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In receiving her richly-deserved Jean Mitry Award, the
BFI’s Bryony Dixon pointed out the importance of this festival in terms of enabling
international collaborations but also as a peer group for the often embattled national
archives. The Giornate had inspired Dixon along with others to elevate the
reputation of British silent cinema and with the restorations not just of the
Hitchcock back catalogue but also key films from Anthony Asquith especially, it
has been mission accomplished with more to come. It’s a group of people who
inspire each other and as an outsider in professional media terms, I’ve always been impressed with
the dedication of Bryony and others to the main goals of preservation and
education. The value is in the content and to be able to achieve what she has
in over three decades at the BFI is remarkable – hers are the giant shoulders
on which other generations of archivists will stand.
At a time when the DFI are stopping filmic preservation
and shifting entirely to digital, you realise the odds that are stacked against
the archives – when even Germany won’t invest in the original media who else is
going to stay in the game? That the other Mitry Award went to Mark-Paul Meyer
from the EYE Cinema Museum in Amsterdam says it all. Long may you protect and
survive.
Pavement Butterfly (1928) with Günter
Buchwald, Frank Bockius and Mirko Cisilino
This week we’ve witnessed the evolution of Anna May Wong’s
performance and prestige from bit parts as racial cliches to the full flourishing
of her talent in Song and this film, both made in Germany. In her home country,
Anna May Wong had struggled since her first film in 1921 to gain substantial
roles and also characters that weren’t stereotypes. Yet in Europe for this film
and Song (1928), her first film with director Richard Eichberg, she is
not only a desirable and acceptable romantic lead, she is the star.
Eichberg simply took her natural talents and ran with
them and with this freedom of expressiveness there’s critique of Western culture’s willingness to
believe the worst of people of Asian origin: first the crowd at the circus
where Wong’s character Mah works, turn on her very quickly assuming she has
killed her magician partner and then later, when she is blackmailed by the man
who committed that murder, her artist and romantic interest, all too readily
thinks she has stolen the money.
For anyone who gets frustrated by such
“misunderstandings” the film’s ending is richly satisfying reminding me of Hindle
Wakes screened here last year, a blow for self-determination for women in
general at a time when their choices were so much more limited. We don’t know
what Mah will do but she’ll make her way, her way. It’s interesting to note the
differences in the British and German versions of this ending too, as noted in
the catalogue essay from Yiman Wang, in the latter Mah says “Ich gehöre nicht
zu euch” (“I do not belong to you”) whereas for the former “I don’t belong to
your world. I belong to the pavements.” - she has to know her place or the
remains of Empire would crumble, clearly… (see below for more stirring Tales of
Empire).
It’s The Eyes!!
There are so many close-ups of AMW in this film showing
her stillness and presence from every angle and catching one of the most
interesting technicians of the period who conveys so much with so little
movement. Much of this stems from her extraordinary eyes but she knows how to use
them and how to under-react for the camera to maximise the impact on the
audience engrossed in the big screen.
Fred Louis Lerch plays the handsome but hopeless Fedja
Kusmin an artist who lacks the purity of trusting the thing he loves and the
wickedly convincing Alexander Granach as Coco the Coincidental Clown who pops
up throughout the film to throw mischief in our heroine’s way. Elwood Fleet
Bostwick is Mr. Working a rich business man who encourages the young artist and
Tilla Garden has a fine turn as his daughter Ellis who is also interestingly
enough a woman who knows her mind.
Günter Buchwald, Frank Bockius and with Mirko Cisilino on
saxophone accompanied with the tightest of sets, bursting into life during the
loft party sequence featuring the remarkable dancing of an un-named couple of hyperflexible and ultra-syncopated boys from the Cabaret, bringing out the full
flavour of the gorgeous locations of Nice and underpinning the emotional narrative
with the subtlety that Anna deserves. Another fabulous evening show in a week
full of them!
Stronger than Death (1920) with Donald Sosin
and Frank Bockius
I was standing outside the Teatro Verdi discussing the
drumming of Frank Bockius with Catalonian accompanist, Florenci Salesas who
pointed out from a musician’s point of view how tonally flexible and supportive
of the narrative his percussion is. From the explosion of jazz technique in Saxophone
Suzi to Frank’s use of subtle Indian flavours or the martial beats for the
British troops in this film, he’s able to switch from rhythm section to lead
player in ways that are exceptional. The hardest working drummer in Pordenone
and probably anywhere!
Here he and Donald Sosin provided an improvised score for
another of the great faces of silent film, Anna Nazimova who plays a renowned dancer,
Sigrid Fersen who has a heart condition that will kill her if she has just one
more dance (I know…). She has come to India to find a rich husband which seems
slightly at odds with her otherwise cool bohemian aesthetic and gets one she
didn’t bargain for in a love and hate triangle featuring a racist British Colonel
Boucicault (Charles K. French), his caring son Doctor/ Major Tristam Boucicault
(Chris Bryant) and a wealthy man of mix-race heritage James Barclay (Herbert
Prior).
Barclay is reviled by the ex-pat Brits as he is of mixed
race – terms “of the period” are used to describe this unfortunate situation
not of his own making – and he hopes to gain respect by marrying Sigrid. He’s
backed by the local priests though who in a surprising development are looking
for revenge on the British for something or other. Lots happens but the worst
of it is when the Colonel shoots Tristram’s dog Wickey. As if I could hate him
more…
It's a load of old hooey BUT it has Naz and she is
brilliant as usual. Bryant’s also good in spite of his parenting, perhaps there’s
hope for the World.
Raskolnikow (1923) with Richard Siedhoff
We all had the same thought after this stunner ended –
Lotte Eisner was wrong, there are more than three expressionist films with this
adaptation of Crime and Punishment being as emotionally titled as Caligari and
with crazy-angled set design to match plus the same typography. Maybe she didn’t
have access to the full cut of the film and certainly this restoration was a
feast for the eyes…
Directed by Robert Wiene it adapts Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime
and Punishment in ways that carry the force if not the substance – how could
it? Gregori Chmara is just fabulous as Rodion Raskolnikow who finds meaning in
his life after wasting so much of his own and killing two women in a bungled
robbery. So many heist movies follow similar lines but none examine the nature
of guilt in so detailed a way. String cast, a-mazing set design which might jar
initially but soon melts behind the human stories presented in unrelenting
close-ups.
Too much to say, so little time, more films to see!
We were also treated to avant garde shorts from the studio
of Joris Ivens which contained some interesting ideas and some irritating… as a
migraine sufferer I couldn’t watch the five minutes of flashing lights from
Willem Bon’s Is Er etc… covering my closed eyes with the programme and I’m speaking
as a regular gig-goer. This was something like the brain-washing scene from
Funeral in Berlin. The audience might well be under Dutch control for all I
know, which is no bad thing in itself from experience! Gerard Saan’s Botsingen
(1934) with its clever comparison of billiard balls with human activities
provided an entertaining counter point, the eight-ball dropping pleasingly in
the corner pocket after a repeat showing complete with sound.
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