosexuality is much less of a subtext.
This is about as risqué as it got in the beginning with homosexuality in film. As the years progressed, so did the willingness to experiment with gay subject matter and sexuality on screen.
The film begins with an astronomy professor giving his students a lecture about a forthcoming eclipse. After the lesson both he and his students climb up to the tower to a large telescope where they watch a male ‘Sun’ and a male ‘Moon’ inch closer to each other. The closer the two get the more suggestive their sideways gazes and facial expressions become. The sun licks his lips and the moon does the same; while doing this they ‘make eyes’ at each other. They eventually ‘eclipse’ and the moon’s eyes roll back into his head and he bites his lips in apparent ecstasy. The astronomer is so enthralled he accidentally falls from the tower and his students rush to his aid. They find him facedown in a barrel, wackiness ensues, and the film ends with the professor fainting in a chair.
We consider this film to fit into the experimental category because its use of gay subject matter. Homosexuality was something that was not typically seen on film during the silent era. We chose this film because of the implied homosexual encounter. It may be between a cartoonish Sun and Moon, but it is still relevant because it is one of the first glimpses of homosexuality on screen (Jess-Cooke, 20). The only film before it to have a similar context is the Thomas Edison film The Gay Brothers, directed by William Dickson in 1895, which featured two men dancing together. The Gay Brothers film could have been two straight men dancing for a camera test for Edison, its context is subjective, and so this is why we chose Méliès The Eclipse; the implied homosexuality is much less of a subtext.
This is about as risqué as it got in the beginning with homosexuality in film. As the years progressed, so did the willingness to experiment with gay subject matter and sexuality on screen.
Citations:
"The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
Giannetti, Louis D., and Scott Eyman. Flashback: A Brief History of Film. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Print.
Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. Print.
"The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
Giannetti, Louis D., and Scott Eyman. Flashback: A Brief History of Film. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Print.
Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. Print.