Verzweifelte hausfrau… Abwege (1928), with Mauro Colombis, Pordenone Day Six

I saw this film as part of last year’s BFI Weimar Season but couldn’t resist the chance to see the restored version again, with tints and crystal clarity, and also to “remaster” my own thoughts on a film that gets less attention than most of Pabst's output. Made between The Love of Jeanne Ney and Pandora’s Box it certainly has neither the dramatic sweep of the former nor the mythic intensity of the latter, but it’s nearly on a level in subtler ways. There's always less at stake but the enduring happiness of two - or more - people is always watching out for.

 

The director turns what could have been a light romantic tale into an intense psycho-drama that plumbs the depths of naughty, bawdy, gaudy, snorty Berlin club culture in ways that are less dramatically extreme but all the more believable. The film was entitled The Devious Path for the English market but the Giornate’s director Jay Weissberg is not alone in prefering the literal translation of A Stray which is far less judgemental and more reflective of the film’s point.  

 

Pabst certainly brought out the very best of Brigitte Helm as he did with a nervy Garbo and a fearless Brooks, with a mix of instruction, editing and the flying camerawork of Theodor Sparkuhl, who’s camera “…is as unchained as Brigitte Helm’s character...” especially as it moves in the midst of her wild dancing at the nightclub, inhibitions all lost. Helm is almost ever-present and we see every delicate transition as she flits from intense frustration to anger, from desire to fear, hate to love… her body thrown into acute angles just as her unique features shift through gears most of us don’t have. She’s the only thing really happening in the film which is a minimalist story of suburban disconnection stirring horrific extremes in her character Irene Beck.

Brigitte

Pabst digs into her portrayal and the tension is not just surface but disturbed. Helm was a relatively inexperienced actress at this point, just one year on from Maria but she had already worked with Pabst on Jeanne Ney and there was obviously a connection with the actress willing to commit so much. Occasionally she over-steps but quickly corrects and is always inhabited by the moment; a true “silent actress” supple and sensuous whether tortured or teasing.

 

But yes, Gustav Diessl is also in it as her neglectful husband Thomas and he’s full of dark-eyed tricks of his own. He too can transmit mixed signals and come over all doe-eyed destroyed seconds after being in control… he’s a very shadowy presence next to Brigitte’s shining light but… casting, lighting, directing will all do that for you.

Brigitte Helm and Gustav Diessl

Thomas is married to his work and won’t show Irene much attention let alone a good time and their union has hit the rocks at just the wrong point. Irene is much too much to not be noticed and artist Walter Frank (Jack Trevor) can’t help but to draw her and to be drawn to her… constantly sketching his affection in a studio dominated by her image. Irene and Walter plan an escape but Thomas spots the clues and arrives just in time to bring his wife back.

 

Irene is not to be constrained and breaks away to find her friends, led by Liane (Joyless Street’s Hertha von Walther) in a nightclub. This “den of iniquity” as Councillor Möller (Fritz Odemar) calls it, offers all kinds of temptation and as Irene sits knocking back the champagne her eye is caught by a lone woman, Anita Haldern (Ilse Bachmann). Eventually she follows her behind a curtain emerging somewhat refreshed by powders unknown as Pabst ticks off as many illicit activities as he can.

Off to the powder room...

Irene dances, flirts with a boxer Sam Taylor (Nico Turoff) – who couldn’t be more different than Thomas, and makes sure Walter also sees her independence. It’s a heck of a night and Sparkuhl’s camera draws us, hand-held, into the heart of the action, inebriating the viewer with images.

 

No less impressive is the scene once Irene gets home to find Thomas lying still in the darkness; the couple re-unite and all seems forgiven until Thomas spots the very odd hairy-chested man-doll Irene had been given at the club. It doesn’t look much to me but as a token of unabashed male sexual interest it’s clear enough to him. The row resumes and the new dawn fades…

 

Irene now begins a liaison with Boxer Sam who we see soaring in a display of the animalistic masculinity Thomas does not provide, and as he asks Walter to draw her picture, it looks like artist vs athlete unless Thomas the Accountant can intervene…

Ultimately the “devious” path is more about truth and fidelity than sex, drugs and nightclubbing and is very engaging, emotionally heightened cinema that relies on the depth of feeling rather than drama. It looks sensational partly because both Brigitte and Gustav do, and this new restoration, first shown at the 2018 Berlinale shows this off to maximum effect.

Local lad, Mauro Colombis, sent his recorded accompaniment from Australia, and it matched Pabst’s tonal subtlety in ways that were unexpected with rich melodic lines that were perfectly attuned to the torments and sweeping desired on screen. This online Limited Edition of Le Giornate has served to highlight the players more than usual and whilst a  virtual audience can never match the atmosphere of a live one, spirits across the globe must have been lifted by this new combination of music and movement.

Ghosts on their shoulders… The Apaches of Athens (1930) plus Neil Brand Masterclass, Pordenone Day Five

Half-way through this “Limited Edition” of Le Giornate, Pordenonlineonly as literally no one is calling it, it’s safe to say that the travel has broadened our minds. From the mid-West on Saturday to actual China, then back to an Americanised Sino-Japanese version, San Francisco and Italy, it’s been a whirl and tonight we alighted in Greece for what I think is my first Grecian silent.

Before Greece we took a trip to South London for Neil Brand’s Masterclass, another must-watch session for all of us who want to understand how these elite players accompany silent film with a piano, an audience, no safety net and a century old partner that you may or may not have seen before let alone rehearsed. He was, as ever, erudite and honest talking about his personal commitment to the work

“Silent film music is a lie detector folks, people can hear if you not into it because you start to sound inauthentic… I’ve always felt that my job is to play the music from the inside out… taking an actor’s sensibility…”

Neil Brand abides

This ties in to Philip Carli’s comments in yesterday’s discussion, on playing being like acting and as Neil trained and worked as an actor as well as a musician you can see why he’s so effective. The musician places themselves in the heart of the film, taking up an improvised role and the best accompaniment should feel as if it’s “coming out of the screen at you”.

In looking to connect his audience with the action Neil looks for the common themes that still resonate across the gap between production and viewing. This becomes ever more difficult as we develop our own “history” and I would guess, the more that history is specific to the task in hand, Neil has some four decades of silent film experience and when he first started playing he naturally incorporated his own experience of film music by bringing the sensibilities of The Dam Busters to a war film and so on… mixing scoring styles with an awareness of both ends of the contemporary spectrum. This would seem to be the way that music develops and will continue to do so with the influence and incorporation of Zimmer thuds, Jóhannsson ethereality and Richter sadness.

Neil talked us through the history of musical accompaniment from the very earliest booklets suggesting themes for hard-worked pianists onto the more specific instruction of play books and an actual score for Fairbank’s The Black Pirate (1926). Music was always around silent film and for the Mabel Norman film Mickey, 1918’s biggest smash, there was a song to promote the film and vice versa, sheet music readily on sale to cash in.

Neil's score for Robin Hood with added notes for the conductor on how the action plays out

Kevin Brownlow, David Gill and Carl Davies brought new attention to silent films in the early 80s and Neil “rode the wave” helping to change the view that silent film music was merely functional. Over this time a lot of the films have been restored and look far better than the largely unrestored prints; the old nitrate glow has gone but the films look incredibly detailed and fresh.

eil then showed the William Hart film Wolf Lowry – featured in last year’s Giornate – and it provided the perfect sample for Neil to show how themes are established with the unfolding of character and narrative. Thirteen minutes in and we can see how the story is going to go and the musical elements are starting to come right out of the screen…

Again, another star turn from the accompanists, really informative and Neil’s enduring enthusiasm shows exactly why he passed that “lie detector test” every time I’ve heard him. He is usually too engrossed in the process to remember much of what he has played and feels the responsibility of honouring the “Ghosts on his shoulder”, the people who made these films. Every time is different as inspiration coming off the screen comes in ways that can’t be anticipated; unexpected turns in the narrative and performance that can change the player’s mood. This job draws creativity and inspires Neil which is why he loves “this job” and, we can hear it.

All that jazz in 1930

“The world is a lie

A deceitful dream

and till the last breath you take

Laugh and sing and never put evil in your hearts!”

 

Music was the inspiration for our main feature with Dimitrios Gaziades’ The Apaches of Athens (Oi Apachides ton Athinon) (1930) being based on a 1921 operetta by Nikos Hadjiapostolou with a libretto by Yannis Prineas who adapted it for the screen and also acts in the film. Apaches was only rediscovered four years ago in Paris and has been lovingly restored by the Greek Film Archive, the Cinémathèque française, together with the laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna. The result is a kind of Silent Musical with Ioannis Tselikas of the Hellenic Music Centre in Athens, recreating the score, adding three new songs and incorporating pre-existing recordings.

It’s a rousing love story and what strikes you very quickly is not just the use of locations in Athens but the director’s choice to film in some of the most deprived areas of the city. Greece was undergoing considerable economic and political strife at the time and Gaziades’ positioning of actual locations in this ostensibly light opera is telling especially as scenes of wealthy living where also shot at the (temporarily) deposed King’s palace; maximum contrast.

The film is all about class and the different worlds of the rich and the poor, with our hero Pierre (Petros Epitropakis) a penniless “Apache” known locally as The Prince for his joy de vivre. He gets paid to play the part of the made-up fresh Prince of Mont-Athos in order to humiliate a nouveau riche family and the message couldn’t be clearer; he’s more noble than they are.

“What a noble appearance from afar you can see he’s blue blooded…” say women at the posh party when he arrives, appearance is all and yet it’s what’s inside that counts and Pierre’s head will not be for turning in the manner of many Hollywood musicals made post-Depression and since.

The story starts with Pierre trying to scrump along with no money along with his pals, Karkaletsos (Petros Kyriakos) and Karoumbas (the multi-talented Yannis Prineas), cadging what they can in local cafes and playing games with the local kids. Pierre is worshiped by local flower-seller Titika (Mary Sayannou-Katseli) even though her mother doesn’t approve, and, after an over-zealous “game” of stone throwing, she sneaks off to look after him as he recovers.

Mary Sayannou-Katseli and Petros Epitropakis

Meanwhile we meet a newly enriched family living among eye-rolling servants at a palace on the hill, Xenofon Paralis (George Christoforides) and his daughter Vera (Stella Christoforidou). His adviser Zenobe Kyriacos (Nik Perdikis) has his eyes on handling more than Xenofon’s millions but his daughter too and is distraught when his boss laughs off his attempt to secure her hand.

Salty intertitles mock the “demanding pass-times of the nouveau riche…” whilst Xenofon asks his secretary to decorate his empty bookshelves with books, expressing no preference for author or subject matter. Clearly something he’d need to be more careful about in these days of Zoom backgrounds.

Vera, who is somehow perfectly decent, falls off her horse out riding and, by chance, Pierre is there to rescue her. The two have an instant connection and it’s a true one as the hero rejects her offer of monetary reward, her safety being all he needs in return… Meanwhile Zenobe plots a grand revenge and, by chance again… recruits Pierre to play his princely part at the Paralis’s party which will serve as their introduction to Athenian society. Pierre and the lads drive a hard bargain but he’ll soon get more than he bargained for arriving to find his new love and quickly realising the nature of the plot.

Guilty feet? Stella Christoforidou and Petros Epitropakis

Will Zenobe have his way, does money talk and, you know, fake Princes walk? And what about the lovely Titika; Pierre faces a choice between love and love… money is just not a factor for this princely Apache!

Throughout the action is not only illustrated by the reworked music of the operetta with songs illustrating love and longing - “I long to live only with you and get eternally intoxicated by your kisses…” as well as old Twenties 78s featuring jazz and a nifty ditty about retsina. It is exactly the kind of mid-week orchestral treat we’re used to at the Giornate and you can only imagine the experience in the Teatro Verdi.

This is one of only two of Gaziades’ films to survive and it shows the vibrancy and sophistication of Greek silent film. The Greek Film Foundation and the restoration team have done their giant ghosts proud!

Bonus screen gabs...

Musical actors… La Tempesta in un Cranio (1921), with Günter A. Buchwald and Frank Bockius, Pordenone Day Four

“Cinema must be a messenger for propaganda: for righteousness, for goodness, for honesty, for the noblest human and societal feelings. In short, it must educate while entertaining.” Carlo Campogalliani

 

This special Limited Edition of Le Giornate, does not feature the usual live accompaniment and it was fascinating to listen in to today’s Masterclass with five of the Festival’s musicians discussing the different challenges of recording what are normally one off improvisations. Chaired by John Sweeney, the panel featured Philip Carli, Mauro Colombis, José María Serralde Ruiz and Daan van den Hurk.

 

Philip Carli dislikes recording in this context ask it makes him all too aware of passages and musical decisions that he would do differently given a second take; nevertheless he recorded his accompaniment for Where Lights Are Low (1921) in one take as if live. Jose also adopted the performance style for his but Daan took longer over his recording as he was playing a previously arranged score for the Bioscope compilation which made for the different challenge of obtaining the most accurate takes and one that supports the discipline of short films of varying length and tone.

 

John highlighted the lack of audience as the crucial third part of the improvisational “live” experience” whilst he also recorded on midi so he could edit his work. This led him to worries about losing that constantly shifting awareness and response to the timing of the film he gets from playing live which has in the past, he feels, challenged his sense of continuity with the source material.

 

The Famous Five

This is fascinating for non-musicians and not surprising for a group of players who improvise for a living. It also goes to the very nub of the “live” silent cinema experience, the three-way interplay between sound, screen, and auditorium. Now we have all these elements in place but just not in the same space or even at the same time with some viewing on “catch-up”. The music, the film, the audience are all out of joint and yet… it still works powered by our digitised intimacy and propped up by social media, comments, and other direct connections.

 

Most importantly, it’s not only the musicians who treat their contribution as a performance, the audience does to; that’s the way it works best and we’re all viewing with hard-wired expectations and responses – memory and imagination plugs the gap and I wake up every day feeling the Festival spirit. If only I had proper Italian coffee and cornetto alla marmellata… I can almost smell them.

Coming up: phototelephonophotography!

Quoting Elmer Bernstein, John said you have to align with the heartbeat of a film and all agreed that, even with films they’ve played for unseen, the best accompaniments have come when they’ve become submerged in the events on screen.There was a discussion about authenticity in terms of the musical themes used and there was a feeling of being “imposters” – albeit highly-skilled ones - overlaying musical suppositions onto defined works of art with often unknowable agendas. Then Mr Carli suggested that, as much as anybody on screen, “we are actors… doing our best with parts…” and then a giant penny dropped. Most silent films weren’t tightly scripted for dialogue with performers having to constantly improvise and the musicians are still carrying this process forward every tiem they connect with the action on screen.

 

It is always good to hear more about a process that, for me, is almost indistinguishable from magic and which is essential to the silent film experience.  I’m also pretty sure there could be a reality TV series in this, Five Pianists Go Busking perhaps or maybe just Go into a Bar?

 

Carlo Campogalliani and Letizia Quaranta 

At least Günter Buchwald and Frank Bockius had each other for company when creating their accompaniment for today’s main feature, La tempesta in un cranio (1921) aka Kill or Cure, rather appropriately for this moment.

 

Directed, co-scripted and starring “the Italian Fairbanks”, Carlo Campogalliani, the film was an energetic and light-hearted affair, featuring an experiment in “phototelephonophotography” – something like a prototypical Zoom call - as well as much running, jumping and climbing. Presented in a new 2K digital restoration by MIC LAB of the tinted and toned period nitrate print held at the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana in Milan it looked like one of Doug’s more fevered dreams.

 

The film announces itself as being based on a (fictional) book by one by Alfredo Ariberti, Tempest in the Cranium, an hygienic-curative novel against neurasthenia… and proceeds to show the history of the De Otis family for whom every generation eventually becomes deranged. Campogalliani plays Renato De Ortis, “the last descendant of a line of lunatics, wealthy, noble, beloved…” by his lady Liana (Carlo’s wife, Letizia Quaranta) and yet worn down by his fear of this inherited insanity. His home is laden down with books on the mind, life curtailed by the fear of turning into the next deranged De Otis. Can the cycle be broken?

Mad with worry

But how can I think of the smiles of life when I'm under the most terrible ancestral threat?

 

Renato’s friends set about trying to get him to snap back to life and the above mentioned novelist, Alfredo Ariberti, brings him a specialist, Professor Valenti, who recommends he do more exercise and stop reading books; his muscles are inert because of idleness and I know the feeling! But Renato can barely lift a small dumbbell and slips back into his stupor… as his friends fret about how to help him.

 

Strange and unfortunate things start happening as Renato’s mines are flooded following a volcanic eruption and his remaining money is stolen in a burglary; life seems to be taking a turn for the worst and after a deep and disturbed sleep he finds himself waking up under a park bench… The Storm in the Cranium is about to begin!

No hanging around, not in this film.

 

Now the film picks up a pace and Renato goes on a breathless adventure during which he gets accused of being a master criminal, chased repeatedly by the police and encounters a scientist and his daughter. The scientist is working on a televisual telephone and there are enemy agents aplenty out to stop him and steak his idea, they kidnap the boffin and his backer and then try to finish Renato and the girl by tying them up in chains in a mill house, the grinding stone moving down ever closer to the maiden in distress as Renato does his Douglas-best to stop it.

There's also a greta bit of business involving a tower, a rope that is too short, some cheese, a candle and a mouse which is very well worked! Yet, where this adventure leads, I cannot say, but if you’re very quick you can find out for yourselves on catch up.

Go to the Giornate site as soon as you can!

Different premise but the film did remind me of the Fairbanks film When the Clouds Roll By (1919) and Campogalliani shows similar levels of aerobic invention as he free-runs through the film.  It’s not so much madcap as motivational and, whilst it’s exhaustingly daft, going back to Campogalliani’s quote at the top, perhaps the message to us all to get up and get out a lot more!

 

Günter and Frank kept up with all the manic movement, making musical sense of the madness by injecting some wondrous wacky lines of their own over percussive pandemonium. This is probably not a good film to accompany unseen but I’m certain these two would cope; there’s never one way to improvise and circumstance as well as cine-film, lead to the maximum level of “known unknowns” especially given the amount of cine-telepathy they have.

Bonus screen grabs made using Windows Snipping Tool if you want to know.

Sessue superstar… Where Lights Are Low (1921), with Philip Carli, Pordenone Day Three

Unlike his ancestors, Tsu Ya Woug Shih follows the principles of Western culture. He loves according to his heart…

The New York Times thought this film a standard movie melodrama and that “Mr. Hayakawa is worthy of something more genuine…” and yet, in Japan, future Toho producer, Iwao Mori, praised it for its authentic depiction of “Eastern ways of thinking.” Mori even went so far as to call Hayakawa “an unofficial diplomat…” to be supported by a Japanese public who were initially less impressed with his roles as the bad guy in films like DeMille’s The Cheat (1915).

By this point Sessue Hayakawa was in a more powerful position in Hollywood and this was the twentieth film made by his own production company, Haworth Pictures through which he was able to play more of the hero. This progression was much welcomed in Japan according to his biographer Daisuke Miyao from San Diego University who was on hand for the post-screening discussion. He estimates that only some 40% of Hayakawa’s silent films survive which makes this restoration from a 35mm nitrate print at the Jugoslovenska kinoteka, Beograd, all the more important.

Learning Western ways

Where Lights Are Low is evidence of the actor/producer’s appeal and he has star power to burn with ridiculous good looks, focused expressiveness as well as action hero athleticism – his big brawl with the film’s equally impressive baddie, played by Togo Yamamoto, is clothes-ripping, choke-holding, nose-bloodying authentic in the manner of Hobert Bosworth; exhausting to watch.

Whilst I can see the Times’ point of view – this is a melodrama and it does have moments of cultural cringe - it shows how off the pace they were in terms of recognising both the uniqueness of the star and the effectiveness of the film’s production. Colin Campbell’s direction is smoothly assured and there’s a wonderful set-piece in a ballroom that cuts between the elegance of the dancing and the reactions of Tsu Ya Woug’s uncle on his first trip to the West. He looks down in amazement at the dancers’ graceful cohesion and imagines the jazz band as Chinese; cultures crossed in one cross-shot.

Sessue and Gloria Payton

That said, as Professor Mori states in his notes, Hayakawa’s company was being run by the Anglo-American Robertson-Cole company who were setting the agenda in terms of productions that conformed to fans’ “Orientalist imagination of Asia”. But their star was still intent on authenticity – even though he is playing a Chinese character – and this shows in the commitment to portraying both the eastern and western environments.

The set design is superb and the overall aesthetic from China to San Francisco’s China Town is high quality even if the latter was based on photographs less than experience; this is a well-resourced undertaking!

The story is from Lloyd Osbourne, a stepson of Robert Louis Stevenson, and tells of a Chinese nobleman who is intent on following Western ways not least in matters of the heart. He is in love with his gardener’s daughter, Quan Yin, played by Gloria Payton who, in unconvincing make up and with limited range is the film’s biggest weakness. It’s strange casting to modern eyes when you consider that the rest of the oriental cast is either of Japanese or Chinese origin but despite acting with his wife Tsuru Aoki in The Dragon Painter and others, Hayakawa seems mostly to have been restricted to either Caucasian actresses or love interests.

Introducing Uncle to new pals

His Uncle is having none of it and has plans for Tsu Ya Woug to marry the socially acceptable Jae; “nobles are not allowed to choose according to their own will… “

Tsu Ya Woug heads off to America to train as a lawyer although I’m not sure what relevance this will have to his noble responsibilities back home, and vows to return for Quan Yin. Four years on he’s qualified so well he’s dressed in a smart evening suit playing craps with his buddies in a backroom when his uncle comes to find him.

Meanwhile, in Chinatown, the police are looking to crack down on human trafficking and fail to look deep enough into a consignment of tea chests that includes a drugged Quan Yin hidden beneath the Oolong. She’s taken for auction where local mobster, Chang Bong Lo (Togo Yamamoto) is determined he’ll buy her for himself. Yamamoto is just fantastic here, he looks the part and acts with real menace and unpredictability, especially in one later scene when he confronts our hero by throwing a rotten banana at him. He went on to make many Japanese films including Yasujirō Ozu’s Sono yo no tsuma and Ojosan.

Togo Yamamoto

Anyway… back at the auction Tsu Ya Woug, slumming it, walks in to find his love for sale and bids $10,000 to buy her back. Unfortunately, his Uncle refuses to fund his investment of the heart and he ends up having to work for three years to raise the money himself. Confusingly he doesn’t do this by using his legal training but by washing dishes and then opening a grocery store where he encounters his rival for the aforementioned fruity face off.

 

Even when he eventually raises the money though he will still face opposition from Chang Bong Lo when it turns out that, surprisingly, money can’t buy you love and you have to fight for it!

Accompanist extraordinaire, Philip Carli, is very familiar with Campbell’s work and described him as a “penny plain, tuppence coloured director… very straightforward” yet, this film he found to be much more colourful than the director’s usual fare, presumably because of Hayakawa’s drive for realism. Philip said that the fight sequence is reminiscent of the fight Campbell filmed in The Spoilers (1914), but silent film scraps could be brutal.

Grocery grievance

In musical terms Carli had to approach the film carefully because he didn’t want to fall into the obvious “traps” of an American film on an oriental subject. He aimed to keep the musical inflections as light as possible, and, as with everything in silent accompaniment, he knows exactly how to step back in the overall mix allowing the flavours of the images to speak for themselves. His playing delivered showing, what he described as “sensitivities towards the culture of the film making as well as the characters on screen…”

He lifted the film and complimented the heroic Hayakawa so well that I almost felt I was in the Teatro Verdi… looking forward to the after-show Aperol Spritz.

Next year!!