Day by Day in Bologna… Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVIII

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!

 10.   Kohlhiesel’s Töchter/Kohlhiesel’s Daughters (1920), with John Sweeney, Il Cinema Modernissimo

 

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 34^th film (including shorts) screening in London with John playing as a pre-requisite!

Emil Jannings und Henny Porten

9. It’s a family affair… Judex (1915-16), accompanied by many hands, Cinema Mastroianni

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!

 

Musidora, aka Jeanne Roques

8. Quo Vadis? (1924) with Neil Brand, Eduardo Raon and Frank Bockius, Cinema Mastroianni

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.

 

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…”

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.

 

The big country

 5. Chemi bebia/My Grandmother (1929), with Cleaning Women, Il Cinema Modernissimo

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.

 

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.

More raving here...

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!

My copy of a 1924 Danish Gosta booklet

 

All you need is Lagerlöf… Bologna Preview – Swedish Restorations

Not one but three restored films based on Selma Lagerlöf’s novels to screen at Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival.

Gösta Berling saga (1924)

It was probably in 2018 that I first heard of the restoration of Mauritz Stiller's Gösta Berling saga (1924), and a few years after I’d started my fascination with the story, its original writer and its stars after viewing the Kino DVD… Sure it was Greta Garbo’s breakthrough role, but it also featured vital performances from Lars “Handsome” Hanson, Gerda Lundequist - "The Swedish Sarah Bernhardt" – and Jenny Hasselqvist, Royal Swedish Ballet prima ballerina and an actor in so many European films: has anyone ever managed to combine both careers so well?

The initial restoration was screened in San Francisco pre-pandemic but now, at last, next month’s Il Cinema Ritrovato will screen the film as part of the 1924 selection. This new digitally restored Gosta will be unlike any other I’ve seen and is based on the analogue reconstruction from 2018, but with some changes in the editing work according to the Swedish Film Institute. The film now has a running time of 206 mins (simulating 18 fps) which is a good 22 minutes longer than the Kino version. It was originally measured by the Statens Biografbyrå in March 1924 at 4534 meters, which with a display speed of 18 frames per second would correspond to 221 minutes. The film has subsequently been shortened and re-cut several times over the years, and so this latest reconstruction moves it as close to the original release as it’s been.

 

As Jon Wengström, Senior Curator of the SFI’s Filmarkivet / Archival Film Collections explained:“The main sources for the restoration was an existing duplicate positive from our collections, and tinted nitrate print from the collections of Cinemateca Portuguesa (Lisbon). A brief scene was also added from a safety print in the collections of Gosfilmofond (Moscow).”

Gerda Lundequist, whose grand-daughter is rock singer Sonja Kristina... 

Jörgen Viman was the SFI’s Film Archivist on the restoration or “recreation” as he puts it, of the film explains further that tinted nitrate prints were also borrowed from the Cinémathèque française in Paris and the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin, as a reference for the film's continuity. Having just re-read Paul Norlen’s 2009 translation of Selma Lagerlöf’s extraordinary debut from 1891 it will be fascinating to compare Stiller’s focus. Lagerlöf creates such a powerful, magical-reality and seems to write from inside her subjects… I wonder what Powell and Pressburger would have made of her work and the interpretation of Stiller, Sjöström and Molander are all so tonally different.

The film's subtitles have also been recreated based on the wording in text lists submitted to the Statens Biografbyrå. These intertexts have now been based on Alva Lundin’s original designs - only three of the 405 text boxes have survived and another three were found reproduced in a trade journal from the time. Sadly, Lundin’s original painted illustrations of the text have not survived but you can read more about her work on the Women Film Pioneers Project website!

The film’s colour ways have been recreated though using the tinting scheme of the Portuguese nitrate print. The colour shading of the intertexts is also based on a description in another trade magazine article – bless these secondary sources!

 

Jenny Hasselqvist and Lars Hanson in Till Österland 

Till Österland (1926)

 

At the start of the pandemic, I read Selma’s epic Jerusalem Parts I and II (1901-2) as translated by the American Velma Swanston Howard in 1915. The story was set in the traditional rural heartlands of Dalarna and involves a group of villagers who gain a new faith and emigrate to Jerusalem as happened in the parish of Nås in 1896. It gave rise to four cinematic adaptations with Victor Sjöström making the first two films, The Sons of Ingmar (Ingmarssönerna) (1919) followed by Karin Daughter of Ingmar (Karin Ingmarsdotter) (1920) which failed to repeat the success of the first film leading the director to turn his attention elsewhere. Gustaf Molander picked up the project and completed the story with his brace, Ingmar's Inheritance (Ingmarsarvet) (1925) and Till österland (1926).

The two directors had many differences in approach with Sjöström’s narrative much closer to Lagerlöf’s text and more focused on the interior life of her conflicted characters whilst Molander broadened the palate, taking more liberties and setting up more action. Sjöström made two feature films out of less than 105 pages whereas Molander crafted one from the remaining 240 and another from the 350 pages of Volume II, including adding some of his own inventions. The feeling is much the same but the pace has changed and the cinematic vision of the narrative is one aimed at creating a hit film with hot actors, most of whom feature in both films.

Mona Mårtenson and Conrad Veidt

Ingmar's Inheritance has Lars Hanson, Mona Mårtenson and Jenny Hasselqvist as well as a powerful turn from the non-recurring Conrad Veidt. It’s still extant but the follow-up has long been incomplete and unscreened. Not any more as Till Österland has been restored, as far as possible, to create a 42 minutes long mix of the surviving film and other elements; it’s narrative structure now intact.

One additional scene, showing the dance of the dervishes, was found in a compilation film but the main thing is that the existing footage is now properly put in context, with the film’s original intertitles accompanying the surviving footage, and some stills and explanatory titles where footage is missing. All in all, the fragment now has a running time of 42 mins (simulating 20 fps), and the surviving footage is now shown with recreated tinting.

Filming in Jerusalem

Magnus Rosborn was the archivist working on the film and his summary is… “The surviving scenes have mainly been taken from a duplicate negative made from a duplicate positive which in turn was produced in 1977 from the film's then fragmentarily preserved – but now lost – original negative. In addition, another scene has been taken from a duplicate negative for the film Selma Lagerlöf 80 år (1938), which has been preserved in Sveriges Television's archives.”

The intertitles have been taken from the film's preserved original text boxes and the colours of the film have been reconstructed using handwritten tinting and toning notes copied into the duplicate positive. The missing scenes have been reconstructed with the help of those text boxes, production stills and newly made explanatory texts.

Before the premiere in 1926, the film was measured at the censorship review at 2587 meters which corresponds to a playing time of 113 minutes, so whilst approximately three quarters of the film's moving image material is still missing, we are now able to finally see what becomes of the characters in what was Volume II of Jerusalem. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…

Victor yes, Mauritz maybe and Gustaf.. well!?

What did the author think of these films? According to Paolo Cherchi Usai in The Oxford History of World Cinema, it was the Selma’s admiration for Sjöström’s films that led her to sign over the film rights for all her books to Svenska Bio and he adds that the director “found in her work the ideal expression of the active role played by nature in the destiny of characters torn between good and evil.” The author was certainly not low on opinion and was initially unsure about The Phantom Carriage (although pleased with the result) and berated Mauritz Stiller for his adaptation of The Gosta Berling Saga calling it “cheap and sensational”.

Well… we can see more clearly for ourselves in just one month’s time! Bring it on!

Details of Il Cinema Ritrovato can be found on their website.

The Swedish Film Institute website is here.