This was one of the most moving films we’ve seen this
week and all the more so for two ending beings shown, one from the Belgian
digital transfer and the other from the BFI’s 35mm copy. There are differences
between the two, not just the warmer tones of the film but also in the way that
Nurse Cavell meets her end… the inevitability of violent death by gunshot.
Sybil Thorndike is outstanding as Nurse Edith Cavell and
that final walk, her eyes wet with mortal fear, are truly heart-wrenching,
bringing tears for the second time this week (the other occasion being the
children of Vienna maimed by war). Stephen Horne played an absolute blinder
with bass drum punching out Cavell’s final few paces in the first version and
the piano taking the lead for the second. The accompaniment has to be as precisely
judged as the action on screen and both were in step to devastating effect.
The Belgian version is the uncensored cut of what was a
highly-controversial film… there was still plenty of sensitivity about this
infamous episode and clearly, as the UK version shows, possible offense had to
be limited.
This is not easy though especially when you have an
actual member of Cavell’s team, Ada Bodart, playing herself… history as film,
film actor as her own history.
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| "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." |
After Dawn, a section on those Nasty Women was more than
welcome and I especially laughed at the last, She's a Prince (1926) a crazy-cross-dressed, paparazzi-dumping,
case of mistaken royal identity starring Billy Franey as the sorority “girl”
formerly known as Prince and Alyce Ardell as… the “prince” formerly known as
Alice.
The Swedish Challenge strand continues to impress and Thora van Deken (1920) featured a powerhouse
performance from Pauline Brunius as the title character. She is fighting to
protect her daughter’s inheritance by hiding her former husband’s will and
Brunius display of determination in the face of her dubious action and motherly
love is so… human. She was wrong but we are on her side… Brunius has the kind
of face that can hold a movie on its own twisting conflicted emotions across
strong features that fail to hide her darting eyes. This is why Swedish cinema
was indeed “challenging” – completely naturalistic performance matched with
films that deal in moral questions in a realistic and compelling way.
The restored print was more 2020 than 1920 and a delight
to behold. It was a kind of Blue but emotions were melting through…
On to the evening and two films from people I know and in
films I’ve seen.
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| The Vampire, Philip Burne-Jones |
Rudyard Kipling’s The
Vampire was written to accompany the exhibition of a illustration by his cousin
Philip Burne-Jones depicting a female vampire; another link between cinema and painting as per Tableaux Vivants. This
vampire is a sexual predator draining her partners of their energies, funds and
self-respect. The poem begins with the line A
fool there was… and warns against the folly of falling for women who “…could never know why and could never
understand!” decent family society presumably.
It is not a hugely complex story but it has one massive
power point: Theodosia Goodman aka Theda Bara who turns what could have been a run
of the deMille Victorian morality tale in to very modern sexual picaresque. Her
vamp is working her way through male batteries like there’s no tomorrow and
lives only for herself and yet she’s doing it in style! We want to go to
Theda’s parties, hang out at the clothes store for the endless fittings her
cool, cool, cool clothes demand and tell the straights to just go hang!
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| Theda is a punk rocker, Theda is a punk rocker, etc... |
Theda is punk – Siouxsie, Poly and Pauline Murray would
be nothing without her approach to mascara – and has a wit that just blasts
everyone else off screen. Yes, there are deeper meanings to the struggle
between family and pheromones but we’d all like a friend like Theda… er,
wouldn’t we?
This was a much better print than the one used for the
old Kino DVD although the source material is sadly not perfect. Still a real
thrill to see it projected and to have accompaniment from Philip Carli with the
premier of his new score for quintet! The music was as closely fit as one of
Theda’s dresses and played off the humour as much as the drama just as Theda
and, indeed, you and I… Philip played piano and was joined by David Shemancik,
Günter A. Buchwald, Romano Todesco and Cristina Nadal. They are Theda’s band
for her next all-nighter!
Last up was another who took sexual liberation a major
cinematic step forward with Pola Negri in Mania, her third film of the week and
her first film (?). This is not the playful Pola of Carmen but an equally
passionate one who follows her heart into all kinds of trouble. A matchgirl
spotted as the face of the brand, she falls for the artist’s muso buddy and,
two stars of kind of born as Mania uses her “connections” to get her guy a
break… Needless to say he doesn’t appreciate it and, as is usual – Theda being
the exception… the woman pays.
I’d seen Mania
before at its UK premier in 2011 and it is a very impressive restoration with
some gorgeous close-ups of our heroine and without her trademark eye makeup…
but it’s not the mascara that maketh the woman it’s the personality! Pola is
also “punk” as it happens: fresh, to the point and boundless…
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