APRIL 1983, STOCKHOLM, WEST BERLIN

Wojciech J. Has: Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie / The Saragossa Manuscript (PL 1965) starring Zbigniew Cybulski (Alfonso van Worden).

Fury / Kiihko. US 1936. D: Fritz Lang. VHS. The commencement (Spencer Tracy's ostensible guilt, the process of the lynching) is actually rather conventional. Only the course of the trial and the account of Tracy's rage really ignite the film. For Lang it must have been personal.
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WEST BERLIN
4.4.1983 a video and film night with Helmut Arlt.
- Clips from Kiss Me Kate / Anna suukko, äkäpussi (US 1953, George Sidney) and Since You Went Away / Kunnes palaat (US 1944, John Cromwell).
- Tex Avery cartoons and Gene Nelson dance sequences.
- TV: Hier ist der Londoner Rundfunk: Der Deutsche Dienst der BBC 1938-1945.
- On 35mm film: from a silent comedy compilation: Pearl White - Snub Pollard - Charlie Chase.
- On 35mm film in scope: the last reel from I Could Go on Singing / Suuri voitto (GB 1963, Ronald Neame, with Judy Garland, Dirk Bogarde.
Night of the Demon / Paholaisen palvelija. GB 1957. D: Jacques Tourneur. tv. DF. A demonic nocturne. Lucid cinematic storytelling. This goes to prove that T's greatness was not dependent on Lewton.
Directed by John Ford. US 1971. D: Peter Bogdanovich. Arsenal. A fine full-length portrait. Clips from 26 movies. Among the interviewees: John Wayne, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and John Ford, himself. Invited to Monument Valley to be interviewed, the only thing he says is: "Cut!"
Vortex. US 1982. D: Beth B & Scott B. Arsenal. Lethally boring avantgarde from New York.
Diva / Diiva. FR 1981. D: Jean-Jacques Beineix. Kurbel. Brilliant but with little substance.
Броненосец Потёмкин / Panssarilaiva Potjomkin / The Battleship Potyomkin. [x]. Arsenal. MoMA 16mm print with the Edmund Meisel score, sound speed. Meisel's score struck me as sharp, clear, and Eislerian. - Discovering montage. Griffith: parallelism. Gance: escalation towards ecstasy, explosion. Eisenstein: dialectics, the unity of the opposites, dynamics, the multi-layered reality expressed with a bite; clarity and multidimensionality simultaneously. Montage as the method of modern experience. The overflow of events, impressions and information pushes us to find ways to express the abundance of life without clichés. E. searches for primordial images and proto-images and on the other hand hyper-sensitive ways of expression.
Pat and Mike / Amor sekaantuu peliin. US 1952. D: George Cukor. tv. A sensitive and intelligent comedy. Spencer Tracy is the coach who solves Katharine Hepburn's strange ego problem, because of which she always putts the golf ball askew: it is because of the overbearing male friend in the background.
The Academy Awards for the films of 1982. Great show, little point about the statues.
14.4.1983 a video and film evening at Helmut Arlt. Video: Broadway Melody of 1938 / Broadway Melody 1938 (US 1937, Roy Del Ruth). +
The Love Goddesses [2] 35mm
16.4.1983 TV: ARD-Hitparade. Culture Club: Do You Really Want To Hurt Me. David Bowie: Let's Dance. Bananarama: Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. Malcolm McLaren: Buffalo Gals.
Арсенал / Arsenal. UA-SU 1929. D: Alexander Dovzhenko. Arsenal. [2] An unexcusably bad print ruined the viewing. The fine rhythm, the alternation of the slow and the fast scenes, was ruined.
Criss Cross / Elämän ja kuoleman leikki. US 1948. D: Robert Siodmak. tv DDR. DF. A taut movie, dubbed the Tristan and Isolde of film noir by Carlos Clarens, a kind of a remake of Siodmak's The Killers, Burt this time with Yvonne De Carlo. Its sturdy grip never lets go. In the climax, the big heist, the camera ascends into heaven and follows the course of the crime from above. There is a fateful sound in the final scene.
La Boulangère de Monceau. FR 1962. D: Eric Rohmer +
La Carrière de Suzanne. FR 1963. D: Eric Rohmer. Institut Francais. The two first filmed entries to Les Contes moraux. The first four are the best. Made with a mini budget financially but with an A budget spiritually.
Litan. FR 1981. D: Jean-Pierre Mocky. Fantastival. This might even have been a fascinating dream adventure, unless there hadn't been that terrible screaming music.
22.4.1983 Fantastival gala evening:
- Adventures of Captain Marvel (US 1941, D: John English, William Witney) - pilot episode. The whole series was screened during the festival, and I saw some four of them. Shazam!
- Hammer trailers
- Ray Harryhausen as special guest
- an audience contest of the best monster dress (the winner was a werewolf)
Letajushtshi korabl / Das fliegende Schiff. UA-SU 1960. D: Mihail Juferov & Artur Voitetski. Fantastival. DF. By accident this film based on a Russian folk tale was included in the festival. Not up to the Ptushko standards.
Tsherez ternii k zvojzdam 1-2 / Vaikeuksien kautta tähtiin / Die Frau aus dem All / Per aspera ad astra / To the Stars by Hard Ways. SU 1980. D: Rikhard Viktorov. Fantastival. DF. From deep space, from a polluted planet, a space woman is rescued on Earth. A children's movie, and too childish for that.
High Noon. [2] TV DDR DF. Now felt too self-important and synthetic.
24.4.1983 simultaneously on another channel the Eurovision song contest, including Carola Häggkvist: Främling / The Stranger. Britain and Spain are good, Finland not the weakest. Trash it is, but why does it have to be that way.
La Collectionneuse / Keräilijätär. FR 1967. D: Eric Rohmer. Institut Francais. Two male friends collect art. In a beach villa they meet a girl who collects men (although she denies it: "je ne suis pas une collectionneuse"). The smile of Haydée Politoff is captivating.
She / Kuolematon kuningatar. GB 1965. D: Robert Day. Fantastival. DF. An awkward H. Rider Haggard adaptation starring Ursula Andress (Undress, but of course "nothing" is shown). Only the shock ending if effective: in an instant the eternal queen ages a thousand years turning into a wrinkled heap, skeleton, ashes.
The Snake Woman. GB 1961. D: Sidney J. Furie. Fantastival. DF. A bad horror movie from the moors of England. The doctor conducts weird experiments with snake venom. The superstitious villagers conduct arson and burn the doctor's house, but a baby is secretly rescued. 20 years later in the moors at night there is a snake woman wreaking vengeance. The inspector of Scotland Yard will not believe in it until he discovers the skin of the woman from the moor - the snake monster has shed its skin.
20 Million Miles to Earth / Venuksen valloittajat. US 1957. D: Nathan Juran. Fantastival. The research capsule from a spacecraft to Venus hits the coast of Italy. It includes a little egg. Out of the egg gel moults a lizard-like creature which, when aroused, turns into a raving beast. In the atmosphere of the Earth it swells into supernatural proportions and destroys half of Rome until the armed forces of Italy bring it down. Beautiful animation by Ray Harryhausen.
Petlja Oriona / Orionin silmukka / Phaeton an Erde. SU 1980. D: Vasili Levin. Fantastival. DF. Gulp - I don't remember anything about this. In 2008 I read from the IMDB: "A strange phenomenon has been noticed on the outskirts of our Solar system that quickly approaches the Earth. It's called Orion's Loop. A spaceship with a crew of people and androids identical to them is sent to intercept the anomaly. But strange events start happening as the spaceship approaches the mysterious loop. Written by Boris Shafir."
Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie / Saragossan salaisuus. PL 1964. D: Wojciech J. Has. Fantastival. DF. An imaginatively sprawling, teasingly erotic, labyrinthine adventure from Napoleon's war in Spain. Borgesian-Sternbergian cinema.
Ex-Convict. US 1904. D: Edwin S. Porter. Arsenal. The ex-convict is down and out. He saves the life of a little girl on the street. Later he enters the girl's house and is mistaken for a burglar. The girl saves the day, and the family starts to help the ex-convict. Primitive cinema.
Native Land. US 1942. D: Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand. Arsenal. Beautiful, engrossing, accusatory, upsetting, noble. Stories from the fight for civil rights and violence in the USA. Diamond-sharp cinematography.
How to Make a Monster. US 1958. D: Herbert L. Strock. Fantastival. DF. The new bosses of the film studio decide that the age of the horror movies is over and fire the special make-up master. Soon there is a series of horrible murders at the studio, conducted by Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, etc., the new bosses as the first victims...
Fade to Black / ... kun valot sammuvat. US 1980. D: Vernon Zimmermann. Fantastival. I don't like the current "movies on movies" trend, but there are some saving traits here. The total alienation of the movie freak from reality. He now only lives through the movies: Kiss of Death, White Heat, The Seven Year Itch, The Prince and the Showgirl. The main actor has adopted the Tom Ewell manners. His character is one step beyond - to the worse - from Ewell's character in The Seven Year Itch. Rickie Sherman 15 years later.