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| Varastettu kuolema / The Stolen Death with Ralph Enckell (Robert) and Tuulikki Paananen (Manja) holding "the stolen death" or "the meat-grinder" of the title of the original story, about to be smuggled in a baby cart. Photo: Elonet / KAVI. Please click on the photo to enlarge it. |
Den stulna döden.
Director: Nyrki Tapiovaara. Year: 1938. Country: Finlandia. Sog.: dal racconto Lihamylly [The Meat-Grinder] di Runar Schildt. Scen.: Erik Blomberg, Eino Mäkinen, Matti Kurjensaari. F.: Olavi Gunnari, Erik Blomberg. M.: Erik Blomberg, Nyrki Tapiovaara. Scgf.: Kaarlo Oksanen, Ilmari Tapiovaara. Mus.: George de Godzinsky.
Int.: Tuulikki Paananen (Manja), Ilmari Mänty [Ralph Enckell] (Robert Hedman), Santeri Karilo (Jonni Claesson), Annie Mörk (signora Johansson), Bertha Lindberg (madre di Robert), Hertta Leistén (la zia), Gabriel Tossu (calzolaio), Jalmari Parikka (guardiano della prigione), Aku Peltonen (guardiano dell’obitorio).
Prod.: Erik Blomberg. DCP 4K. D.: 104’. Bn.
Finnish premiere: 4 Sep 1938 in Helsinki (Bio Rex), Kotka, Kuopio, Pori, Tampere, Turku and Viipuri, distributed by Adams Filmi Oy.
Restored in 4K in 2019 by KAVI from the original negatives and the original nitrate prints.
Copy from KAVI (National Audiovisual Institute / Finland).
by courtesy of Erkka Blomberg.
In Finnish, with some Swedish and Russian, with English subtitles on DCP.
Recovered & Restored.
Introduce Antti Alanen (KAVI).
Screened at Sala Scorsese, Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato, e-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra, 29 June 2019.
Antti Alanen (Il Cinema Ritrovato): "Arguably, the three most original spirits in the history of Finnish cinema are Nyrki Tapiovaara, Risto Jarva, and Aki Kaurismäki. During his short career Tapiovaara mastered both all-Finnish subjects and modernist musical satires. Varastettu kuolema was his most ambitious film, an irreverent resistance thriller displaying a youthful rebel spirit. Tapiovaara’s register was open to experimental influences from French, German and Soviet cinema to dadaism (Entr’acte) and surrealism (Un chien andalou), all reworked with panache."
"The film is based on a short story by Runar Schildt on the taboo subject of Finland’s 1918 civil war, but the narrative was transferred to the time of the Russian-Japanese war leading to the revolutionary year of 1905. At the time Finland belonged to the Russian Empire, and in Varastettu kuolema we follow freedom activists operating a clandestine printing press and smuggling weapons for the armed resistance."
"In 1954 the film was re-released in a cut-back 90-minute version that privileged the main plot. When it was restored to its original 102-minute length in 2017, a wealth of lost bizarre details and humorous digressions emerged. While the thriller plot is not lacking in suspense, romance and espionage, Tapiovaara as a storyteller is not terribly compelling here. Instead, Varastettu kuolema is driven by wit, mood, and an irresistible joy in the cinema."
"The final escape to freedom at sea is symbolic on many levels, including as a vision of liberation from a repressive atmosphere in which Finland’s first film society had been closed after harassment from the secret police."
"The female lead, the wonderful Tuulikki Paananen, an American citizen, had to return to Hollywood after World War II broke out. Behind the pseudonym Ilmari Mänty was Ralph Enckell, Finland’s future UN Ambassador during the Cold War. The producer-cinematographer Erik Blomberg was in an early stage of a long and distinguished film career – while Nyrki Tapiovaara himself died in the frontline of the Winter War in 1940." Antti Alanen
I have blogged previously about the 2017 reconstruction of The Stolen Death.
AA: This was the world premiere of the restoration, performed by KAVI professionals for Il Cinema Ritrovato.
A KEYSTONE FILM
The Stolen Death is a keystone film in the Finnish independent cinema of the 1930s. Domestic films were hugely popular in Finland, and they were produced for domestic audiences. Nyrki Tapiovaara was different: he saw himself in the context of modern art, international cinema and international cinephilia. Tapiovaara was both deeply Finnish and deeply cosmopolitan. The Stolen Death has always been available, but since 1954, until recently, only in a short re-release version.
SHORT VERSION AND LONG VERSION
With the short version and the long version of The Stolen Death it is like Fritz Lang’s M, starring Peter Lorre. There is nothing in the long version that changes the plot or the main events. But in both cases the long version has a richer ambience, more interesting obversations, oddball touches, and additional aspects of character. The atmosphere of the long version is fuller, and the poetic vision makes better sense. The short version is more plot-driven, the long version gives us a more novelistic vision of the world. As for the plot, there is a devil-may-care attitude anyway.
RECONSTRUCTION (from notes by Pekka Tähtinen)
In 2017 the complete version of The Stolen Death was reconstructed, authorized by the Blomberg family. The source materials were the original negative, two vintage nitrate prints, and outtakes. The original negative was incomplete: the image of the main credits, 1A, 2A+B, 3A, 4B and 5 were missing. The second print was truly inferior but more complete. Especially part 2, the end of part 4 and part 5 were difficult. Airless looking footage, partially overexposed. Severe damage in the soundtrack. The reconstruction was based on the original screenplay, but the script did not always match with the existing footage. For instance the early dialogue over coffee is much longer in the script and deals sometimes with quite different topics.
RESTORATION (from notes by Pekka Tähtinen)
The 2019 restoration was launched when the film was invited to Bologna at two weeks' notice, taking KAVI by surprise. The 2017 reconstruction was not a restoration at all. In two weeks as much restoration was performed as time allowed. Some bad flicker was corrected. The damage in source materials was so severe that not everything was possible to achieve at this notice. Footage was stabilized. Scratches and debris was removed. At times the image was so grainy that debris removal was extremely demanding. The definition of colour was revised especially in reels 4-5. Research was conducted regarding missing opening music. It turned out that in original release prints there was no extended overture. It remained only in the short re-release version. Everything was scanned and post-produced in 4K. On display is a 4K DCP, a world premiere of the restoration.
NYRKI TAPIOVAARA
The director Nyrki Tapiovaara (1911–1940) was born to a super-patriotic family with 11 children, three of whom become notable artists. The Tulenkantajat (Torchbearers) movement inspired him to modern art and the cinema, and soon he was active as a film critic, theatre director, an activist at Finland's first film society Projektio and the leftist cultural association Kiila.
Juhani Aho's sons Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan asked him to direct the first sound adaptation of Juha, creating a film with a feeling for female sensuality and the deep forest, the rivers and the waterfalls.
The Stolen Death was Tapiovaara's Sturm und Drang project, breaking conventions of film-making, inspired by recent study trips to Paris and Moscow. In the spirit of René Clair Tapiovaara also directed modernist musicals (Kaksi Vihtoria, Kadonnut sävel).
Miehen tie (A Man's Path), based on F. E. Sillanpää, was another connection to the legacy of Stiller, another film of genuine Urkraft, atavistic power, starring Erik Blomberg's formidable wife, Mirjami Kuosmanen.
Tapiovaara was an engaged film-maker, at home in the spirit of le Front Populaire and the solidarity movement for the legal Spanish government against Franco and Fascism.
Disillusioned by Stalin's reversal of strategy in Spain and devastated by the Hitler-Stalin pact he had no mixed feelings about fighting the USSR in the Winter War. Second lieutenant in Sissipataljoona III (light infantry frontline unit for reconnaissance, guerrilla and sabotage missions against special forces etc.) Tapiovaara died on the frontline in February 1940, two weeks before the end of the war, the last man to leave his position.
Tapiovaara's legacy inspired the Finnish New Wave in the 1950s. Jörn Donner always selects The Stolen Death to his top ten list when we ask a carte blanche series from him. Aki Kaurismäki has paid an irreverent tribute to the finale of The Stolen Death more than once.
ERIK BLOMBERG
The producer-cinematographer Erik Blomberg (1913–1996) was one of the finest independent film-makers in Finland, best known for The White Reindeer, which he created with his wife-screenwriter-actress Mirjami Kuosmanen as an equal partner. He started as a photographer, served in the photo unit of the Finnish Air Force, studied at The Regent Polytechnic in London, and worked with Georges Saad and at Pathé Natan, Studio Cinéma, Tobis, and Paramount in France. He was only 21 when he got his first DP assignment with Suomi-Filmi. He then shot all the early films of Teuvo Tulio and became the producer-cinematographer of Tapiovaara. During WWII Blomberg served as cinematographer at the surveillance unit of the Air Force. After the war he made documentaries for workers' parties, shot five films in Sweden and created a series of documentaries in Lapland with Eino Mäkinen. After the world success of The White Reindeer he continued with feature films and documentaries, and in the 1960s started a new career as a producer for tv documentaries. The last part of his career he enjoyed the best, feeling that he had at last learned his craft.
TUULIKKI PAANANEN
Tapiovaara's leading ladies were always wonderful. In his first film, Juha, Irma Seikkula gave an unforgettable interpretation of female desire. The film was based on Juhani Aho's classic novel, also filmed by Stiller and Kaurismäki. In Tapiovaara's last film, Miehen tie [A Man's Path], Mirjami Kuosmanen was powerful as F. E. Sillanpää's formidable Alma. Tuulikki Paananen was discovered for the Finnish screen by Valentin Vaala and Nyrki Tapiovaara, and she became a bright star for the period before the start of WWII. A US citizen, she had to return to the States in 1939. An Angeleno, she had graduated from Hollywood High School and become a professional dancer. In the US she campaigned for solidarity for Finland about to be crushed by Stalin in the Winter War. She later ran dance studios in California and Hawaii. Her ashes were scattered on Waikiki beach.
RALPH ENCKELL
The actor in the leading male role is not an actor at all. Behind the pseudonym "Ilmari Mänty" is Ralph Enckell, a member of the Enckell cultural family of painters, poets, writers and psychoanalysts. Ralph Enckell (1913–2001) became a top diplomat. He was Finland's UN Ambassador in 1959–1965 during the most dangerous years of the Cold War. The cold war was about to become hot during the Cuban missile crisis, and a lot was at stake for tiny Finland which had the longest border against the USSR in the Western world. Neutral Finland was active as a mediator between the US and the USSR. Ralph Enckell was up to the task.
GEORGE DE GODZINSKY
The composer and conductor George de Godzinsky (1914–1994) created his first film score for The Stolen Death. He studied at the Helsinki Conservatory (today's Sibelius Academy) in 1930–1938 while already also working as the répétiteur of the Finnish Opera. George de Godzinsky composed or arranged the scores for 56 feature films, and in 1953–1980 he was the conductor of the entertainment orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation. He composed many beloved songs, including evergreens such as "Katupoikien laulu" and "Sulle salaisuuden kertoa ma voisin". He also composed 12 operettas, music plays or musicals, four television ballets, 50 orchestral works and 200 iskelmä songs (Schlagers). The Leitmotif dramaturgy which he introduced in The Stolen Death he also applied to his orchestral work. He was born in St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire, and his family escaped to Finland after the Revolution in 1920 over the frozen Lake Ladoga. His father was of Polish-Czech-Georgian-Rumanian lineage, and his mother was of Swiss-Dutch stock.
MATTI KURJENSAARI
The dialogues for The Stolen Death were written by Matti Kurjensaari (1907–1988) who also appears as a pallbearer in the scene where the machine gun is being smuggled in a hearse (a scene inspired by René Clair's L'Entr'acte). Kurjensaari, a prolific writer with a long career, wrote his memoirs with the title "Born an Outsider". He was an editor, a journalist and an essayist with a French touch of wit and spirit. He was well connected, in the know of what went on behind the scenes in politics and culture. He was a major link to the movement of the Tulenkantajat (The Torchbearers) both in its 1920s cosmopolitan and the 1930s political incarnations. He was head of the theatre unit of the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation in the 1940s.
ILMARI TAPIOVAARA
The art director together with Kille Oksanen was the director's brother Ilmari Tapiovaara (1914–1999), a major industrial designer, who had become an assistant of Alvar Aalto and had worked in the studio of Le Corbusier. During the wartime he learned a trick or two more about simplicity and minimalism. Several of his furniture designs are still in production. He worked in close collaboration with his designer wife Annikki Tapiovaara, and there was often a feminine, sensual and even erotic touch in his modernist design. He became a teacher at the Illinois Institute of Design in Chicago, and his work has been on display at The Museum of Modern Art. Ilmari, too, appears as one of the pallbearers.
An ardent cinephile, Nyrki Tapiovaara would have felt at home at Il Cinema Ritrovato where favourite directors of his such as Charles Chaplin, René Clair and Luis Buñuel are scheduled this year. I guess you can say that he was our kind of guy.
(From my notes to the introduction at the screening).
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