The Twelve Labors of Hercules
About The Twelve Labors of Hercules
Paper cut-outs, drawn like figures on a Greek vase, act out the twelve labors. Hercules crushes the Nemean lion, knocks the hydra's heads off with his club, and jumps the Ceryneian hind from a flowering bush. He sits on the Erymanthian boar and beheads it, pulls the legs off the Stymphalian birds, and washes the Augean stables with a river a god helps him open. He beats the Cretan bull with his hands, feeds Diomedes to his own mares, takes Hippolyta's belt from the Amazons, and beats Geryon. Atlas holds the sky while the golden apples drop into a basket. Hercules leads Cerberus out of the underworld on a rope, with a woman beside him.
Cast & crew
More about The Twelve Labors of Hercules
Émile Cohl cut the figures from paper and moved them like puppets. Gaumont released the film in France in 1910. In the United States it opened on June 21, 1910, as Hercules and the Big Stick.
Themes
Technique
Cohl animates jointed paper figures under the camera, one labor per setup.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- The American title is Hercules and the Big Stick.
- The figures are black and white, in the graphic style of Greek pottery, not stencil color.
- Cohl's method here is paper cut-out, which the French article compares to a puppet stage.
- A circulating copy runs 6 minutes 59 seconds.
Scenes
- Hercules hides in a flowering bush and leaps onto the hind.
- The golden apples fall into a basket while Atlas holds the sky.
