Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick

Ikuistetut hetket / Everlasting Moments. SE/DK/FI/NO/DE (c) 2008 Final Cut. P: Tero Kaukomaa, Christer Nilson, Thomas Stenderup. D: Jan Troell. SC: Niklas Rådström - based on a story by Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell and Jan Troell. DP: Mischa Gavrjusjov, Jan Troell - colour - 1,85:1 - digital intermediate: Digilab - printed on 35mm film. CAST: Maria Heiskanen (Maria Larsson), Mikael Persbrandt (Sigfrid Larsson), Jesper Christensen (Sebastian Pedersen), Emil Jensen (Englund), Ghita Nørby (Miss Fagerdal), Hans Henrik Clemensen (Mr. Fagerdal), Amanda Ooms (Matilda), Antti Reini (Captain), Birte Heribertsson (Aunt Tora), Claire Wikholm (Grandmother Karna), Hans Alfredson (prison guard). 133 min. Released in Finland by Sandrew with Finnish subtitles by Anitra Paukkula. Viewed at Maxim 2, 7 Nov 2008. - The digital intermediate look is shabby. - It is great to see Jan Troell (born 1931) in good form. He is a director who has always something to say. - This is a story of the power of photography (and cinematography, and art) to transform life, to open new horizons and perspectives. - "The images are taking hold". "They turn me to another being". "They reveal another world". "There is no turning back". "For always, for ever". - Storywise I like the film's portrayal of the everyday working life around WWI, the hard toil, the ascent of the workers' movement. It is naturalistic but not boring. But the imagery as filtered through the digital intermediate is not interesting to look at. It lacks the vibration of life. - The story takes place in Göteborg and in the neighbourhood. - There are the two men in Maria's life: the brutal Sigfrid, to whom she is faithful and whom she manages to transform (even though he has to go to prison after having tried to murder Maria). And there is the platonically friendly owner of the photographer's shop, Sebastian Pedersen, who encourages Maria to her new passion of photography. - Good visual ideas: the image of the butterfly reflected on Maria's hand via the camera lens. - Cinematography: Sebastian Pedersen shoots a newsreel of the three kings' meeting on the eve of WWI. There is a screening of Charles Chaplin's Easy Street with piano and violin accompaniment. [Jan Troell has a an interest in silent cinema representation but also a tendency to exaggerate overspeed, also in Här har du ditt liv.] - A story about art transcending and transforming life.

A Modern Musketeer (2006 DFI restoration) (I viewing: first half seen in Pordenone 2008)

Allan Dwan: A Modern Musketeer (US 1917) starring Douglas Fairbanks (Ned Thacker/d'Artagnan).

Nykyajan muskettisoturi. US 1917. PC: Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation/Artcraft. P: Douglas Fairbanks; D+SC: Allan Dwan, based on the story “D’Artagnan of Kansas” by E. P. Lyle, Jr.; cin: Hugh McClung, Harris Thorpe, asst: Glen MacWilliams; ed: William Shea; gen. mgr: John Fairbanks; cast: Douglas Fairbanks (Ned Thacker/d’Artagnan), Marjorie Daw (Elsie Dodge), Kathleen Kirkham (her mother), Frank Campeau (Chin-de-dah, a Navaho), Eugene Ormonde (Forrest Vandeteer [Barris]), Tully Marshall (James Brown), Edythe Chapman (Mrs. Thacker); Zasu Pitts (Kansas Belle), Jim Mason (bandit), Charles Stevens (Indian); 1333 m /16 fps/ 73 min; print: DFI. Digital 2K restoration by DFI in 2006 from a complete 35 mm duplicate negative held at DFI and an incomplete 35 mm duplicate negative held by MoMA. Original in English with e-subtitles in Italian, grand piano: Ian Mistrorigo. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 7 October 2008.

Thomas Christensen: "(...) long thought to survive as a fragment (only the first 3 reels were preserved by the MoMA), but a complete version was eventually located with the DFI. The DFI restored the film in 2006, with the kind assistance of MoMA and Lobster Films, Paris. In the last part of the film, the intertitles are translated from the extant Danish titles. The typeface has been maintained, and an attempt has been made to maintain the tone of the first 3 reels. Nevertheless, a keen eye will notice slight flaws, such as the character Vandeteer’s name changing to Barris." – Thomas Christensen

Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta: "This restoration is a major event in silent film scholarship. As the first Douglas Fairbanks-Allan Dwan collaboration for Artcraft Pictures, A Modern Musketeer (1917) proved to be significant as the link between Fairbanks’s contemporary comedies and the later costume films."

A flamboyant action comedy-adventure based on E.P. Lyle Jr.’s story “D’Artagnan of Kansas” (... 1912), A Modern Musketeer winningly combines elements of comedy and melodrama. Moreover, as the title suggests, it was the harbinger of the great things to come, for in it Fairbanks dons the cloak and sword of the legendary fourth musketeer for the first time. Fairbanks was testing the waters of public acceptance of himself in a costume film. Appearing as d’Artagnan in early sequences, Fairbanks is wonderfully acrobatic as the Gascon swordsman, particularly in his first sequence, in which his chivalrous nature is showcased as he slays a tavern full of adversaries to obtain the lost handkerchief of a damsel in questionable distress. However, most of A Modern Musketeer is dedicated to exploring the exploits of Ned Thacker (Fairbanks), who emulates d’Artagnan as a result of his mother’s prenatal influence. (His romantic mother read the Dumas novel incessantly during her pregnancy with Ned, resulting in his being instilled with the spirit of the Gascon hero.) The Kansas community can barely contain the frustrated young man, who literally climbs the steeple of a nearby church to vent his pent-up energy. His father takes a page from Dumas’s novel and provides Ned with the 20th-century equivalent of d’Artagnan’s plug horse: a Model T Ford. As the irrepressible young man makes his way across the dusty prairie, he happens upon a trio whose transcontinental auto tour has been disrupted by a washed-out bridge. He is immediately enamored of the youngest member, pretty Elsie Dodge (Marjorie Daw), who is accompanied by her 45-year-old suitor, Forrest Vandeteer (Eugene Ormonde), and her mother (Kathleen Kirkham). Ned comes to their rescue by ingeniously adapting his Model T to maneuver on the nearby railroad tracks, and effortlessly conveys them to the El Tovar Hotel near the rim of the Grand Canyon."

The chivalrous spirit of d’Artganan is quickly called into service at the hotel as Ned discovers that the respected Vandeteer is in actuality a bigamist and embezzler. Further, he finds that a Navaho chief, Chin-de-dah (Frank Campeau), intends to abduct Elsie and make her his latest “bride.” The exciting climax of the film finds Ned literally scaling down the walls of the Grand Canyon on a rope to vanquish the evil Navaho, rescue Elsie, and elicit a full confession from the villainous Vandeteer. The tableau of the Grand Canyon serves as a stunning backdrop for Ned and Elsie to embrace at the film’s happy conclusion."

The breathtaking scenery of the Grand Canyon, superbly photographed by cinematographers Hugh McClung, Harris Thorpe, and Glen MacWilliams, under Dwan’s direction, helped to make A Modern Musketeer an outstanding artistic achievement. Cast and crew went on location in October 1917 to the Grand Canyon and the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, where they camped in tents during the 3-week location shoot. Fairbanks was in his element on location with the stunning landscapes, distinctive rock imagery, and the community of Hopi and Navaho people. “I was disappointed in the Grand Canyon,” he joked. “I couldn’t jump it.”"

(...) The film was a great commercial success. The New York Times proclaimed that A Modern Musketeer was “quite the most amazing of any which have yet come from the Fairbanks laboratory,” and Variety declared that the film “ranks with the best” of the Fairbanks Artcraft series of films. A great sadness for film history is that six subsequent Fairbanks comedies made for Artcraft are unavailable for reappraisal: (...) and The Knickerbocker Buckaroo from the following year, are lost. This makes the restoration of A Modern Musketeer – available on DVD in a high-definition transfer, with a musical score compiled by Rodney Sauer and performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra of Boulder, Colorado – an achievement all silent film enthusiasts can celebrate." - Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta

A successful digital restoration, digital artefacts hardly evident. A funny intro. Before he is born, there is the spirit of d'Artagnan loved by his mother and the cyclone raging over Kansas. Always chivalrous, always misunderstood. Incredible sequence where Ned climbs to the top of the town church tower. - The witty intertitles have the same style as Anita Loos with several Fairbanks films such as Wild and Woolly of the same year. - I saw the first half only, having to rush to the rare Griffith screening.

My blog note of my second viewing of A Modern Musketeer, the full film in Bologna in 2013.

The Evidence of the Film

US 1913. PC: Thanhouser. D: Edwin Thanhouser, Lawrence Marston; cast: William Garwood (broker), Marie Eline (messenger boy), Florence LaBadie (sister), Riley Chamberlin (clerk); 1000 ft /16 fps/ 14'30", print: LoC, original English intertitles, e-subtitles in Italian, grand piano: Gabriel Thibaudeau. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 6 October 2008. - Moving Picture World: "A girl who worked in the joining room of a motion picture factory had a little brother of whom she was very fond. He visited the plant one day, and saw from “the inside” how pictures were made. The youngster was a messenger boy, and later he was summoned to the office of a broker and given a package that he was to deliver to a rich woman uptown. The woman received the package herself, opened it in his presence, but found only bits of blank paper, instead of the bonds she had expected. At first she suspected the broker, but he clearly proved that, in the presence of two witnesses, he had placed the bonds in an envelope, and carefully sealed them up. The messenger boy protested his innocence, but the woman and broker both insisted that he be prosecuted, and the weeping child was locked in a cell. A sister pleaded with his accuser, but in vain, and for several days the case against the boy was dark. One morning while joining film the girl happened to glance with extra care at one scene. She thought she recognized her brother, and close examination under a microscope proved to her that she was correct.
With a cry of joy she rushed to the police station and told the officers in charge that she had important evidence. Two detectives accompanied her back to the plant, and saw a scene of a play thrown upon the screen. It revealed the messenger boy, package in his hand, coming around the corner, whistling merrily. A man close behind him ran into and upset the child, deftly substituted a package he held for the one the boy had dropped, and then walked down the street so rapidly that he did not notice the camera. “Don’t you know that man?” screamed the girl. “He is the broker who had my brother sent to prison.” The broker was arrested; when the evidence of the film was displayed to him he broke down and confessed. He had hoped by throwing the blame upon the boy to keep the bonds to himself. A long term in prison was his punishment, while the plucky girl was warmly complimented for the shrewd way in which she cleared her little brother." (Moving Picture World, 11 January 1913)
David Robinson: "The surviving print of The Evidence of the Film was discovered in 1999 in the projection booth of a Montana cinema; two years later it was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. The idea of a misdemeanor being captured and exposed by the motion picture camera was not new. Hepworth's The Tell-Tale Film (1908) and Feuillade's Erreur tragique (1912) were stories - respectively farcical and dramatical - of spouses caught on film in compromising circumstances. In Starewich's animated The Cameraman's Revenge (1913) the betrayed spouse himself films the wife's infidelity; and titles like Indiscretions of the Kinematograph (1908) and Indiscretion of Moving Picture (19o9) suggest other stories in the same line. Even the idea of the ensnaring visual technology was by no means novel (...)
The Evidence of the Film has other points of special interest however. It is well made, revealing (as Edwin W. Thanhouser has pointed out) the influence at this juncture of D.W. Griffith upon Thanhouser's directors: one of the jobs he was to assume on leaving Biograph in 1913 was as consultant to Thanhouser. The subject permitted the company a good deal of incidental publicity, profiting from the positively benign influence of the film exemplified by the plot. In case we might have any doubt about the identity of the film unit which is conveniently shooting on location in the very spot of the crime, the big insert close-ups of the incriminating film frames have the name 'Thanhouser' boldly marked on the edge. And the cutting rooms - notably staffed entirely by women - provide the setting for the crucial scene of the film. Q. David Bowers' encyclopaedic history of Thanhouser states that the opening of the film originally showed the sister giving the little boy an instructional tour of the studio. (...)" David Robinson. - A fascinating meta-film.

His Nibs

[the film was never released in Finland]. US 1921. PC: Exceptional Pictures. D: Gregory La Cava, [Al Christie, D of the unreleased The Smart Aleck, incorporated in the film, inspired by a story by Irvin S. Cobb]; SC+ED: Arthur Hoerl; DP: William Tuers, A.J. Stout; CAST: Charles “Chic” Sale (Theo Bender, Wally Craw, Mr. Percifer, Elmer Bender, Peelee Gear, Jr., Miss Dessi Teed); cast of “He Fooled ’Em All”: Charles “Chic” Sale (The Boy), Colleen Moore (The Girl), Joseph Dowling (The Girl’s Father), J.P. Lockney (Old Sour Apples), Walt Whitman (The Boy’s Father), Lydia Yeamans Titus (The Boy’s Mother), Harry Edwards (first villain); orig. 5154 ft; source: UCLA: 4200 ft /20 fps/ 56 min, original in English, e-subtitles in Italian, grand piano: Gabriel Thibaudeau. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 5 October 2008.

The beginning of the print from a highly damaged source, almost like an abstract painting, freeze frames used in the restoration.

Richard Koszarski: "In 1955 William K. Everson wrote an article called “Movies Out of Thin Air” (...) perhaps the most curious example of such creative reconstruction was His Nibs, the first screen appearance of the American vaudevillian Charles “Chic” Sale.

In December 1919, Sale signed a multi-picture contract with Robertson-Cole for a series of feature films in which he would appear as the comical “rube” character he had created in his vaudeville act. Exceptional Pictures was created to produce the films, the first of which, The Smart Aleck, was to be made in Los Angeles (...) based on an Irvin S. Cobb story of the same name which had appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1914. Cobb was a prolific author of regionalist humor whose stories were filled with loveably eccentric characters and carefully rendered depictions of American small-town life (...). Cobb is best remembered today for his association with John Ford (...) Bringing Cobb together with “Chic” Sale would seem to have been a logical idea, and it was announced at the time that Cobb had personally chosen Sale for the part.

“The Smart Aleck” is the story of Gashney Tuttle, a hick from the small town of Swango, who is celebrated for what the locals consider his rapier wit. But when Tuttle visits a larger neighboring city to take in its “Great White Way” he is quickly swindled out of his bankroll and run out of town. Penniless, he returns to Swango in a freight car, where he is happy to find himself reinstated as the unchallenged village wit.

Production began at the Christie Studio on 1 March 1920, under the direction of Al Christie. The film was not a Christie production, but was made under contract by Christie for Exceptional Pictures. Christie also supplied some of its own contract talent, notably Colleen Moore, who played the love interest required by Hollywood convention (there is not a single female character in the original story). Other than general atmosphere and the notion of the country hero being swindled in the big city, the film appears to have taken very little from Cobb’s story. Press accounts promoting The Smart Aleck appeared throughout the spring, but suddenly stopped in June of 1920.

This is where the story gets interesting, and where a conventional Hollywood hick comedy turns into an ironic East Coast parody of Hollywood conventions.

I have been unable to discover why The Smart Aleck was never released, or why Arthur Hoerl and Gregory La Cava revamped Al Christie’s footage, turning it into a very different film called His Nibs. Between 1916 and 1920 Gregory La Cava had directed dozens of animated cartoons for William Randolph Hearst’s studio in New York. (...) In the summer of 1921 La Cava directed new scenes for the old Chic Sale picture (...), in which Sale appears in a framing story, playing the proprietor of the rustic Slippery Elm Picture Palace – and everyone else in town. His current attraction, a pot-boiler called He Fooled ’Em All, is all that is left of The Smart Aleck. As the projectionist, Sale provides a running commentary on his own film, a comic approach which suggests Pirandello more than Sennett or Roach. His Nibs is not only one of the first films to parody both exhibition practice and Hollywood narrative convention, but does so by dissecting an actual example of the genre. While there are many conventional satires of the movie business, (...), His Nibs is more interested in the medium’s formal elements, a far more unusual approach.

While a little research now makes it apparent that the framing story is a response to the film-within-a film, this relationship was missed by the film’s original critics (and its few recent commentators), all of whom believed that His Nibs was simply a clever, if conventional, rural comedy directed in one go by Gregory La Cava.

The writer Arthur Hoerl, who seems to have been responsible for this peculiar strategy, had a long association with low-budget cinema on both coasts. (...)" – Richard Koszarski.

A really special and original metafilm, satirizing and parodying cinema projection, live music, intermission programs, other aspects of cinema exhibition, local censorship, cinema storytelling, and local newsreels. - Charles "Chic" Sale is amazing in his seven roles. - One of the most surprising discoveries of the Festival.

Le Mépris

068575 / 16 / FR / IT / 1963 / Godard, Jean-Luc / drama

Mépris, Le / Keskipäivän aave / Sen täytyi tapahtua. PC: Rome-Paris Films; Films Concordia; Compagnia Cinematografica Champion. P: Georges de Beauregard, Carlo Ponti. D+SC: Jean-Luc Godard - based on the novel Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia. DP: Raoul Coutard. M: Georges Delerue. CAST: Brigitte Bardot (Camille Javal), Michel Piccoli (Paul Javal), Jack Palance (Jeremy Prokosh), Fritz Lang (Fritz Lang), Giorgia Moll (Francesca Vanini). Franscope, Technicolor. Versions: 84’, 100’, 103’. Re-released in Finland in the restored version in 1997. Not re-examined: if it had been, it would have rated G. The screening I saw took 98’33”. Finnish / Swedish subtitles Pekka Lanerva / Johan Förnäs. DIST: Cinema Mondo. Viewed in Helsinki in the premiere screening in Kino Engel 2 on Friday, 26 December 1997. **** Brilliant colour restored to vintage Godard. Le Mépris was his rare outing with big producers, and he had savage fun with them in this metafilm. Godard and Warhol were the first postmodern film directors. Now this film does not look strange anymore. The music is sumptuous.