User Reviews

Ancient Greek philosopher Phillips Smalley succeeds in creating a concoction that will turn flesh to stone He tests it out by adding the liquid to a small pool on his property and dipping a rabbit in it, then hurries back to his laboratory to work some more on it. When his wife, Lois Weber and his friend come in, he orders them out so he can get on with his work. The friend tries to kiss Miss Weber and she falls into the pool.

Uh-oh! It's not much of a sensible story, since it's a terrible waste of a tasty rabbit and, even worse, a beautiful woman. I prefer to think that this was an experimental film for the couple who would become two of the biggest directors of the mid-teens -- particularly Miss Weber. It's a good exercise in cutting and editing within the camera to have these objects seem to transform from a living to a static condition, and vice versa. The result is worth watching, but for historical purposes, rather than its own excellence.

This is an interesting one, "From Death to Life," or at least it may be read in interesting ways given that the meaning of its Ancient Greek fantastic morality tale of turning flesh to stone is largely left for the spectator to make of it what they will. Directed as it was by Lois Weber, who would go on to prove herself one of the most intelligent filmmakers of her day, would suggest that there's more to it than the superficial appearance of a costume drama mixed with a poor trick film, of the substitution-splices required for the flesh-to-stone potion.

The more obvious lesson here given that the inventor's potion ends up turning his own wife into a statue would be on the objectification of women, which becomes literal in this case. The film is too primitive, and given that Weber is behind and in front of the camera here, to attribute any commentary of the cinematic male gaze, but the social commentary may remain. Indeed, the wife finds herself ignored by her husband and the victim of another man's rapacious advances before becoming petrified. As Shelley Stamp says (in her book "Lois Weber in Early Hollywood"), it's "a lesson about the dangers of ignoring a feminine point of view, here associated with compassion, humanity and respect for the powers of creation."

The more interesting potential meaning of the objectification methinks is cinematically reflexive. The inventor's potion, after all, is represented specifically by a filmic trick, of stopping the camera and editing the film to substitute flesh for stone, or to avoid stunt work for Weber being pushed into the fountain pool. Thus, it's film that turns flesh to stone, that objectifies the living. This is precisely what happens when a series of still photographs are taken for movies--the living in front of the camera are ossified on the film strip. The metaphor of film-as-death realized. This proves to be only temporary, however, as when film is projected, the still photographs come back to life and movement. Life, death, and rebirth, and so it's the same in the story here.

Right from the start it would appear, as this is the earliest film I've seen of Weber's, she was employing what would become a reoccurring theme in her oeuvre, of delivering moral and societal messages through often reflexive art. The next available such film of hers to see, "Fine Feathers" (1912) does likewise and more explicitly with the art of painting, and it continues through her best features, including "Hypocrites" (1915) and "Too Wise Wives" (1921). Eventually, the social commentary would become blunter than here, but graciously, the art of Weber's pictures would usually remain subtle.

(Note: the surviving black-and-white print of this one doesn't look as good as some of Weber's other extant and tinted films, and decomposition from the original negative was already evident at the time it was copied onto the safety film. Not even stone, let alone celluloid nitrate, lasts forever.)

The great fault of this picture is the impossibility of its situation. The chief interest in it is not what is about to happen, at any instant, but how the camera man is going to make the next event seems as though it happened. It becomes dramatically effective only after the chorine, Hermione-like, has become a statue. Perhaps this effective part might have been lengthened if the producer had followed the legend more closely, with Aratus's appeal to Venus after he fails to find the remedy that would revive his wife and with Venus's miracle as a close. Greek subjects make dangerous ground for modern artists of all kinds. - The Moving Picture World, June 24, 1911