#683) Civilization (1916)

#683) Civilization (1916)

OR “At Faith Value”

Directed by Reginald Barker, Thomas Ince, and Raymond West

Written by C. Gardner Sullivan and Edward Sloman

Class of 1999

Other notes

• World War I had been going on for two years by the time “Civilization” was released in 1916, and while the U.S. was still neutral, public opinion was slowly shifting towards entering the war. C. Gardner Sullivan came up with the idea for “Civilization” while attending an Easter Sunday service in 1915, and was struck by the divide between what was being practiced and preached in Jesus’s name. “Civilization” was in production for most of 1915, with a budget of $100,000 (roughly $2.7 million today).
• As with many an Ince production, the jury is still out over who actually directed “Civilization”. Contemporary sources cite Ince as the sole director, with Reginald Barker and Raymond West assisting, but I know that Ince had a history of taking more credit than he deserved on his projects, so I’m giving everyone credit for now.
• I assume Count Ferdinand is a not-so-subtle reference to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in July 1914 (along with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg) is generally considered the inciting incident for World War I.
• This film has great production value, I give it that. This is very much your “cast of thousands” kind of filmmaking that is still impressive to watch. Promotion at the time is mostly a rattling-off of production statistics, most of which I assume were embellished.
• How many movies claim to be the first anti-war movie? I guess being anti-war was a relatively new concept at the time, seeing as how we had never had a world war up to that point.
• They lay on the Christianity angle pretty thick in this movie. Surely there are other religions equally as anti-war? Also, the first time a character mentions their devotion to Christ, the cross on their clothing was designed in such a way that I thought she was talking about the Red Cross.
• The sinking of the Lusitania (which I covered in a previous post) happened early in production of “Civilization” and started the US’s shift away from neutrality, so it’s no surprise that a Lusitania-esque civilian ship is a major story point here. Side note: The battle ships seen were actually U.S. Navy ships, shot with permission over a two week period in San Diego. A whaling ship – the Bowhead – was dressed up to look like a warship and specifically destroyed for the film.
• Almost every source I read declares George Fisher’s performance as Jesus (billed here as “The Christus”) as the first on-screen depiction of Christ. I guess everybody forgot about “From the Manger to the Cross“, which showed Jesus on the big screen a full four years before “Civilization” did. Heck, it even made the NFR before “Civilization”. Am I the only one paying attention? To its credit, “Civilization” was released just a few months before “Intolerance” and its portrayal of Christ (billed there as “The Nazarene”).
• The peaceful protest at the end of the movie is described in the intertitles as “the invasion of the Capital”, which has taken on a completely different meaning in recent years.
• Jesus gives  the King what experts call “the Scrooge treatment”, showing him how the war is impacting his citizens. Jesus is the Ghost of Future Present, or something like that.
• Of course, the film ends with peace in the kingdom and everyone celebrating the end of the war. I kept waiting for Ewoks to pop up singing “Yub Nub”.
• All in all, my takeaway from this movie is that it definitely could have been a short.

Legacy

• The NFR writeup states that the film’s anti-war sentiment was unpopular with audiences, who “sentenced the film to death at the box office.” All my other research shows that the film was a financial success, earning more than eight times its budget. so I don’t know where this narrative is coming from.
• According to the Democratic National Committee’s then-press representative William Cochrane, “Civilization” helped President Woodrow Wilson win his re-election campaign (his slogan: “He Kept Us Out of War”). After Wilson’s re-election in early 1917, Woodrow’s first order of business was…getting the U.S. into the war. “Civilization” disappeared from theaters shortly after that declaration.
• “Civilization” was re-released around 1930, no doubt to cash in on the success of such recent WWI-themed hits as “The Big Parade” and “Wings“.
• Among those who saw “Civilization” was Yasujiro Ozu, who was inspired to become a film director. So if nothing else, we got “Tokyo Story” and “An Autumn Afternoon” out of all this.