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| Catherine Deneuve is the cover girl from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg |
OK, after catching up on work and sleep, what was my pick from
eight days of relentless cinema, meeting some of the finest cinephiles in the
world and an unquantifiable amount of coffee, brioche, ragu and, dear reader I
must be honest, Aperol Spritz. In no particular order, these are my personal
highlights, from a festival you start off with the best of intentions, 6-7
sessions a day for eight days, what could go wrong? Answer: nothing, the
Ritrovato experience you get is the one that you deserve and the one that suits you best!
The funniest thing of the week and a major Lubitsch I had
yet to see featuring Emil Jannings acting his age and being charming as part of
a couple of chaps trying to woo sisters played by Henny Porter who proves what
a superb talent she was, not only with her highly persuasive physicality but
also timing. She plays the kind-natured Gretel who wants to marry but,
following her father’s instructions, can’t until her elder sister, Liesel (also
Henny), weds first. The problem is that Liesel is as bitter as her sibling is
sweet and more of a match for either Jannings’ Peter or Gustav von Wangenheim’s
Paul by any measure.
It's fast-paced and utterly charming and very much cut from the
same cloth as the Ossi Oswalda comedies and those with Pola Negri which the
director made before and after. Shot against an alpine background by Theodor
Sparkuhl, it was the feel-good hit of the week which I thought I’d missed only
to find it re-played on the last day.
John Sweeney’s playing was on another level, i.e., the same
at the film’s, and his emphatic flourishes continued to fill the gorgeously
restored Modernissimo right till the end of the credits. I trust it won’t be long
before we see Lubitsch’s 34th film (including shorts) screening in
London with John playing as a pre-requisite!
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| Emil Jannings und Henny Porten |
On the final Saturday as all the mystery and loose ends were
tied up I emerged triumphant from the Mastroianni having watched the whole
series and thoroughly enjoyed Louis Feuillade’s sense of drama, his eye for
dynamic framing, his direction and team building and his ability to keep the
narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a dramatic
dead end. That’s 12 episodes and one big Prologue with not a second missed for
lack of sleep, breakfast or headache… probably!
It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does
have the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a
scheming opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds.
Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part
Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal
turned criminalist - certainly an outlier for The Shadow, Doc Savage and even
The Batman. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil masterminds
and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake the death of
the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many others, Favraux
(Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote castle.
Judex has worked a long game, disguised as Favraux’s
secretary, to infiltrate his business dealings. His plan is soon complicated
when he falls in love with the banker’s daughter, Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor)
who is soon targeted by the evil Monti! There’s great support from Vampires’
alumni Édouard Mathé as brother Roger and Marcel Lévesque as the comedic Cocantin
whose swimming-costume clad fiancée Miss Daisy Torp (Lily Deligny) helps save
the day. The kids are alright too and Le petit Jean (Olinda Mano) and The Liquorice
Kid (Rene Poyen) deserved their own series!
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| Musidora, aka Jeanne Roques |
This was an attempt to repeat the pre-war success of the
Italian epic’s including Enrico Guazzoni’s massive 1912 adaptation of Henryk
Sienkiewicz’s 1895 novel, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero. It
was an Italian German co-production followed on with a cast of thousands, gigantic
sets (real and constructed) and the combined star power of Lillian Hall-Davis’ nuanced
emoting and Emil Jannings’ protean excess. Larger than life and twice as
tiring, his Nero offers Lillian’s frail Licia the world and we cower behind her
in the darkness as her faith rises up as the only defence against the monstrous
ego of the man who is Empire.
It's saucy in a Cecil B DeMille way with snatches of nudity
and a-typical sexuality along with elaborate displays of Roman cruelty which
peaks in the Colosseum and in a genuinely gripping chariot race that hasn’t
been seen in the length or detail for many years until this superb restoration.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable effort that was surprisingly not a success at the
time, perhaps too opulent for German audiences and too close to the bone for
the newly fascist Italians… I’d love to know more about how it was received in
those early days of Il Duce…
Neil Brand
accompanied across the two parts on piano assisted by Eduardo Raon on harp for
part one and Frank Bockius on drums for the epic finale on drums… the players
were perfectly aligned with the momentum of the film with Rome’s dangerous
beauty giving way to death and destruction and ultimate martial revenge by the
end of a story that had already been told many times.
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| Emil harasses our Lil'! |
7. He Who Gets Slapped (1924), with Laura Agnusdei, Simone Cavina, Stefano Pilia and Antonio Raia, Il Cinema Modernissimo
Of films I had already seen multiple times, this, The Wind,
The Last Laugh et al, I was most interested in seeing this one having missed it
recently at the Kennington Bioscope. In the plush Modernissimo it was accompanied
by an ensemble featuring Laura Agnusdei (tenor sax and electronica), Simone
Cavina (percussion and electronica), Stefano Pilia (guitar and electronica),
Antonio Raia (sax, chalumeau/clarinet and “oggetti” … objects?), whose modern
stylings overlayed and enhanced the action on screen in new ways.
That said, this is one of the hardest-hitting Hollywood
films of the twenties as you’d expect from the mighty Victor Sjöström,
certainly the most successful Swedish director in the US who was able to
maintain his approach across this and work with Garbo and Gish. Here he brings
out the full flavour of Lon Chaney in a film that breaks your heart which as Ehsan
Khoshbakht describes in the catalogue as about the act of “de-clowning… only
the vile and ignorant laugh at the clown”. As my friend, the poet Ged Griffith,
used to say after a few Jamesons, “Life’s a walking shadow, nah-nah, na-nah-nah…”
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| Lon Chaney: if you don't have a fear of clowns, perhaps you should re-consider? |
6. The Searchers (1956), Piazza Maggiore
I only managed two screenings at the big Piazza this year as
a result of rain and other distractions but Coppola’s Conversation was not as
engaging on the grand screen as John Ford’s masterwork. Rarely has John Wayne been
this monumentally frightening, dark eyes staring out across the vastness of the
west in search of revenge and the restoration of his culture. There’s some
jokey sequences but nothing really dents the full force of this film which
continues to evolve in its meaning as the West in general seeks answers to the
same issues of invasion, cohabitation and peaceful evolution. This is a film
made at a time closer to the tail-end of the Wild West in the 1880s than to
now, struggles still just about in living memory for a United States still ill
at ease with its diversity.
Screened from 70mm on the biggest screen the film was introduced
by Wim Wenders who has made the pilgrimage to Monument Valley, Arizona and
wondered at the audacity of filming entirely at this location. It was something
to view in a fresh light, immersive and impactful making us feel the filmmakers’
anew with even the plastic seats not distracting from the two hours on mental
horseback.
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| The big country |
Due to unseasonal rain, this screening of Chemi bebia
(My Grandmother) was moved from the Piazza Maggiore to the Cinema Modernissimo which
only served to amplify the intensity of Kote Mikaberidze‘s film and the
extraordinary accompaniment of Finland’s Cleaning Women. Now then modern scores
for silent films can be controversial but this film is so out of time with its Dadaist
energy that an avant-alt-post-rock-post-jazz-experimental-industrial set played
by a group consisting of three cleaning robots (CW01, CW03 and CW04) ended up
being perfect.
Chemi bebia defies easy summation and that’s from one of the
only two people in the stalls who had seen it before but, essentially, it’s a
film highlighting the damaging impact of bureaucracy on the revolutionary
project with so many self-serving idiots only responding to the appearance of
the Universal Worker (or similar). It’s one of the oddest and funniest
propaganda films ever made and even more so with the “cleaners” quirky propulsion.
Mop and Bowl on home-made instruments!
4. Scuola D'Eroi (1914) Daniele Furlati and Silvia Mandolini, Cinema Mastroianni
Meanwhile, back in the Golden Age of Italian Cinema, we
watched an early film from one of the three great Dive, without which no CR is
complete for some. This was not yet the imperious Pina Menichelli of her most
successful period but she draws the eye in one of her first major roles
dominates the screen whenever her character, Rina Larive is in shot even
alongside Amleto Novelli and certainly the more established Gianna Terribili
Gonzales.
Directed by Enrico Guazzoni – who made the 1912 Quo Vadis
as well as other classical classics … Scuola d’eroi is an Napoleonic
epic and I mean epic, straggling decades, family lost and found and with the
fortunes of war and love all tangled together. Pina plays Rina, sister of Carlo,
Amleto, who during a Napoleonic campaign, having been separated from their
father as children and raised by a kindly farmer, get caught up years later in
another with the emperor playing his part in recognising the courage of the
family and saving them from the machinations of bad-faith nobility.
Daniele Furlati provided suitably spirited accompaniment on
piano with Silvia Mandolini on violin, flavouring and enhancing during battles
scenes and the moments of highest tension. Italian silent film of this era
carried its heart on its sleeve and this was a very affecting screening of a fresh
restoration from a nitrate positive held by the Cineteca Milano. It is the only
tinted copy currently in existence and close to the original running time.
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| Pina Menichelli |
3. 1904: Un Anno Magnifico, Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius, Piazetta Pier Paolo Pasolini
There are moments in every festival when you settle down and
suddenly feel at the heart of the event, watching the perfect film and listening
to just the right accompaniment and this happened on this rain-delayed outdoor
event on the Thursday with a selection of shorts from 1904, A Magnificent Year
indeed! I decided on the Pasolini’s carbon arc projector rather than watching
the restoration of The Wind in the Piazza Maggiore – with orchestra! – and
was rewarded with such rare delights!
We started with the breakneck gymnastics of Les
Cambrioleurs modernes – often wrongly attributed as from a later year –
which featured a stunningly synchronised troupe playing cops and robbers by
throwing themselves in and out of a set full of trap doors. Clearly a stage act
rehearsed tot the finest degree this was still a marvel to observe in real-time
with no trickery. There was plenty of time for that with Georges Méliès' Détresse
et Charité - The Christmas Angel and Match de prestidigitation but
most of these films just used the new media to show actuality, whether it was
the British Fleet being inspected at Spithead or A Miner’s Daily Life from RW
Paul.
There was plenty of magic though with Gaston Velle’s silhouetted
Burglars at Work showing what the camera can do as well as his
deliciously hand coloured Métamorphoses du papillon with unknown dancer
changing in front of our very eyes. And then, then we had a song as Frank
Bockius performed the missing vocals from Henry Bender in a hand-coloured take
of over-fed babies he would have performed at Berlin’s Metropol-Theatre. It was
a job well done as indeed was the entire accompaniment from both payers with
the memory of Stephen’s flute reverberating high into the clear skies as likely
to linger as his partner’s percussion and vocalisation!
2. Re-building Jerusalem… Ingmarsarvet (1925), Andre Desponds and Frank Bockius / Till Österland (1926), Neil Brand, Cinema Mastroianni
This list isn’t really in order but the top two are
such has been my pre-occupation with Selma Lagerlof and the tsars of these three
films, notably the extraordinary ballerina Jenny Hasselqvist. I’ve gone on at
length elsewhere but it was such a joy to see Gustaf Molander’s two films based
on the author’s Jerusalem and I am so grateful to the Swedish Film Institute
for the work they have done in restoring and reconstructing them.
1. Ekeby at last! Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Cinema Mastroianni
Having waited years to see this film on the big screen, I was also more than eager to see the results of the last five years’ worth of restoration and was in no way disappointed by the clarity and the majesty of this re-ordered and extended version of Mauritz Stiller’s work; perhaps not his best but my favourite anyway. Jenny, Greta Garbo, Lars and, especially Gerda Lundequist all shine as never before and the restoration and broader appreciation of filmmakers and the author Selma Lagerlöf will rightfully benefit.
More detailed appreciation here...
I saw much more though easily missing my 50-film target and
apart from the silents enjoyed talkies as diverse as Morocco (1930), En
Natt (1931) – Gerda again! - The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), Coeur
de Lilas (1932) and Tirez sur le pianiste (1960). There was also a
beautiful film of Anna Pavlova (USA-GB/1924-1954) which brought me close to
tears with John Sweeney’s accompaniment.
As with life it’s best to celebrate what you saw rather than
mourn what you missed and so, with hope in my heart, I look forward to
revisiting many of the above and catching up, if the programmers so will it,
with the rest.
Grazie mille Bologna and Il Cineteca Ritrovato! Ci vediamo
nel 2025!
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| My copy of a 1924 Danish Gosta booklet |
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