Art and death were often morbidly linked in Bauer's cinema, which shows the influence of the Symbolist and Decadent movements. In The Dying Swan, Vera Coralli, the exquisite ballerina of the Imperial Theatres, plays a deaf-mute dancer who falls into the clutches of a painter obsessed with the idea of capturing death on canvas. The remarkable film features Coralli performing "The Dying Swan," a complex organization of flashbacks and narrative voice, and a finale that is a moment of stunning necrophilia. Mikhail Mordkin, Bolshoi Ballet star and Pavlova's partner, adapted Aziade from his own ballet, originally produced at the Metropolitan, New York. The film, which unwittingly predicts The Sheik with an exotic Arabian Nights setting, is as noteworthy for the adaptation of choreographic rhythms to the acting as it is for Mordkin's own performance. The short The Fisherman and His Wife is a delightful adaptation of the fable, produced by Path?and directed by the Swedish-born Kai Hansen, who became the first Russianfilmmaker of note. The Fisherman and His Wife (Skazka o Rybake i Rybke). Kai Hansen, 1911. Written by Czeslaw Sabinski, based on the poem by Pushkin. Photographed by George Meyer. With Nikolai Vasil'ev, Lidiya Sycheva. (15 mins at 18-20 fps). The Dying Swan (Umirayushchii Lebed'). Evgenii Bauer, 1917. Written by Zoya Barantsevich. Photographed by Boris Zavelev. With Vera Karalli, Aleksandr Kheruvimov, Vitol'd Polonskii. (50 mins at 18-20 fps) Aziade. Iosif Soifer, 1918. Written by Vitol'd Akhramovich, Mikhail Mordkin. Based on a ballet by Mordkin. Photographed by Aleksandr Stanke. With Margarita Froman, Mikhail Mordkin, Nikolai Vashkevich. (70 mins at 18-20 fps)