The Night Before Christmas (1913 film)

The Night Before Christmas is a 1913

1913 in film

The year 1913 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* The Squaw Man, the first Hollywood feature film, is made.* December 29, Charlie Chaplin signs a contract with Mack Sennett to begin making films at Keystone Studios.* D. W...

silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

made in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

by Ladislas Starevich

Ladislas Starevich

Vladislav Starevich , born Władysław Starewicz , was a Russian and French stop-motion animator who used insects and other animals as his protagonists...

, based on the tale of the same name

Christmas Eve (Gogol)

Christmas Eve , literally translated The Night Before Christmas, is the first story in the second volume of the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol.-Plot:...

by Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

. Unlike most of Starevich's films, it is mainly live-action.

Plot

The plot is, on the whole, close to Gogol's classic tale.

The action is set in a Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

stanitsa
Stanitsa
Stanitsa is a village inside a Cossack host . Stanitsas were the primary unit of Cossack hosts.Historically, the stanitsa was a unit of economic and political organisation of the Cossack peoples primarily in the southern regions of the Russian Empire.Much of the land was held in common by the...

.
On Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

, a minor demon

Demon

call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

arrives to a local witch called Solokha. They both ride on the witch's broom, after which the demon steals the Moon and hides in an old rag. In the ensuing darkness, some inebriated

Drunkenness

Alcohol intoxication is a physiological state that occurs when a person has a high level of ethanol in his or her blood....

Cossack

s can't find their way to a shinok (tavern

Tavern

A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....

) and decide to go home. One by one, they each come to visit Soloha, who hides each one (starting from the demon) in bags so that none of them see each other.

At the same time, Solokha's son Vakula the Metalsmith

Smith (metalwork)

A metalsmith, often shortened to smith, is a person involved in making metal objects. In contemporary use a metalsmith is a person who uses metal as a material, uses traditional metalsmithing techniques , whose work thematically relates to the practice or history of the practice, or who engages in...

(P. Lopukhin), tries to woo the beauty Oksana (Olga Obolenskaya), but she laughs at him and demands that he find her the shoes which the Tsarina wears. Vakula goes to Soloha in sadness, but upon coming there sees the bags and decides to take them to the forge

Forge

A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...

. Getting tired along the way, he leaves the heaviest bags on the street, which are picked up by a caroling

Koleda

Kolyada or koleda is an ancient Slavic winter ritual celebrating the Old New Year. It was later incorporated into Christmas. The word is still used in modern Belarusian , Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian, Slovak...

company. Vakula, who is left only with the bag containing the demon, goes to Patsyuk, a sorcerer

Magician (fantasy)

A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...

, to ask him how to find a demon - only with the help of a demon can he hope to get Tsarina's shoes.

The Patsyuk answers that a person should not search for a demon if he has a demon behind his back. Vakula takes it as some kind of a murky wise say, but indeed eventually finds the demon in the bag and forces him to take him to St. Petersburg. There, Prince Potemkin takes him for an ambassador of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and gives him Tsarina's shoes. The demon takes Vakula home and Vakula lets him go. Oksana agrees to marry Vakula.

Significance

The first time that an adaptation of The Night Before Christmas was filmed which was true to the letter and spirit of the original.
In this film Ladislas Starevich combined in one scene live action and stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. This occurs in the scene with the hopping galushkis
Halušky
Halušky are a traditional variety of thick, soft noodles or dumplings cooked in the Central and Eastern European cuisines .They are irregular in shape...

at Patsyuk's place, and in the scene where the demon shrinks and hides in Vakula's pocket.

Critical reaction

From the journal "Kino-theatre and life" («Кино-театр и жизнь», 1913, № 2):

"The Night Before Christmas" (after Gogol) is a very well written and acted cinema piece; however, not without some deficiencies in the scenes of crowds. Of all artists, who by-and-large performed well, it is impossible not to distinguish the makeup and acting of Mr. Mozzhukhin in the role of the demon. The fantastic sections of Soloha's flight on a broom and Vakula's on the demon are not carried off well, but the spectacular trick of the demon's shrinking was skillfully done. This picture will have success in Russia as a live illustration to the work of literature well- known to all the Russian public.

From the journal "Cinematography news" («Вестник кинематографии», 1913, № 24):

Some scenes - such as, e.g., the scene at Soloha's, meeting the Stanitsa Head fetched out of the bag by Chub (a Cossack), Patsyuk's dinner and many others - shine with distinctively Gogolian humour and play over the incessant laughter of the public... The film is made excellently, including the minute details which create the reality of the Ukrainian life.

Plot

Significance

Critical reaction

See also