The Dying Swan

A mute young woman betrayed by a lover becomes a ballerina, and a painter obsessed with death wants to paint her dying, then decides the pose needs to be true. Vera Karalli of the Bolshoi dances the Swan, and Yevgeni Bauer's rooms are deep, draped and lit from the side; the studio scene is his. Russian cinema before the Revolution, in love with its own gloom and good at it. Khanzhonkov, 1917.