# Black Pirate, The (1926)

### reviewed by
Steve Lipson

    Black Pirate, The (1926)
    A film review by Steve Lipson

When many people think of silent movies today, they think of archaic films whose narrative and stylistic techniques would be completely foreign to modern audiences. But this opinion reflects ignorance far more than reality. As early as 1915 with the release of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," the vocabulary of the modern feature film had become well-established. The ensuing decade saw still more refinements of cinematic technique; by the end of the silent era, one would be hard-pressed to point out any major story-telling conventions that had not yet been discovered. What distinguishes most silent films is not their strangeness but the remarkable closeness with which they match today's expectations; truly, the only foreign aspect of a silent film is the "silence" itself. Even the typical action movie of the silent era--like the Douglas Fairbanks vehicle "The Black Pirate" (1926)--reflects this unmistakable modernity.

I was very impressed with the technical accomplishments of the Albert Parker-directed film "The Black Pirate"; they clearly show how far the cinema has advanced in only a couple decades. Almost immediately, one can notice--at a basic level--cinematic devices that we would consider modern. "Black Pirate," for example, begins with an extensive list of opening credits, unlike most of the short films that only provided a title card without identifying the talent involved in their making. Also, the film frequently uses intertitles; after the first 15 minutes, the vast majority of these titles give us dialogue as opposed to exposition of the plot. This again distinguishes this movie from films made a couple decades earlier, and in so doing allows us to identify more with the characters. On a similar note, the camera has noticeably moved closer to the actors; using 3/4 and medium shots most of the time, the audience can recognize the characters and understand their emotions. Again, this is a big distinction with the proscenium arch shots of earlier movies, in which the actors' faces are barely visible. I should stress that "The Black Pirate" obviously did not innovate any of these techniques; however, they stood out to me as reflecting how quickly cinema had advanced out of its early and transitional periods (1895-1915).

But what may be the most surprising "modern" feature of this movie to recent audiences is the fact that it is filmed in color. "Black Pirate", according to a review I read, is in fact one of the few surviving movies from the silent era that was shot in Technicolor. The two-color Technicolor process involved was very primitive, so that the color will probably look disappointing to modern audiences. Also, the process involved was quite elaborate and expensive, so that "Black Pirate" took a lot longer to film than comparable B&W movies. The Technicolor process (according to the "Making of" Documentary at the end of the laser disk) required a very large amount of light, and in other ways impeded with the art direction and cinematography. Thus, many of the criticisms I am about to give can perhaps be forgiven because of the extreme difficulties involved with filming in color in 1926.

Though many of the editing traits and acting styles of the movie would appear to us as modern, there are some problems that may be leftovers from a previous era, or innovations that are not followed through. For example, one of the first dialogue intertitles shows a pirate speaking in dialect, with a kind of accent. This seemed to me as if it would be a worthwhile attempt to add additional personality to the characters, but these dialogue intertitles with non-standard English were almost entirely abandoned after the first one. Also, slight problems still remain with narrative continuity. The director and editor understand how to use implicit editing and time compression; we cut from Fairbanks on the island offering to capture a ship single-handedly to his beginning efforts of doing so without having to show him sailing away from the island and spending time on the pirate ship first. Nevertheless, I can think of one incident at least where the time and especially the spatial compression goes too far and is confusing. The last we see of Fairbanks after he has walked the plank, he is hanging out in the ocean at the side of the boat. My assumption was that he would try to surreptitiously get back on. In our next shot of him, we see him climbing up onto dry land and meeting some horses. How long it took him to get there and where he was confused me at first. The movie could have perhaps been made clearer by inserting an intertitle where he explains his plans, or at least introducing a shot that shows him swimming away from the boat, in the open sea or in the direction of land.

Also, the movie often has a too stagey feel. Again, the shooting of it in color may have made this inevitable. But the island is clearly a set, with fake (perhaps painted) backdrops and most of the action taking place at the front of the frame. Perhaps one cannot blame the director for this, for--just as there are scenes that seem too stagey--there are some scenes that take full advantage of the space in the frame, for example the shots of the soldiers leaping from behind and above the camera into the frame as they attack the pirates. (This is a point made in the "Making of" documentary.) Also, the action set pieces, while spectacular, often can be confusing because they're usually filmed too close-up for the audience to follow clearly what's happening. Somewhat ironically, given my comments earlier in this review, occasional long shots may have been nice so as to more easily see the perspective in which the action is taking place. But again, the necessary use of sets (and the limitations in special effects) may have made my wish unrealistic. Perhaps the film-makers did as good as they could in 1926.

So far, I have pointed out the non-modern problems still evident in the movie. But to some extent, any confusion these may have generated is reduced via the modern cinematic conventions that the movie does very well, for example in parallel editing, analytical editing, point-of-view editing, and audience identification with the characters. The parallel editing to create suspense (in which the movie cuts between rescuer, tormenter, and person in need of rescued) is probably the most obvious and, since it had already been close to perfected by D.W. Griffith as early as 1912, I will not comment further on it here.

More noteworthy is the frequent employment of analytical editing, in which the film cuts from a scene to a close-up of a specific detail of that scene to show to the audience the importance of the item in the close-up to the plot. Examples include the close-up shots to understand how Fairbanks escapes from his ropes before he walks the plank, and especially the frequent close-ups of the ring he is wearing. At first, the audience may be unsure as to its meaning. But the importance of the ring soon becomes clear, and the director repeatedly afterwards focuses on it perhaps to foreshadow how the identity of Fairbanks which it implies will help him in his final victory.

Also, the movie knows how to develop its characters so as to give them a personality and elicit audience sympathy or disgust. Character differentiation has obviously had a long history in the cinema by this point, but here clearly the process is used to further the plot and audience identification with the characters. It is important to early on identify the pirate leader as evil and Fairbanks as the definite hero. Audience dislike of the pirate leader is quickly accomplished by his revealing of his desire to kill his men to receive more of the money. Thus, the audience can definitely root for Fairbanks, whose essential nobility is also revealed early on by his permitting the pirate leader to get a new sword after he dropped his during the fight. The rest of the movie provides further examples of Fairbanks's inherent goodness, as well as character traits which allow the audience fairly quickly to decide which pirates to root for or against.

What impressed me most about "The Black Pirate," though, was its point-of-view editing. This could be the subject of a whole other review, especially those shots when we see from the perspective of one character looking down on another, or vice versa. (The scene is shot from a high angle representing the viewpoint of one of the characters.) In all these instances, the character looking down is located in a superior position to those in his view, and we can easily see the vulnerability of those other people. Depending on the situation, these point-of-view shots either fill us with a sense of menace and fear for the safety of the people in sight or provide us hope that a bad situation can be fixed. In one key situation, a point-of-view shot of this type even resolves some confusion created by the excessive close-ups in action scenes. As Fairbanks tries to capture the Merchantman, the audience is unsure where Fairbanks is in relation to the people he is trying to capture. But all uncertainty is resolved by the shot where we see (from a low angle) the sailors of that ship look up and see Fairbanks's smiling face as he stands high above them pointing two guns straight at them. Fairbanks's superior position (and their vulnerability) is clearly established, and this point-of-view shot enables the audience to readily understand what has happened in a key action scene. I remember seeing at least four angled point-of-view shots in the movie, and all of them are very effective in provoking audience reaction and getting them involved with the plight of the characters in the story. By 1926, the cinematic conventions designed to make movies a "cinema of narrative integration" have been firmly established.

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