The poet and the painter… Il Fuoco (1916), Lillian Henley and John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

One of the great silent Italian divas and the return of the Bioscope Dream Team, Lillian Henley on voice and John Sweeney on keys, this was an evening to savour as we were lost in the infinite gaze of Pina Menichelli and the heat of dangerous passion.

If Borelli was the most expressive overall, Bertini the most naturalistic, then Menichelli is perhaps the most purely cinematic diva with a career born in front of the cameras not on stage and a face meant to be photographed. She’s got cheekbones to burn and commands the audience’s attention as easily as her lover, sneering a wide-angled smile that just radiates operatic haughtiness.

You think it’s funny back there in row five? Maybe it is and maybe she means it to be; this is Fifty Shades of Red in which the lead character knows the extent of her own caricature… nothing phony to see here just a mesmeric talent and a woman who knows how to wear an owl headdress. She is a joy to watch and moves as freely as she expresses: a moth that burns the very flames it's attracted to.

Pina Menichelli

Diva films put the woman at the centre of the story and not necessarily as a tragic adornment. In Il Fuoco (The Fire) it is the leading man, the painter Mario Alberti (Febo Mari) who is subject to the female will and who is not guaranteed a happy ending. Over in the US, Theda Bara was channelling Kipling’s very British idea of a femme fatale as the vamp in A Fool There Was but in Italian film, women were just that bit more sophisticated.

Yes, Pina may stalk her male prey with darting ornithological exaggeration but her little mouse is all too willing to play along as he paints a sunset and she sneaks up behind passing poetic comment as he struggles with his vision. Mario is stricken and yet when he returns to see her again the next evening at the same spot she rudely spurns his attentions before storming off.

Febo Mari

But the poet is merely toying with her prey and has left a note on a bulrush setting out the terms of their ensuing contest in which she will seek him out in his “nest” and he will try to take control of her… He tries ot prepare but she takes him by surprise, scorns him as a mother’s boy and then demonstrates the energy efficiencies of pure passion: he can either love in a mild way like his table oil lamp or be consumed like the flames that erupt when she smashes it.

Naturally he opts for the quick burn and the next thing we know its morning and as she slinks him away, arms and hands intertwined, he leaves a note for his mother: he has gone to find the way.

In the poet’s castle – yes, busting rhymes paid out as big then as now – the artist’s creativity  reaches new heights as he paints his love as she drapes herself on the nearest couch. It’s a passionate work and one that impresses the critics and public alike. Mario is a star of his lady’s making and his painting makes him rich.

But… you cannot dream without awaking can you?

Giovanni Pastrone directs with Caibirian dynamism and there is some gorgeous composition as well dreamy dolly shots as his camera moves around the action.

The film came with Italian titles translated by David Robinson and impeccably read by Lillian Henley accompanied by John Sweeney on piano. I loved what this duo did with TerjeVigen last year and they were no less impressive tonight. Lillian brought musical intonation to the reading, working hand in hand with her fellow pianist: only a silent film musician would know how to pace the words and only another could control their playing so well as to allow the reading to meld with their playing. All the words said and all the notes played in exactly the right order!

There were some huge, romantic chords from John – so much emotional on screen - and Lillian’s modulation was precise, filled with practiced emotional edge: the two were dueting and Pina made three. More please; this stuff should be on prescription!

We watched a superb 35mm print travelled over from Italy as part of a joint venture between the Bioscope and South West Silents – an exciting alliance that promises more riches from European archives.

Amleto Novelli and Pina Menichelli,

Also on the plane was a short film also featuring Pina but in a more conventional romantic comedy, Papà (1915) directed by Nino Oxilia. The film begins with a jaded playboy, Giuseppe Piemontesi, discovering that he has a son out in the country. Looking for purpose in his life, he heads out to meet the young man who turns out to be the not-so-young Amleto Novelli (about 30 at the time, not much younger than his cinematic “dad”).             

The lad has been romancing a local beauty, played by Pina, and disappointing a lovelorn shepherdess (Suzy Prim), well, amidst the lovely scenery, can you guess what is going to happen…?

Cyrus Gabrysch played along to this pastoral aperitif and enhanced its gentle if slightly confusing joy with Lillian making verbal sense of the translated titles.

So, you're my Papa?

First up we broadened our minds with some travelogues from the Cineteca di Bologna DVD Grand Tour italiano. 61 film dei primi anni del ’900 (available direct from Bologna!). There was a sea of faces from 1910, all gobbling up the potential of instant fame from the faces looking back up at them on screen, a novelty that never fades. Then to the skies for some fascinating shots taken from the Brera Observatory in L' Eclisse parziale di sole del 17 aprile 1912 - a partial solar eclipse had been filmed and the mechanism for capturing this event was shown: all this from a time when relativity was barely a twinkle.

Next we joined a group of patiently-posing dignitaries at The Great ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone of the sugar factory in Casalmaggiore (1910) the stone was carefully laid and then the men – and a few women – power posed like so many cigar-chomping frozen peacocks, for the moving camera.

L' Eclisse parziale di sole del 17 aprile 1912

Lest we forget that the Italian sense of humour is amongst the most advanced in the World, a smashing 35mm print of A Shrapnel Duel (1913) was shown: two silly men trying to blow each other in pursuit of a young woman’s hand. Bombs are attached to the daft duellists and they try and hit their opponent’s shell using metal hammers: be careful not to lose your head (and other body parts) in love or war.

Lillian was on piano for these first three, as modulated and expressive with music as with words.

Ben fatto Bioscope!! Stupendo!

Top cat… Tigre Reale (1916)

Is it getting hot in here? Now it’s probably the flames, lapping ever higher over the Grand Hotel Théâtre de l'Odéon but in truth it’s been getting warmer ever since the boys first noted the arrival of Pina Menichelli as Contessa Natka. As a man they turned to watch her slink out of her overcoat and address herself to the room with arched back and eyebrow, head held high to view the audience, looking through them with the superior gaze of a higher being.

Pina Menichelli

The great divas of Italian film in the teens enjoyed the male gaze and they also rose above it. This in itself might be a deliberate part of their appeal but as exploitation goes, it’s a cut above. Francesca, Lyda… they were in complete control, theatrically-experienced women of distinct presence and intellect but it’s Pina who is perhaps the most purely cinematic. Menichelli went straight to celluloid and it shows as she plays to the camera naturally filing the frame with poised elegance and an almost unconscious joy.

Their performances are like songs and only in Italy could you really get away with such melodramatic musicality and yet, always, there was Bertini’s calculated glare, Borelli’s sneering intensity and  Menichelli’s  selfless smile, to lift us above the act: artifice completely under-cut by abandon.

Giorgio is transfixed, but Pastrone shows reaction then action

Tigre Reale (The Royal Tigress) was directed by Giovanni Pastrone who brings some of Cabiria’s movement and scale although this time without the elephants. Menichelli was in that film (as was Bertini) and here she is the focus of Pastrone’s action as the married Russian Countess with a past who drives a young Italian diplomat Giorgio La Ferlita (Alberto Nepoti) to distraction in Paris.

The two’s first encounter leaves Giorgio besotted and unable to comprehend Natka's seeming indifference.  She promises him a dance – marking his card – but he looks up to see her leaving before they can meet on the dancefloor.

Giorgio is injured in a duel and receives an encouraging note from Natka to speed his recovery. A game of frustration begins before Giorgio can be certain that his feelings are reciprocated; Natka leaves just as he arrives, breaks arrangements, pulling away in her limousine just before he can reach her – she’s always just out of reach yet reaching out enough to keep him coming (we all know how that feels don’t we?).

Natka spots Giorgio in the wing mirror

Finally the two meet and Natka’s reticence is explained in a flashback – her unhappy marriage leading to a relationship with a young man named Dolski (Febo Mari) who her husband exiles to Siberia. Naturally Natka follows only to find him in the arms of another – he had given up hope yet seeing her again his love is rekindled. She, too proud to take him back, shuts him out and challenges him to demonstrate his love which he does by shooting himself making his point whilst ensuring that she loses hers.

Natka and the love of her life

Years of half-life have left her resistant to male company too afraid of finding love and now that she has she withdraws again from Giorgio and everyone else: still married and miserable she dwindles away masking her pain through self-medication.

Meanwhile Georgio lives on learning to love a new woman, the wealthy Erminia (Valentina Frascaroli). They plan to marry but at their engagement party he receives a letter from Natka… who must see him again.

"Natka's voice has something enigmatic and fatal about it..." ran the original title card

Arriving at her rooms in the Odeon, he finds her close to death, mind and body smothered in narcotic confusion, a woman who cannot live any longer. Forgetful, she drinks another few drops of morphine and collapses on her true love… overdosed and delirious, things are about to get a lot worse as fire engulfs the Odeon and her husband Count de Rancy (Gabriel Moreau), walks in only to promptly lock the lovers in.

Smoke billows, flames rise higher… is Natka even alive? Can the lovers escape… how many operas have a happy ending?? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Tigre Reale is another extraordinary tone poem from this golden age of Italian cinematic expression. It may be too emotive for some tastes and yet, once you get the style and the method it makes for captivating viewing. It’s interesting how early cinema was so clearly an extension of existing cultural styles in each country but you would expect no less with a new medium that could only be informed by theatrical method as it forged a new identity within increasingly-porous national boundaries.

Pina sets the tone

As Pastrone influenced Griffith so he too would learn new tricks from America, Germany and Sweden. But in 1916 the style was more clearly Italian! There’s some deft touches such as Natka’s point of view shot looking in her compact mirror to see Georgio moving towards her car, whilst the fire at the hotel is mirrored by the fire dance at the neighbouring theatre as the director cross-cuts between the two dramas: one real the other imagined… truth revealed in theatre.

The Fire Dance and the fire

The flashback sequence is also well handled with excellent exteriors of the sleigh ride across the snow, Natka’s rescue and the tragic circumstances of Dolski’s sad suicide. Good work from cinematographers Segundo de Chomón and Giovanni Tomatis who also allow Pastrone to combine close-ups with camera-fluidity – there is an especially impressive moment in the theatre as the view slowly reveals the stage beyond the watching countess then the audience and her distance from Giorgio.

Cinema in the theatre

It is a lovely-looking film and yet Tigre Reale is frustratingly not available on DVD although extensive segments are included in Diva Dolorosa (1999) – a compelling compilation of the diva period with snippets of Borelli, Bertini and Menichelli combined with the lesser lights of Soava Gallone and Helena Makowska and set to Loek Dikker’s swooning neo-classical score.

There are rough copies on youTube but this film deserves the same sort of attention as Sangue Blue and Ma l'amor mio non muore both of which are on DVD from Cineteca Bologna.

Diva Dolorosa is available along with Angela Dalle Vacche's excellent Diva, Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema or on its own from Amazon.

Floral fetish: Natka nibbles the flowers in her cab...

Cabiria (1914) ...the motion picture moves...

"Cabiria" is the first true cinematic epic and as such features a cast of many hundreds, huge purpose built stages and a fair few elephants.

Set in Carthage during the Second Punic Wars, it focuses the action on the titular Cabiria, her separation and ultimate reunion with the Roman people after their victory.

Directed in visionary style by Giovanni Pastrone it marks the first major use of camera mobility and is perhaps the definitive answer to the question: what happened between Méliès and Griffith? The latter was no doubt heavily influenced by Pastrone and surpassed him dramatically and technically by out "cabiria-ing" his most ambitious shots in "Intolerance" a couple of years later.

"Cabiria" is a classic in its own right and is expertly structured. There are, sadly, no close ups but that would (maybe) undermine the sheer epic nature of the story and its telling. It would be great to see the acting of the monumentally expressive Italia Almirante Manzini and Bartolomeo Pagano though!

Criterion are working on a deluxe re-issue (presumably based on the 2006 reconstruction?) but until then there's an excellent Kino DVD that does the film justice. The print is remarkably clean for a film mostly made in 1913.