DAVID ET GOLIATH (1910)
aka David and Goliath
Article 5197 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-3-2016
Directed by Henri Andreani
Featuring Berthe Bovy
Country: France
What it is: Biblical rock slinging

Young shepherd David fights a battle with the giant Goliath.

Well, it’s time for another edition of “Dave grousing about some technical detail of a movie that everyone else seems to accept”, but I’ll just fall back on the defense that I’m covering these movies due to their fantastic content. And, in the case of the David and Goliath story, the fantastic content is the presence of a giant. Now, when you promise me a “giant” and offer me no more than a big man whose size is within the bounds of normal human variation… well, maybe I can understand the difficulties of offering me a REAL giant in a film like this, but I’m still not only going to be disappointed, but I will point out that it severely defantasticizes the fantastic content of the concept. Nor do I really understand the strategy of using “Peter Pan” casting (having an actress portray a young man) for the role of David; you’re telling me they couldn’t find a slight young man able to pull off the thespic load of this role? Still, I’d put up with that if they’d given me a REAL giant. As it is, it’s a pretty standard silent short treatment of the familiar story, and I suppose it accomplishes what it sets out to do. For the record, though, my favorite scene is when David demonstrates his slingshot prowess against an eagle in the first scene.