No amount of pre-planning can prepare you for your first
experience of Il Cinema Ritrovato – there’s simply too much film, culture and
place to process. But the ever-present nagging doubt that there is something
you’re missing just has to be cast aside… So, turning my mind off, relaxing and
floating downstream… here’s a non-exhaustive list of my highlights excluding
Rosita and 7th Heaven about which I’ve already burbled.
1. Partying like
it’s 1898…
This was my favourite strand of shorts because historians
love nothing more than Steam Punk Cinema: Victorians revealing the verve and
imagination you always knew they had in abundance. The Age of Engineering and
the start of very modern enlightenment.
I started with some silent animation from the BFI archives,
or was it animation? There was some devilment with scissors which mixed live
action with stop motion to great effect and then a doll rises up to follow its
owner as she goes on a date with a young man: think Toy Story mixed with
Chucky… a film that re-ignited my childhood dreams of animated plastic…
Playing along was Stephen Horne who added vocalise to his
array of instrumentation, a moment as shocking as it was entirely fitting as
with all his accompaniment.
There were genuinely stunning 35mm reductions of 68mm
originals which showed the World of our grandparent’s almost as clear as
yesterday. I’m reminded of sci-fi novelist, Bob Shaw’s idea of slow glass
through which light moves so slowly that you can look on events as the happened
years later… mind-boggling but the light of events reacting with nitrates in
1898 is revived again through 2018 projection.
Definitely one of the shocks from this period was
the five minutes long Opération chirurgicale du Docteur Doyen: Hystérectomie
abdominale, ablation de la tumeur (1898) which showed the good doctor hacking
his way inside a living patient – heavily sedated – for what seemed much
longer. Not to forget it was intended as an instructional scientific film but…
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| 120 years on the pigeons grand children still get fed in Piazza San Marco |
2.
Underground cinema: Wolves of Kultur (1918)
All 15 episodes of this propagandist serial were screened
through the festival in the Cinema Modernissimo which, originating in the
1900s, is an impressively atmospheric subterranean hall very much under
re-construction. In the rip-roaring opener as all-action Alice Grayson (Leah
Baird) tries to avenge her Uncle’s murder by the evil quisling duo of Henry
Hartman (Austin Webb) and Mario Zaremba (Edmund D'Alby) and recover the plans
for a wireless controlled torpedo.
The pace is relentless as are the stream of characters…
as a mysterious detective, Roger Barclay (Sheldon Lewis) follows events and a
young engineer, Bob Moore (Charles Hutchison) becomes involved after Zaremba
tries to marry his sister Helen (Betty Howe) … Oh, and Karl Dane’s in it as a
henchman called Carter!
Directed and written by Joseph A. Golden, it’s fun
comic-strip nonsense which plays like a more paranoid Les Vampires… I saw about
half the episodes including the finale and it was fun!
Accompaniment was from many hands and the one I seemed to
find the most was Daniele Furlati who had a lilting main theme that took full
advantage of the magical acoustics.
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| Leah Baird. A real trooper. |
3. Les Deus
Timides (1928), with Gabriel Thibaudea
I’ve managed to miss this 2016 restoration several times
and it was the perfect start to day two with sprightly, controlled direction
from Rene Clair and a performance from handsome Pierre Bascheff that walked
that delicate tightrope between Frank Spencer and Harold Lloyd.
It’s “French whimsy” mon amis and the pure, delightful
distillation that makes you laugh out loud and forgive the inevitable minor
frustrations of two, too-timid souls in service to a plot reliant on the
inability to perform even the simplest acts of self-interest.
It’s such a “neat” film with Clair’s direction, editing
and camerawork so precise throughout. There are so many cute inventions and I
especially loved his use of split screen especially as Batcheff’s character
launches into an imaginary fight with his bête noire, the bully Garadoux who,
frustrated just the same, fights back screen right. At one point the camera
dips, allowing room for both men to raise their arms at the same time: funny in
a cinematic way. There’s also their climactic court case in which Clair uses
hilarious stills showing the two exaggerated sides of their arguments in a who
started it and who finished it war of weasel words. It’s packed with visual
punchlines that offer a spectacular parallel narrative to the interpersonal action.
Pierre Batcheff is Fremissin a timid lawyer who sends his
own client bad-beardy Garadoux (Jim Gérald) down for three months’ chokey after
he’s found guilty of marital assault. Two years later and both men are out in
the country and pursuing the same woman, Cecile Thibaudier (Véra Flory). Cecile wants the one who can ask – Fremissin
is too afraid of failure - whilst the other drives her wild by bullying her
father (Maurice de Féraudy) who is clearly just a dad who can’t say no.
Garadoux spots his old nemesis trying to make a move on
his gal – and potentially his loot – and tries to frighten him off using his
pipe as a gun and covering his face with a hanky… Fremissin doesn’t take much
scaring but slowly he edges forward. But will the tortoise beat the heavyweight
hare as the latter moves in with family and lawyer to try and force the wedding
contract…
Gabriel Thibaudeau accompanied with fleet fingered
assurance; he’d danced this one before I think.
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| A split screen interacting with audience sensibilities... |
4. Women…
under pressure and disguised as seals
Woman Under Oath (1919) with Donal Sosin
There was a substantial strand of John M. Stahl flickers
with this one silent film and lots more to come at Pordenone. This film managed
to be both insulting and inspiring… raising important questions about whether
women could “handle” the pressure of being on a jury – locked in late at night
with all those manly-men… It’s a well-made vehicle for stage star Florence Reed
whose character Grace Norton is becomes New York’s first woman juror.
Of course, it couldn’t just be about her actually doing
the job of a juror could it; she had to be something far more significant.
Though stylish, the twist does tend to undermine the whole point of the story,
at least in my opinion.
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| Eleven angry men and one level-headed woman... almost. |
Woman (1918) with Mie Yanashita
“Woman…” as John and Yoko sang dangerously in 1972, “… is
the n*gg*r of the World” and if you thought Woman Under Oath was tricksie from
a feminist point of view then Maurice Tourneur threw us a few curved balls…
tongue in cheek, peut etre, but still… how we’ve changed eh?
A middle-class, middle-aged couple row about something,
she storms out and her shakes his complacent male head as if to say, bless her
emotional little heart. He starts reading a history book and it tells the tales
of women through history… and their faults: Eve’s obsession with that bloomin’
apple (who needs knowledge, right?), Emperor Claudius’ betrayal by his
exceptionally unfaithful Messilna (played by dancer Flore Revalles, who is very
good) and then the bizarre story of the seal-turned-women who deserts her
children and husband Cyrene the fisherman in order to swim once more as a seal.
I genuinely had no idea that woman were originally seals: why didn’t any of you
mention this?!
Then there’s a girl in the Civil Way who, hiding a Yankee
soldier from a Confederate troupe, loosens her resolve when their Captain
offers her his watch… she gives the soldier away and he’s executed in front of
her.
But wait!
The gentleman turns from the book and thinks his great
thought: women aren’t all bad, now they have purpose because of the War and
stuff! She who rocks the cradle, probably doesn’t get enough sleep (or credit)
and… cue montage of helpful nurses, munitions workers in skirts and women who,
now, distractions set aside, could probably be in a film without having a major
character flaw.
I really doubt that my Grandad – union member and
supporter of suffrage after a First World War in which he saw too much
masculine unfairness – would have liked this film. He would have thought it
daft and wrong. My Nan would have lamped the projectionist. Still, nice framing
and cinematography Maurice.
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| Oi, Eve, leave that apple alone! |
5.Naples au Basier de Feu (1925) with Guido Sodo and
Francoise Laurent
Projected under the stars at the Piazzetta Pasolini using
what the locals term lanterna a carbone this was arguably the best film in the
Naples strand even though it was directed by a Russian and featured French
actors.
The otherworldly Gina Manes plays a local beauty
Costanzella who escapes the clutches of her violent lover to move in with the
unlikely pairing of Pinatucchio a beggar/holy man (Gaston Modot) and a
violinist/street singer, Antonio Arcella, played by proto Delon Georges Charlia
– last seen being very jealous of Louise Brooks in Prix de Beauté).
Antonio is a hustler on his uppers – he’s had to sell his
violin – and is looking to fall in love with someone beautiful and rich. He
targets Silvia (Lilian Constantini) a rich socialite, who travels with her
aunt, and she gives him money in exchange for charm and melodies. But love takes a turn as he gradually falls for
Costanzella, despite promising Pinatucchio that he wouldn’t as the old fellow
is besotted himself. It’s a terrific performance from Modot and the bizarre
love quadrilateral is resolved in unpredictable ways…
Guido Sodo accompanied on mandolin, mandoloncello and
vocal with François Laurent on chitarra helping to create a perfect moonlight
movie night. Al fresco may have been on drums…
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| Naples au Basier de Feu (1925) |
6.
Vendemiaire (1918) with Stephen Horne and Frank Bochius (Parts 1&2)
This was a four-part serial (well three plus prologue)
from the master of the multi-part adventure, Louis Feuillade and showed a more
technically-accomplished and down-to-earth, director three years on from Les
Vampires. There were some lush landscapes of the canals and countryside near
Lyon and a feature feel to the lengthy episodes as a plot unfolded about two
escaped German POWs infiltrating a group of farm workers in the Great War.
René Cresté plays Pierre Bertin a soldier on leave to
recover from his mental and physical wounds and he meets a family heading away
from the front line to seek work and to find out what happened to their
siblings. They all end up working on a vineyard in Lunel (Feullade’s home town)
run by Capitaine de Castelviel (Feuillade regular Édouard Mathé) and where the
two Germans also infiltrate.
Wilfred (Louis Leubas) and Fritz (Manuel Caméré) cause
much disruption as they try to further the fading German cause and frame a
gypsy, Sarah (Mary Harald) as they rob the Captain… there are more characters
than in the director’s more adventure-based serials and, as the propaganda it
undoubtedly was, Vendemiaire stirs your heart as you hope for the best for
these refugees.
Stephen Horne and Frank Bochius were on fine form and
worked so well together here as elsewhere with an instinctive understanding of
their musical combination as well as the momentum of the movie.
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| Driven away by the war |
7. Vintage colour: Cabaret (1972) and Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
It’s not all about silent film of course and there were
so many fascinating and ultra-rare opportunities to see rare
celluloid that, all geeking aside, offers a significantly different experience
of film watching. The early 60’s copy from the original nitrate of John M.
Stahl’s colourful noir was a blaze of greens and turquoise and Gene Tierney was
even more striking than usual as the woman who, putting it mildly, loves
Cornel Wilde just a little too much.
Cabaret was the real hum-dinger though with a print that
was so warm and slightly worn that I half expected some ads for Kiora and a
local carpet shop. I’d never seen the film all the way through – although I’d
seen Alan Cummings and Jane Horrocks at their famous run at the Donmar
Warehouse. Those two simply were the MC and Sally Bowles for me but now I can
truly appreciate how good Liza Minelli and Joel Grey were on screen.
Silent film style and references abound and then there's Bob Fosse's extraordinary choreography; still jaw droppingly angular and expressive.
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| Joel and Liza-with-a-Z... |
8. Lights of Old Broadway (1925) with Neil Brand
We’d been missing some solid, silent Hollywood and Marion
Davies delivered in style with this entertaining romp. It was based around the
shift from gas to electric lighting in New York and featured sequences in
colour using tinting, Technicolor, and the Handschiegl colour process.
Marion is one of twins separated at birth as their mother
dies on an Atlantic crossing: one Marion, Anne, grows up with the wealthy de
Rhonde family whilst the other, Fely, with the riotous O’Tandy clan who squat
on the edges of town, never paying rent and looking to fight, or rather
“foight” their way out of trouble. There’s a lot of Oirish intertitles if yer
get moi drift… but then it’s well known that *all* the people of Ireland love
1. Not paying their dues, 2. Drinking 3. Larking and 4. Foiting
Of course, Fely meets the de Ronde’s son Dirk (Conrad
Nagel) and they fall in love but the two fathers like none of it and only a
fist fight will bring them together – the Dads – so that peace can reign and
Dirk’s daring fortune in electrical illumination can establish a new dynasty.
All good fun and Marion is wonderful as usual. Sometimes that’s what we want and Neil
O’Brand played along with a twinkle in his eye, he knows when entertainment is
due!
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| Technicolor fragment of the nitrate print of Lights... by Barbara Flueckiger. |
Epilogue... Lyda, Pina and Francesca
I was not going to Italy to miss out on diva films so there’s more to be said later about I tre grandi as well as the remarkable smiles of Leda Gys, the amazing hair of Rosè Angione and the films of Elvira Notari.
There were some films I'd already seen and liked including Parts One and Two of
Christian Wahnschaffe with Stephen Horne, which I saw in Berlin and the mighty Shiraz which was the
LFF Restoration Gala last year, and screened here with a recording of Anouska Shankar's amazing score.
Then, there was so much that I missed... It’s always best to leave wanting more… and the pile will
probably grow even more next year. Lost in film, as surely as Sister Sledge
were lost in music.
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