Dachenverazhan on Film
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
In the days before Dachenverazhid films became widely distributable, a common sentiment developed amongst those film-makers who we now consider to be foundational to the artform as a whole. As second-hand reel smugglers grew less cautious with the profits they made from copying and selling films across the border, it became gradually clear to the authors of these films that appreciation for their work was more common in the nations that bordered Dachenverazhan than within Dachenverazhan itself. As one might imagine, this taxed the film-makers’ spirits greatly.
The most thorough illustration of this can be seen in Csaris Shariphar, a Dachenverazheise instructionalist whose work provides a rite of passage for fledgling film lovers to this day. In an interview taken towards the end of his life, Shariphar responded to the discovery that his work was well appreciated outside of his nation's borders by exclaiming, “If [I] had known there was an audience, [I] would have grown wings to reach them with.”1
Indeed, while Shariphar’s instructional films gained a cult following in Pencharn and Celvaz, Shariphar himself received little to no recognition in his home principality of Thu-Evresar. He died at the age of sixty-four, having returned to his cramped apartment after fifteen hours on set. Though he had retired from directing a decade prior, he could not afford to live without work, and so he continued to serve as a physical labourer (“grip-worker”) until the bad weather and long hours took him.
It would be another two years before Shariphar’s death was recognised by the broader film-making community. In a belated obituary, University of Pencharn, L’Chorta Dean of Cinematic Studies Giresh Laar described the loss of Shariphar as follows:
His passing is an event that will surely strike the hearts of all who have ever arrived to a late-night screening to find that, in a fit of sheer love for the artform, the man behind the projector has elected to defer the film on the paid-for ticket so that he might squeeze in yet one more yarn-and-plaster extravaganza by the late Shariphar.2
For comparison, the obituary that featured in Shariphar’s local bulletin (newspapers were still illegal in Dachenverazhan in these days, but one- or two-page flyers marking births, deaths, engagements, and the passing of laws were largely tolerated so long as they were seen as apolitical) in the city of Lohaiso read but one line long: “Cs. Shariphar, 64, was brought to his final rest last night.”3
Though unmistakably tragic, the stark difference between Shariphar’s reception abroad and his reception at home does invite a critical question for those who seek to understand Dachenverazhid cinema as a whole: how is it that visionaries such as Shariphar go so very unrecognised in the land of their birth?
It is this very question that drives a great many individuals into a passion for Dachenverazhid film scholarship. It is also, however, a question that requires a great deal of knowledge about the nation’s history to answer. In the interest of serving future generations of film scholars, this text seeks to provide an introductory understanding of Dachenverazhan, both in industry and in culture, within the context of its films.
Let us begin.
Single-Frame Photography
For most nations, the recorded history of film-making begins with the arrival of photography and the still image. For Dachenverazhan, however, the art of film-making is not born from the maturation of photography, but from its attempted destruction.
During the thirty-ninth year of his reign (3453 CR), Varenechibel IV Zhas—the final emperor of the Ethuveraz’s Varedeise dynasty, and in fact the final emperor of the Ethuveraz proper—prohibited the production and trade of photographs in the principality of Thu-Cethor and all imperial holdings.4 Though the exact reason for the prohibition itself is still hotly debated, his choice to keep the ban so limited can be understood quite easily.
Recall that the capital city of Thu-Cethor, Cetho, was also the capital city of the empire at large, and home to the Untheileneise Court. By keeping the ban localised to Thu-Cethor, Varenechibel ensured that all nobility within the Court, as well as those coming to or leaving from it, would not only know of the ban and, furthermore, view it as an issue that the emperor took personally. From there, the nobility who stayed at Court would develop a microculture of vigilance against photography, one that would be carried out and spread by those who returned home.
At the same time, provincial attitudes towards photography were already uneasy at best. Superstition surrounded the mirror within the kamera’s body, as the elvish god of death, Ulis, was also the god of mirrors, and the photograph, of course, did not age. This inspired a wariness that the incuriosity of the common man did not help. For all but one principality–and this exception shall be discussed shortly–the noble class’s inherited distaste for photography was like a lantern thrown into the droughted underbrush. Varenechibel IV did not need to ban photography outside of Thu-Cethor; functionally speaking, the people did it for him.
As a direct result of the ban, many of the existing photographers in Ethuveraz left their home cities, taking their records with them. Those who were already in possession of photographs hid them out of sight, leading to both the preservation of pre-ban photographs as well as their destruction. The exact year of photography’s invention is therefore unknown, though evidence suggests the creation of a prototype kamera in the year 9 V’nech. IV. With so many materials easily dismantled and repurposed, however, any hope of discovering an earlier model will likely remain just that.
The initial ban became so thoroughly ingrained into the noble conscience that photography became a technically prosecutable offense in some territories. In the forty-first year of Varenechibel IV’s reign, there occurred at least five cases in which an individual was tried for obscenity, the obscenity in question being the possession of even one photograph.5
Amongst these cases, two of the five did not feature living beings at all, and only one of the remaining three involved the subject in a state of any undress. Still, four of the five cases ended with the defendant found guilty. What unites these cases, however, is that each defendant stood before a noble-blooded judge and across from a noble-blooded plaintiff.6
Not all principalities were so heavily affected by Varenechibel IV’s ruling. Significantly wealthier than the other principalities of historic Ethuveraz thanks to the booming copper and silk (and later, airship manufacture) industries, it had become clear to the people of Thu-Athamar that their emperor needed them more than they needed the emperor—and with a northerly mountainous terrain which kept them isolated from the capital and other principalities by all but airship for more than one-third of the year, Thu-Athamar was not only wealthy, but by necessity mostly self-sufficient. As a result, the Thu-Athamareise nobility had come to hold the crown in far less esteem than their neighbours.
It was within this period of unrest that photographers took harbour in the capital city of Thu-Athamar, the far northern and heavily industrialised Amalo. Beneath the carefully turned gaze of Prince Orchenis Clunethar, photographers were able to practice their artform without fear of immediate arrest. The work was hardly recognised, rarely profitable, and always one complaint away from total erasure, but it was work nonetheless. More importantly, it created the foundation of what is now referred to as ‘cinematic language’.
Their studios, private and cramped by nature, demanded a spatial awareness that may not have developed otherwise, leading to the invention of the medium length lens. Additionally, these studios were best suited towards model photography, which enticed the vanity of Amalo’s artists and performers. Individuals of status would not dare to pay for physical evidence of their interest in photography, but those whose livelihood depended on appearance would find the practice quite convenient. It was therefore not the wealthy who supported photography’s development, but operaneisei and independent actresses.
Photograph of an unidentified woman on silvered plate, circa 40 V’nech. IV.
This is not to say that the wealthy and powerful of Thu-Athamar had no effect on photography. Though the nobility of the time did not visit studios or get their pictures taken, they did something that would ultimately set the stage for the history of cinema itself: conspire.
The reign of Varenechibel IV ended with the assassination of himself and three of his sons. The plot was masterminded by the final heir to the house Tethimada, Eschevis Tethimar, in an effort to overthrow the Drazhada. Ultimately, Tethimar perished during his attempt to assassinate Varenechibel IV’s unanticipated successor, Edrehasivar VII, but the turmoil in Thu-Athamar did not die with him. If anything, both of Tethimar’s assassination attempts served as a harbinger of the events to come, the degree of their success notwithstanding.
One critical factor in the initial success of what came to be known as the Tethimadeise Conspiracy was Tethimar’s willingness to work with the radicalised airmen of Amalo. Though this text is not permitted to disclose the exact details of how these airmen planted their incendiary device on the airship that carried Varenechibel IV and his sons,7 it must be noted that their methods could not have been carried out by any individuals of any other profession or social class. In short, it was not merely the nobility who bore the weight of Thu-Athamareise discontent.
The earlier years of Edrehasivar VII’s reign only served to further inflame the ire of both the working man of Thu-Athamar and his highborn counterpart, and this included photographers. Though hindsight allows us to see that the honour he paid to his goblin heritage—his mother, Chenelo Zhasan, was a Barizheise princess—would be advantageous in the years to come, many of the choices he made in accordance with Barizheise customs did little to stem the flow of discontent in the north.
For one thing, he was even more invested in censorship than his predecessor. The Commonwealth’s ban on newspapers began in Edrehasivar VII’s very first year on the throne, and was likely in reaction to public curiosity surrounding the deferred date of his wedding to Csethiro Zhasan. It was in his Zhasan’s own diary, published posthumously, that he was referred to in the following way:
M[aia] is so nervous that he can hardly speak. [His secretary] works so hard at keeping the reporters at bay, yet I swear I see him search for them as he turns each corner... It must be that he is thinking of Chenelo Zhasan again. He fears how quickly she was consumed. Whether he fears for his own sake or mine, however, I wish I could say for certain.8
There is, to this day, much debate over what “fear” Csethiro Zhasan references in this entry. Relatedly, the double entendre of “consumed” is so specific that some scholars wonder whether the Zhasan already intended for her diaries to be published.9 While it is possible that “consumed” here refers to the consumptive illness that plagued their lineage, the proximity of this statement to the previous demonstration of Edrehasivar VII’s feelings on reporters may suggest otherwise. Chenelo Zhasan did, after all, suffer greatly from the regrettable bigotries of the Untheileneise Court in her time. It is entirely possible that he associated the rapid deterioration of her health with the stress that life at Court forced upon her, and that would have to include her relationship to her own publicity.
Other authors have pointed to Edrehasivar’s care not to be seen as ungrateful to a father who relegated him to the countryside mere weeks after his birth. Opinionated newspapermen inevitably had to choose a side: Varenechibel IV or Edrehasivar VII? It may have been safer to outlaw the publication of political opinions altogether.10
Whatever his reasons, it is a fact of history that Edrehasivar extended the ban on photography to a ban on newspapers altogether. This ban would not only last for several generations, but would spread from the Court to the rest of the Ethuveraz–and to the rest of the Dachenverazheise Commonwealth–over the course of his lifetime.
To the photographers in Amalo, a ban on newspapers would also be a ban on their best chance at legitimacy. It was not yet known to the public, but several Amaleise newspapers were in conversation with photographers about whether photographs could be used in place of some illustrations. The art of illustration is not known to be particularly fast, taking upwards of several days to complete, and furthermore, a demanding schedule will wear down an illustrator's fine motor control over time. Photographs, however, could be developed and printed within the same day they were taken–especially when payment was on the table. As the banning of newspapers became increasingly fashionable in the areas surrounding Cetho, however, the possibility that photographs could ever be presented as more than a passing thrill for the young and beautiful drew further and further away from reality.
This did not, however, stop the Amaleise photographers from developing their craft. On the one hand, Edrehasivar VII held such a personal distaste for photography that many practitioners wondered how much longer it would be until, much like the ban on newspapers, Varenechibel IV’s ban on photography would spread. On the other hand, surrender is the fastest path towards defeat. The Amaleise photographers did not, under any circumstance, wish to be defeated.
It was during this time of uncertainty that many photographers experimented with the mobility of their kameras. The easiest solution was to mount the kamera on a handcart, but this would prove far too conspicuous for a public that still associated the kamera with a less respectable sort of crowd. Whilst some were able to disguise their carts with pots of flowers or herbs, this would sometimes result in confused would-be customers covering up the lens as they attempted to make a purchase.
Over the span of a year, a photographer named Ulkeris Zhikarmened (born in Thu-Athamar to Barizheise immigrant parents) discovered that he could reduce the weight of the kamera by reducing the weight of the medium itself. The most critical moment of this discovery came to him, of all times, during a fistfight with professional rival Renoret Nathomar. Though the purpose of Nathomar’s visit that day has been redacted from Zhikarmened’s notes, one detail that remains is that he entered Zhikarmened’s studio wearing a brand-new silk scarf.
In a state of mind that Zhikarmened himself referred to as “sheer delirium, ravished by [his] own frustrations,” the photographer smeared the silver-and-gelatin emulsion he used in his dry-plating across Nathomar’s clothes–ruining the scarf in the process. The scarf was gifted to Nathomar by a lifelong friend the day before, and Nathomar disengaged from the brawl in an effort to quickly wipe the gelatin away. In that moment, inspiration struck Zhikarmened.11
For the next several months, Zhikarmened experimented with silk as a replacement for the glass plate. He eventually settled on an artificial silk made from a starched and nitrate-soaked Barizheise cotton mallow, originally developed—of all the places—as a lacquer for manufactory-made musical instruments. This famously sturdy material held up to every chemical process that the development process required. More importantly, it could be wound up in a reel and stored inside the body of the kamera without damage or tears.
Once his invention became stable, Zhikarmened simply needed to prove its use. With a lighter, smaller device, he was able to find and capture photo-worthy scenes within seconds. When the kamera was not in his hands, it was concealed in a protective bag. Recognising the limitations of his own mobility, he created more kameras, which he distributed to the local boys. For every “commendable” photo they produced, they could receive up to a full zashan in payment. By the end of Edrehasivar VII’s second year as Zhas, Zhikarmened had a fully functional kamera, a full team of michencaloneisei12, and a proposal for the Amaleise newspapers.
It is here we find the birth of the moving image. Zhikarmenened’s new kameras could take multiple photographs in very quick succession—and he discovered that if the stills were uncoiled from their photo-film reels very quickly, they could even seem to move. The earliest footage we might call “film” is very choppy, at only one or two frames per second (by the time the first cinema stages are built, film has largely standardised at twenty-four frames per second), but it sparks the imaginations of the Amaleise creatives, and further innovations in the field begin to come very quickly.
Meanwhile, on the stage of Thu-Athamareise politics, operatives of the Crown had uncovered yet another conspiracy. This time, it was Prince Orchenis Clunethar whose life was at stake. His refusal to shelter Thu-Athamar from the policies of their new emperor left many to wonder how quickly his heir and cousin, Coralis Clunethar, could replace him on the throne.
In the wake of the Tethimadeise conspiracy, Coralis had been imprisoned at the Clunethadeise manor of Grivensee in all but name. His relegation was particularly tense, drawing private criticism from Edrehasivar VII, whose own childhood relegation had lacked the armed guards that the crownless Clunethar apparently warranted. Fortunately for Prince Orchenis, the investigations of Edrehasivar’s favoured Witness eventually culminated in the discovery of Coralis's hiding place and, by extension, Coralis himself. The would-be usurper was brought to judgment with great haste.
On the note of this Witness’s investigations, it is critical to note that during the search for Coralis Clunethar, the Witness in question, Thara Celehar, was simultaneously tasked with the matter of the nation’s dragonhold mines, allegedly cleared of dragons a century earlier with eisonsar, a toxic gas. What Edrehasivar VII intended by sending his Witness to search for justice in a dragonhold mine is elucidated by neither Csethiro Zhasan’s diaries nor any of Thara Celehar’s limited published letters. Regardless of his purpose, however, the message received by his detractors in Thu-Athamar was clear: the Thu-Athamareise economy was, in comparison to the emperor’s ideals, of little to no importance.
The trials for both cases—Ethuveraz v. Coralis Clunethar and 192 Dead Dragons v. Clenverada Mining Company—were held just days apart, during Edrehasivar VII’s sole visit to Amalo. Coralis was found guilty of treason on several counts and sentenced to execution by sunblade.
The only photo of Edrehasivar VII is, to this day, illegal to distribute in the Commonwealth. Taken at the precise moment at which Clunethar’s head hit the floor, the emperor’s expression is unreadable, the silvery-grey tone of his irises lost in the whites. His nohecharis and nohecharo stand behind him, still as stone pillars. At his side, Thara Celehar stares, transfixed, at the severed head which—thanks to the perspective distortion characteristic of the long-focus lens on the kamera used—appears to lay directly at their feet.
Taken from the rooftop of the nearby tram station by fourteen-year-old Lana Pershar, one of Zhikarmened’s michencaloneisei, the subjects remained unaware they had been photographed until the image’s publication in the Herald of Amalo. Though later testimony from Zhikarmened would state that he did not instruct Pershar to take the photograph—no small feat, when it required lashing the kamera equipment onto his back and scaling the roof of the Amal’ostro unseen during an imperial appearance—it was well known that the senior photographer held a very particular interest in preserving the emperor’s likeness on film.13 In any case, after developing and printing the photograph–or at least permitting these actions to occur within his studio–and distributing as many prints to as many sources as he could, Zhikarmened would go on to take full responsibility for the boy’s actions. Indeed, it is commonly speculated that this decision may have been all that prevented the trial of Lana Pershara. At fourteen, Pershara had an equal chance of being tried as an adult as being tried as a child; it is therefore impossible to know just how severely Pershara could have been punished. To Varenechibel IV, a rationalist, a photograph was indecent; to Edrehasivar VII, raised steeped in his mother’s Barizheise superstition, it was no less than a direct attack upon the gods and the immortal soul of the photographed subject.
At his trial, which was conducted in Cetho, Zhikarmened described his choice to bring himself to the Vigilant Brotherhood as “the only thing to be done in these circumstances.” He took full responsibility for Pershar's actions, citing his own regular enthusiasm for “pushing the necessary boundaries” as an unintentional motivator.14 Additionally, he used his trial as an opportunity to speak on the virtues of photography; on its position as an artform, on its short but much-maligned history. This may not have worked in his favour.
Imprisoned in the Nevennamire—an ancient prison beneath the Untheileneise Court—on a life sentence, Zhikarmened was likely intended to serve as an example: not even the encouragement of photography may be brought within range of power.
With the forced seizure of the Clenverada Mining Company and the closure of its dragonhold mines, Thu-Athamar was officially in crisis. The affected miners resisted the attempts to close their mines, sometimes with violence. The nobility, already disenchanted with this new emperor, were quick to recognise the power that they now held. If Edrehasivar would not back down on the mines, then the conflict could only escalate further or die down–and it certainly would not die down.
To the outside observer, the assassination of Orchenis Clunethar must appear rather sudden. By all accounts, Clunethar spent his last days in a tense dialogue with the emperor, determined to make good on the imperial promise to find employment for every displaced miner. Without transparency to these negotiations, however, all the citizens of Amalo could see was Orchenis and Edrehasivar once again colluding against Thu-Athamareise interests, whilst supply chains local manufactories relied upon came to a standstill—to say nothing of the miners. Prince Orchenis was poisoned at brunch with his Tethimadeise foster-daughters and his cousin Oreno Clenveraran. The Amaleise newspapers reported his death as a sudden, tragic coronary.
Thus began the Thu-Athamareise war of independence, an event that would affect the development of Dachenverazheise film-making more than any could have anticipated.
Early Moving Pictures
Toward the latter half of the war for Thu-Athamar, life in the major cities was grim. With the help of troops gifted to him by the elderly ruler of Barizhan, Maru Sevraseched (who was Edrehasivar’s maternal grandfather and had no sons of his own), Edrehasivar VII had successfully taken Zhaö early in the conflict. In response, Ashedro gladly established herself as a new sister city to Amalo, putting Edrehasivar’s eldest sister Nemriän and her husband, Marquess Imel, to the reveth-atha when they refused to disavow the Ethuverazhid Zhas—the first public execution of nobility in Thu-Athamar in some four hundred years, and the first ever which was not by sunblade. Cairado, meanwhile, found herself caught between her split identity as Thu-Athamar's southernmost city, and would remain a hotly contested territory until the very end.
At the center of it all stood Amalo, the unflinching capital. Despite the increasingly dire atmosphere, arts and entertainment flourished during wartime. The artists, already accustomed to a life of low wages, did not cease to create. Instead, they focused their attentions on creating more economical, more accessible productions. Those who remained within the city were, after all, either women or children or those otherwise unsuitable for the battlefield, and it is these groups whose investment in the arts is not easily shaken.
It was during this time that the calazhoän saw the peak of its popularity. Named for the inexpensive Barizheise-style eateries that still pepper the Commonwealth’s cities, the first calazhoänin consisted of a small cart, a box that housed the projector, screen, and film reel, and a ceramic or steel mask to place one’s face against. For the price of one half-zashan—the cost of an apple—passers-by could look through the eyes of the mask and see about ten to fifteen seconds worth of film. The novelty of these devices allowed those who invested in them to benefit from a passive income, albeit a small one, making them popular purchases for flailing families to set up and maintain together.
The most popular of the films shown in the calazhoänin were those created by Nathomar, the rival photographer whose silk scarf inspired Zhikarmened’s flexible film support. In the interest of increasing the number of frames that could be captured within a second, Nathomar built an entire second building on top of his studio; this building would serve as part of the kamera itself. In the ceiling and walls of this building rested several porthole-like structures, the shutters of which could be opened or closed by handcrank. Mirrors on the floor would then reflect the light all about the miniature studio.
When all the shutters were open, they appeared as stars across the studio's black walls and ceilings. For this, the building was given the name “Min Cstheiee”, a playful variation on the goddess of magic and the stars, Cstheio Caireizhasan. Short films produced in the Cstheiee include The Courtship of Dach’osmin Ashenin and Dach’osmer Trincseveisa (11 E’has. VII)15, The Maza (4 E’has. VII), Pair of Dancers (2 E’has. VII), and A Trip to the Sea Floor (5 E’has. VII), all of which are now preserved in the Library of Thu-Athamar’s Archive Kinemeise.
Gradually, however, these films grew longer, demanding longer reels. For reels, longer meant larger, and these more sizable reels required more sizable boxes to contain them. Eventually, the mobility of the cart became less valuable than the size of the box, and the most successful calazhoänin were those that could be operated in streetside tents. This was, however, but a temporary solution—too many tents reduced the walkability of the city streets, introducing fierce competition between the more established families. Additionally, the harsh Amaleise winters were no environment for a tent-based industry, encouraging these families to move their operations indoors.
As the fourth year of Edrehasivar's reign drew to a close, so too did the war for Thu-Athamar. To the surprise of many, Edrehasivar VII did not play his hand to its full advantage. Instead of marching on Amalo, he offered a peace treaty to Nastenet Clenverar, whose wife was the sister of Coralis Clunethar. With the late Prince Orchenis having failed to sire an heir, Clenverar was, ultimately, the next in line for rule of Thu-Athamar.
The offered treaty was accompanied by a letter in Edrehasivar VII’s own hand, characteristically terse: “It is clear you do not consent to our rule. Though we are able, we do not wish to rule you by brute force. We offer you a choice.”16
Clenverar could have rejected Edrehasivar’s offer. Familial pride aside, the treaty would use heavy tariffs and taxes to maintain some semblance of control over Thu-Athamar: if they wanted their freedom, they would have to pay for it, and it would not come cheaply.
But the emperor had not made an empty boast. Not only had Thu-Athamar lost Zhaö to Thu-Cethor at the start of the war, but the peace treaty was very intentionally offered shortly after the momentous loss of Cairado to Thu-Istandaär, with the Thu-Tetareise forces all but surrounding Ashedro. Recognising that his depleted armies could only hold out against the full force of the Empire for so long, Clenverar accepted.
As Athamarid Zhas, Clenverar turned his focus towards the nation’s ruined economy. The dragonhold mines that still stood—which was most of them—were promptly re-opened, and employment was returned to the miners who still lived. Limited remuneration was offered to business-owning families who had lost their fathers or first-born sons in the war, though the amount was understandably quite small. Notably, families who had invested in brick-and-mortar calazhoänin during wartime could be included in this, so long as they filed the correct forms.
The resulting upturn may not have been dramatic enough to lift Thu-Athamar’s economy into range of their more-developed neighbours, or even to their own pre-war domestic product, but it was just enough to lift Nathomar’s career to new heights. Fifteen individual reels, their edges cut and woven together, make up the total of Nathomar’s hit film Battle for the Zhomaikora (5 E’has. VII). Filmed within the Cstheiee, Nathomar's Battle features an army of brave little rowboats up against one large, imposing cargo ship. The magic of Battle is not only the use of close-up shots to simulate ‘reactions’ from the toy boats, but also the impressive use of wires and glass-beaded fabric to imitate the motion of the Zhomaikora river under moonlight. At the film’s climax, a pair of black-gloved hands reaches up from the river to collapse the great cargo ship–much to the delight of the victorious rowboats.
So popular was this short film that Nathomar was able to make an exclusive deal with the Denechar-Halomekhed Dachencalazhoän, owned and operated by two of the more prominent calazhoän families. Previously a book store, the Dachencalazhoän made use of its tiered floors to mimic the look of an opera house. The biggest difference, however, was ticket price—in an effort to get the industry back on its feet, the opera houses of Amalo brought their prices back up, now aiming at a primarily bourgeois audience. At three zashanai per person (and one zashan for children or those with a military identification card), the cinema was for everybody.
Within a year and a half post-secession, the first of the great opera houses fell. The Prince Orchena Opera, already on the back foot due to its association with the previous regime, was the newest of Amalo’s opera houses, and therefore had garnered very little goodwill with the public. Furthermore, patronage of the Orchen’opera fell to the Athamarid Zhas, who had neither the time nor interest to find an appropriate target of delegation. The building itself was not even five years old when it was abandoned, its former workers released from their duties.
The other major opera houses—the Amal’opera, the Silmar’opera, the Parav’opera, and the Vermilion—must have felt this shift deeply. If the still-glittering Orchen’opera could fall so quickly, how much longer would it be until the rest went with it? This was especially frightening for the Vermilion Opera, infamous for its daring and transgressive approach towards the medium. The director at the time, Iäna Pel-Thenhior, had spent the last few years focusing on how he could make opera accessible to the people. The years before that had been spent writing, composing, and producing operas that would challenge the wealthy and powerful; Zhelsu (1 E’has. VII) was a Pel-Thenhior work which started a riot and caused a suicide on its opening night. Now, he faced his greatest challenge yet: how could he keep his life’s work alive and relevant?
A friend of Nathomar (and, surprisingly, Zhikarmened as well), Pel-Thenhior’s first move was not to fight against the development of cinema, but to use its trajectory for the benefit of his employees. When not on stage or in rehearsal, the Vermilion’s singers served as models and actors for Nathomar’s short films. His stage-hands moonlighted as grip-workers, and those in props and costumes found their tasks easily translatable to this new medium.
Additionally, Pel-Thenhior struck a deal with not only Nathomar, but several other film-makers of the time, to “stage” suites of short films at the Vermilion. Every week, he would either select the films to illustrate a song from a well-known opera or, when it caught his fancy, compose something new. Though it demanded a great deal of creative output from Pel-Thenhior specifically, this bold mixing of mediums allowed the Vermilion to stay afloat during a time when opera struggled with its place in the cultural landscape.
In the fourth year of Athamareise independence, even the dachencalazhoänin were struggling to keep up with the demand for newer and longer films. Lines for ticket sales would regularly go out the door, and guests would complain of standing in line for several times the length of the film they wished to see. Fortunately, the hunger of the film-makers more than matched the hunger of their audience. The first feature film, The Airman’s Wife (8 E’has. VII) debuted at the newly-opened Silkmarket Cinema Stage. At one hour and forty-five minutes long, elven audiences would come to consider Airman’s Wife a short film, rather than a feature, less than ten years later. Still, its runtime would thoroughly capture the attention of viewers who had yet to see any film longer than the Vermilion’s half-hour staged suites.
Like the feature films that would follow, The Airman’s Wife would present grounded, realistic themes with the framing and romanticism of a wonder-tale. Unlike Battle for the Zhomaikora, which demonstrated very rudimentary editing, Airman’s Wife introduced the use of varying lens lengths to communicate the closeness of two subjects. When Merrem Norezho reunites with her husband, who has spent much of the film trapped inside of a recently-collapsed airship hangar, a telephoto lens is used to capture their smiling embrace. It is in scenes such as this that film-making’s roots in portraiture can be seen at their full advantage.
For a nation of people who had just gone to war over the rights of its working man, the themes of loyalty, duty, and perseverance present in The Airman’s Wife could not have come at a better time. For the next decade, the film would regularly return to fill out screening schedules and, as the length of films grew closer to those of operas, it would sometimes play before the scheduled film as an introduction. This success, however, only further stoked the flames of ambition. If the use of a long lens could incite a fever in the audience, what could colour film do? What could sound do?
The answer to these questions would not be immediate, but they would be well worth the wait.
—
[1] Leyve Farness, “An Interview with Csaris Shariphar, Dakhenbarizheise Educational Propagandist...and Father of the Pencharneise Horror Film?”, in Journal of Cinema Studies, vol. 6 no. 2 (3537): 6-7.
[2] Giresh Laar, “In Memory of Shariphar,” in New in Film #52 (3540): 2.
[3] Anonymous, “Obituaries,” in The Lohaiso Informer, 10.15 36 E’has. 9: 1.
[4] Varenechibel Drazhar IV Zhas, “Imperial Order to Ban Practice of Photography and Distribution of All Photographs Within the Untheileneise Court and All Imperial Holdings”, 39 V’nech 4, retrieved from the Electronic Archive of the Untheileneise Court.
[5] In chronological order: Duchenar v. Devenar, Aivanin v. Erenar, Duchenar v. Terezh, Pashavar v. Solimaran, and Doreshel v. Brovara. In Duchenar v. Terezh, the defendant possessed a single photograph of his deceased wife. Though fully clothed, Merrem Terezho met the gaze of the viewer so firmly that the photograph was ruled pornographic. Full transcripts of these cases can be accessed via the Library of Cetho.
[6] Lenaris Noranevrenar, “Class Disparity in the Prosecution of Photography During the Varedeise Period,” in Cairado Legal Reader, vol. 137 no. 4 (58 E’has. 9): 12.
[7] Given this author’s clearly negative opinion of Dachenverazhan’s censorship habit, it may bear mentioning that there is a world of difference between banning the reproduction of harmless, consensually produced photographs and the Republic of Pencharn banning exact descriptions of the means by which acts of terror were performed, potentially enabling copy-cats.
[8] Csethiro Drazharan Zhasan, Diaries, vol 2 (1 E’has. 7): 83-84.
[9] In general, Csethiro Zhasan’s diaries do not utilise poetic license unless she is describing her husband. She speculates on his feelings a great deal, sometimes going so far as to justify his decisions. While it is entirely possible that she was subconsciously mimicking the voice of the epistolary novels that were so popular in her lifetime, the tonal shift between the first year of her engagement to Edrehasivar and the second is notable.
[10] Authors of the Varedeise Period had a habit of publishing satires and other critical depictions of their late emperors nearly as soon as the successors were crowned—it was at this point the work could no longer be prosecuted as lese-majesty.
[11] The wording is taken loosely from Zhikarmened’s own journal: “My mind cleared. At last, Inspiration deigned to grace me with her presence. As lightning strikes the ailing tree atop the hill and sets it ablaze, so too did she strike me–and to my very core!” Perhaps today’s film-makers could learn to write with even half of Zhikarmened’s zeal.
[12] Literally, ‘little photo boys’: the word for photograph in Ethuverazhin is calatethenis, or ‘calis’ for short. ‘Cala’ means ‘light’.
[13] While Zhikarmened had avoided stating his intentions anywhere in the public record, this enthusiasm is corroborated by the reports of the Witness for the Michencaloneisei, the Witness for the Unaffiliated Photographers, the Witness for Lana Pershar, and several newspaper interviews with friends and acquaintances. Across these multiple sources, Zhikarmened’s interest in photographing the emperor is described as a sort of fixation on the truth. While illustrators and cartoonists could emphasise Edrehasivar’s Barizheise features as much or as little as they wished depending on the narrative they wished to spin, a photograph did not—Zhikarmened claimed—succumb to bias so easily. It is worth noting, as the Witness for the Emperor did, that ultra-long telephoto lenses such as the one Pershar’s kamera was equipped with were not typically used by studio photographers such as Zhikarmened—rather, the lens had been developed by a Merrem Pel-Venna, a hobbyist photographer and naturalist who used her invention to take daguerreotypes of birds.
[14] Ethuveraz v. Ulkeris Zhikarmened, 3.16 2 E’has. 7 (statement of Ulkeris Zhikarmened).
[15] The characters’s ‘names’ are traditionally left untranslated, but literally read ‘Madame Airship-girl and Sir Factory-worker’.
[16] Letter from Edrehasivar Drazhar VII Zhas, iron-gall ink on parchment, National Museum of Thu-Athamar.