Make More Noise! Suf­fragettes in Silent Film

Sarah Gavron’s Suf­fragette has brought Emme­line Pankhurst and her fem­i­nist foot-sol­diers back into the lime­light over 100 years on from their most promi­nent activ­i­ties. As a com­ple­men­tary accom­pa­ni­ment to this release, Bry­ony Dixon and Mar­garet Deri­az have pro­grammed a 75-minute col­lage of black-and-white, silent BFI archive footage of suf­fragettes in action. Min­gled in and adding wel­come dynamism are exam­ples of cinema’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions of women dur­ing that era.

A 1913 quote from Pankhurst sets out her mis­sion, which is con­tin­ued by this film: ​“You have to make more noise than any­body else, you have to make your­self more obtru­sive than any­body else, you have to fill all the papers more than any­body else. In fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.”

These are stir­ring words. They are an incite­ment to do the oppo­site of what women have been advised to do since day dot. The bat­tle cry is a delib­er­ate­ly puz­zling piv­ot for a medi­um that is silent save for a jaun­ty piano score by Lil­lian Hen­ley. There is a dis­con­nect here between inten­tion and result. While it is laud­able and roman­tic to release old film galore, the material’s inher­ent inflex­i­bil­i­ty mean that although, at best, it is an ener­gis­ing trib­ute to lib­er­a­tion-dri­ven women, at worst it’s a fusty old his­to­ry les­son that exists pure­ly because it exist­ed, rather than because a sto­ry­teller mould­ed it into a shape. To those fas­ci­nat­ed by his­to­ry or archive film or the suf­fragette move­ment, this would be essen­tial but to the casu­al movie­go­er it’s a hard sell.

This isn’t the case all the way through. A jol­ly pin­na­cle comes with footage of lit­tle Did’ums, a com­ic anti-author­i­tar­i­an char­ac­ter from 1912. She presents as a small girl with corkscrew curls, a lacy dress and a wide brim hat. ​‘Did’ums Did­dles The P’liceman’ announces the curlicued title card for her seg­ment and so she does, giv­ing him the runaround like a naugh­ti­er ver­sion of Ray­mond Compton’s cre­ation, Just William. The police offi­cer ends up cov­ered in mud. Fel­low offi­cers arrive on the scene. Didums hams it up as a scared, wide-eyed child and the orig­i­nal police­man is rep­ri­mand­ed. What a manip­u­la­tive ter­ror! But what fun she has! The twist is that Did’ums is a lit­tle boy in drag. But if any­thing this only adds to the sub­ver­sive fun occur­ring. It’s a thrill to see lit­tle Did’ums exist­ing in a lib­er­at­ed space and not being pun­ished for it.

There is much more to come in archive snip­pets tak­en from var­i­ous uncred­it­ed direc­tors. With­in the fic­tion­al realm, there are car­i­ca­tured depic­tions of suf­fragettes as har­ri­dans and in the ​‘Tilly’ films fun-lov­ing young women up to antics. Then comes the doc­u­men­tary mate­r­i­al mark­ing a slump in the nar­ra­tive momen­tum. Angela Lansbury’s politi­cian grand­fa­ther, George Lans­bury is shown as an ear­ly male fem­i­nist, a his­toric march is New­cas­tle goes down and we are par­ty to news­pa­per head­lines detail­ing the arrest of Pankhurst. There’s Emi­ly Wild­ing Davison’s trag­ic end and cov­er­age of what the suf­fragettes did dur­ing World War Two, a riposte to any­one who would claim that fem­i­nism involves sep­a­ra­tion from out­side concerns.

The Sis­ters Uncut at Suffragette’s BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val pre­mière is a sign – as if one was need­ed – that the suf­fragettes lega­cy is ongo­ing. It’s good that this doc­u­men­tary footage exists for those that want to see fore­bears in action. Title cards pro­vide spare con­text for the images scur­ry­ing across screen but as a whole the col­lage is more impres­sion­is­tic that instructional.