Eight days a week… Il Cinema Ritrovato 36th Edition, (Part Two)

Well, here's another clue for you all, the Walrus was Paul… John Winston Lennon, Glass Onion

 

Let me take you down to the Piazza Maggiore, nothing is real and there’s nothing to get hung up about… There’s no limit to the Beatle references I can fit into this stuff so, anyone of you in the cheap seats can clap whilst those in the sponsored area just rattle your jewellery because this is my personal selection of mini-reviews for screenings that struck me in the eight days a week that was Il Cinema Ritrovato 36^th Edition… Eight halves as it were and most certainly not definitive. There's more... 

 

As you would expect, my week was mostly silent but the joy of this festival is firstly that there are half a dozen choices at any one point and secondly you can go eclectic at any point you choose, when it’s just too hot to walk all the way to Silent Town at the Sala Mastrioannie, or you just really need to see what Peter Lorre is doing or what Sophia Loren is wearing. It’s All Too Much, as I believe George Harrison once sang, but that’s the beauty, after a mad few days of completism – gotta see them all! - exhaustion, hangovers, sore feet and failing concentration demands variety!

 

1.       Ménilmontant (1926) with Stephen Horne

 

There were quite a few films I’d already seen but this new restoration was something else with Lobster films restoration not only adding clarity to the images – Nadia Sibirskaïa’s freckles have never been clearer – but also tinting which adds so much to one of the most beautiful of silent film. There was also the revelation that director Dimitri Kirsanoff was not actually a Russian emigre but from Estonia whilst Nadia was from Brittany; the two having adopted the more exotic background as part of the vogie for creative emigrees from Russia?

 

Whatever their reasons, the films they produced were esoteric and distinct even shot in the middle of Paris and this ethereality was enhanced by the new colours and, of course, Stephen Horne’s way with sympathetic and emphatic accompaniment. It was the most perfect blend of “special” audience, film and music. Not for the last time this week, the restoration of a film I thought I knew really brought new depth of meaning and fresh response.

The same could be said for Timothy Brock's splendid new orchestral score for Nosferatu (1922) which, watching him conduct the Orcestra del Teatro Cimunale di Bologna in the Piazza Maggiore, was as good a screening as I've seen, revealing much new about this very familiar film and helping the audience access a narrative of broader meaning. Good job sir!

2.       Superheroes…  Protéa (1913) with Maud Nelissen

 

There were some interesting early serials, pre-dating the works of Louis Feuillade and with a focus on the works of Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset with his evildoer Zigomar and endless adversary Nick Carter seemingly engaged in a non-stop exchange of capture and escape. Far more engaging was woman of mystery Protéa played by Josette Andriot, who was not only a mistress of disguise, she also had a male sidekick called The Eel (Lucien Bataille) so called because of his ability to squeeze in and out of tights spots.

 

Protéa was far more stylish in all ways, with disguises and a plot that was thoroughly entertaining and not, even by 1913 standards, hackneyed. She wears a black body stocking two years before Musidora as Irma Vep and needs it too to practice her martial arts and physical daring. Not surprisingly her protean quality and striking looks insured that four other episodes followed. Well, I’m onboard for more screenings and for the box set if at all possible.

 

Maud Nelissen accompanied with sisterly dynamism, supporting our heroine as she leapt from conclusion to capture and freedom, outwitting her captors time after time.

 

Jean Valjean (Henry Krauss) and his nemesis Javert (Henri Étiévant)

 

3.       Les Misèrables (1912) with John Sweeney, Gabriel Thibaudeau and Silvia Mandolini

 

Talking of serials, this was an unexpected joy equalling in its own way, the lengthier silent serial of 1926. Based in four parts totalling 168 minutes in length it was split into two screenings and, like a true serial left you wanting more – see above).

 

The first parts, focusing on Jean Valjean and then Fantine, dealt economically well with the complexities of the source material and was genuinely gripping as our hero made his way from humble beginnings and his arrest for stealing bread for his dying mother, to imprisonment then escape where his huge strength of character and physique enable him to take control of his own destiny always pursued by his nemesis, the unforgiving Walmer.

 

John Sweeney’s accompaniment gave the classic support this film required and the audience were on the edge of our seats before leaping off for the cheering applause. We were back the next day for Gabriel Thibaudeau’s piano and Silvia Mandolini’s violin to provide equally pleasing musical support as the focus shifted onto Fantine’s daughter Cosette, whom Valjean, having promised to support, rescues from a miserable family who use her as little more than a slave. Valjean once again makes a fortune and sets Cosette up for love with Marius a radical student who takes part in the battle of the barricades to try replace the post-revolutionary republic with an more egalitarian one. Recommended for fans of French history and film alike. An extraordinary clarity of purpose from Albert Capellani, way ahead of many at this time.

Glamour in Tu M’Appartiens

4.       The Diva endures… Tu M’Appartiens (1929), with Daniele Furlati

 

I don’t recall seeing anything with Francesca Bertini, one of the three great Italian Divas of the 1910s after that decade and yet here she is in this French film towards the very end of the silent era and her screen career, looking as proudly beautiful and emotionally nuanced as ever: the eternal diva.

 

Directed by Maurice Gleize, Bertini plays Gisèle a woman who is intent on gaining revenge for long ago being dumped by Rudolf Klein-Rogge’s Burat Laussade a reformed criminal who long ago escaped justice and the penal colony to build a new life for himself married to the nice-but-not-Bertini, Suzy Vernon. Under French law, anyone who manages to stay free for 20 years after the offence is able to avoid prosecution and, Laussade is quietly approaching that safety line before Gisèle catches up with him with her operatically grand revenge: she, naturally, wants it all.

 

The pace of the second half is especially intense and we get the chance to see Bertini ease through the gears like an emotional explosive device that sucks the air from your lungs as you hold your breath just watching her shift from violent resolve to heard-breaking compassion with audacious precision. They never made another one like Francesca and this is a precious film.

 

We watched a new sparkling 4k restoration from Gaumont in collaboration with CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée presso il, and when it comes to the UK and elsewhere, is not to be missed. Daniele Furlati accompanied, enhancing the drama and working at the same esoteric levels as Bertini and, to be fair, Klein-Rogge who knew a thing or two about guilt, all the better to portray some innocence here.

 

 

5.       Roscoe returns… Crazy to Marry (1922) with Donald Sosin

 

Having recently seen a presentation on the ill-fated and entirely innocent Mr Arbuckle, how he was kept working by his mates like Buster and how he almost made it back only to die young with a heart attack. Had it not been for the false accusation of rape this is the kind of film he would have made more of; just imagine, a body of work that may have been as inventive and as funny as Buster’s, Harry’s and Charlie’s?

Directed by James Cruze, this was a laugh riot from start to finish with Roscoe on top form with every facial trick, forlorn look to camera and that extraordinary trademark prat fall when he shifts his bodyweight to fall flat on back or front. Donald Sosin accompanied his old friend, thousands of hours shared between them on sight and sounds.

 

Jean-Louis Trintignant

6.       The Conformist (1970)

 

Screened on the opening day in the Piazza Maggiore; a film about how fascism works in front of a largely Italian crowd, who applauded it long and loud at the end. I can’t think of many similar films for the UK, maybe parts of Gandhi, but can you imagine Oh, What a Lovely War being screened in Trafalgar Square and the Daily Mail and various commentators saying it was traitorous. Strange times for us Brits and this film is even more essential viewing given the recent drift towards intolerance in public discourse.

 

The late Jean-Louis Trintignant is of course, incredible as Marcello Clerici, faithless civil servant happy to help out the secret service in the matter of “dealing with” his former friend and teacher, the wrong-thinking anti-fascist Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). Marcello travels with his fiancée Giula (the ageless Stefania Sandrelli who was on hand to provide the introduction) who seems to reflect more his desire for normalcy than romantic connection. He’s also accompanied by his handler, Special Agent Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) and things get very complicated when Marcello is attracted to Quadri’s lover, Anna (Dominique Sanda) who is also attracted to Giula.

 

Marcello sees marriage as the way to fit in and, whilst he certainly has some fear of his own true sexuality, this is not the only thing forcing him to make compromises that cost him friends, lovers and anyone but himself. He’s a survivor, he’ll do and say anything. Terrifying.

 

A 4k restoration from an original camera negative by the Cineteca di Bologna, in collaboration with others, it was magnificent on the Maggiore’s huge screen, a feast for the eyes and with ever more complex puzzles for the conscience.

 

Down on the street was my friend Charlie, taking a break from Bunjies folk cafe...

7.       Get Back (2021), with John, Paul, George and Ringo

 

Peter Jackson’s extraordinary three-part reworking of The Beatles Let it Be sessions, recorded at Teddington and Apple Studios in January 1969, has already been streamed but watching it with the thousands in the open air of the Piazza Maggiore, was something else indeed. You may not like this 60-year-old pop group but for some generations it’s musical magic, beyond nostalgia. If you’re from Liverpool and your Dad went to school with John and lived near George, then there’s not only local pride but community involved.

 

Jackson’s film allows us the most intimate access to their working methods and also completely blows away the bad taste of the original Let it Be film which focused on the negative. Here there’s the natural dialogue between very close friends and the piss-taking of a strong group. At one point Paul and John discuss the recording’s direction and it’s a startling moment as the two look directly into each other’s eyes, with even Ringo and George on the periphery; this is core band discussion, no producers, directors or wives… We see the creation of some epic tracks, even Octopuses’ Garden, alongside Paul’s epics hymns, Let it Be, Long and Winding Road and the rocker Get Back.

 

Everything culminates in the Apple Building Roof Top concert and this has never been fuller of more extensively covered. You feel The Moment and the vox pop support from all ages in the streets below runs alongside a triptych showing differing camera angles. Then the Police arrive and Macca turns round to whoop with extra energy, Mal Evans unplugs an amp, but George plugs it right back in and Lennon, already transformed by performing live, rises up a notch, Time travel doesn’t get much more visceral.

 

Film, plus audience and memories… we got back alright.

 

Maria Jacobini, the hills are alive.

8 Cainà: La Figlia Dell'isola (1922), with Laura Agnusdei, Tullia Benedicta, Stefano Pilia and Cecilia Stacchiotti

 

Under the sky at the splendid carbon arc projector fired up at the Piazetta Pier Paolo Pasolini this film

was confused by my late arrival as well as an electronic score that was sincere but just too emotionally inflexible to add much to the rather lovely images and dynamic central performance. Having now rewatched the whole film my impressions are reinforced with Gennaro Righelli’s film making the most of the Sardinian locations on land and sea as well as the remarkable display from Maria Jacobini as Cainà a part she co-wrote.

 

Cainà lives with her goats and conservative parents in a small farming community on the island and is on course to marry local boy Giannatola (Sig. Carmil) but she dreams of escape and the world beyond, even just the mainland. A boat arrives and she listens intently to the stories from the sailors. She stows aboard their ship and leaves, being discovered by the captain Pietro (Carlo Benetti) as a fierce storm strikes almost sinking the ship but killing her father on land. Unaware of the tragedy back home Cainà follows Pietro, much to his two sister’s disgust, and struggles with his expectations as well as life in a town.

 

It's a classic tale of restless youth and Cainà will find that she has no home wherever she goes… as the critic P. Amerio, wrote in the December 1923 Rivista Cinematografica, Maria Jacobini … expressed with admirable effect… the eternal fatal torment of the restless wanderer.

 

8 ½… C'era una volta (1922)

 

Sophia Loren in a dish washing competition with seven princesses, Omar Sherif being a mean old Prince riding horses and a squadron of flying saints... what more needs to be said?!

There’s more, of course there’s more… and there’s a number of films I shall be writing about in more detail over the coming days but it’s been fun!

 

Grazie mille Bologna, everyone who took part, who screened and who played, who organised and who served! See you in 2023!!

 

Back home… Foolish Wives (1922), Timothy Brock, Il Cinema Ritrovato 36th Edition (Part One)

OK, remind me how this goes again, we leave the country that has held us prisoner since 2016, sorry 2020, and land in a place where almost everyone wears face masks and where films of all eras are screened every day from 9.00 till passed midnight. Some how we’re supposed to sleep, eat and socialise and to take care of the other routines as the Celsius hits high 30s… and, somehow, some of us are supposed to write stuff about it? The pleasure and the pain of this festival is precisely down to their being too much to do… so, turn off you mind, turn on your out of office, relax and float downstream on the Reno.

 

Herewith begins my highlights of the first few whirlwind days… let’s start with a biggie.

 

“Sooner or later those romantically inclined American wives who believe the superficial polish of Old Worldling and his fascinating ways are the essential qualifications of a husband will be disillusioned. They are sure to come to the realization that the man for the American Woman – is the American Man.”

 

Foolish Wives (1922) 

 

The first million-dollar movie acclaimed the publicity… and, spectacularly, Erich von Stroheim delivered on the ROI and Universal had another hit on its hands from the most complex man in most parts of Hollywood whose productions had the skill of DeMille, the scale of Griffith and a dark heart the latter could never think or feel. The son of a hatmaker, the Austrian was all too aware that clothes maketh the man and, for that matter, how far you need to go to get a hat to get ahead, his incredible drive seeing his not only create himself anew in the USA but also emerge from the field of European theatricals to be trusted with audacious projects such as this one, the controversial Blind Husbands (1919) – screening later this week here – and his masterwork, Greed (1924) of which I had the pleasure of seeing the four hour reconstruction screened at the BFI a few years back.

 

He arrived in 1909 and how he built his reputation in less than a decade is a story for another time but what you can see in this film is the extent of his control, basing it on a “novel” he didn’t write, and using huge reconstructions of Monte Carlo and a cast of thousands, he effectively played a version of his invented self. Instead of a bourgeois Viennese faking German aristocratic airs, he’s a phoney Russian military officer, Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin, accompanied by his two cousins, minor white Russian royals who have fled the unfortunate events in their home country.

The three live in a grand villa and frequent the Casino and all the best places so they can work their various whiles on unsuspecting rich tourists, the more American the better. This is a slick crime caper movie from before the days when slick crime capers set in this period were all the rage. But Erich is making sure we see the seedier side as well, he and his two “cousins” may smile and be villains too, charming con artists, but he has a debauched sexuality which is revealed early on when Cesare Ventucci, a local tradesman/counterfeiter visits with his young daughter Marietta (18-year old Malvina Polo) who is distastefully described as “half-witted”, clutching her dolly. Marietta attracts reptilian glances from the Count, who even licks his lips (not for the last time) and if we were under any misapprehensions about the true depths of this man’s character von Stroheim makes is crystal clear right from the off.

 

It might even be described as “Hitchcockian” in another country, another decade… but the director is making us complicit in his character’s agendas from the get-go, and, as we want redemption for all our lovable rogues, he’s giving us a tricky moral maze to navigate. Also, about that redemption… this film was made in Hollywood but this is not a “Hollywood director”. The Count is charming us all if we let him, suspending our own disbelief despite all of the evidence of all that is put before us, call him Boris by any other name, or Don. This is just fantasy or is it real life?

 

Von Stroheim puts so much detail in the films of his I’ve seen and this was to have been over six hours long and split in two screenings if he’d had his way. The length was as grandiose as the location, designed by Richard Day, his debut as art director, and who later won seven Oscars and worked on Greed, and this presented the studio with all the dull problems you’d expect and with his presented cut of 31 reels, soon reduced to 14 for its New York premiere and then another four, including the spectacular extended opening. This restoration produced by MoMA and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, contains no previously unseen footage, but does attempt to recreate the balance and sense of that first theatrical release as well as the sparkling clarity, via digital processing. Scenes have been returned to their original order, the 1928 re-release – the basis of most version to date - intertitles have been replaced with the original texts, adding tinting and recreating the spectacular colour effects of the climactic fire sequence.

 

Erich and Miss DuPont

The other characters are almost as nuanced as the Count, with Maude George as Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff and Mae Busch as Princess Vera Petchnikoff, ugly sisters on the inside but not without good humour and some compassion; professionals without the Count’s unhealthy singlemindedness and tastes. They distract rich American Andrew J. Hughes (Rudolph Christians who was replaced by Robert Edeson’s back view after dying during production) whilst the Count attempts to seduce his much younger wife, Helen (Miss DuPont aka Patricia Hannon from Kentucky) in front of his very eyes. They first meet on a sunlit hotel veranda and the start of the seduction is so very well signified with not a moment out of place as by almost imperceptible gesture, stolen glances, over newspaper and book, yes Foolish Wives by Erich von Stroheim (100% meta) the two begin to connect and to collude. She is, after all, a bored young wife who is reading about romantic fantasy and quickly interested in the attractions of foreign nobility.

 

The Count is sexually voracious – a predator in every way – and we soon learn that he has not only wooed their maid Maruschka (Dale Fuller, excellent here as in Erich’s Greed and The Wedding March, proper skilled actor) but made her pregnant. He keeps making her promises we know he won’t keep and maybe, at the time he means it, maybe… but people pleasing won’t save him for ever and she will have her revenge at some point.

 

It’s all but pointless to describe the narrative in too much detail as its detail on screen is so full of nuance that only by viewing can you fully appreciate (yes, that is a cop out) but to see it on the giant screen in the Piazza Maggiore, was special. Which brings me to Timothy Brock’s extraordinary score and the performance of L’Orcestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna which he conducted. His score was technically brilliant in terms of the Russia themes he borrowed and interwove to support the grandiosity on screen and also the delicious lines of his own written to map every strange and unusual nuance from von Stroheim’s screen. It felt complete with the film and completed that magical connection between the place, the audience and the film that makes live silent screenings so compelling and which makes this place, almost uniquely, a truly silent city.

 

Brava Mr Brock, Bologna and Erich’s cast and crew. Glad to have you all back where you belong*.

 

*Get Back screens at the Piazza on Thursday, natch.