Tag Archives: Madame Butterfly film

Madame Butterfly (1915 silent film)

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  • Madame Butterfly (1915 silent film)

2/1/22 (Tues)

I realized after writing about the Fritz Lang Butterfly that I never posted this review of the older silent version of the opera. I found this film by chance online when doing research for my Kabuki version of Butterfly [which finally debuted in Dec 2024]. The only names I recognized were Mary Pickford in the title role and David Burton as a Japanese prince who wants to marry her – casting that wouldn’t go over well today.

The story is taken broadly from the opera but changed in significant ways. The biggest difference is that Butterfly is not a geisha for hire but the daughter of a well-to-do family, which changes the dynamics considerably. Continue reading →

Fritz Lang’s Harakiri / Madame Butterfly (1918 silent film)

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  • Fritz Lang’s Harakiri / Madame Butterfly 

11/24/24 (Sun)

I was surprised to find a foreign film called Harakiri at all given Kobayashi Masaki’s masterwork by the same English title, but this was in fact a silent German film made in 1918, when Europe was still in the midst of its Japonisme boom. On top of that, it’s based explicitly on Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, which debuted just a few years earlier (the US release used the opera title rather than the more sensational German title). It follows a US silent Butterfly film with Mary Pickford by just three years and is one of the earliest surviving works by the great Fritz Lang. I initially watched a poorly preserved hour-long version online but found a better 90-minute version the next day and re-watched it.

Continue reading →