Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2006 Sommario / Contents

e Human Wreckage). L’attività dello studio fu ridimensionata per
riflettere più realisticamente piani di produzione meno ambiziosi, e nei
periodi di pausa gli spazi venivano affittati a produttori indipendenti.
Alla fine, John Griffith Wray fu nominato direttore di produzione dello
studio mentre Ince riorganizzava il personale rinunciando alla fine a
quel controllo assoluto per cui era celebre tra i contemporanei (si
pensi, ad esempio, a The Playhouse di Buster Keaton). La morte lo colse
quando era impegnato con le riprese di The Last Frontier (La valanga
dei bisonti), un ritorno agli epici temi western dei film 101 Bison, e si
diceva che fosse in trattative con William Randolph Hearst per la
gestione della Cosmopolitan Pictures, o una fusione con essa.
Thomas H. Ince morì nel novembre del 1924, dopo un party sullo
yacht di Hearst. Di conseguenza un velo di insinuazioni avvolse la sua
intera carriera. Su quella che sarebbe dovuta essere una celebrazione
di compleanno per il quarantaquattrenne produttore, presero a
circolare voci di un delitto. I dubbi circa la natura “misteriosa” della
sua morte – che fu tragicamente prematura, ma nondimeno naturale
– perseguitano il ricordo di lui fino ai giorni nostri. – STEVEN HIGGINS
Biography
Thomas Harper Ince came to motion pictures after a solid, if
unexceptional, career in the theatre. He was born in the Washington
Square neighborhood of Newport, Rhode Island, on 16 November 1880
(not 1882, as has so often been noted), the second of three sons. His
parents, John “Buzzfuzz” Ince and Emma Brennan Ince, were wellregarded
character actors and light comics, and for a time young Tom and
his brothers lived the backstage existence of the trouper’s family,
punctuated by vacations in the New England countryside during the offseason.
It is possible that Ince appeared onstage as early as 1889, but a small
part in Charley’s Uncle in May 1894 is the first professional role that
may be credited to him with certainty. Soon thereafter, he took on the
part of Young Nat Berry in James A. Herne’s Shore Acres, a landmark of
American theatrical realism, touring the eastern United States and
Canada for two seasons, with the famous playwright himself in the lead.
Working so intimately with Herne – a writer and actor little remembered
today, but who was a widely respected and beloved figure in his own
lifetime – had a profound impact on Ince, both by his own written
testimony, and by the testimony of his subsequent contributions to the
development of a cinematic realism.
From this auspicious beginning Ince moved on to a busy schedule of
vaudeville stock company tours, interrupted by an occasional New York or
Boston production. He appeared for two seasons (1899-1901) in the
touring company of David Belasco’s Zaza, worked briefly again with
Herne in Reverend Griffith Davenport, and scored his most substantial
success as the juvenile in William H. Thompson’s stock company. He
married Elinor Kershaw, sister of musical star Willette Kershaw, in 1907;
with the birth of their first son the need for a reliable income became
acute. His abilities as a writer, stage manager, and performer led Ince to
believe that his recent succession of light comic turns in vaudeville was a
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potential dead-end, and a certain squandering of his talents. He was
ready for a change, and in the autumn of 1910 he turned to the movies.
Ince’s decision was not without precedent in his own family. His younger
brother Ralph had been working as an actor for Vitagraph since 1906,
and Elinor had appeared in at least four Biograph films, under the
direction of D.W. Griffith and Frank Powell, during the winter of 1909-
1910.Thomas Ince did work briefly as an actor at Biograph and for Carl
Laemmle’s Imp (Independent Motion Picture) Company, but he quickly
saw that the only way to make a success of this new profession was to
exercise control behind the camera. Thus, as soon as the opportunity
arose, he became a director for Imp, taking charge of the Mary Pickford
unit.Within a year he moved to Adam Kessel and Charles O. Baumann’s
New York Motion Picture Corp. (NYMP), assigned to revive its ailing Bison
releases. He set up shop in the Santa Ynez Canyon of California, and by
1913 had made “Inceville” a thriving studio.
In 1914 alone, NYMP employed over 10 directors to turn out three tworeel
films each week, as well as several feature-length releases – all under
the strict personal control of Thomas H. Ince. He moved slowly but
certainly into feature production, releasing one long film per month in
addition to his regular schedule of two-reelers throughout 1915, until his
studio was prepared to supply the newly-formed Triangle with a five-reeler
each week. Although he was by no means the first to insist upon a highly
structured approach to film production, one in which technical and
creative personnel acted as parts of a well-oiled machine, Ince became
the most visibly successful practitioner of “scientific management” in the
early film industry. At the same time, Ince films retained their crisp,
uncluttered visual style, as well as their lean narratives.
His steady, unbroken rise from actor to director to production manager to
independent head of his own studio demonstrates clearly that, as Ince’s
career progressed through the 1910s, he managed to consolidate his
power with ever-increasing confidence, until by 1917 he could emerge
from the debacle of Triangle unscathed and in complete control of a
lucrative corporate entity – Thomas H. Ince Studios. If a filmmaker’s
success can be measured by his or her ability to meet and sustain artistic
goals within the constraints of an uncertain marketplace, then by any
reasonable account Ince was a conspicuous success.
With success came reliance upon formula. The irony of Ince’s career is
that, with the achievement of complete independence, his bold and
innovative style showed signs of strain. He always prided himself on his
ability to serve the public and its whims; thus, the late 1910s saw a
succession of routine Ince pictures starring Charles Ray, Dorothy Dalton,
and Enid Bennett. He assured himself of further revenue by maintaining
control over William S. Hart’s releases, though in name only.
Paramount/Artcraft, which distributed his productions, did little to prod
Ince into more imaginative fare, for the ledger books showed clear profit
on virtually every release. For the first time in his career, Ince allowed
himself to be lulled into complacency, taking his audience and the bottom
line for granted.
In the 1920s, as even the time-tested formulas failed him,Thomas Ince
sought new solutions. Financial backing, though forthcoming, was harder
INCE