From the Manger to the Cross

I came across something really wonderful today. It's the 1912, movie, From the Manger to the Cross. For its time and even today it is an impressive piece of filmmaking. The director, Sidney Olcutt and his crew traveled to Egypt and what was then Palestine to make the movie. Olcutt paid a huge tribute to the Life of Christ art work of James Tissot. The details of Our Lady's clothes, the sets and  many of the scenes are Tissot's paintings come to life. Two interesting tidbits are that the actor who played Our Lord originally didn't want to do so because he thought  the new fad of moving pictures was vulgar and could never compare to the artistry of the stage. Later he attributed his survival of WWI to having had the privilege of portraying the Christ. The actress who played Our Lady also wrote the screenplay.

After watching the movie I poked around YouTube and came across this video which is captioned in French but beautifully illustrates Olcutt's careful attention to the details.