After Six Days
Summary
After Six Days, originally titled La Sacra Bibbia, emerges as a monolithic achievement of early Italian silent cinema, striving to condense the vast theological architecture of the Old Testament into a singular, breathtaking spectacle. The narrative trajectory spans from the primordial dawn of Creation and the subsequent fall of man in Eden to the cataclysmic Deluge, eventually finding its emotional anchor in the liberation of the Israelites and the parting of the Red Sea. Marketed with a staggering three-million-dollar price tag, the production claims a level of verisimilitude achieved through five years of location shooting in the Levant. This visual liturgy, preserved through a rare 1929 sound reissue, functions as a bridge between the theatricality of the 19th-century stage and the burgeoning kineticism of the 20th-century epic, utilizing massive practical sets and thousands of extras to manifest the divine and the catastrophic on a scale that remains staggering a century later.
Synopsis
Touted at the time as a "$3,000,000 Entertainment for the Hundred Millions," this Old Testament spectacle delivered what it promised, "from the creation of Adam and Eve to the parting of the Red Sea." The advertising claimed it was filmed over a period of five years at the "Exact Locations of Biblical History." Little is known about the actual production, which has puzzled film scholars given its international box-office success. This edition was made from the only complete copy known to exist, a mint 16mm print of the 1929 7-reel sound reissue.
Director
Umberto Semprebene, Lucio Flamma, Guido Guiducci, Mara Tchoukleva, Mary Miller, Scatigna, Bruto Castellani, Gabrielli, Alessandro Virgili, Maria Micheli, Augusto Giacobelli, Mario Cionci, Augusto Mastripietri, Ileana Leonidoff, Zuppelli, Ada Marucelli, Noaro, Lida Parshaja, Nello Carotenuto
