Three centuries before Christus. Young Cabiria is kidnapped by some pirates during one eruption of the Etna. She is sold as a slave in Carthage, and as she is just going to be sacrificed to god Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by both Fulvio Axilla, a Roman noble, and his giant slave Maciste.According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze". Now, I prefer to think of the "moving camera" as a German invention, but I would be more than happy to grant Pastrone the epic.The film also marked the debut of the Maciste character, who went on to have a long career in Italian sword and sandal films. This is actually one of the most impressive cultural achievements, because the character Maciste became really has very little to do with this film. Whole studies could be done on how Maciste evolved.

The film that is said to inspire G.W. Griffith to make his Intolerance is a very visually beautiful film.The costume work, the atmosphere and the locations are very impressive. Since the lack of innovative movie techniques that, thought was invented, but not quite used here makes the angels very static.The lack of close-ups gives us a hard time to feel strongly for the characters or even give them the characteristic symbols we are so used of today. It also is extremely story-based and rely heavily on inter-titles. I like the story, thought it do have some flaws. The epic storytelling ain't good enough to keep us engaged throughout the whole movie and I think the lack of sympathy or the boiling feeling of tragedy is a big loss in a movie which focus on realism.I love the placement of the camera angels that match the background aesthetics. It's things like that, which make the feature enjoyable with the very basics of film technique.

1914 was quite a year. Charlie Chaplin made his film debut, WWI began -- and set the stage for a lot of what happened in the 20th century -- and my great-grandparents immigrated to the United States (sorry, I couldn't resist adding that last one).But that year also saw the release of Giovanni Pastrone's "Cabiria". This epic depicts the kidnapping of a Sicilian girl following an eruption of Mt. Etna, her sale into slavery in Carthage, and a Roman nobleman's quest to rescue her. It's like nothing that you've ever seen before.The movie has drawn controversy due to its depiction of the Romans as pure and the Carthaginians as monstrous (thereby glorifying the idea of Italian supremacy). To be certain, producer Gabriele d'Annunzio's ideology influenced Benito Mussolini, although d'Annunzio had no actual association with Il Duce.Regardless of that, the movie is still a fun -- and visually breathtaking -- romp. Maciste got his own series of movies. The ones immediately after "Cabiria" starred Bartolomeo Pagano, and then there was a new series in the 1960s.Anyway, really cool!

Volcanoes, earthquakes, pirates, fire sacrifices, elephants in the Alps, camels in the deserts, ships all over the place, a heat ray, secret messages in poisoned jewelery, the first film appearance of Maciste/Hercules in a sword-and-sandal movie: what's not to enjoy? It's just unbelievable that this movie is almost a hundred years young.Well, there's a bit not to like. The first time I saw this, I spent most of the movie trying to figure out if Bartolomeo Pagano was really black. I don't think so, but am not really sure about that. If he wasn't, then it is off-putting to have a white star in black-face (in his case, 'black-body') with real black actors as extras. There's that plus some anti-Semitism, not to mention all the fascist salutes. These were the times during which the film was made.The first time around, the Moloch scene is horrifying on its own, and...***spoiler alert***...you're cheering on the heroes as they save the child. The second time around, after more thought, it's the invocation to Moloch that's so incredibly creepy against the perspective of all the young lives that would soon be offered up on battlefields throughout Europe (including Italy) in the upcoming 20th century wars.The storming of the city of Cirta near the end of the film is okay, but one can imagine D.W. Griffith sitting through it thinking, "I can do a battle-on-the-city-ramparts scene better." He did, too, with the storming of Babylon in "Intolerance." However, he didn't have Sophonisba. She makes a late appearance in "Cabiria," but...***spoiler coming up***...her death scene ends the film perfectly. And she makes another appearance at the very end. Yay!It's still an incredibly good movie, well worth watching.