Parsifal (1904 film)
8 /10 1 Votes
Duration Director Edwin S Porter Producer Thomas Edison | Genre Drama, Short Initial release October 13, 1904 (USA) Running time 25 minutes Cinematography Edwin S. Porter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cast Adelaide Fitz-Allen, Robert Whittier Related Edwin S. Porter movies Similar The Evil Forest, Life of an American Fireman, King Arthur Was a Gentleman |
Parsifal is a 1904 American silent film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company and directed by Edwin S. Porter. It is based on the 1882 opera Parsifal by Richard Wagner, and stars Adelaide Fitz-Allen as Kundry and Robert Whittier as Parsifal.
Production and release
In 1903, Wagner's widow unsuccessfully attempted to stop a performance of Parsifal by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, causing great scandal. In 1904, Harley Merry acquired the motion picture rights and brought on Porter and Edison. Edison had been experimenting with ways to combine silent films with recorded music. Porter's version of Parsifal employed Edison's Kinetophone, "a primitive, synchronized sound-mix device, but this machine does not represent the era of silent film, since it had a short life with no great success."
Despite a strong advertising campaign, sales were modest.
References
Parsifal (1904 film) WikipediaParsifal (1904 film) themoviedb.org Parsifal (1904 film) IMDb