Sarah Bernhardt’s career as a movie star

The movie career of Sarah Bernhardt, a celebrated actress of the late nineteenth- century, provides evidence of her pioneering role in the nascent film industry. An advocate for the joining of new technologies to the Arts, Bernhardt was mobilised across the globe through reproductive media. It was her feature film, Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth (Queen Elizabeth, 1912) which was particularly transformative. Made in London and imported to the United States as the flagship venture for Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company, this work evidences a reciprocal relationship between the nineteenth century stage and silent screen.