The document provides information on two films from the early 20th century that featured prominent actresses of the time: Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) starring Sarah Bernhardt, and Cenere (1916) starring Eleonora Duse. It discusses how each actress approached adapting their stage performances for the new film medium, with Bernhardt retaining the theatrical style and Duse adapting for a more intrinsically cinematic approach.

1. Appropriation / Adaptation Sarah Bernhardt in Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) Eleonora Duse in Cenere (1916)

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4. A. To allow the close-ups would have given the camera the power to extract the emotional moment, rather than authorizing the actress’s body to project it. B. This “regally attitudinized death” is entirely in keeping with a film that every turn denies its film-ness. Thus Bernhardt resists making the performance medially transparent by subordinating herself to film’s naturalistic aesthetic and simply disappearing; in salvaging the theatrical she retains what Bolter and Grusin refer to as the medium’s “hypermediacy” – essentially, the continuing visibility of film as a secondary medium through which theater (as the orginary medium) is mediated. It is only in the hypermediated mode that the performer’s autonomy survives erasure. Thus she appropriated the film in theatrical way.

5. Cenere Directed by Febo Mari Produced by Arturo Ambrosio Written by Febo Mari, Eleonora Duse Starring Eleonora Duse , Febo Mari Cinematography Eugenio Bava Distributed by The Ambrosio Film Co. Release date(s) 1916 (Italy) Running time 38 minutes Country Italy

6. A devoted filmgoer, she was convinced also that films were not living up to their artistic potential, and she began to conceive of possible film projcts for herself. I want to do nothing that resembles, even remotely, my work of the past. We never see her opening her mouth, and the lines assigned to her appear as if they were mental projections of her will This strategy of indirection was used also by Griffith in scenes of what Tom Gunning has dubbed “hidden emotion.” Duse found that she could not pull off the feat of reappearance. She called film making a “spiritual problem” and complained that she felt “detached” when she saw herself on screen. Duse adapted herself for quintessential film-ness.