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Something New

Réalisé par Nell Shipman et Bert Van Tuyle
États-Unis, 1920 (fiction, 65 minutes, noir et blanc)
Autre titre : « Beyond the Border »
Something New
Image : Nell Shipman dans Something New
Image tirée d'un extrait de film dans Sight & Sound, 1 mai 2019
Vidéo (Internet Archive) [anglais]

Description du film [en anglais] :
« A lady writer, seeking 'real, red, and raw' atmosphere, arrives by stage at a Mexican border town, where Sid Bickley, her father's Blue Lotus gold mine partner, has agreed to meet her. Mining engineer Bill Baxter, driving a new Maxwell automobile, is also on hand, and both he and Sid expect someone more prim and academic than the attractive, vivacious young lady who shows up. She immediately makes friends with Bill's dog, Laddy, and he gives her the dog as a companion. Sid and the young woman then ride in Sid's buckboard to Yaqui Wells Rancho, where they switch to horses. Meanwhile, the notorious bandit Gorgez and his band of thieves raid the Blue Lotus mine, thinking nobody will be there because the miners have gone to Tijuana. Gorgez is happy to see that a pretty woman is there, however, and after leaving Sid unconscious, he and his outlaws take the gold and the woman with them. Meanwhile, Bill, who can't get the 'writing woman' out of his mind, decides to pay a call at the mine, but when he reaches the rancho to rent a horse for the arduous trek through the wasteland, no horses are available, forcing him to drive his automobile into the rough terrain. [...] »
-- American Film Institute (source)

Description du film :
« Something New (Quelque chose de nouveau) raconte l'histoire simple d'une romancière que des bandits kidnappent et transportent dans leur repaire dans le désert. Son petit ami, qui part aussitôt à sa rescousse dans sa bonne vieille Maxwell, doit faire preuve d'une incroyable adresse pour conduire sur un terrain désertique extrême. Le sauvetage s'effectue avec une facilité déconcertante, mais — comme c'est souvent le cas dans les scénarios de Nell Shipman — le héros se blesse et Mme Shipman doit elle-même réaliser des exploits de conduite automobile pour sauver la situation. »
-- Toronto International Film Festival Group (source)


Générique (partiel) :
Scénario : Nell Shipman, Bert Van Tuyle
Produit par : B.F. Croghan
Interprètes principaux : Nell Shipman, Bert Van Tuyle, L.M. Wells, William McCormack, Tom Hawley, J. Wesley Warner, Mark C. Hadley
Images : Joseph B. Walker
Montage images : Nell Shipman
Société de production : Nell Shipman Productions
(sources)

Notes sur Something New

Notes disponibles seulement en anglais : (sources)

Citations de la réalisatrice [en anglais]

« The thrice-mended Maxwell ended up with a bashed-in rear end, even if I did not. But this casualty was not fixed. At all the subsequent showings [of Something New]—wherein I brought disgrace on my profession by stooping to commercial advertising—that self-same Maxwell stood fenderless, paintless, battered, in the theatre lobby. An immmodestly lettered sign claimed she'd come through the Hell of the Desert and a Thousand Gun Shots exactly as she came spanking-new from the Factory! It was almost true. »
-- Nell Shipman (source)

« We grabbed the Maxwell bankroll [Something New ] because we were 'between pictures.' Back to God's Country was in release and doing fine, but my whack was a delayed take while everyone else connected with the picture was getting theirs. I had annoyed Mr. [James Oliver] Curwood and part of the management so I got it last. To make the room rent and keep eating we'd already gone out on the Mojave in the deep of a 120° summer and shot up an Essex called the 'Grey Ghost' for its having made a sort of blind flying run from East to West. The only highlight I remember on this one [Trail of the Arrow] was driving through a brush fire and finding out later that the gas tank cap was missing. [...] »
-- Nell Shipman (source)

Citations sur Something New [en anglais]

« Although Bill executes stunning feats of driving skill in his trusty Maxwell auto, the rescue of the 'Girl' from the 'Bad Hats' is carried out with ludicrous ease. The tables are turned, however, when Bill is gratuitously wounded in the head, and the heroine must navigate them both to safety through the performance of feats of ingenuity, bravery, and skill that are even greater than those of the hero. That this scenario is constructed around consciously ironic varations on genre conventions of the heroine is indicated by Shipman's foregrounding herself as enunciator of Something New: The film opens and closes with scenes of Shipman as 'The Writing Woman' typing out her story on her trusty old Remington. »
-- Kay Armatage (source)

« Something New is charming as a comic melodrama and interesting as an industrial project. Its interest exceeds these rubrics, however, for Shipman here foregrounds her authorial voice. »
-- Kay Armatage (source)

« The fact that [in Something New] Nell Shipman cast herself in the role of the woman who writes the film's story points to the level of the film's production. In other words, if her previous starring role of the wife of a writer is taken into account, as well as the erasure of her contribution as a scenarist to Back to God's Country, her self-casting could likewise be thought of as an unabashed and even confrontational gesture. Considering that she was the producer-scenarist and star, the film seems to have been not only a promotional item for a brand of car, but also an act of self-promotion on the part of Nell Shipman. »
-- Annette Förster (source)

« Lou H. Rose, who sells Chalmers and Maxwells, opened most of his space for seats for spectators of a motion picture, Something New, featuring Nell Shipman and the Maxwell car. The film was shown every hour, and capacity of 200 was filled at every showing. Rose estimates that more than 10,000 persons saw the film. »
-- Motor Age (source)

« Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the film [Something New] is the way in which the automobile emerges as a quasi-subjective companion and lover whose relationship with the woman soon displaces the male hero to the visual and narrative margins. »
-- Jennifer Parchesky (source)

« The film [Something New] was financed by the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company and, as such, has been dismissed by some critics as merely an extended and somewhat melodramatic commercial for the off-road capacities of the Maxwell automobile. But [Nell] Shipman's collaboration with the automaker represents less a capitulation of art to commerce than a strategic alliance enabling her independence from the equally commercial and increasingly patriarchal studio system. »
-- Jennifer Parchesky (source)

« The film's final intertitle states in all caps: 'THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW.' A close-up follows of [Nell] Shipman looking directly at us laughing at the camera. One cannot help but feel this is a not-so-veiled reference about her own positionality in filmmaking and the way in which Something New asserts female agency in multiple ways: in the Western narrative where Shipman helps save the day; in the metanarrative where Shipman types up the story we just watched; and implicitly in Shipman's partnership with [Bert] Van Tuyle behind the camera in creating the story in the first place. »
-- Chris Robé (source)

« The opening image [of Something New] shows a woman sitting under a tree. The decor, which includes Navajo rugs, a tent and a holstered gun, suggests that most masculine of genres, the western. The woman, positioned behind a table containing a typewriter, is staring into the distance. After a few seconds of silent contemplation, she begins typing, but breaks off almost immediately, glances miserably at the page before her, and places her elbows on the table, arranging her hands on either side of her head in a manner indicating frustration. The first intertitle appears at this point: 'A Lady in search of an Inspiration. ... Nell Shipman.' »
-- Brad Stevens (source)

Bibliographie sur Something New

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