The Cameraman’s Revenge: the camera as a mirror of human behaviour as performed by insect puppets

Wladyslaw Starewicz, “The Cameraman’s Revenge” (1912)

A deftly crafted and delightful animation short, this silent film comments on human foibles as performed by realistic insect puppets and on the role of cinema as a mirror of human behaviour and society, as a voyeur and as a purveyor of information and news. Mr and Mrs Beetle’s marriage has been stale for some time and both husband and wife are carrying on affairs with others. Mr Beetle has been seeing an exotic dragonfly dancer most nights and Mrs Beetle has been chummy with a grasshopper artist. The exotic dragonfly dancer’s boyfriend, who happens to be a cinematographer, vows revenge on his adulterous partner by secretly filming the dancer’s trysts with Mr Beetle.

Mr Beetle comes home early one evening and finds his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto. He clobbers the missus with the lover’s painting and the grasshopper narrowly escapes being squashed dead by escaping through the fireplace and up the chimney and running off after a fight. Later feeling remorseful, Mr Beetle takes Mrs Beetle to see an outdoor movie. None other than the dragonfly dancer’s boyfriend is screening the film and he inserts film of Mr Beetle’s secret meetings with the dancer into the movie. Incensed at her husband’s hypocrisy and disloyalty, Mrs Beetle starts whacking hubby with her umbrella and he falls through the movie screen. He and the cinematographer get involved in a fight and the movie projector bursts into the flames. The last we see of the Beetles is in prison, where they vow to be faithful to each other.

In 10 short minutes, we have a complete and somewhat complicated little story of unfaithfulness, secret affairs, anger, revenge, hypocrisy and violence culminating in remorse and reconciliation. Sometimes people don’t appreciate what they have until they nearly lose it through their own selfishness and stupidity. The detail with which the insects are depicted as they perform human actions – they do them in the way we’d expect insects to, if they could walk on two feet – and the intricate miniature surroundings draw viewers into their little world. The stop-motion animation is obviously a labour of love, care and devoted attention. Colour is used in the film to suggest particular moods and perhaps to signify a darker, more complex change in the narrative.

Already at such an early stage in the development of the cinema and animation, director Starewicz uses the device of a film within a film to reflect back to characters (and the audience as well) their own actions, which may lead to an intensification of the plot or effect profound and long-lasting changes in the characters’ behaviours. The ambition behind the film and the energy invested in it are immense.

This zany little romantic comedy flick is far better than much animated product being produced with digital tools these days, and is highly recommended viewing.