Expressionism… Fior di male (1915), Bonn Silent Film Festival with Cellophon

 

I don’t just sit here waiting for a new Diva film to be restored you know although sometimes maybe I do… Here was a prime cut of imperial Borelli in all her operatic pomp and with a collection of magisterial emotional displays only matched by her gorgeous and frequently changing wardrobe. Only in Italy miei amici and it took a German film festival to highlight that point. 

 

There's one review on IMDB that dismisses the lasting appeal of such "soapy melodrama" but this implies little awareness of the Diva cinematic concept that flourished in Italy in the 1910s and you would need a heart of stone and, frankly, zero fashion sense, not to appreciate the film. Flower of Evil is mannered, stylised, convoluted and skilfully excessive but it’s also – as with opera – meant to be like that, it’s not an accident or a wilful decision to piss off viewers a century later. 

 

Film historian and Diva specialist, Angela Dalle Vacche*, gives a very informed explanation of Borelli’s style and how she was not only influenced by Eleonora Duse, who she performed with, but also by classical art. The great Italian stage actor had a passion for simplicity and spirituality whereas Borelli took more erotic allusions into her art according to Dalle Vacche who also quotes art historian Robert de la Sizeranne concerning her clear debt to the Pre-Raphaelites especially with “…the desire to intensify the most minute of feelings sometimes... an obsession.”

 

Lyda Borelli and friend

For Borelli, acting was something of “a tightrope walking act between naturalism and expressionism…” and she was keen on using cliché to prick the audience bubble… as evidenced by a sequence at the start of the film where she holds a lion cub in her lap and shoots her most feline expression at the viewer… the actress “engaging in a camp deconstruction of the cliché”. Not a sex kitten but definitely one with claws.

 

So, fundamentally, the story matters less in terms of narrative context than in the provision of opportunities for La Borelli to show us her range of knowing eroticised expression. To this end Fior di male does not disappoint in the slightest.

 

As if to emphasise this relationship between story and actress, Lyda plays a woman called Lyda, a poor young woman who “lives among the lowest social classes”, dancing for the creepy men who pay for their pleasure. Borelli is shown lower screen right, her Lyda drenched in oppressed boredom, only just coming alive for the slinky show, taking a superior delight in the reaction she easily encourages; despising their petty passion.

 

A year later Lyda has given birth to a son but has to give him up not being in a position to care for him. The baby has a distinctive birth mark and, in her heartbreak, she knows there’s just a chance she might find him later in life. Things get worse for Lyda after the club where she dances is raided and she is sent to a correctional facility but, having hit rock bottom, the tough gets going and escapes.

 

Now the story really begins… as Lyda, exhausted from her flight, is found by the kindly Count van Deller who offers her food and rest. Restored she naturally robs him, only thinking twice when he mentions that the trinket comes from his daughter’s room, left untouched since she passed away. Lyda’s flicker of remorse turns into full repentance as she prays for forgiveness and returns the stolen item under cover of the night and there are some stunning shots of her guilty silhouette shot against a low sun on the beach – Domenico Grimaldi’s camerawork is fascinating throughout.

 

One of the great profiles

The Count sees Lyda’s good character and sets her up with a new name, Helena Simons enabling her to flourish as a tailor and then as manager of a fashion house. All the while she searches for her son and whilst he proves elusive other threads in the story begin to weave together, and at pace. The fashion house is funded by a bank run by one Bambi Rogers (Augusto Poggioli) who’s sister Fulvia (Fulvia Perini) is a trustee of the correction house where Lyda was incarcerated. Bambi makes eyes at Helena/Lyda and his sister suspects her of gold-digging before spotting who she really is and threatening to reveal all. But the Count stands by his new ward who, nonetheless, has rebuffed Bambi’s gifts and attention, she is no longer to be “bought”.

 

Nino Oxilia’s story being chock full of connected themes chief among which is parenthood, Lyda’s childless mother, the Count, robbed of his daughter becoming her surrogate father and Helena/Lyda herself adopting young seamstress Cecyl (c) as her daughter. Nothing supplants her desperate search for her son though, the natural bond is too strong and the search obviously will not be never ending…

 

Look at that for composition! Lyda and Cecyl Tryan

Things change when famous violinist Ruggero Davusky (Ruggero Barni) has a car accident near the family home and Helena and Cecyl nurse him back to good health, both falling in love with him without realising the other’s feeling. Once again Lyda must let her child go free and her broken heart is revealed in supple contortions of Borelli’s feature and form; her exquisite pain played out in lingering set pieces beautifully tinted in the EYE’s restoration.

 

The wheel of fate turns again and you just know the finish will be bigger than anything that has gone before. This is the unwritten code of Diva film, it’s what we expect and what gets delivered with skill and grace.

 

This was one of the first features for Carmine Gallone, who would go on to direct Borelli again in the darkly magnificent Malombra (1917) and to make films up until the early sixties. He uses his asset well, framing her in so many delicious set pieces combining lighting, design and the glorious costumery you’d expect from Borelli the clothes thoroughbred.

Lyda and Ruggero Barni

Accompanying were the Cellophon duo, aka Paul Rittel and Tobias Stutz who both play cello in ways that are emotionally resonant and respectful of the source visuals. There’s admirable flavour and restraint with both recognising the need to underplay when confronted by the operatic fireworks on screen. The cello is the most mournfully flexible of instruments and they put nary a foot wrong is musical tribute to perhaps the greatest Italian silent film diva…

 

Another excellent presentation from this year’s Bonn festival and I have completely run out of reasons not to go there in 2022!

 

Vielen Dank für die tolle sendung!

 

* In Diva, Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema by Angela Dalle Vacche (University of Texas Press) – essential reading with super commentary on contemporary acting including Danish diva, Asta Nielsen who, although not a diva per se, has to be the point of excellence against which all other performers are measured.

A real diva… Sangue blu (1914) with John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

Watching the extract from the documentary before the main screening, it’s hard to escape the impression that Francesca Bertini was almost more of a diva in real life than on film. Here she was at 94 bossing not just her grandson around but also the man at the Italian film archive and the man trying to direct the documentary: having performed sitting down she decided to stand “… the light is better…” and a re-take ensued.

Such presence of mind and command from a woman who had stopped making films 60 years before: what a remarkable energy she still had.

But as Amran Vance reminded us in his introduction, the great Italian silent divas were not always in command and would suffer for their art and our entertainment and he warned of impending struggles in the film to follow:  Sangue blu (Blue Blood).

Directed by Nino Oxilia, who almost certainly got assistance from his star… the film was thought lost until recovered in a Dutch collection and this extant 35mm tinted nitrate print has now been restored by the EYE Filmmuseum in Holland and it just looks stunning!

The cinematography of Giorgino Ricci captured rich depth of field for large-scale interiors built outside to make use of the external light – the Italians didn’t have the American’s lighting budgets. Similarly there are some wonderful shots of the Riviera and, at one point, Bertini making a break for freedom along a country road lined by trees with the camera pulling further and further away.

GIF from the excellent Silents Please blog

“Inside” there’s one especially noteworthy sequence when Bertinin walks in turmoil along a corridor with large windows to her left, her figure marches camera-ward alternating between shadow and bright light: she is furious. The tints are also wonderfully vivid: there may not be much camera movement or close ups but this is a technically accomplished film.

The film, also known as The Princess of Monte Cabello, is based on the unhappy marriage between Bertini, the titular princess, and her husband played by Amedeo Ciaffi. They have a daughter, Diana (Anna Cipriani) whom they both dote on, but the Princess cannot trust her husband’s feelings especially when he is in the orbit of the scheming Contessa Simone de la Croix (Fulvia Perini).

The spaces between friends...

After one especially fraught party the Prince decides enough is enough and sues for divorce. For a while the Princesses life carries on, as she cares for Diana and performs good works but then she comes into contact with an actor, Jacques Wilson (Angelo Gallina). She is to perform with Wilson in a charity play but, whilst one thing doesn’t lead to another, the Contessa makes sure that her private eyes make it look that way.

Appalled the Prince removes his ex-wife from court and, worst of all, makes sure she can never see her daughter. Cast adrift, the Princess lands herself with Wilson who turns out to be less of a man than she expected and soon bankrupts them both by gambling away their funds in the casino at Monte Carlo.

Wilson taunts the Princess

His only hope is to persuade the Princess to take to the stage and, aided by an aggressive money-lender, he sets about increasing her degradation until she is left with only one choice… or is she?

No spoilers as… a) you really should see this film if you like early Italian silent films and b) the Cineteca Bologna, together with Eye, has now produced a DVD version of this film which is available direct or readily available on eBay.

Bertini is a class act and whilst I don’t think the film is of the standard of Assunta Spina, it is certainly a fascinating watch 101 years after release. It also includes Bertini’s take on Asta Nielsen’s dirty dancing from Afgrunden (1910)… there are fewer gyrations and certainly no bondage but the intent is there…

John Sweeney caressed the keys with his usual fluency and between the Sign of Four on Sunday and tonight really showed his tremendous range and versatility: accompaniment suitable for the great diva!

There were also a number of special treats on tonight’s under-card…

Charley gets the bird in Movie Night

Events kicked off with a Charley Chase romp called Movie Night (1929) in which the Chase family struggle to enjoy their weekly Monday night trip to the flix – on this occasion to see Buster Keaton and Marceline Day in The Cameraman. Stingy dad tries to get over-age son in as a child but his bum-fluff gives him away whilst there’s some trouble involving a free bird: never look a gift goose in the mouth Mr Chase.

It was laugh-out-laugh comedy in the old school sense with some spritely support from Lillian Henley on piano. It might depend on your mood but is it more fun playing along to comedy than drama? Lillian clearly relished the Chase challenge!

Next up was a Disney animation from when he was funny – Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Trolley Troubles (1927) – a stream of consciousness, surreal symphony in which the titular rabbit tries to navigate the everyday perils of the track, angry goats, immobile cows and unexpected gradients.

That's hazardous, Helen!

It was Cyrus Gabrysch’s turn to hang on to the nonsense narrative and he repeated the trick with a rare sighting of one of the Hazards of Helen shorts. Helen is played by Helen Holmes who did “all of her own stunts” and there are some doozies in this 1915 episode (number 13 of 119!) in which she allows the telegraph to get robbed, loses her job and then catches the thieves and recovers job and money: all in a breathless ten minutes and with her hair almost unruffled.

There was also a tantalizing preview of a brand new silent film called Written in Dust from its director Gareth Rees. Details can be found on the project’s website here. The film is coming to the Bioscope in November and looks a really interesting prospect all round: a modern, naturalistic, gritty drama just like Miss Bertini used to make!

 Written in Dust