Danse macabre
About Danse macabre
The Black Death is in Spain. Youth and Love meet at night, dance, and kiss while Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre is heard. Death, a skeleton carrying a violin, hunts them. Love swoons, and Youth cannot keep her from him.
Cast & crew
More about Danse macabre
Dudley Murphy directed. Adolph Bolm conceived the short and plays Youth, Ruth Page plays Love, and Olin Howland plays Death. Wikipedia says it was shot on a studio set, with lighting by Francis Bruguière, and advertised as the first dance film synchronized to a sound score.
Themes
Look
Francis Bruguière is credited with the lighting on a studio set.
Technique
Animation by F.A.A. Dahme is combined with acted scenes and superimposition, and the short was sold as a dance film locked to a recorded score.
Music
The picture is set to Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre and was advertised as synchronized to that score.
Notes
- It is one of twelve visual symphonies Murphy set to classical music.
- Commercial house F.A.A. Dahme supplied animation, and the film also uses superimposition.
- Wikidata lists the genres horror, silent, and dance, and a running time of 8 minutes.
- The catalog leaves open whether Love is doomed. The Wikipedia plot stops at her swoon.
Scenes
- Death pursues the dancing couple with a violin as Love collapses.
Influenced by
- Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Danse Macabre.webm)
