“Madame Butterfly is one of the most stable archetypes of this century, but when the character was brought to life she was surely not yet dated. This character represented a temporary image of the rapport in progress between Japan and the West in that period. Butterfly represented one of the aspects of interest in the Japanese culture born in Europe and the United States in the second half of the 1800’s. Following the so-called ‘opening’ of Japan in 1860, westerners were finally able to travel to this archipelago. Adventurers, scientists and merchants visited the country and wrote tales about their experiences. Japanese handcrafts were imported in Europe causing a revolution, especially among the artists. There was now another concept of perspective and framing, new printing techniques and tasteful decoration of porcelain as well as works in lacquer, all of which caused a stimulating impression. Specialized magazines were born, the merchants became rich and the travellers’ tales became bestsellers. In short, Japan became a tourist destination and a place capable of stimulating western fantasy and imagination. […]

At the height of this period Madame Crysanthème by Pierre Loti was published. Shortly thereafter in France, in 1892 and 1894, Crysanthème was given a new dignity: as protagonist of a lyrical opera, and as the author of a diary, respectively.

The libretto of the lyric opera Madame Crysanthème, based on Loti’s tale, was written by Georges Hartmann and André Alexandre. The music was written by André Messager, the famous French composer and orchestra director. Though popular at the beginning of this century, the opera was quickly forgotten.

In 1876 Félix Régamey visited Japan together with Emile Guimet. In 1894 he published his work, Le Cahier Rose de Mme Crysanthème. In addition to an introductory essay and a stinging attack on Loti, the book contained the ‘diary’ of Crysanthème. Régamey rewrote the story of the marriage from Crysanthème’s point of view. Loti is portrayed as a clumsy westerner, a spoiled and obtuse husband that refuses to recognize the dejected affection of his Japanese wife.

After 1898 Crysanthème nearly disappears from the scene to become Butterfly in the tale Madame Butterfly by American lawyer John Luther Long in Century Magazine. It is not clear if Crysnthème’s ‘pink’ diary by Régamey was also known in the United States. The book by Loti was known although John Luther Long denied basing his work on Loti’s story.

In 1900 an American master of Victorian melodrama, David Belasco, worked together with John Luther Long to transform the tale into a single act with the same title, Madame Butterfly. Belasco’s work would also have remained forgotten theatrical history if not for Giaccomo Puccini who saw the London performance of the work at the Duke of York Theater in 1900, several months after its American premiere. Puccini was able to follow the storyline without understanding a word of English – an important point for a lyric opera. In 1904, with the libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, the first version of his work Madama Butterfly opened at La Scala in Milan. The first night was a disaster (an unsatisfied public, disturbances during the performance), but after several modifications, the opera acquired its definitive version in 1907, and it is still performed today with great success.

After the success of the lyric opera, the cinema naturally decided to take part in examining the story of Butterfly. In the silent film period – therefore still in the period of interest in Japan and its culture, in Chinese objects and in exotic things in general – the subject of Butterfly was used in three films: Madame Butterfly (by Sidney Olcott, 1915, with Mary Pickford), Harakiri (by Fritz Lang, 1919), and The Toll of the Sea (by Chester Franklin, 1922).

Toward the mid-1920’s interest in Japan and its culture went out of style. It remained as a reference for many forms of art, but it no longer constituted the ‘folly’ of the cultural elite. The later film versions of the story of Butterfly are casual imitations that play with the archetype that everyone knows.

In Germany in 1919, Fritz Lang went to work using Butterfly as his subject. The official title of the film was Harakiri, but the only print in our possession carries the title Madame Butterfly. This print, which was found in 1986 in the archives of the Nederlands Filmmuseum is subtitled based on the world famous lyric opera in six acts. It is not clear if the German copies ever had this intertitles at the moment of their release.

Fritz Lang’s Butterfly, timid and serene, is interpreted by Lil Dagover. The setting of the film has a much richer flavor than that of the lyric opera. The author of the screenplay Max Junck, in collaboration with Fritz Lang, is able to fit the story into the context of Japanese life: Harakiri is not only the story of the unfortunate Butterfly, a melodrama with an exotic atmosphere, rather, it is a work rich in sensitivity regarding the complexity of Japanese culture. The code of honor, faithfulness and duty, all typical of Japanese society, are traits that are also displayed in the secondary characters. […]

Fritz Lang is the master of the wicked glance, the alchemist of guilt and punishment to which especially the innocent succumb: Butterfly’s problematic character cannot be expressly defined and the film demonstrates this ambiguity in a strong and intelligent way. […]

(Peter Delpeut, Cinegrafie, n.7)