Century Film Project

The nineteen-teens was an era of memorable female images on the screen. Whether they were Vamps, Divas, or Damsels, whether exotic, matronly or sweetly pretty, women were the focus of much of the camera’s gaze. Coming out of the nineteenth century, when women were covered up with heavy garments in the West, the development of cinema in the early twentieth seemed to offer increasing opportunity for women to become visually distinctive, and in a silent medium visual distinctiveness was the key to fame and prestige. Actresses with leading parts seized that opportunity to display their talents in the new visual medium.

The women up for Century Awards in this category each gives a performance that goes beyond spectacle, however. Vera Kholodnaia became  tremendous super-star in Russia, in part for her role in “A Life for a Life,” in which she portrays the tragic character of a woman who marries a man she does not love as part of a “deal” between her lover and her mother. Florence Turner is more down to earth in “East Is East” in her role as a working-class orphan who inherits a fortune and gives it away to find true happiness in herself. Former opera singer Geraldine Farrar shows that her success in “Carmen” was not a one-time achievement by taking on the unlikely role of a teenage saint in “Joan the Woman.” Marguerite Clark would later influence Walt Disney’s vision of a fairy tale princess in her turn as “Snow White.” And Violet Wong stars as the much put-upon young bride in an unhappy marriage in “The Curse of Quon Gwon.”

The nominees for best actress in a leading role are:

1. Vera Kholodnaia, in “A Life for a Life”
2. Florence Turner, in “East Is East”
3. Geraldine Farrar, in “Joan the Woman”
4. Marguerite Clark, in “Snow White”
5. Violet Wong, in “The Curse of Quon Gwon”

And the winner is…Vera Kholodnaia!

Vera Kholodnaia had worked with Evgeni Bauer several times by 1916, including in them movie “Children of the Age,” which I discussed two years ago. And, although she had already earned recognition as a major star by this time, it was “A Life for a Life” that was her biggest success, resulting in her being dubbed “the Queen of the Screen.” And she truly shows her ability as a silent film Diva in this movie, as she goes from innocence, to happiness in newfound love, to betrayal and tragedy. In a real life tragedy, she would survive the Russian Revolution by only two years, but her funeral in 1919 was one of the biggest events of that year. We can honor her work now with a Century Award and still look forward to any more surviving pictures she did in the short years remaining to her.