The Cameraman's Revenge

The Cameraman's Revenge
Władysław Starewicz
Written by	Ladislas Starevich
Produced by	Aleksandr Khanzhonkov
Release date	October 27, 1912
Running time	12 minutes
Country	Russia

The Cameraman's Revenge (

for its use of actual dried insect specimens (beetles, grasshoppers, dragonflies, etc.) as articulated stop-motion puppets portraying all of the characters.

"The Cameraman’s Revenge is a perfect example of young Starewitch’s unsentimental, unmoralistic style. The story is perfectly suited for animal characters. As in Aesop and Phaedrus’ fables, it is universal because its protagonists are animals – i.e. symbols. Mr. and Mrs. Beetle are a typical middle-class couple bored by family life. Starewitch’s characters are also good actors: The spectator has fun and identifies himself in the incoherent and very realistic Mr. Beetle. His acting is, again, a balanced mix between human and animal action: His human feelings are clear but, at the same time, his features and anatomical structure are scientifically correct.^[4]"

Plot

Bored with married life, Mr. Beetle goes to a nightclub and fights off a grasshopper for the attention of a dragonfly dancer. Little he knows, the grasshopper is a cameraman who follows the couple to the home of the dragonfly and films their amorous encounter. When Mr. Beetle returns home, he finds Mrs. Beetle in the arms of a young artist, another beetle. After throwing the intruder out, Mr. Beetle magnanimously forgives his wife. Together they go to the movies, and, to their surprise, the film being shown is of Mr. Beetle’s infidelity. Mrs. Beetle is not happy. The date ends when the couple gets thrown in a prison cell.

References

External links

• The Cameraman's Revenge at
  IMDb

This article related to a Russian film of the 1910s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e