Quatre-vingt-treize (1914) (restored in 2011 at La Cinémathèque française)

Albert Capellani: Quatre-vingt-treize (FR 1914) (released in 1921). À gauche, Henri Krauss ; au centre, Paul Capellani. Photographie originale de Quatre-vingt-treize, film d'Albert Capellani produit pour Pathé-Frères par la Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (SCAGL). Tirage argentique d'époque sur cartoline, 1920. Source: http://www.auctionartparis.com/ventes-aux-encheres-469/2019-10-17-regard-sur-le-cinema-muet-en-france-photographies-1900-1929-collection-philippe-legendre/106557-quatre-vingt-treize-scagl-vingt-huit-photographies-originales-1914-13-x- Wikimedia Commons. Please click on the photo to enlarge it.

Albert Capellani: Programma 2: Quatre-vingt-treize. L'umanità in guerra. Monday 27 June 2011 at 10.00, Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Grand piano: Neil Brand.

Catalogue: "Quatre-vingt-treize - 1793 (1914) begins more or less like this: in a library, Henry Krauss (as tutor Cimourdain) is teaching Paul Capellani (the young aristocrat, Gauvain). We are in the Pathé studio, the actors are wearing wigs and gesticulating, as visual expression of the characters’ enthusiasm for the ideas of Rousseau. We summon up all the patience we can muster, to survive three hours of an old costume drama. But in a short while – at the latest by the scene with the old Marquis de Latenac in the boat taking him from exile in England over to Brittany, where he is to lead the royalist rebellion against the Jacobin Republic – we are in a great, enthralling, serious film. Just as Victor Hugo does in the novel, Capellani portrays the conflict of ideas embodied in the characters of Cimourdain, Latenac and Gauvain: he does it objectively, without setting up an antagonism between good and evil. Though finally coming down on the side of humanity (Gauvain), neither Capellani’s film nor Hugo’s source novel condemns the other two positions, the revolutionary Cimourdain’s adherence to his principles and the loyalty of the traditionalist Latenac; they too are endowed with heroic stature.""

"After a screening of Quatre-vingt-treize at the Cinématheque française in 1957, Philippe Esnault and Pierre Philippe wrote that “Capellani’s Quatre-vingt-treize (1914) allows us to judge, through the work of an important pioneer, the situation of our national cinema during the war. A Pathé director from 1905, the maker of L’Homme aux gants blancs (1908) began in 1909 a non-stop series of screen adaptations, of Racine, Hugo and Zola, as well as Richepin and Eugene Sue. One cannot ignore the filmmaker who has given us Germinal and Quatre-vingt-treize in quick succession. This is one of the few pre-war films dealing with a subject that can still interest viewers today. It was, more over, banned, and not released until 1921, with Antoine credited as co-director.” (Cinéma 57, no. 18, May 1957).""

"No complete original negative of this film has survived (unlike Germinal). Pierre Esnault (1930-2008) reconstructed Quatrevingt-treize in 1985, and his version is the basis of the 2010 Cinématheque française colour print. (The Esnault and Philippe quote, as well as information on the copy, are from Camille Blot-Wellens’ contribution to the booklet of the DVD Albert Capellani, Édition Pathé 2011, pp. 30-31)." (ML).""

QUATRE-VINGT-TREIZE (I-II). FR 1914. D: Albert Capellani. SC: based on the novel by Victor Hugo (1876) [in Finnish: Yhdeksänkymmentäkolme]; SC: Alexandre Arnoux; DP: Pierre Trimbach, Karémin Mérobian; Cast: Philippe Garnier (marchese de Lantenac), Paul Capellani (visconte Gauvain), Georges Dorival (sergente Radoub), Maximilien Charlier, Henry Krauss (Cimourdain), Maurice Schutz (Grandcoeur), Jean Liezer, Charlotte Barbier-Krauss (La Flécharde) P: S.C.A.G.L. Pathé Frêres No. 8760 (distribuzione 1921, Co-Regia André Antoine). 35 mm. 3408 m . 165’ a 18 fps. Tinted. Intertitres français. From: La Cinémathèque française. Earphone commentary in Italian and in English.

AA: A magnificent restoration of a powerful film adaptation of Victor Hugo's fascinating historical novel. I had neither read the novel nor seen this film before.

The first impression is that I have never seen an account like this on the French Revolution before, but I'm aware of film adaptations of Balzac's novel Les Chouans. Quatre-vingt-treize covers the roots of the Revolution (instances of social injustice), the spirit of freedom (Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois is being discussed), and then focuses on the Chouannerie (the Royalists of the Northern mountains) and their battle with the Republicans.

There is a strong historical breath in the movie, shot largely on location. The milieux seem real, and the clothes look like the people have actually worn them. Still shot in early cinema style (long shots, long takes), it is constantly interesting. I saw the first part only of this movie, and I'm now looking forward to see the full film and to read the novel. The print is fine, including the toning and tinting effects.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) (2011 digital 2K restoration ITV Studios, Park Circus)

Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies: The Thief of Bagdad (GB 1940).

Bagdadin varas / Il ladro di Bagdad. 

    GB © 1940 Alexander Korda Films. P: London Film Productions Ltd.

    D: Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies. SC: Miles Malleson, Lajos Biró; DP: Georges Perinal - col; ED: Charles Crichton; PD: Vincent Korda; Co.: John Armstrong, Oliver Messel, Marcel Vertès; M: Miklós Rózsa; S: A. W. Watkins.

    Cast: Conrad Veidt (Jaffar), Sabu (Abu), June Duprez (la principessa), John Justin (Ahmad), Rex Ingram (Djin), Miles Malleson (il sultano), Morton Selten (Alter König), Mary Morris (Halima), Bruce Winston, Hay Petrie.

    106 min

    Pri. pro.: 5 dicembre 1940. 

    DCP 2K from: ITV Studios Global Entertainment e Park Circus. 

2K digital restoration. 

    Sunday, 26 June 2011 at 22.00 Piazza Maggiore (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Presenta Ian Christie.

Catalogue: "This was to be a new Technicolor version of the Arabian Nights fantasy The Thief of Bagdad, exploiting two of Korda’s international stars, Veidt and the Indian child actor Sabu, who had shot to fame after his appearance in Flaherty’s semidocumentary Elephant Boy (1937). The original Thief of Bagdad had been a spectacular vehicle for Douglas Fairbanks Sr in 1924, when the young William Cameron Menzies won his spurs as its art director (it was he who part-designed and directed Korda’s Things to Come, and in turn it had borrowed some of its best magical effects from an early German classic, Lang’s Destiny). Korda intended his version to be quite different – and indeed he stood little chance of matching the immense exterior sets and thousands of extras deployed by Fairbanks. He started from a new script by Miles Malleson and his closest Hungarian confidant Lajos Biro, and the sets would be by his brother Vincent – they later prompted the famous command, ‘Build it four times as big and paint it all crimson. It stinks!’ But the trump cards would be Technicolor and Denham’s superb special effects team, who would compensate for any deficiency in front of the cameras. The production ran into immediate difficulty after it started in February 1939.""

"Korda began to disagree with the director he had hired, the German Ludwig Berger, and appointed two additional directors, Powell and Tim Whelan from Hollywood. Powell seems to have worked mainly on the sequences with Veidt, as the sinister Vizier Jaffar, and Sabu, as the little thief Abu. He claimed responsibility for having the enormous eye painted on the bow of Jaffar’s ship, which fills the screen at the beginning of the film and establishes its dominant motif – echoed in Jaffar’s hypnotic powers and Abu’s theft of the great statue’s All-Seeing Eye. He was also responsible for the scenes with Sabu and the Djinn, shot on a beach in Cornwall. Critical response has often dwelt on the film’s defects, implying that only unsophisticated audiences would accept such a hotchpotch of special effects. But latterly many have found it impossible not to attribute its striking consistency of imagery and theme to Powell, despite the fact that at least six directors are known to have contributed to the end result. Certainly the central idea of the power of the gaze seems closer to the world of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which was to infuse many of Powell and Pressburger’s films, than to anything in the Arabian Nights. And there are striking parallels between The Thief and Powell’s later film maudit Peeping Tom, also centring on the sexual metaphor of the act of looking." Ian Christie: Arrows of Desire. The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Faber and Faber, London-Boston 1994.

AA: The ninth screening today. I listened just to Ian Christie's excellent introduction (he told that the author of this film is Alexander Korda) and sampled the result based on the new 2K digital master from the close range, the middle distance, and from afar. There have been previous restorations of The Thief of Bagdad, and usually the image quality has been livelier than in this 2K version, which is bright and clean but which looks a bit like plastic. I look forward to the 4K version. Conrad Veidt is at his demonic best as the evil Jaffar in this movie.

Shoes (2011 digital 2K restoration from EYE Film Instituut)

Lois Weber: Shoes (US 1916) starring Mary MacLaren (Eva Myer / Emma Meyer).

Lois Weber: Shoes (US 1916) starring Mary MacLaren (Eva Myer / Emma Meyer).

US 1916. D+SC: Lois Weber. Op.: Stephen Norton, King Gray, Allen G. Siegler;
    Cast: Mary MacLaren (Eva Myer / Emma Meyer); Harry Griffith (il padre); Jessie Arnold (Lillie); William Mong (Charlie);
    P: Universal Bluebird Photoplays. 35 mm. 1191 m. 57‘ a 18 fps. [Catalogue: B&w.] [Actually the print is tinted.] Nederlandse tussentitels.
    From: EYE Film Instituut Nederland. [Digital 2K restoration from EYE Film Instituut supervised by Annike Kross.]
    Sunday, 26 June 2011, Sala Officinema / Mastroianni (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Grand piano: Maud Nelissen. Presentano Annike Kross e Mariann Lewinsky.

Catalogue: "As Universal’s top director in the mid-1910s, Lois Weber wrote and directed a series of ambitious features on highly topical, deeply contentious social issues such as drug addiction, capital punishment, and contraception. Shoes, made the same year as Weber’s better-known film Where Are My Children?, paints a bleak portrait of urban poverty, tracing its particular effects on women. Eva, the film’s protagonist, is a shop girl whose meager earnings support her parents and three younger sisters. Standing on her feet all day without adequate breaks, Eva quickly wears out the thin soles on her boots, but her family’s impoverished circumstances do not permit her to replace them. A pair of boots on display in a shop window she passes on her way to work everyday becomes an emblem of Eva’s deprivation and longing. Surrounded by merchandise in the store where she works, and in the larger commercial district she travels through, Eva is unable to participate in the consumer economy her labor supports. Progressive-era reformers worried openly about the fashion tastes and spending habits of underpaid female workers like Eva, as well as the sexual economy spawned by wage inequities between young men and women. Yet even as Shoes shares many of the alarmist concerns voiced by contemporary reformers, its use of cinematic techniques fosters an unusual empathy with Eva’s plight, pointing to the unique role that cinema might play in discussions of contemporary social issues. Woven throughout the film are moments when we are encouraged to share Eva’s viewpoint, to understand what it means to work hard, to feel ashamed of one’s circumstances and fearful about the future, and to long for one potent symbol of escape – a new pair of shoes." Shelley Stamp""

"The restoration of Lois Weber’s Shoes is based on three different source materials: Two tinted nitrate copies from the collection of EYE Film Instituut Nederland (1150 m and 85 m) and one safety print from a shortened sound version called Unshod Maiden from 1932 (280 m), held by the Library of Congress. The nitrate prints are affected by bacteria resulting in many white spots all over the images and severe nitrate deterioration. In the short sound version, the left edge of the image is cut off by the soundtrack. However, this print contains some short but important scenes, especially in the crucial last reel of the print. These are now reinserted to the film in order to reconstruct the most complete version. The edited material is then scanned for digital restoration. The images are stabilized and most of the bacterial spots are removed to allow a calmer viewing experience. The only available intertitles were the ones in the Dutch print. These are translated and digitally recreated, using the font of the Dutch titles as a reference. Finally, a black and white negative is recorded back to film, from which the new color print is struck, using the Desmet method, simulating the tints of the nitrate print." Annike Kross

AA: Lois Weber's Shoes was shown in Pordenone in 1991 in the tribute to the NFM, but I may have missed it then. Now there is a restored version made with loving care at the EYE Film Instituut, the successor of the NFM, supervised by Annike Kross.

There are redundant explanatory titles at least in this Dutch version. The strength of the movie is, however, in its passages of laconic imagery and stark composition. The motif of the shoes is as powerful as the motif of the bicycle in Ladri di biciclette.

Shoes is a powerful and vibrant movie on poverty. It is also one of the most poignant movies on prostitution.

Mary MacLaren's performance in the leading role is fresh and original.

The look into the broken mirror is one of the most memorable images.

The 2K digital restoration looked fine on the Sala Officinema / Mastroianni screen, and the tinting is successful. There is a before / after restoration comparison at the end of the print of the restored version.

Gränsfolken / Brother Against Brother (2011 SFI restoration)

SE 1913. D: Mauritz Stiller. SC: based on [the novel La Débâcle (1892, Sota) by] Émile Zola; SC: Peter Lykke-Seest; DP: Julius Jaenzon, Hugo Edlund; Cas: Richard Lund (Gregori), Egil Eide (Ivan), Edith Erastoff (Katjuscha), John Ekman (Alexei Potowski); P: AB Svenska Biografteatern; Pri. pro.: 21 novembre 1913. 35 mm. 876 m. 45’ a 17 fps. Col. Svenska mellantexter. [Earphone commentary in Italian and in English]. From: Svenska Filminstitutet - Filmarkivet. Sunday, 26 June 2011, Sala Officinema / Mastroianni (Bologna, I Cinema Ritrovato). Grand piano: Günter Buchwald. Presenta Jon Wengström.

Catalogue: "In 2009, the Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw announced that they had discovered a tinted nitrate print with German intertitles. The Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet - Filmarkivet got temporary access to this element, and in 2011 a duplicate negative was made, from which this colour print was struck. Swedish inter-titles were recreated from a re-printed title list, and inserted into the new negative. A second duplicate negative was made as a preservation element. When the tinted nitrate print of Mauritz Stiller’s Gränsfolken (1913) was discovered in 2009 at the Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw, it was nothing less than sensational. The previously earliest preserved Stiller films had been the 1915 Hämnaren and Madame de Thèbes (screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2003 and 2007 respectively), meaning that up until now none of the films from the director’s initial three, very prolific, years 1912-14 – in which he directed no less than 20 films – had survived."

"Gränsfolken was arguably the most successful of Stiller’s early films; 41 prints were sold by production company Svenska Biografteatern to 17 countries. The script by Norwegian writer Peter Lykke-Seest deals with fraternal and national rivalry in an undefined Nordic context, but Stiller transposed the action to an Eastern milieu, familiar to him. Not only the names of the characters suggest a more or less Russian context, but clerical ornates, musical instruments, costumes and headgowns during the wedding ceremony in the first reel indicate an orthodox-slavic setting."

"The style of the film is somewhat archaic, with hardly any camera movement, and a lot of the acting is taking place frontally, straight at the camera. But Stiller creates dynamics by having characters move along the depth-axis of the frame, and he also at times has action taking place on multiple depths of field in the same shot. Stiller also creates interesting visual patterns by using geometrical figures of the settings to create frames within the frame (exteriors were shot on location in Visby with its medieval arched stone walls). The inclusion of Gränsfolken in the surviving Stiller filmography gives us new insights in the director’s thematic and stylistic development." Jon Wengström.

AA: Émile Zola's novel on the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 in Alsace-Lorraine / Elsass-Lothringen has been transferred into an unnamed East European milieu (Balkan / White Russia / Poland). The uniforms resemble those of Cossacks. The wedding is Greek Catholic. - It is the story of two brothers in love with the same woman. It is also the Romeo and Julia story of a love with a woman on the enemy side of the border post. And it is the tragedy of the brothers, now enemies in the war, who finally fall besides each other. - The restoration is fine, and this is an important contribution to the Mauritz Stiller heritage as the earliest surviving complete Stiller feature film. He has already a fine sense of composition and an ability to create vivid images. There is also a rare epic touch in the war sequences.

A Hundred Years Ago: Programme 1: Italy 1911 - A Nation on the Screen

Arturo Ambrosio & Luigi Maggi: Nozze d'oro / Golden Wedding (IT 1911). A flashback on the Golden Wedding Day to Italy's Second War of Independence, in 1859. A young woman hides a young wounded Garibaldian soldier

Cento anni fa: Programma 1: L'Italia nel 1911 - una nazione allo schermo. Programme and notes by Giovanni Lasi and Luigi Virgolin. Sunday 26 June 2011 at 17.00 Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Grand piano: Antonio Coppola. Presentano Giovanni Lasi e Luigi Virgolin.

Catalogue: "The year 1911, the 50th anniversary of Italian Unification, was for Italy a year of national worship, and cinema marched enthusiastically in the parade, celebrating the pomp of the country’s splendors and claiming the onerous duty “to make Italians”."

"In fact, fifty years after Italy was declared unified, the heartfelt words of D’Azeglio were still relevant, considering the precarious, shaky national consciousness expressed by a large part of the population in the first decade of the 1900s. Promoting “Italianness” became a primary objective for the leaders of country, from the political establishment to the the cultural élite. And film too took up this battle with every weapon available, falling into line with the institutional communication strategy of looking at the past and the future, that used the grandeur of national history as a mirror of the equally glorious present, that depicted the universal nature of Italic culture as a valid passport for Italy’s definitive entrance among the leading world powers. In this climate of patriotic opulence Italian cinema ventured into the starry heights of Italian culture through the ages, taking on Dante (Inferno, Milano Films; Inferno, Helios Film; Purgatorio, Helios Film), Tasso (Gerusalemme liberata, Cines; Aminta, Helios), Manzoni (I promessi sposi, Film d’Arte Italiana) and gems of ancient history (Odissea, Milano Films; La caduta di Troia, Itala Film). In the celebratory fervor of 1911 patriotic subjects were clearly given priority. In fact, that year seven films about Risorgimento battles were made, including the magnificent Nozze d’oro (Ambrosio), winner of the first prize for the “artistic category” of the same festival in Turin."

"National pride on the screen also directly regarded the status of Italian film, which in 1911 boasted substantial growth in production, sales, form and style. In fact, an Italian school of filmmaking had begun to make a name for itself internationally with period films and comic serials: Cretinetti (André Deed), Tontolini (Ferdinand Guillaume), Robinet (Marcel Fabre), Cocciutelli (Eduardo Monthus). With the artistic and technical quality of longtime filmmakers such as Caserini, Maggi, Vitrotti, De Liguoro and emerging directors such as Guazzoni, Antamoro and Del Colle, Italian film could compete with the best foreign productions in terms of form and content, using cutting-edge stylistic solutions and venturing into new genres like the Danish “sensational” drama or the French detective serial, launched in Italy by Pasquali with the series about Raffles the gentleman thief."

"However, the maturity of the Italian film industry is best demonstrated by the speed with which most production companies in 1911 adapted to the feature length film: the 1000 meters of La Gerusalemme liberata (Cines), the 1200 of Inferno (Milano Films) or the 1350 of Pinocchio (Cines) were a mere harbinger of the multi-kilometer lengths that were to come with later films like Quo vadis? and Cabiria and of the decisive step towards world success that would come with the years to follow."

RAFFLES, GENTILUOMO LADRO. [the title on the print:] [Il diamante azzurro]. IT 1911. D: Ubaldo Maria Del Colle. Cast: Ubaldo Maria Del Colle, Cristina Ruspoli; P: Pasquali. 35 mm. 310 m. 15’ a 18 fps. Col. Didascalie italiane. From: CSC-Cineteca Nazionale, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Cineteca di Bologna. Restored in 2011 at L‘Immagine Ritrovata laboratory from a tinted nitrate positive. - AA: Thriller. A kidnapping story around Raffles the amateur cracksman. An early but not the first film adaptation of the exploits of the character created by E.W. Hornung. The development of a photograph is a major piece of the action. Part black and white, part colour, with occasional signs of damage in the source.

VITA D’OLANDA. IT 1911 (?). D: Piero Marelli. P: Pasquali Film (?); Distr.: Tiziano Film. 35 mm. 135 m. 7’ a 18 fps. Col. Didascalie italiane. From: Museo Nazionale del Cinema. - AA: Non-fiction, travelogue. Beautiful sights, a fine sense of composition, refined lighting, faces, genre views inspired by Dutch masters. There is even an excellent three-part split screen vignette. Tinting and toning effects and multi-colour effects.

L’ASTUZIA DI ROBINET. [The title on the print:] Naukes List. IT 1911. Cast: Marcel Fabre; P: Ambrosio. 35 mm. 116 m. 5’ a 18 fps. B&w. Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: Cineteca del Friuli. - AA: Drama. The father of the bride challenges the groom to a duel. But the groom stages a hold-up in which he has the opportunity to play the hero. A fine sense of pantomime. The beautiful print does justice to the subtle cinematography.

NOZZE D’ORO [After Fifty Years / Golden Wedding]. Kultahäät / Guldbröllopet. IT 1911. D: Luigi Maggi. SC: Arrigo Frusta; DP: Angelo Scalenghe; Cast: Alberto Capozzi [grandfather], Mary Cléo Tarlarini [grandmother / the country girl], Luigi Maggi [the country girl's father], Mario Voller Buzzi, Giuseppe Gray, Paolo Azzurri, Oreste Grandi, Ernesto Vaser, Norina Rasero; P: Ambrosio. 35 mm. 455 m. 23’ a 18 fps. Col. Didascalie italiane. From: Museo Nazionale del Cinema. Restored in 2010 by Cinémathèque Cinémathèque de Toulouse, Cineteca di Bologna and Museo Nazionale del Cinema at L‘Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from a nitrate positive colour print with didascalie italiane preserved by Cinémathèque de Toulouse, and – for the colour reconstruction - from two positive nitrate prints preserved by BFI National Archive and Lobster Films. The restoration has been carried out within a project by Museo Nazionale del Cinema aiming at preserving and promoting silent films awarded during the Esposizione Internazionale, which took place in Turin in 1911. - AA: Historical drama. On their golden wedding day the grandparents recollect their youth, seen in a flashback on Italy's Second War of Independence, in 1859. A young woman hides a young wounded Garibaldian soldier. The Austrians notice the blood stain on the woman's sleeve, but quickly behind her back she cuts her own arm to prove the blood is hers. This is the story of the grandparents. There is an epic feeling and a sense of the epoch in this short film. There is some beautiful pantomime, and instances of a fine use of the depth of field. The tinting feels sometimes a bit heavy in this meticulously restored version.

LE DUE INNAMORATE DI CRETINETTI / [The title on the print:] De vereering van Gribouille [or Gibrouille]. IT 1911. Cast: André Deed, Valentina Frascaroli; P: Itala Film. 35 mm. 184 m. 9’ a 18 fps. B&w. Nederlandse tussentitels. From: EYE Film Instituut Nederland. - AA: Comedy. Cretinetti falls into the trap of two wonderful women, who live next door to him, on both sides of his apartment. They challenge each other into a duel, and during it, all the pain and suffering is inflicted on Cretinetti. In the end Cretinetti loses both women to other, handsome suitors. A good Cretinetti comedy. A good print.

Dida Ibsens Geschichte

Dida Ibsens Geschichte. Ein Finale zum "Tagebuch einer Verlorenen" von Margarete Böhme. DE 1918. D: Richard Oswald. Based on the novel Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1907) di Margarete Böhme; SC: Richard Oswald; DP: Max Faßbender; PD: August Rinaldi; Cast: [Anita Berber (Dida Ibsen)], [not in this episode: Erna Morena (Thymian Gotteball)], Conrad Veidt (Dr. Julius / [Erik Norrensen]), Werner Krauß (Meinert / [Philipp Galen]), [Emil Lind (Vater Ibsen], [not in this episode: Reinhold Schünzel (Casimir Osdorf)], [not in this episode: Paul Rehkopf (il farmacista Gotteball)], Clementine Plessner [Frau Ibsen] (zia Frieda), [not in this episode: Marga Köhler (la matrigna), Max Laurence, Marie von Bülow (sig.na Woyens)]; P: Richard Oswald-Film GmbH (Berlin); Pri. pro.: 29 ottobre 1918. 35 mm. L.: 1253 m. 58’ a 20 fps. B&w; Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: Stiftung Deutsche Kinematek [2004] per concessione di Kirchmedia. Sunday, 26 June 2011 at 16.00, Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Grand piano: Günter Buchwald.

Catalogue: "Prostitution, venereal diseases, homosexuality and drugs are subjects which are generally taboo for silent cinema. The problems which they rouse are beyond normality and immediately become scabrous, they attract the watchful vigilance of the censor and the denial of the circulation visa. When they are confronted one must resort to ellipses, tangents, and toning down. But even with the great caution which had to be used, the production houses did not renounce proposing this material in their products - given the morbid fascination it exerts on the public. In Germany a fairly numerous series of films of this type was produced which, immediately after the war, were called “Aufklärungsfilm”, literally “illuminating films” and perhaps more correctly “instructive films”."

"The specialist of the genre was Richard Oswald, a versatile director, who was the author of ten or so of these works, today mostly considered as lost. Among these is Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, taken from the novel by Margarete Böhme, and from which Pabst was to draw the film with Louise Brooks almost ten years later. The actress playing Thymian, the young girl who notes her descent into hell in her diary was the fascinating Erna Morena, who we should like to be able to compare with Brooks if Oswald’s film were to be found. And though squeezed between censorship and the protests of spontaneous defenders of public decency, the film gathered a very wide public consensus, enough to induce Oswald to film the follow-up, Dida Ibsens Geschichte, rediscovered and restored, though partially incomplete. Dida Ibsen, the protagonist, is Anita Berber, a famous “Nacht-Tänzerin”, surrounded by a disdainful Conrad Veidt and a moustached and sardonic Werner Krauss."

"Dida Ibsens Geschichte was prohibited in toto by the censor and had rare viewings. Today’s audience of this remnant of the Aufklärungfilm is more fortunate than the audiences of 1918, to whom the film was in large measure denied." Giacomo Manzoli, Il Cinema Ritrovato 1996, Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna 1996.

AA: This episode starts with a typical Richard Oswald ensemble opening: Anita Berber, Werner Krauss, and Conrad Veidt are introduced in exaggerated, comical, and expressive portraits. There is immediately a strange intensity in the ensemble, and that is the main attraction of the Richard Oswald films of this period. The story is ludicrous and played for laughs. Poor Dida Ibsen becomes a mistress for Conrad Veidt who will not marry her but buys her a wine restaurant instead to support her. Werner Krauss, who has read too much Nietzsche ("You go to women? Don't forget the whip!") becomes a regular. When Dida finds out that Conrad is already married she takes her baby and goes to Krauss. At home Krauss, deranged because of a tropical fever, has a menagerie complete with a crocodile and is always carrying a huge live boa around his neck. Dida soon finds out that she is a prisoner at her own home. Finally, Dida is set free, and six men come to arrest Krauss. He is like shell-shocked. "Ich kann nicht anders, ich kann nicht" he says like the murderer in Fritz Lang's M. But mother instructs Dida to be faithful to her husband. - There are impressive deep focus effects in the movie and fine toning effects in the print. - There is sometimes a lack of dynamism in the direction. Richard Oswald seems to think that exciting actors and sensational content are enough.

The President Vanishes

Yhteiskunnan haaskalinnut. US 1934. D: William Wellman. Based on the novel (1934) by Rex Stout [not translated into Finnish]; SC: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Lynn Starling, Carey Wilson, Cedric Worth, Lynn Starling; DP: Barney McGill; ED: Hanson T. Fritch; M: Edward B. Powell, Hugo Riesenfeld, Clifford Vaughan; Cast: Edward Arnold (Wardell), Arthur Byron (Presidente Stanley Craig), Paul Kelly (Chick Moffat), Peggy Conklin (Alma Cronin), Andy Devine (Val Orcott), Janet Beecher (Sig.ra Craig), Osgood Perkins (Harris Brownell), Sidney Blackmer (D.L. Voorman), Edwar Ellis (Lincoln Lee), Irene Franklin (Sig.ra Orcott), Charley Grapewin (Richard Norton), Rosalind Russell (Sally Voorman), Robert McWade (Vice Presidente Molleson), DeWitt Jennings (Cullen), Walter Kingsford (Drew); P: Paramount Pictures, Walter Wanger Productions; Pri. pro.: 17 novembre 1934. 35 mm. 80’. B&w. English version. From: Library of Congress. Sunday 26 June 2011 at 14.30 at Cinema Arlecchino, Bologna (Il Cinema Ritrovato).

Catalogue: "In The President Vanishes, as critic Charles Wolfe has pointed out, the looks at the camera by the media magnate and his broadcasters as they proclaim “Save Our Country’s Honor” evoke the factual, authoritative, narrated documentary of the era. When the president triumphs over his opponents in the film’s final scene, he looks directly at the camera and explains: “I don’t ask your answer because I know it. I have faith in the American people.” Such a startling confrontation of the audience was fitting in a film with provocative content."

"But of course it was the content of The President Vanishes which provoked the greatest discussion, for, thanks in part to Wanger’s choice of screenwriter Wilson, it was a virtual remake of the outrageous Gabriel over the White House. Like that first film, this one presumed to show how the president and Congress work and live with corrupt politicians whose pro-war votes are bought by industry leaders. The threat of Gabriel over the White House’s Bonus Marchers becomes The President Vanishes vigilante Brown Shirts who foment violence on city street."

"The most crucial difference between The President Vanishes and Gabriel over the White House involved the former’s conception of the president. Unlike President Hammond who openly dismisses Congress and becomes a dictator, this president uses subterfuge to distract the Country’s attention from the European war cry. Unlike the isolated President Hammond who gets his inspiration from unseen forces, President Stanley, portrayed by the paternalistic Byron, adopts his plan during a domestic poker game with his wife (who suggests he play “another hand”). (…)"

"As The Nation’s William Troy pointed out, the film upheld a double standard: hawkish mob manipulators are a menace while the pacifist President is a hero, even though he never responds to the problems of unemployment and trade deficits which the warmongers seek to solve. (…) Other implications were less subtle. The second scene implied, more forcefully that any film up that time, that America’s capitalist economy depended on war." (Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent, University of Minnesota Press, 2000)."

AA: This rare William Wellman film I had never seen before. It is an interesting story from the period when Wellman made some strong pictures with a social consciousness such as Wild Boys of the Road. Based on a novel by Rex Stout, it is no Nero Wolfe mystery but an a social epic with close affinities with Gabriel over the White House, as stated above. Fascinating but not completely successful.

Albert Capellani: Programme 1: La Bohème in the Old and the New World: La Bohème (1912), La Vie de Bohème (1916)

Albert Capellani: La Bohème (FR 1912).

Albert Capellani: Programma 1: La Bohème nel vecchio e nel nuovo mondo. Sunday, 26 June 2011 at 11.15. Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema / Mastroianni, Bologna (Il Cinema Ritrovato).

Catalogue: "Before the First World War Albert Capellani made film versions of many 19th-century literary classics. His fame as the “masterdirector of French literary photo-dramatization” (Photoplay, July 1915) accompanied him to the United States. While his American adaptations followed the tradition of his French productions in their phenomenal art direction and mise en scene, one element was very different – the actors."

"As the original version of La Bohème has only come down to us as a negative without intertitles, we reproduce here the plot synopsis in the sales catalogue (the Bulletin Pathé no. 5, 1912). We are grateful to the Cinématheque française for allowing us to project their “work print” based on this negative without intertitles. (See notes for information on this and other such prints at the end of the catalogue section “Alice Guy”.)"

"“Rodolphe leads a happy life in his garret together with his friend the painter Marcel, when he meets beautiful grisette Mimi, graceful as a spring flower. An idyllic relationship is formed and the girl, when evicted from her modest dwelling by the mean landlord, comes to ask her sweetheart for shelter. The rose bush that Rodolphe gives Mimi is to be the symbol of their love, which will last as long as the flowers do not wither! Each of the lovers secretly tends the delicate shrub, but despite their efforts the roses eventually die. One evening fickle Mimi, seduced by the mirage of a life of luxury she is offered, leaves the garret, abandoning the one who loves her. But money does not bring happiness to the grisette. One winter day she returns, shivering, sick, exhausted, ‘the wayward bird coming back to the old nest’. Rodolphe’s bitterness melts away when he sees the poor creature, but despite his loving care the consumption claims her. In the room where they had lived such happy times together, Mimi closes her eyes for ever, clenching her poor, cold, thin hands in a little muff, the last of her fanciful whims and the last offering from her bohemian friends.”"

Capellani and His Stars: Alice Brady

"Largely remembered today as a comedian thanks to The Gay Divorcee and My Man Godfrey, Alice Brady (1892-1939) was acclaimed in the silent era as a dramatic actress, when she starred in fifty-one features between 1914 and 1923. The daughter of theatre impresario-turned-film producer William A. Brady, she defied her father’s wishes and first appeared on stage in 1909; parental permission was soon granted, and she made her Broadway debut in 1911 in the musical The Balkan Princess. She remained a fixture on Broadway even as she launched her screen career in 1914, for her father’s company World Film Corporation. La Vie de Bohème was her ninth feature in 1915 – that year she also appeared on Broadway in four Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and the Owen Davis drama Sinners."

"For the Twenties and Thirties, Brady focused on the stage: she was meant to be in the original Broadway cast of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude (1928), but illness forced her to withdraw and she was replaced by Lynn Fontanne. In 1931 she created the role of Lavinia Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra, receiving superlative reviews, and as if to prove her versatility, returned to the screen in 1933 with the first of her flibbertigibbet parts, in Harry Beaumont’s unjustly neglected When Ladies Meet. Though subsequently largely cast in comedic roles, Brady received the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1937 for In Old Chicago, and is justly remembered for her fine work in John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln." Jay Weissberg.

[LA BOHÈME. FR 1912. D: Albert Capellani. Based on the novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème (1849) di Henri Murger; DP: Pierre Trimbach; Cast: Paul Capellani (Rodolphe), Charles Dechamps (Marcel), Paul Gerbault (Colline), Léon Bélières (Schaunard), Suzanne Revonne (Mimi), Juliette Clarens (Musette); P: S.C.A.G.L. (Pathé No. 4896). 35 mm. 680 m. 33’ a 18 fps. B&w. No intertitles. From: La Cinémathèque française.] - AA: I missed this film because of the overlap with the Méliès - L'inferno show at Cinema Jolly. Kristin Thompson singles it out as one of her favourites in her Capellani blog entry from Bologna.

LA VIE DE BOHÈME. US 1916. D: Albert Capellani. Based on the novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème (1849) di Henri Murger; SC: Frances Marion; DP: Lucien Andriot; PD: Ben Carré. Cast: Alice Brady (Mimi), Paul Capellani (Rodolphe), June Elvidge (Madame de Rouvre), Leslie Stowe (Durandin), Chester Barnett (Marcel), Zena Keefe (Musette), Frederick Truesdell (autore), D. J. Flanagan (Schaunard); P: Paragon Films. 35 mm. 1611 m. 70’ a 20 fps. Col. English intertitles. From: George Eastman House. Preservation from a 28 mm print funded by the National Park Service in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities. - AA: I saw only the ending of this film because of an ovelap with the Méliès - L'inferno show at Cinema Jolly. The mise-en-scène seems sober. Kristin Thompson remarks that Capellani's 1912 adaptation is better. The live music avoided Puccini. There was a toned effect in the print preserved from an 28 mm element.

Searching for Colour in Films: Programme 2: Heaven and Hell, Fire and Ice - including L'inferno (1911) (digitally restored in 2011 by Cineteca di Bologna)

Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe De Liguoro: L'inferno (IT 1911). A German poster from IMDb.

Alla ricerca del colore dei film: Programma 2: Cielo ed inferno, fuoco e ghiaccio. Sunday, 26 June 2011 at 11.00, Cinema Jolly (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato).

Catalogue: "Some years ago the Filmarchiv Austria showed a programme of early films under the beautiful title “Elemental Cinema”. And in truth this medium, film, was made for portraying heaven and hell, reality and fantasy, fire and snow – and it is the only one that is any match for a firework display. In all this, colour is the crucial element." (ML)

Inferno: A “Colossal” Film

"On March 1, 1911, the first public screening of Inferno was held at the Mercadante Theater in Naples. The enthusiasm for the film adaptation of the first cantica of the Divine Comedy was unanimous, and shared by the distinguished writers and intellectuals present at the screening, including Benedetto Croce, Roberto Bracco and Matilde Serao."

"Inferno, made for Milano Films by the trio Padovan, Bertolini and De Liguoro, marked an important step in the cultural legitimization of film, a process that had begun several years before with major production companies and had been accelerated by the foundation of the French Film d’Art in 1908 and, one year later, its Italian “sister” F.A.I."

"The production of the film took almost two years and the cost rose to an unprecedented amount of money: at the time there was talk of the astronomical sum of one million lire. The final result, however, exceeded every expectation: Dante’s Inferno materialized on the screen, and Matilde Serao immediately compared the film to the work of the most celebrated illustrator of Dante, Gustave Doré, an iconographic point of reference for the Inferno filmmakers. The skill demonstrated by the film’s formal construction and the philological rigor of the poem’s transposition are owed to one of the three filmmakers involved, Aldolfo Padovan, an eminent Dante scholar and collaborator with the renowned publishing company Hoepli. The cultural value of the film is demonstrated by the immediate interest of the Societa Dante Alighieri, the distinguished association founded for the purpose of promoting the Italian language and literature. It gave support to the film by sponsoring and organizing luxurious “premieres” in the most famous Italian theaters."

"Brilliantly launched by the distributor Gustavo Lombardo with a vast promotional campaign, Inferno was an extraordinary commercial success not only in Italy but also abroad; the successful distribution in the United States was unparelleled for an Italian film." Giovanni Lasi.

LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE. FR 1912. di Georges Méliès (14'). The 2011 Lobster Films restoration. DCP 2K. Music recorded on soundtrack: AIR. [English subtitles on the DCP.] - AA: screened yesterday on the Piazza Maggiore with the symphony orchestra playing Offenbach, there was now the screening of Le Voyage dans la lune with the recorded soundtrack by AIR, the French electropop duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel. There are some good moments on the track, but at home I would rather turn the sound off.

[¿ERUPTION VOLCANIQUE À LA MARTINIQUE. FR 1902. D: Georges Méliès. 35 mm. 2’ a 16 fps. Pochoir. From: Filmoteca de Catalunya, Österreichisches Filmmuseum.?] - ¿Or was this La Catastrophe de la Martinique. FR 1902. D: Ferdinand Zecca.? - AA: A wonderful multi-colour stencil colour print with red, sepia, blue, and green effects. The 2011 print from Torino / L'Immagine Ritrovata.

[FESTA PIROTECNICA NEL CIELO DI LONDRA]. GB 1911. P: Urban (?). 35 mm. 80 m. 5’ a 16 fps. Pochoir, tinted. Didascalie italiane. From: Museo Nazionale del Cinema. Digitally preserved in 2011 by L‘Immagine Ritrovata laboratory from a tinted and handcoloured nitrate positive held by Museo Nazionale del Cinema. - AA: A strong colour-driven film with bold yellow, red, blue, and green colours, close to abstract experimental film. This was deservedly repeated later during the week on the Piazza Maggiore.

L’INFERNO

La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri: Inferno.

Helvetti / Helvetet (Finland) / L'Enfer / Dante's Inferno (Germany, GB, US) / El infierno / Ад / インフェルノ/ 地獄篇.

    IT 1911. PC: Milano Films. 

    D: Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe De Liguoro. SC: based on the first cantica of Divina Commedia (1321) by Dante Alighieri; DP: Emilio Roncarolo; PD: Sandro Properzi, Francesco Bertolini; Co.: Raffaele Caravaglios; 

    Cast: Salvatore Papa (Dante Alighieri), Arturo Pirovano (Virgilio), Giuseppe De Liguoro (Farinata / Pier Delle Vigne / Conte Ugolino), Attilio Motta, Emilise Beretta, A. Milla (Lucifero).

    66 min

    Italian premiere: 2 March 1911 (Naples)

    Finnish premiere: 6 March 1911

    Digitally restored in 2011 [or 2007?] at L‘Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. 

    Tinted. 

    Didascalie italiane. [No translation of the Dante poem.].

    DigiBeta from: Cineteca di Bologna. 

    Musica elettroacustica con voci e suoni d‘ambiente composta da Edison Studio [with Marco Dalpane on the grand piano].

    Presenta Alessandro Cipriani

AA: The title card: La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri: Inferno. - The film is based on the first cantica of the Divine Comedy like many later film adaptations. More specifically, the film is based on the Gustave Doré illustrations to Dante's epic poem. The intertitles are from Dante. "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate!" - Dante's first cantica is turned into a magnificent, refined spectacle, with shades of kitsch, and lots of tasteful nudity. In this respect this film is still the model for all subsequent adaptations, even including Greenaway's TV Dante. This is a film of impressive views. The music track is tiresome. The new restoration seems excellent.

Alice Guy: Programme 2: Comedy Is the Source of All Pleasures

Alice Guy: Matrimony's Speed Limit (US 1913).

Alice Guy: Programma 2: La comicità è la fonte di tutti i piaceri. Sunday, 26 June 2011 at 10.00, Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni (Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato). Earphone commentary in Italian and English. Grand piano: Donald Sosin.

Catalogue: "Alice Guy directed and produced a range of early film genres at Gaumont and like her contemporaries, she copied, borrowed and learned technique, staging, and story lines from the leading French producers, the Lumières, Georges Méliès, and Pathé Frères.""

"Throughout her career, comedy played a special role in Guy’s intriguing repertoire of situational stories, many of which centered on women’s conflicting and irrepressible sexual and material desires, expressed and displayed through unconventional, transgressive and disruptive behavior. A range of props, including dolls, pet animals, wigs, and disguises, in addition to the woman’s body, serve as instruments and devices for motivating narrative action. In this selection of comedies, Guy explores traditional gender roles though the themes of birth, sex, marriage, and oral pleasure.""

[Not shown: SAGE FEMME DE PREMIÈRE CLASSE. FR 1902. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: First-class Midwife; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. ca. 5’ a 16 fps. B&w. From: Library of Congress.]

LES RÉSULTATS DU FÉMINISME. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: The Results of Feminism; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. ca. 7’ a 16 fps. B&w. From: Gaumont Pathé Archives. -  AA: Comedy. The reversal of roles.

FEMME COLLANTE. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: The Sticky Woman; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. ca. 2’ a 18 fps. B&w. From: CNC Archives Françaises du Film. - AA: Comedy. Sticky kisses.

DIE MAUS IN DER KRINOLINE. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: La Crinoline; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 36 m. ca. 2’. B&w. From: Filmarchiv Austria. - AA: Pregnant.

MADAME A DES ENVIES. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy (?); Romeo Bosetti (?). P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 4’ a 16 fps. B&w. From: BFI – National Archive.

INTERVENTION MALENCONTREUSE. FR 1902. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: Untimely Intervention; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 2’. B&w. From: Lobster Films. - AA: There is an inheritance if you marry.

[added:] FAUST ET MEPHISTOPHELES. FR 1903. D: Alice Guy. P: Gaumont.

MATRIMONY’S SPEED LIMIT. US 1913. D: Alice Guy Blaché. Cast: Marion Swayne, Billy Quirck, Flora Finch; P: Solax. 35 mm. 354 m. ca. 11’ a 18 fps. B&w. English intertitles. From: Library of Congress

LE MATELAS ALCOOLIQUE. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: Le Matelas épileptique; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 245 m. 11’ a 18 fps. B&w. From: Library of Congress – Women Film Pioneers Project Collection.

LA HIERARCHIE´DANS L’AMOUR / [the title of the print:] The Hierarchy of Love. FR 1906. T. alt.: The Hierarchy in Love; P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 3’. B&w. From: BFI – National Archive.

I did not take proper notes of this screening.

Film concert Nosferatu (2006 FWMS, Luciano Berriatúa restoration) with Timothy Brock and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna playing Heinrich Marschner's overture (2011)

Timothy Brock conducting his arrangement of Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyr on the Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, 25 June 2011.

NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS. Nosferatu il vampiro. DE 1922. D: F. W. Murnau. SC: based [n.c.] on the novel Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker; SC: Henrik Galeen; DP: Fritz Arno Wagner; AD: Albin Grau; Cast: Max Schreck (Conte Orlok, Nosferatu), Greta Schröder (Nina), Gustav von Wangenheim (Jonathan Hutter), Georg Heinrich Schnell (Harding), Alexander Granach (Knock), Max Nemetz (il capitano della nave), Ruth Landshoff (Annie), John Gottowt (il professor Bulwer), Gustav Botz (Sievers, il dottore del manicomio), Wolfgang Heinz (Maat), Albert Venohr (marinaio), Hardy von François (dottore dell’ospedale), Guido Herzfeld (albergatore), Karl Etlinger, Heinrich White; P: Prana-Film, GMBh Berlino; Pri. pro.: 5 marzo 1922. 35 mm. 1914 m. 93’ a 18 fps. Col. Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: Friedrich-Wilhelm Murnau-Stiftung. Saturday, 25.6.2011 Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato. E-subtitles in Italian and English by Sub-Ti.

Musiche dirette da Timothy Brock, eseguite dall'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale, adattamento e riorchestrazione dell'opera Der Vampyr (1826) di Heinrich Marschner, scelta da F.W. Murnau come concerto d'apertura della prima di Nosferatu il 4 settembre 1922 a Berlino.

Catalogue: "Nosferatu was restored by Luciano Berriatúa on behalf of Friedrich-Wilhelm Murnau-Stiftung in 2005/06. A tinted nitrate print with French intertitles from 1922 of La Cinémathèque française was used as a basis for the restoration. Missing shots were completed by a safety print from 1939 of Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, drawn from a Czech export print of the 1920s. Other shots were taken from a nitrate print of the 1930s version, distributed under the title Die zwölfte Stunde, preserved at La Cinémathèque française. Most of the original intertitles and inserts are preserved in a safety print from 1962 of Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, originating from a print of 1922. Missing intertitles and inserts were redesigned on the basis of the original typography by trickWilk. They are marked with F.W.M.S. The lab work was carried out by L’Immagine Ritrovata."

"The romantic atmosphere of Nosferatu, which makes nature’s dark, unseen forces visible with images based on Friedrich, is in fact a faithful reproduction of the spirit of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Why did Murnau choose Lübeck for shooting many of the film’s scenes? Perhaps Murnau was influenced by the haunting image that Edvard Munch created from the facade of an old store in the city. Munch worked in Lübeck between 1902 and 1903. What is certain is that he planned the film around paintings. (…) It may seem a little over the top that Murnau used paintings by his friend Franz Marc like Weidende Pferde, of 1910, at the time kept at the Lenbach Haus in Munich, for a mere shot of backlit horses frightened by hyenas. But I think that Murnau referred to another image by Marc: the wolves howling in the dark of night like in Die Wölfe (Balkan Krieg), of 1913. Murnau replaced the wolves with hyenas but used the image of the horses painted by his friend, which clearly emerges from comparing the film’s unusual framing with Landschaft mit Pferden, of 1909. I believe he changed the wolves into hyenas due to the influence of drawings by Alfred Kubin like Hyäne, of 1920, which depicts the hyena as a kind of vampire devouring human cadavers in cemeteries. A much more striking image than a wolf. (…) But the most significant artistic influence on the film’s character was the work of Kaspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). It was undoubtedly an idea of Murnau to use the works of Friedrich to develop Grau and Galeen’s visual concept of the darks forces of Nature. (…) With the works of these romantic painters, Murnau obtained an unusual result for film. Making the invisible visible. Forcing the presence of the dark forces of Nature on the viewer’s unconscious mind." Luciano Berriatúa: Los proverbios chinos de F. W. Murnau. Etapa alemana, Filmoteca Española, Madrid 1990.

The Adaptation of Heinrich Marschner’s Der Vampyr for Nosferatu

"At the première screening of Nosferatu, in Berlin on March 5th, 1922, it has been well documented that the orchestra that accompanied the film performed as precurtain stage-setter, the operatic overture to Der Vampyr (1826) by German opera composer Heinrich Marschner. What does survive, ironically, is music that is nearly 100 years older, and was hand-picked by F. W. Murnau himself a suitable prelude for his Symphony of Horrors."

"The great loss of not having the original 1922 Erdmann score gave me the idea to adapt the entire Marschner opera score as an accompanying dramatic narrative, liberally transforming selected scenes, admittedly without regard to the Der Vampyr libretto, as the opera’s scenario is quite unrelated to that of Nosferatu or Bram Stoker’s Dracula."

"I began transcribing the entire opera as raw symphonic material, selecting adaptable scenes and passages, incorporating the vocal lines, and starting anew as a film score. Freeing this music from the confines of its original stage setting, I detailed and developed those passages and made liberal use of the material which I believed made Der Vampyr uniquely beautiful. I found helpful the model used by Schönberg when he adapted the Handel op. 6, or the harpsichord concerto of Matthias Monn, both of which inspired him to create completely new works while striving to maintain the sound and feel of the original source."

"Mind you, the listener will obviously not hear his music as Marschner intended it. I did, however, endeavor to make the same dark and sinister impact that he was hoping to achieve, inspired by his own Vampire fascination (Even Richard Wagner wrote, after the Leipzig premiere in 1828 that he considered the Marschner work one of the great “Demonic” operas of all-time)."

"I have kept nearly the exact original orchestration, with the addition of an organ and a bass-clarinet part. The instrumentation is 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, organ and strings." Timothy Brock.

AA: I saw this 2006 restoration of Nosferatu for the first time, and at the Piazza Maggiore it was difficult to detect what was new and different from the beautiful 1995 Lumière Project restoration. Murnau's masterpiece is always worth revisiting, even in the Piazza where subtle films suffer (Der letzte Mann is not subtle and it worked perfectly on the Piazza). I have come to agree with the Murnau experts who prefer Nosferatu silent. Nosferatu is subtle visual music, "a symphony of horror", that almost always suffers from actual played music. Even Hans Erdmann's original score, which I have had the pleasure to hear in ca 1989 in Theatre Savoy in Helsinki arranged and conducted by Bernd Heller, is not quite satisfactory. But I have to admit now that Heinrich Marschner's overture to Der Vampyr (1826) is a wonderful selection to be played with Nosferatu. The boldly Romantic music befits Nosferatu's Romantic ambience perfectly. Arranged and conducted by Timothy Brock, the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale performed with passion and inspiration.

Film concert Le Voyage dans la Lune (2011 Lobster Films restoration) Timothy Brock and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna playing Offenbach

Georges Méliès: Le Voyage dans la Lune (FR 1902).

Saturday, 25 June 2011 at 22.00, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna (Il Cinema Ritrovato). Il film verrà mostrato due volte, accompagnato dalla musica registrata degli AIR e successivamente dall'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, che eseguirà un adattamento di Timothy Brock dell'omonima operetta di Jacques Offenbach.

Il viaggio nella luna. FR 1902. D: Georges Méliès. SC: Jules Verne, Georges Méliès, H.G. Wells (non accred.); DP: Michault, Lucien Tainguy; ED: Georges Méliès; PD: Claudel (non accred.); Co.: Jeanne d’Alcy; 

    Cast: Victor André, Bleuette Bernon (Phoebe), Brunnet (astronomo), François Lallement (l’ufficiale), Jeanne d’Alcy (non accred.), Henri Delannoy (il capitano del missile), Depierre, Farjaux (astronomo), Kelm (astronomo), Georges Méliès (il professor Barbenfouillis); 

    P: Star Film; Pri. pro.: 1 settembre 1902 (Francia). DCP 2K. 13’56''. Col. (pochoir). 

    From: Lobster Films, Fondation Technicolor pour le Patrimoine e Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma. Restauro promosso nel 2011 da Lobster Films (Serge Bromberg & Eric Lange), Fondation Technicolor pour le Patrimoine du Cinéma (Séverine Wemaere), Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma (Gilles Duval).

Catalogue: "A black and white original nitrate print belonging to Madeleine Malthête-Méliès and a positive print belonging to CNC have been used for this restoration. The digitization of those elements was made at CNC-AFF. Some fragments had been previously preserved on an internegative print at Haghefilm. 2011 digital restoration was made by Technicolor in Los Angeles."

"Following the restoration of the entire collection of Pierre Etaix’s films last year, our two foundations again decided to join forces to lead one of the most ambitious projects in film restoration history. It was a project of unprecedented complexity, centering on a monument in the history of film: the color version of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès."

"This version of the film, long considered lost, was found in 1993 in Barcelona, one of a collection of 200 silent films donated by an anonymous collector to the Filmoteca de Catalalunya. However, the copy was in such a dire state that no one believed restoration possible. In 1999, following an exchange between collectors, the copy became part of a private collection, Lobster Films, which worked until 2002 to try to detach and digitalise images in the film one by one. It took until 2010 for a complete restoration to be envisaged and launched by our two foundations, the only ones in France to be active in cinema and in this particular private collection. As for all our projects, the objective is to carry out the restoration in the best cinematic tradition, starting from the elements of the original, and to show the restored film to as wide an audience as possible. In the case of A Trip to the Moon, a silent, 14-minute film (a long feature for the time it was made), we could not conceive of presenting or showing the restored work in the usual way. Hence our decision to give the film its own original, contemporary soundtrack, and thus make the restoration as exceptional an event as the Georges Mélies work itself. The group AIR not only accepted to sit alongside us in the rocket, but made the trip back to earth more beautiful than we could have imagined. We cannot thank them enough. To work on Georges Mélies’ masterpiece inevitably led us to embark on another kind of trip: one back in time to the world of the very first moving images, and of a joyous, prolific director, Georges Mélies." Séverine Wemaere (Head of Technicolor Foundation), Gilles Duval (Head of Groupama Gan Foundation).

"In May 1902, Georges Mélies began filming A Trip to the Moon in workshop A. Of the adventure, what remains are the names of the cast. On the subject, Mélies wrote: “The Moon was Bleuette Bemon, a music-hall singer, the stars were the girls from the ballets at the Châtelet theatre and the men (the main characters) were Victor André from the Cluny theatre, Delpierre, Farjaux, Kelm, Brunnet, music hall singers, and myself. The Selenites were acrobats from the Folies-Bergeres.” The film’s operators were Michault and Lucien Tainguy. The film was released in France on 1st September 1902."

The Trip’s Origins

"On his motivations for making A Trip to the Moon, Georges Méliès wrote in 1933: “The idea of a trip to the moon came to me when I was reading a book by Jules Verne's called From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. In the book, the humans could not land on the moon (...). So I imagined, using the same means as Jules Verne (canon and rocket), landing on the moon, in such a way that I could put together some arresting and amusing fairytale images, show the outside and inside of the moon, and some monsters who might live on the moon, add one or two artistic effects (women representing the stars, the comets..., snow effects, the bottom of the sea).”

"However, works other than the book by Jules Verne, published in 1865, no doubt influenced Méliès. Starting with H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, published in French a few months after the film was shot. Between these two dates, another work appeared which was undoubtedly a source of inspiration: A Trip to the Moon by Albert Vanloo, E. Leterrier and Arnold Mortier, set to music by Jacques Offenbach. This was a fairytale opera in four acts and twenty-three scenes and was performed for the first time on 26 October 1875 at the Gaité theatre, then at the Châtelet theatre from 31 March 1877. Laurent Mannoni and Jacques Malthête point to another source of possible inspiration in the exhibition catalogue ‘Méliès, Magic and Cinema’ - the show “A Trip to the Moon” which was created in 1901 for the pan-American exhibition in Buffalo, in the state of New York. Written by two Americans, Frederick Thomson and Skip Dundy, this show enjoyed tremendous success. “For a 50 cent ticket, (...) spectators entered a large spatial vessel with around 30 places, called the Luna, (...) at the centre of a large circular panorama. At the sound of a gong, the wings of the vessel would move and simulate take-off. Wind would blow, and soon the painted scenery (…) would fade, replaced by the earth seeming to fade into the distance. After a few adventures, the vessel would approach the moon, flying over it slowly, before landing in the centre of a crater. Selenites would then take charge of the passengers”. It would be reasonable to assume that Méliès had heard of the attraction at the time he was shooting A Trip to the Moon." Laurent Mannoni and Jacques Malthête: Méliès, magie et cinéma. Electra, Paris, 2002).

"George Mélies was the first great film magician. His joyous sense of fun and ability to astound were a big influence on both my early animations and then my live action films. He seems to have wielded more subtle influences as well. The last scene of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was meant as an homage to the end of Mélies life. Like my Doctor Parnassus, he was reduced to selling children’s toys from a little stall. His stall stood outside a Paris railway station. For some reason I was never aware of which one until sometime after finishing the film. It was Montparnasse! But, of course, Melies still has a tight creative grip on me." Terry Gilliam: I testi sono tratti dal libro La Couleur retrouvée du Voyage dans la lune. Fondation Technicolor e Fondation Groupama Gan, Parigi, 2011.

AA: Timothy Brock's arrangement of Jacques Offenbach's opéra-féerie Le Voyage dans la lune (1875) is a wonderful and inspired idea for a performance of Georges Méliès's film. There was a sense of joy in the performance of Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna conducted by Timothy Brock. Next day I had the chance to see the Méliès film with the soundtrack recorded by AIR. I hope they'll record the Jacques Offenbach - Timothy Brock music instead.

...

I blogged also about the Pordenone screening of the 2001 restoration of Le Voyage dans la Lune.

A Hundred Years Ago: Opening Programme: 1911 / Capellani: Cinema Is Life, Liberated and No Longer of This Earth

Albert Capellani: Le Courrier de Lyon / The Courier of Lyons / The Orleans Coach (FR 1911).

Cento anni fa: Programma di apertura: 1911: / Capellani: Il cinema è la vita, liberata e non più terrestre. Programme and notes by Mariann Lewinsky. Saturday, 25 June 2011 at 18.00 Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni (Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna). Earphone commentary in Italian and English. Grand piano: John Sweeney. Presenta Mariann Lewinsky.

Catalogue: "Come unto the cinema of 1911, all ye that labour and are heavy laden! Tontolini is depressed and cannot shake it off. Only the cinema – and a Tontolini film – can make him laugh again. The physical presence of artists leaps across a hundred years and we fall under the spell of their movement, the spell of the absolutely contemporary. Victor Klemperer, an enthusiastic cinema-goer (and diarist) wrote in 1912 that the cinema was showing “life, liberated and no longer of this Earth” and that moving pictures were “joyous games with the manifestations of life: they glide past us, delightful in the inexhaustibility of their forms, while all life’s problems recede.” (Das Lichtspiel, 1912)."

"The crime thriller was the hit genre of 1911, and it is introduced in the second part of the opening programme. There is suspense and horror in both these films by Albert Capellani, not least because innocent people are arrested and convicted of murder." [Not shown in this screening: - "The final image of L’Homme aux gants blancs (1908) is very powerful. A Paris street scene, enriched with documentary fidelity, is watched by the camera from among the watching bystanders. While it registers the events in front of the police car, the objective atmosphere is disturbed by our agonising consciousness of the unprovable innocence of the man being arrested and the unprovable guilt of the other. The feeling remains, insistent, while the passersby on the screen disperse, the protagonists disappear and the scene fades out. For the true story of the white gloves had been revealed to us, the viewers: we had seen, in a spectacular triptych, how they had been ordered by phone by a hotel bell boy and, in a close-up, as anticipatory evidence, how the salesgirl had secured a loose button on one of them, and thus could later identify the owner of the glove. We see the latter take the stolen pearls out of his pocket and with them the gloves, which fall to the ground unnoticed, to be picked up and slipped on by the one who will commit the murder…"]

"The historical case of Joseph Lesurques, who was executed in 1796 (Le Courrier de Lyon, 1911), did not merely serve as subject matter for 19th-century plays and novels. It also played a major role, as a classic example of a miscarriage of justice, in the campaign against the death penalty (which lasted from 1795 to 1981, when Mitterrand’s bill was passed into law). The acrimony of the political positions is even echoed in the language of the 1911 blurbs advertising the film: “The scene presented this week by Pathé Freres is a horrifying true story, which ends with the most appalling miscarriage of justice of the last century. This powerful drama has been reconstructed by the Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et Gens de Lettres (S.C.A.G.L.) with the most extreme care taken in its mise en scene and with the most eminent actors of the Paris theatre. The action is shot on location in the actual places where the events took place and viewers of this moving production will have a real sense of the tragic happenings of more than a hundred years ago.” (Ciné-Journal no. 135, march 25, 1911)."

TONTOLINI É TRISTE. IT 1911. Cast: Ferdinand Guillame (Tontolini); P: Cines. 35 mm. 135 m. 7’ a 16 fps. B&w. Didascalie italiane. From: Cineteca di Bologna. - AA: Comedy. The doctor's cure for sadness: go to the theatre! But at the theatre Tontolini gets even more sad. The same happens at the circus, when the clowns start a fight. But at the cinema there is a Tontolini comedy and no end to joy. Naive but funny.

TRAVERSÉE DES ALPES FRANÇAISES IN AUTOMOBILE. FR 1911. P: Gaumont. 35 mm. 90 m. 5’ a 16 fps. Tinted, toned. Intertitres français. From: Cineteca di Bologna, Cinematek (Brussels). - AA: Non-fiction. A nice phantom ride with impressive tinting and toning effects.

DAS ENGLISCHE TELMEERGESCHWADER IN MALTA UND MATROSENSPORT. GB 1911. P: Urban Kineto. 35 mm. 90 m. 5’ a 16 fps. B&w. From: EYE Film Instituut Nederland. - AA: Non-fiction. A display of the might of the British Empire, of their battleship fleet. Fine framing in the long shots, sailors jumping into the sea. Nice print.

JONGLEURS DE MASSUES. FR 1911. T. cec.: Ekvilibristé s kužely; P: Pathé Frères. 35 mm. 70 m. 4’ a 16 fps. Pochoir. No intertitles. From: Národní Filmový Archiv. - AA: Non-fiction: seamless interplay between two top jongleurs. Beautiful print.

DEUX BOXEURS ENRAGÉS. FR 1911. T. cec.: Nesmiřitelní boxeři; P: Pathé Frères. 35 mm. 128 m. 7’ a 18 fps. B&w. Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: Národní Filmový Archiv. - AA: Comedy. Construction workers restrain a fight with water jets. Ok print with slightly high contrast.

[not shown here: L’HOMME AUX GANTS BLANCS, see 29 June 2011, Cento anni fa 7: Nascita del giallo.]

[addition to the show:] L'ÉPOUVANTE. FR 1911. D: Albert Capellani. Cast: Mistinguett, Émile Mylo. A tinted and toned print. - AA: Thriller. The surprisingly advanced thriller revisited.

LE COURRIER DE LYON OU L’ATTAQUE DE LA MALLE POSTE. FR 1911. D: Albert Capellani. Based on a play by Moreau, Siraudin et Delacourt (1850); Cast: Louis Ravet. - AA: Historical tragedy. Capellani's sense of the historical epoch on display again. The story is about the robbery of 75.000 pounds sent to Napoléon in Italy in 1795 and the conviction of the falsely accused man. "Too late!"

...

ORIGINAL CATALOGUE PROGRAM NOTE:

PROGRAMMA DI APERTURA: 1911 / CAPELLANI: IL CINEMA È LA VITA, LIBERATA E NON PIÙ TERRESTRE

OPENING PROGRAMME: 1911 / CAPELLANI: CINEMA IS LIFE, LIBERATED AND NO LONGER OF THIS EARTH

Programme and notes by Mariann Lewinsky

" Come unto the cinema of 1911, all ye that labour and are heavy laden! Tontolini is depressed and cannot shake it off. Only the cinema – and a Tontolini film – can make him laugh again. The physical presence of artists leaps across a hundred years and we fall under the spell of their movement, the spell of the absolutely contemporary. Victor Klemperer, an enthusiastic cinema-goer (and diarist) wrote in 1912 that the cinema was showing “life, liberated and no longer of this Earth” and that moving pictures were “joyous games with the manifestations of life: they glide past us, delightful in the inexhaustibility of their forms, while all life’s problems recede.” (Das Lichtspiel, 1912).

The crime thriller was the hit genre of 1911, and it is introduced in the second part of the opening programme. There is suspense and horror in both these films by Albert Capellani, not least because innocent people are arrested and convicted of murder.

The final image of L’Homme aux gants blancs (1908) is very powerful. A Paris street scene, enriched with documentary fidelity, is watched by the camera from among the watching bystanders. While it registers the events in front of the police car, the objective atmosphere is disturbed by our agonising consciousness of the unprovable innocence of the man being arrested and the unprovable guilt of the other. The feeling remains, insistent, while the passersby on the screen disperse, the protagonists disappear and the scene fades out. For the true story of the white gloves had been revealed to us, the viewers: we had seen, in a spectacular triptych, how they had been ordered by phone by a hotel bell boy and, in a close-up, as anticipatory evidence, how the salesgirl had secured a loose button on one of them, and thus could later identify the owner of the glove. We see the latter take the stolen pearls out of his pocket and with them the gloves, which fall to the ground unnoticed, to be picked

up and slipped on by the one who will commit the murder… 

The historical case of Joseph Lesurques, who was executed in 1796 (Le Courrier de Lyon, 1911), did not merely serve as subjectmatter for 19th-century plays and novels. It also played a major role, as a classic example of a miscarriage of justice, in the campaign against the death penalty (which lasted from 1795 to 1981, when Mitterrand’s bill was passed into law). The acrimony of the political positions is even echoed in the language of the 1911 blurbs advertising the film: “The scene presented this week by Pathé Frères is a horrifying true story, which ends with the most appalling miscarriage of justice of the last century. This powerful drama has been reconstructed by the Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (S.C.A.G.L.) with the most extreme care taken in its mise en scène and with the most eminent actors of the Paris theatre. The action is shot on location in the actual places where the events took place and viewers of this moving production will have a real sense of the tragic happenings of more than a hundred years ago.” (Ciné-Journal no. 135, march 25, 1911). "

TONTOLINI È TRISTE

Italia, 1911 █ Int.: Ferdinand Guillame (Tontolini); Prod.: Cines █ 35mm. L.: 135 m. D.: 7’ a 16 f/s. Bn. Didascalie italiane / Italian intertitles █ Da: Cineteca di Bologna

TRAVERSÉ DES ALPES FRANÇAISES IN AUTOMOBILE

Francia, 1911 █ Prod.: Gaumont █ 35mm. L.: 90 m. D.: 5’ a 16 f/s. Imbibito, virato / Tinted, toned. Didascalie francesi / French intertitles █ Da: Cineteca di Bologna, Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique

DAS ENGLISCHE TELMEERGESCHWADER IN MALTA UND MATROSENSPORT

Gran Bretagna, 1911 █ Prod.: Urban Kineto █ 35 mm. L.: 90 m. D.: 5’ a 16 f/s. Bn. █ Da: EYE-Film Institute Netherland

JONGLEURS DE MASSUES

Francia, 1911 █ T. cec.: Ekvilibristé s kužely; Prod.: Pathé Frères █ 35mm. L.: 70 m. D.: 4’ a 16 f/s. Pochoir. Senza didascalie / No intertitles █ Da: Národní Filmový Archiv

DEUX BOXEURS ENRAGÉS

Francia, 1911 █ T. cec.: Nesmirˇitelní boxerˇi; Prod.: Pathé Frères █ 35mm. L.: 128 m. D.: 7’ a 18 f/s. Bn. Didascalie tedesche / German intertitles █ Da: Národní Filmový Archiv

L’HOMME AUX GANTS BLANCS

Francia, 1908 Regia: Albert Capellani █ Sog.: Georges Docquois; Int.: Marguerite Brésil, Henri Desfontaine, Jacques Grétillat; Prod.: S.C.A.G.L. (Pathé No. 2588) █ 35mm. L. or.: 310 m. Bn. Didascalie francesi / French intertitles █ Da: Cineteca di Bologna, Cinémathèque Française, EYE-Film Institute Netherlands, Lobster Films █ Restaurato nel 2011 grazie alla Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé presso il laboratorio L’Immagine Ritrovata a partire da elementi 35 mm e 28 mm / Restored in 2011 thanks to a grant by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, combining 35 mm e 28 mm elements.

LE COURRIER DE LYON OU L’ATTAQUE DE LA MALLE POSTE

Francia, 1911 Regia: Albert Capellani █ Sog.: dall’omonima pièce di Moreau, Siraudin et Delacourt (1850); Int.: Louis Ravet (Lesurques - Dubosc), Mévisto (Chopard), Georges Tréville (Courriol), Paul Calvin (Fouinard), Paul Capellani (Didier), Albert Dieudonné (Lesurques), Colsi (il fattorino dell’albergo), Eugénie Nau (Sig.ra Chopard), Andrée Pascal (Julie Lesurques); Prod.: S.C.A.G.L. (Pathé No. 4322) █ 35 mm. L. or.: 780 m L.: 720 m. D.: 35’ a 18 f/s. Bn. Didascalie tedesche / German intertitles █ Da: BFI National Archive

Alice Guy: Programme 1: The Sieurin French Collection of Early Gaumont Films 1899–1900 / Child Heroes and Heroines

Alice Guy: La Marâtre / The Stepmother (Gaumont, FR 1906). My screen capture from YouTube.

Alice Guy: Programma 1: La Sieurin French Collection dei primi film Gaumont 1899–1900 / Eroi ed eroine infantili. Saturday, 25 June 2011 at 16.15 Cinema Lumière – Sala Officinema / Mastroianni, Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato. Grand piano: Maud Nelissen. Presentano Kim Tomadjoglou, Bryony Dixon e Monica Dall'Asta.

Catalogue: "Emil Sieurin (1877–1962), a pioneering figure in Swedish cinema, shot some of the earliest Swedish films in 1901. He was also an engineer, working at the company Höganäsbolaget in the south of Sweden at the turn of last century. Sieurin’s films document the work at the factory where he was employed (where they manufactured ceramics), and other local attractions such as playgrounds, music events, etc. The Sieurin French reel of 19 short Gaumont films was a reel of films that he acquired while travelling to France; the reel was subsequently screened in Sweden and known under the title Sieurins franska bilder, which literally means “Sieurin’s French pictures”.""

"In 1985, Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet – Filmarkivet duplicated the original nitrate positive reel (which no longer survives) and a colour inter-negative was made. In 2008, a new print was made from this preservation negative, and new black and white titles (the original nitrate lacked titles) were inserted for each separate film.""

"The films have been identified in collaboration with the Gaumont Pathé Archives (Paris), though the Danse serpentine film could not be exactly identified." Jon Wengström, Curator of Archival Film Collections, The Svenska Filminstitutet - Filmarkivet

"The “Sieurin French pictures” reel consists of a wide range of genres representative of the early Gaumont production and includes works previously attributed to Guy. The single shot La Fée aux choux [The Cabbage Fairy] (1900) which features Guy’s secretary and friend, Yvonne Mugnier-Serand, as a fairy pulling babies from a cabbage patch was previously considered Guy’s first film. Recent research by Maurice Gianati has revealed she directed her first film in 1902 (the two-shot Sage-femme de première classe) and before that possibly provided scenarios.""

PART 1: THE SIEURIN COLLECTION. ARCHIVAL FILM COLLECTIONS OF THE SVENSKA FILMINSTITUTET – FILMARKIVET, STOCKHOLM. Films are in order on one 35 mm reel. Colour; (392 m) 19’ at 18 fps.

ENTRÉE ET SORTIE DE LA MINE. FR 1899. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. A print with beautiful toning effects.

PARIS: EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE – PANORAMA DE LA SEINE. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: non-fiction. A panorama from a moving vessel. Print with sepia toning.

DANSE DES SAISONS: L’HIVER, DANSE DE LA NEIGE. FR 1900. T. alt.: Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance; P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. A record of a dance performance. Print with sepia toning.

AU CABARET. FR 1899. T. alt.: At the Club; P: Gaumont. – AA: Fictional scene. Starts like the Lumière card-playing scenes, the three men drink and start a fight.

PARIS: EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. A 360 degree pan.

CHEZ LE MARÉCHAL-FERRANT. FR 1899. T. alt.: At the Blacksmith’s; P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. Comparable to the blacksmithing scenes of Edison and Lumière.

AVENUE DE L’OPÉRA. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction, trick film. Reverse motion in front of the Place de l'Opéra.

LA BONNE ABSINTHE. FR 1899. T. alt.: The Good Absinthe; P: Gaumont. – AA: Fiction. Drinking undiluted absinth.

L’AVEUGLE FIN DE SIÈCLE. FR 1898. D: G. Breteau. T. alt.: The Turn-of-the-century Blind Man; P: Gaumont. – AA: Comedy. A trick to the fake blind man.

PANORAMA CIRCULAIRE SUR LE PONT D’IÉNA. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. A 360 degree pan.

CHAPELLERIE ET CHARCUTERIE MÉCANIQUES. FR 1900. T. alt.: Mechanical Hat-and-Sausage-maker; P: Gaumont. – AA: A trick film. In the spirit of Méliès, a film about a miraculous machine.

LA FÉE AUX CHOUX. FR 1900. T. alt.: The Cabbage Fairy; P: Gaumont. – AA: Une féerie. A magical film in the spirit of Méliès, babies born out of cabbages.

PÉDILUVE. FR 1899. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. Horses are washed in the water.

LA CONCIERGE. FR 1900. T. alt.: The Concierge; P: Gaumont. – AA: Fiction. Rascals tease the concierge. The concierge avenges, but an innocent gets to suffer.

CHEZ LE PHOTOGRAPHE. FR 1900. D: Henri Vallouy (?). T. alt.: At the Photographer’s; P: Gaumont. – AA: Fiction. A restless photographer's model.

EXPO 1900: LE VIEUX PARIS. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. Another view from the Seine, historical facades along the river.

CHARGE À LA BAÏONETTE D’UN RÉGIMENT DE LIGNE. FR 1899. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. Military exercises. Attacks towards the camera.

DANS LES MINES: ENTRÉE DES BENNES DANS LA MINE. FR 1899. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. Belongs together with the first view of this compilation.

DANSE SERPENTINE. FR 1900. P: Gaumont. – AA: Non-fiction. A beautiful toning and multi-colour effects in the print.

PART 2: CHILD HEROES AND HEROINES
Catalogue: "Young children were featured in Guy's early short productions for Gaumont and years later they reappeared as principal protagonists in Solax single-reel and feature films. As key intermediaries between and amongst their adult counterparts, children played a distinctive role in resolving narrative tension and conflict. Child heroes and heroines were active and empowered agents, often functioning to negotiate the balance of power posed by binary options, such as the themes of life/death, crime/law, and good/evil at the heart of Guy’s dramatic stories.""

LA MARÂTRE. FR 1906. D: Alice Guy. T. alt.: The Stepmother. [PC: Gaumont, 1547]. 35 mm. 8’ at 16 fps. B&w. From: [Toulouse] / CNC Archives Françaises du Film. – AA: Fiction. The stepchild is mistreated. Simplified, exaggerated narration. Print from a worn source.

DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT. US 1913. D+SC: Alice Guy Blaché. Cast: Vinnie Burns, Darwin Karr, Mrs. Hurley; Co.: Alice Guy Blaché. P: Solax. 35 mm. 37’ a 20 fps. B&w. English intertitles. From: BFI - National Archive. – AA: Fiction. A sailor story with a treasure. The big and the small. Beautiful composition in the cinematography. The print has a soft, duped quality.

Die letzte Kompagnie / The Last Company

[the title of the print:] The Last Company. An Heroic Ballad. Viimeinen komppania / L’ultima compagnia. DE 1930. D: Kurt Bernhardt. SC: da Die letzte Kompagnie, die Geschichte der 13 Helden von Jena (1916) di Hans Wilhelm, Hermann Kosterlitz; SC: Ludwig von Wohl; Heinz Goldberg, Hermann Kosterlitz; DiaHans J. Rehfisch; DP: Günther Krampf; ED: Carl Winston; PD: Andrej Andrejew; Co.: Alexander Arnstam; M: Ralph Benatzky, Franz Grothe; S: Gerhard Goldbaum, Erich Schmidt; Ass. D: Erich von Neusser; Cast: Conrad Veidt (Capitano Burk), Karin Evans (Dore), Erwin Kalser (Müller), Else Heller (la mugnaia), Maria Pederson (Magd), Heinrich Gretler (Pelle), Paul Henckels (Pitsch), Ferdinand Asper (Götzel), Martin Herzberg (Heller), Werner Schott (Biese), Philipp Manning (Möllmann), Max W. Hiller (Machnow), Ferdinand Hart (Klotz), Alexander Granach (Haberling), Gustav Püttjer (Püttjer), Albert Karchow (Wernicke), Horst von Harbou (Stibbe); P: Joe May per Joe May-Produktion/ Universum-Film AG (Ufa), Berlin; Pri. pro.: 14 marzo 1930. 35 mm. 2167 m. 79’. B&w. [not die Deutsche Fassung]. Sound version, English version. From: Bundesarchiv – Filmarchiv. Saturday, 25 June 2011 at 14.30 Cinema Lumière - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni, Bologna (Il Cinema Ritrovato) (Conrad Veidt).

Catalogue: "Less suited for distribution abroad but just as successful in Germany was Ufa’s second genre: the “national” film, usually featuring a Prussian subject and a more or less overt ideological direction. These films were not bound to the invention of sound film like the operetta film. They were, however, the second significant Ufa creation. In 1930 Die letzte Kompagnie (directed by Kurt Bernhardt) came out in theaters (…). In an interview with Mary Kiersch, Bernhardt explained how there was a scene he refused to film: “It was a scene written by Mr. von Wohl and added later to the film. Conrad Veidt was supposed to make a nationalistic, chauvinistic speech. The German captain from above the mill looks at the French general on horseback.
The French man says: ‘There is no reason to defend the mill. Prussia doesn’t exist anymore.’
And the German answers back: ‘Where I am standing is Prussia.’
I refused to film this scene, and it almost cost me my life four years later.
Kiersch: Was it Joe May who shot this scene?
Bernhardt: Let me think... Yes, I think it was Joe.
Kiersch: And did Conrad Veidt have any objections to the speech?
Bernhardt: No.
The importance given to this passage of dialogue was a characteristic of nationalist film. The decisive element, the political message, had to be expressed in words and explicitly depicted, as if the undisputable meaning of the action were not enough. It was an element that would be a hallmark of Nazi propaganda." Rainer Rother: Film operetta e film “nazionali”, in Schermi germanici. Ufa 1917- 1933, edited by Giovanni Spagnoletti, Marsilio, Venice, 1993.

AA: A nationalistic propaganda film. "Where we stand there is Prussia" really is a motto for the whole story. Die letzte Kompagnie is interesting mostly as an example of the German military spirit of the era. The English sound recording is not quite convincing. The print has a low contrast, duped quality. In the Conrad Veidt retrospective Die letzte Kompagnie has the significance of showing the actor's ease in military roles in a development that led from Lord Nelson in Lady Hamilton to Major Strasser in Casablanca.