The march begins… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Edition 44, Day One

In Pordenone we travel through distance as well as time, moving across countries and continents as much as in style and substance, all of this was so long ago and yet not so far when it is so near and, in the present circumstances, the straight raised arms of smiling school children in shocking salute still brings a collective shudder. We were watching the youngsters in Emilio Gallo’s Colonia Alpina documenting the hillside community he established with his wife in 1923 and which allowed children for poorer backgrounds in the cities to experience the beauty of the mountains of Biella in Piedmont; a tonic for those with breathing issues from the smoggy lowlands and with those casual actions a reminder of everyday life under authoritarianism.

 

We were in Italy too for the gorgeous array of shorts showing the coastal district of Liguria in north-western Italy. It’s a spectacular location with territory crossed by the Alps and Apennines mountain range and there are steep multi-storey fishing villages literally hanging off the rock side. Below are the brave fisherman and in these films from 1901 to 1934 you get a real sense of the topographical diversity of this country. Pordenone is also near the alps but is 211 miles away from Genoa and its an eight-hour train journey – all for only 35 Euros. Maybe next year?

 

Gunter Buckwald enjoyed his time beside the seaside on accompaniment.

Charles Inslee in Call of the Wild (1908)

To New York and three films directed by DW Griffith for American Bioscope as part of the Early Cinema strand, courtesy of The Biograph Project who have taken paper copies of film cells help in the Library of Congress for copyright reasons where there is no original film, and recreated some of Griffiths’ earliest work. Here we can see the bridge between Victorian melodrama and the emerging new media and it is fascinating to see the technical language of film developing along with the art of acting.

 

The Planter’s Wife (1908) was an adaptation of a stage play from the 1880s and featured Arthur V. Johnson and Claire McDowell as the hard-farming Hollands. Mrs H decides that agriculture might not be for her and runs off with the dastardly Tom (Harry Solter) only for her sister, Tomboy Nellie (the great Florence Lawrence) to save the day. Somehow. Romance of a Jewess (1908) also features Flo Law as the titular young woman who follows her heart and falls for a native American man (using modern parlance) with unpredictable consequences. Interesting scenario but maybe these racial types were easier for the director to work with? There’s more in The Call of the Wild (1908) featuring Charles Inslee (in redface?) as a successful college footballer who isn’t allowed to move beyond his native American heritage. This was the racism Griffith would handle.

 

Philip Carli handled accompaniment.

 

After America, then, well then… we all went to Hell or at least as far as Purgatory with our good friend Dante Alighieri… in Il Purgatorio Helios & Ambrosio 1911 then Il Purgatorio (1911). Directed by Giuseppe Berardi and Arturo Busnengo these were Helios Films attempts to compete with Milano Films blockbuster L’Inferno (1911) and it’s remarkable how similar on tone these two shorter films are with the latter feature? Just as Griffith’s sets would include the AB logo to try and protect copyright, so too was it difficult to prevent other’s copying and cashing in on bankable projects. The Helios films were cheaper, shorter and quicker to release – out first and enjoyable especially with inventive accompaniment from Daan van den Hurk and Frank Bockius

 

Signore Alighieri is still awaiting his royalties… damn it!

 

A change of pace and showing as part of the Ukrainian Children’s Film strand with The Three (UkrSSR 1928) featuring accompaniment from Donald Sosin. This film involves three lads from different backgrounds ending up in a Crimean summer camp of sorts with “hilarious/heart-warming results” at a children’s pioneer camp. It’s hard to ignore the context of the early Stalinist regime despite the film’s good nature it was still propaganda made in the first year of the first Five Year Plane which brought so much death and misery to Ukraine.

 

Now it was time for the opening night gala and it began as these things always should with a Boxing Kangaroo this time a live action/animation from the imaginative nib of Dave Fleisher in 1920. This was followed by just under a minute of watching Charlie Chaplin walking in his garden in 19157 and in glorious colour courtesy of the Chaplin Archives – Chaplin Family Home Movies, Mauro Colombis accompanied.

 

Linda Moglia & Angelo Ferrari - Cyrano de Begerac (1925) 

Cyrano de Bergerac (IT 1922-1923), with Ben Palmer and the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone

 

When Edmond Rostand wrote the original play in 1897 he had little idea that someone would not only film his work but then take three years of painstaking Pathe Stencil post-production to add colour. At almost two-hours long Cyrano stands almost uniquely as an extant colourised feature from this period and is even more remarkable on the big screen and with Ben Palmer conducting the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone. Sumptuous doesn’t do it justice and with the auditorium filled with these lush orchestrations of Kurt Kuenne’s score further illuminating a film that revels in its own excesses in full expectation that the audience know exactly what’s coming.

 

You all know the story but as with the 1924 Peter Pan I saw last month at the BFI, this follows the play more than most adaptations. Like everyone I’m a sucker for tints and this restoration looked gorgeous on the Verdi screen, but the story draws you in until the very last whilst the acting is so strong especially from Linda Moglia (Roxane) and Pierre Magnier (Le plus gros nez!). The cinematography by Ottavio De Matteis is also stunning and you really have to take your plumed hat off to those colourists: the film was followed by a mass outbreak of carpel tunnel syndrome which was only alleviated by the advent of technicolour… probably!

 

All this and I found a new record store in town… what a start!