The Emperor Nero sets fire to Rome, and Odysseus encounters the Cyclops on his journey home. This quartet of early silent films brings the ancient world alive on the screen.
The Films
In the early twentieth century, silent cinema brought the classical world out of the distant past and the schoolrooms of the elites, and put it on show for millions of spectators across the globe. Ancient Greece and Rome gave cinema prestige and a remarkable set of stories about gods on earth, murder, love, slavery, and war.
A short 1901 Pompeii travelogue starts the show, before the two dramatic centrepieces of the programme - Nero, or the Burning of Rome (1909) and a forty-minute high-octane dash through Homer’s epic in The Odyssey (1911). We round the show off with a cartoon chariot race!
The Music
The films will be live-scored by Northern Silents musicians - details to be announced.
A short Q & A with the film curators follows the screening.
Doors 4.15pm, show starts 4.45pm
Part of the Silents by the Sea all-dayer, including Slapstick Saturday and Battleship Potemkin. Each film can be booked separately and discounted all-day tickets are also available here.
Film Rating
Museum of Dreamworlds: silent antiquity films in the BFI National Archive.
NERO, OR THE BURNING OF ROME (Italy, 1909, 20 mins, Digital File from Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna)
THE ODYSSEY (Italy, 1911, 41 mins, Digital file from Collection Eye Filmmuseum, the Netherlands)
VISIT TO POMPEII (UK, 1901, 8 mins, 35 mm print courtesy of the BFI National Archive)
A ROMAN SCANDAL (USA, 1926, 7 mins, 35 mm print courtesy of the BFI National Archive)
Museum of Dreamworlds Project Team: Aylin Atacan (University College London), Ivo Blom (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), Bryony Dixon (British Film Institute), Maria Wyke (University College London)
Museum of Dreamworlds is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Northern Silents is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network. Additional funding from Morecambe Town Council.
