Katorga / Penal Servitude

Katorga poster by the Stenberg brothers.

Каторга / [Kuritushuone] / Zuchthaus / Fængslet. SU 1928. PC: Gosvojenkino. D: Juli Raizman / Yuli Raizman. Ass D: Aleksandr Feinzimmer. SC: Sergei Jermolinski / Sergei Yermolinsky. DP: Leonid Kosmatov - silent - b&w. AD: Valentin Komardenkov.
    C: Andrei Zhilinski / Andrei Zhilinsky (Ilja Berts / Ilya Berts, the elder of the political prisoners' cell / староста камеры политических заключенных), Vladimir Taskin (Illarion Ostrobeilo / Illarion Ostrobeylo, collegiate assessor / коллежский асессор), Pavel Tamm (Peshehonov / Peshekhonov, chief warden / начальник тюрьмы), Vladimir Popov (Tshernjak / Chernyak, senior warden / старший надзиратель), Mihail Janshin / Mikhail Yanshin (telegraphist), Boris Lifanov (Katulski / Katulsky).
    Premiere: 27 Nov 1928 (SU). [Duration information online, 72 min, etc., may be based on the full-length version projected at sound speed.]
    Genre: историко-революционный фильм
    Film society screening in Finland: 2.4.1936 Joukola (Filmistudio Projektio).
    Gosfilmofond print, 1824 m /20 fps/ 79 min
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Yuli Raizman) with Ilari Hannula at the piano and e-subtitles by Onni Nääppä, 10 Dec 2015

Yuli Raizman started his career as a film director with three silent films: Krug / Circle (lost), Katorga, and Zemlya zhazhdet / The Earth Thirsts. In Katorga he worked with the debuting screenwriter Sergei Yermolinsky embarking on a career full of interesting titles. Another significant and talented artist debuting in Katorga was the cinematographer Leonid Kosmatov.

The break from the sober traditional style of Yakov Protazanov is definitive. Raizman indulges here in avantgardistic approaches of the Russian montage school, FEKS eccentricism, and German expressionism.

Katorga starts at once with striking montage sequences of symbols of Russian Imperial power. We get to observe the architecture of power and coercion. Butyrskaya, Orlovskaya, the Irkutsk Highway... A cubist montage takes us to the heart of darkness in the middle of Siberian whiteness of blizzards in almost lethal freeze. Another montage introduces us the circumstances of the prison.

The year is 1917.

Raizman and Kosmatov use cinematic means with panache. There are pars pro toto images, silhouettes, striking angles and deep focus compositions. There are no Caligariesque distortions in the sets themselves, but "warning shadows" are often used imaginatively to create bizarre and threatening impressions. Even more impressive is the mise-en-scène in crowd scenes of hard labour and especially in the church where even the politicals are ushered by force.

Most of the performances are realistic. There is psychological depth in them. Even bit parts feel convincing; the insight here seems to be that of that "there are no bit parts". Andrei Zhilinsky creates a sober, masculine and underplayed performance as Ilya Berts, the fearless champion of the politicals who does not hesitate to defy his superiors.

There is one glaring exception to the authenticity of the performances: that of Vladimir Taskin as the highest official in the Siberian prison system, the dread Ostrobeylo. His weird and grotesque interpretation can be compared with the classic tyrant performances of Werner Krauss and Rudolf Klein-Rogge in Weimar cinema. Ostrobeylo is a little chap playing the great dictator. I was thinking about Hume Cronyn in Brute Force (and even Charles Chaplin as Hynkel). There is an aspect of twisted, convulsive, and macabre comedy in the performance.

The account of the penal servitude in utter cold in heavy chains feels realistic.

Göran Schildt in his magisterial Alvar Aalto biography (Part Two: Modern Times) remembers the previous screening of Katorga in Finland in 1936. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Etsivä keskuspoliisi) had an agent spying on the activity of Finland's first film society Projektio, and the screening of Soviet films such as Katorga was the last straw to the police organization then in the hands of the authoritarian right (not quite the Gestapo, but in friendly terms with them). Projektio was promptly banned. The grown-up Schildt is amazed that in his youth he found in Katorga only a film condemning the prison system of Imperial Russia while neglecting the fact that there was a far more terrible camp system now in Stalin's Russia.

But I think that many members of the audience in Russia and Finland were aware how things really were in Russia in the 1920s and the 1930s, and they were able to read the Troyan message in Katorga. Katorga, however, is not a particularly brutal film. The violence is always off-screen.

The finale is structured as a parallel montage. Ostrobeylo's coercive grip is getting tighter. There is a hunger strike. Finally, the political prisoners decide that one of them has to die to wake up the attention of the outside world. Ilya Berts, the elder of the politicals, is about to sacrifice himself in his isolated cell when there is a last minute rescue. The October revolution has won.

The print has been reconstructed from visually uneven sources. There is sometimes a duped quality but not destructively so. There are also passages of excellent quality, including images where one can observe the fine soft detail of hair, and deep focus passages. The very epilogue is a reconstructed montage of stills and bits of moving image. The 20 fps projection speed feels natural. All in all, we were grateful for the rare, remarkable, and striking film experience.

Our previous Yuli Raizman retrospective took place in December 1978 in the presence of Raizman himself. Five films were screened at the Finnish Film Archive: Zemlya zhazhdet, Lyotchiki, Poslednyaya noch, Mashenka, and Kommunist. In the context of the visit, The Culture and Science Institute of the USSR screened Berlin and Urok zhizhni. - We have screened previously also Nebo Moskvy and Kavaler Zolotoi Zvezdy. - In 1983, many Finnish newspapers interviewed Raizman in the context of the telecast of Private Life.

A good concise introduction to Raizman: John Gillett and Ian Christie / National Film Theatre / Oct-Nov 1984.

Based on it and enlarged: John Wakeman's entry in World Film Directors Vol. 1 (1987).

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY LAURI PIISPA:

Kuhle Wampe

Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? / Kuhle Wampe eli keiden on maailma [Finnish title on the print]. DE 1932. PC: Prometheus Film-Verleih und Vertrieb GmbH (Berlin). Fertiggestellt von: Praesens-Film GmbH (Berlin). P: Willi Münzenberg, Lazar Wechsler. P managers: Georg M. Höllering, Robert Scharfenberg. Aufnahmeleitung: Karl Ehrlich. D: Slatan Dudow. SC: Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Ottwald. DP: Günther Krampf - b&w - 1,2:1. AD: Robert Scharfenberg, Caarl Haacker. M: Hanns Eisler. Lyrics: Bertolt Brecht. Singer: Helene Weigel ("Das Frühjahr"). Singer: Ernst Busch ("Lied vom Roten Sport", "Solidaritätslied"). S: Peter Meyrowitz (editor). C: Hertha Thiele (Anni Bönike), Ernst Busch (Fritz), Martha Wolter (Gerda), Adolf Fischer (Kurt), Lilli Schönborn (Mutter Bönike), Max Sablotzki (Vater Bönike), Gerhard Bienert (reader of a newspaper at the S-Bahn), Erwin Geschonnek (sportsman), Willi Schur (Otto, guest at the betrothal). Dreharbeiten: 8.1931-2.1932 Berlin and its surroundings, Wedding, Kuhle Wampe (Müggelsee), S-Bahn. Uraufführung: 14.5.1932 Moscow. Telecast: Yle TV1 23.1.2011 - VET 76743 (Jyväskylän Kesä 8.7.1968) - S - 73 min
    Hanns Eisler: "Präludium" (credit sequence and after, marcato) (instr.),  "Rondo" ("Radfahrer-Szene", "Hetzjagd nach Arbeit") (instr.), "Montage Kran" (instr.), "Das Frühjahr" (ballad), "Lied vom Roten Sport", "Solidaritätslied".
    Radioprogramm Armeemärsche aus alter und neuer Zeit: "Schwarzenbergmarsch", "Deutsche Kaiserklänge". - A further march at the engagement party (not "Radetzky-March" but something similar).
    "Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo" sung by the guests at the engagement party.
    A KAVI print acquired by SEA from Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR in the 1970s with Finnish subtitles by Outi Nyytäjä, "Solidaritätslied" in the translation by Elvi Sinervo ("Solidaarisuus").
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema: Weimar Germany, the Depression, Political Cinema), 10 Dec 2015

Revisited a classic film of the workers' movement. I had not seen it for a long time, and we had not screened our print during our 31 years at Cinema Orion at all.

Kuhle Wampe has aged well. It is more wise, humoristic and gentle than I remembered. It has bite that is profound because it is not a piece of single-minded propaganda.

Kuhle Wampe is the only Brechtian film fully approved by Bertolt Brecht himself.

The first main theme is unemployment, a theme still topical not least in Finland where we have had two severe depressions in recent times: a quick and brutal one in the early 1990s with wounds still unhealed, and the current, slower but equally agonizing one, still getting worse.

The second main theme is dignity: the working people must get together. They arrange a big sport event with music and cabaret performances. They organize a huge demonstration for their rights.

Kuhle Wampe is a montage film which presents social conditions in sharp montages and bullet titles.

It is also a story film which tells about a young woman, Anni, and a young man, Fritz, getting together, getting separated, and getting together again as Anni is expecting a baby.

There is tragedy. Anni's brother has lost all hope and commits suicide by jumping from the window of the high rise. He is careful to leave his wrist watch on the kitchen table. The family is evicted because they cannot pay the rent. Fritz helps them stay at a tent at Kuhle Wampe, the garden colony (since 1913) by Müggelsee, the biggest lake in Berlin.

There is comedy. Anni's father reads aloud a long and richly detailed article about the life and attributes of Mata Hari while in a montage sequence we can observe the prices of onions and other groceries. Further comical contrasts include incidental music selections such as rousing marches amidst scenes of laying low at Kuhle Wampe.

Towards the end there is a long ride on an S-Bahn city train. The ubiquitous Gerhard Bienert (I wrote remarks on his special presence in my comments to Varieté) makes his appearance here as the man who reads the newspaper. There is an article about 12 million kilograms of coffee being burnt in the main coffee port of Brazil. "And they call this world economy". "That is against common sense (der gesunde Menschenverstand)". There is a fiery political debate during the train ride. About whose world this is.

And those will also be the last words of this movie with no "The End" caption, from the "Solidaritätslied": "Wessen Morgen ist der Morgen? Wessen Welt ist die Welt?" - "Whose tomorrow is tomorrow? Whose world is the world?"

"Solidaritätslied" (by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht) composed for Kuhle Wampe belongs to the great movie theme songs of all times. Hanns Eisler was here getting started on his distinguished career as a film componist. The entire Kuhle Wampe score is stirring and stimulating. It makes us wake up, not lulling us to dream.

We have screened in these weeks Brechtian films by Francesco Rosi such as Le mani sulla città and Il caso Mattei. To be noted in the exemplary Brechtian movie Kuhle Wampe: the protagonist is a woman, and care is taken to true human emotion in all sequences. The psychological approach is sensitive and convincing in the human relationships, both intimate and collective. The Brechtian approach includes (besides montage, epic theatre and the V-Effect) also good drama (tragedy and comedy) and many instances of warm lyrical feeling, especially in the "Das Frühjahr" ("Spring") sequence.

Kuhle Wampe belongs to the masterpieces of Weimar cinema, and the director Slatan Dudow is here in full command of his art and craft. There is at times an affinity with Fritz Lang's M (another Brechtian film) for instance in the sequence of the brother's suicide. Dudow's scenes of young love in Berlin are on the same wavelength as those in Menschen am Sonntag.

Kuhle Wampe was the last production of the remarkable Prometheus company.

Our print from the early 1970s still looks pretty good. It has a somewhat duped look, but one can still appreciate the excellent cinematography by Günther Krampf.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE FROM STAATLICHES FILMARCHIV DER DDR:

Black and Tan

US 1929. PC: RKO Radio Pictures. D+SC: Dudley Murphy. DP: Dal Clawson - 1,2:1 - b&w. AD: Ernst Fegté. ED: Russell G. Shields. M: Duke Ellington: "Black and Tan Fantasy", "Black Beauty", "The Duke Steps Out", "Cotton Club Stomp"; Jimmy McHugh: "Hot Feet", perf. Duke Ellington and the Duke Ellington  Orchestra / The Cotton Club Orchestra. S: Carl Dreher - mono (RCA Photophone System). P supv: Richard C. Currier. By arrangement with: Irving Mills. Studio: RCA Gramercy Studios, Astoria, Queens, New York City. Feat: Duke Ellington, The Cotton Club Orchestra, Fredi Washington.
    Duke Ellington (piano, band leader) and The Cotton Club Orchestra at the strength of 12 players including Barney Bigard (clarinet), Wellman Braud (bass), Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton (trombone), Arthur Whetsol (trumpet), Hall Johnson (choir leader).
    A KAVI first generation 35 mm print (a 1952 print from the nitrate) - 520 m / 19 min
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema: early sound, Jazz Age, African-American / Harlem Renaissance), 10 Dec 2015

Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy" is a funeral march.

Upon that basis Dudley Murphy created his legendary musical short film giving both Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington their screen debuts.

Duke Ellington pounds the march rhythm on his piano. Arthur Whetsol (tbc) starts to play the theme tune on his trumpet, creating his personal sound con sordino. We have here fantastic visual documentation from the birth years of the unique, mesmerizing jungle sound of Ellington's Cotton Club Orchestra.

Comedy intrudes: two bumbling repossession men come to take away Duke's piano, but Duke's girlfriend Fredi Washington manages the situation with a bank note and some strong drink: "there was no one at home". Fredi has landed them all a gig at a night club. Duke is concerned for Fredi's weak heart.

We see a fantastic succession of music and dance numbers at the night club: "Black Beauty", "The Duke Steps Out", "Cotton Club Stomp", and "Hot Feet".

Meanwhile, Fredi is getting weaker. She sees everything in a prismatic view, in caleidoscopic shots. Woman is an object of spectacle here but even more importantly a subject (she saved them all) and an object of identification and empathy. We feel her pain and agony. Fredi dances her jazz age number, and collapses, experiencing a heart attack. For a while Duke keeps playing as the show must go on but then he orders his band to stop.

The finale is at Fredi's deathbed. As Fredi is dying she asks the band to play "Black and Tan Fantasy". Duke starts to pound the march rhythm, Arthur Whetsol (tbc) plays his magical trumpet solo, there is a choir singing the melody, and Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton (tbc) creates a trombone solo.

This is a special interpretation of the "Black and Tan Fantasy" composition created for this film. As Fredi dies Duke's face gets blurred and fades away.

When my mother died last spring, "Black and Tan Fantasy" was one of the main tunes playing in my mind. It is a funeral march with a sense of a passion of life.

Dudley Murphy combines footage of a straight performance record and ideas of special visualization (including shadows and silhouettes) very well.

A good, often brilliant print.

Il caso Mattei / The Mattei Affair / The Mattei Case

[Mattein tapaus] / Fallet Mattei. IT 1972. PC: Vides, Verona Produzione. EX: Gino Millozza. P: Franco Cristaldi. D: Francesco Rosi. SC: Rosi ja Tonino Guerra – in collaboration with Nerio Minuzzi and Tito De Stefano – based on the story by Rosi and Guerra. DP: Pasqualino de Santis, Mario Cimini (Technicolor). AD: Andrea Crisanti. M: Piero Piccioni. S: Franco Caretti. ED: Ruggero Mastroianni. C: Gian Maria Volontè (Enrico Mattei), Luigi Squarzina (a liberal journalist), Peter Baldwin (McHale), Gianfranco Ombuen (engineer Ferrari), Franco Graziosi (minister), Elio Jotta (head of the investigation commission), Edda Ferronao (Mrs. Mattei), Luciano Collitti (Bertuzzi). Loc: Italy (Milan, Sicily, etc.), Saudi Arabia, Iran, New York, Libya, an oil rig. 116 min
    A vintage SFI/FA 35 mm print (deposited by Sandrews) with Swedish subtitles by Stig Björkman (114 min) viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Francesco Rosi in memoriam) with e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio, 9 Dec 2015

IMDb synopsis: "Enrico Mattei helped change Italy's future, first as freedom-fighter against the Nazis, then as an investor in methane gas through a public company, A.G.I.P., and ultimately as the head of ENI, a state body formed for the development of oil resources. October 27, 1962, he died when his private airplane crashed, one minute before it should land at Milan airport. Officially, he died of a flight accident. Actually, many journalists explored other plausible reasons for the untimely landing of the small aircraft. - Written by Artemis-9."

The second film in Francesco Rosi's true-story trilogy of ruthless men of power (Salvatore Giuliano - Il caso Mattei - Lucky Luciano) has also significant affinities with Le mani sulla città. All abstain from traditional entertainment fiction formulae. The connection between Le mani sulla città and Il caso Mattei is that both are key films about the Italian economic miracle after WWII. "The era of singing Italians is about to be consigned to the museum of memories" says Mattei in the film.

Il caso Mattei belongs to Rosi's Brechtian films even more prominently than Le mani sulla città. The temporal structure is broken. Il caso Mattei is a montage film, a collage. We follow the life of Enrico Mattei, but instead of identification we have distanciation, the classic Brechtian V-Effect (Verfremdungseffekt = distanciation effect). Even Francesco Rosi appears as himself in this meta-cinematic project of investigative journalism. The film-making itself becomes a thriller, putting the investigators in danger. In September 1970 three men took with them Rosi's key expert, the journalist Mauro de Mauro. He was never heard from again. "I have a scoop that is going to shake Italy" he told before he disappeared. "There is the handprint of Corleone", it is said in the movie about the disappearance. Il caso Mattei was released in the same year as The Godfather.

There is a similarity in the cubist structure to Citizen Kane (Mattei even launches his own newspaper). There are multiple screens, multiple interpretations. It starts with the death of the protagonist, and there is an investigation which snatches us deep into post-WWII Italian history and politics, also global oil affairs which means global politics, not least in Arab countries. "Who deals in oil deals in politics" (Mattei). The film feels very topical today, in a time of high turmoil in Middle East. Tensions set a hundred years ago during WWI as the Ottoman Empire crumbled are now exploding.

Mattei is a tough bastard, a patriot and a defender of the people in his own country and in third world countries, too. He makes enemies everywhere. The international oil cartel, "the seven sisters", have many reasons to hate him. In his own companies he rejects privileges such as company-driven cars. He steps on the toes of France by making oil deals that enable Algerians to buy weapons, and he offends the CIA with Russian oil deals. But his most fatal step may be his foray into Sicily and the land of mafia. It is from a Sicilian airport that he embarks on his final journey.

Repeatedly Mattei mentions his favourite story of the kitten that was crushed by stronger creatures. But the kitten can grow into a tiger. "We don't want to be the kitten anymore".

Mattei knows from the start that he is playing with fire. He compares himself to Maginot and Mossadeq (Mosaddegh). (But he even compares himself with even bigger animals such as Julius Caesar).

Piero Piccioni's score is based on a musique concrète approach: the thunder of the oil drilling industry evokes atavistic sounds from the womb of the earth. The rumble of burning gas is a recurrent sound, a giant jet of oil a repeated image.

Visually, Il caso Mattei is an air film: Mattei is constantly on the move in his private plane. We visit many key places shot on locations, even an oil rig on the Indian Ocean. "Everywhere I fight monopoly". On his last night flight Mattei gets to see a particularly spectacular moonlight.

Il caso Mattei is not a film of psychological characterization. Only Mattei himself is truly memorable. Il caso Mattei belongs to the Rosi films where women hardly exist. There are brief shots of his widow; otherwise women appear in crowds and in nude images on oil rig workers' cabin walls.

Besides the sharp montage approach the distinction of Rosi's direction here is in his handling of huge crowd scenes, especially in the one in Sicily where we get to Gian Maria Volontè playing Mattei very convincingly as a tribune of the people.

A good translation by Lena Talvio.

A used print with well-earned battle scars yet with colour intact. In this tough movie it does not hurt fatally that there is rain in the changeovers.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON JOHN L. MICHALCZYK:

Taidesalonki Centenary 2: Sinebrychoff Art Museum (an exhibition)

Gunnar Berndtson: Laskiaistiistai / Mardi Gras. Private collection. Please do click to enlarge the images!

Helene Schjerfbeck

Kehtolaulu / Vaggvisan / Wiegenlied / Lullaby
Lauri ja Lasse Reitzin säätiön kokoelmat

Albert Edelfelt

Nainen parvekkeella, luonnos, n. 1880-1884
Damen på balkongen, skiss, ca. 1880-1884
Lady on a Balcony, sketch, c. 1880-1884
LähiTapiola

Gunnar Berndtson

Lohenpyynti / Laxfiske / Salmon Fishing
Lauri ja Lasse Reitzin säätiön kokoelmat
Lauri och Lasse Reitz stiftelses samlingar

Taidesalonki 100 vuotta / Konstsalongen 100 år. 8.10.2015 - 10.1.2016. Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Bulevardi 40, 00120 Helsinki. www.siff.fi

From the official introduction: Besides young modernists Taidesalonki displayed works of the masters from the 19th century. It also had an antique shop which was connected to the scientific research conducted by Leonard Bäcksbacka. Taidesalonki had also its own publishing branch which covered not only the exhibition catalogs but also Bäcksbacka's research publications.

While contemporary art was the main interest of Leonard Bäcksbacka he also always showed works from the artists of the golden age. Artists particularly important for him were Gunnar Berndtson, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and Hugo Simberg. During his lifetime Bäcksbacka made sizable donations to art museums such as Ateneum and Nationalmuseum (Stockholm). The most significant donation was the collection of 448 works donated by his estate to the city of Helsinki.

Bäcksbacka acquired art and antiquities also during his trips abroad. Since the 1920s he was interested in Spanish and Islamic culture. At his home he had Spanish and Moorish luster china and Persian china from the 14th-17th centuries. Istanbul Bäcksbacka visited several times and brought with him Persian miniatures.

The Taidesalonki logo, still in use, was designed by the artist Maria Lagorio (1893-1979). Having spent her youth in St. Petersburg she emigrated after the Revolution via Finland where she stayed in 1918-1921. Her first solo exhibition was held at Taidesalonki in October 1919.

AA: Of the three Taidesalonki centenary exhibitions the main one at HAM, Helsinki Art Museum, covers contemporary art during the three generations of the Bäcksbacka family who have run Taidesalonki.

In the atmospheric 19th century premises of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum are displayed previous generations of the young Finnish art tradition. Again there is space for multiple works of key artists, this time including Gunnar Berndtson, Albert Edelfelt, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Hugo Simberg, and Helene Schjerfbeck. Even earlier artists are included, such as Nils Schillmark, Ferdinand von Wright, and Werner Holmberg. The selections include works from private collections that are rarely displayed in public.

This time especially memorable are some unfinished works such as Holmberg's A Park in Early Spring (1860) and Edelfelt's A Lady at the Balcony (1884). Also Edelfelt's A Winter View of Kaivopuisto (1895) has an appealing not-too-finished quality.

There are also selected antique objects, silverware, china, and art glass, plus rare books and special items from Leonard Bäcksbacka's personal legacy, and a corridor devoted to Maria Lagorio in Finland.

An entire room is dedicated to refined Persian miniatures to which there is an interesting introduction by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila in the centenary catalogue. It is fascinating to observe psychological nuance combined with Mongolian influences and a realistic talent co-existing with radical stylization.

The display, the hanging, the backgrounds, and the lighting are of high quality.

A perfect way to bring the visit to a finish is to digest it all at the Southpark Restaurant next door, facing the Sinebrychoff Park. It is a successor to Café Fanny since spring.

The Band Concert

Puistokonsertti / Mikki ja orkesteri / Den stora konserten / Muntra musikanter / Konserten. US © 1935 Walt Disney Productions. P: Walt Disney. D: Wilfred Jackson. 1,37:1, Technicolor. M: Leigh Harline. - Ferdinand Hérold: Zampa. - Gioachino Rossini: Guillaume Tell: Ouverture / William Tell Overture ("Dawn", "Storm", "Ranz des Vaches", "Finale: March of the Swiss Soldiers"). - "Turkey In The Straw" (trad.). AN: Johnny Cannon, Les Clark (Mickey Mouse), Ugo D'Orsi, Frenchy DeTremaudan, Clyde Geronimi, Hugh Hennesy, Huszti Horvath, Dick Huemer, Jack Kinney, Wolfgang Reitherman, Archie Robin, Louie Schmitt, Terrell Stapp, Dick Williams, Roy Williams, Cy Young, Ferdinand Horvath. Voice talent: Clarence Nash (Donald Duck). S: mono, RCA Sound Recording. US premiere: 23 Feb 1935 - VET 49881 - S - 270 m / 9 min
    The band: Mickey Mouse (conductor), Goofy (clarinet), unnamed dog (trombone), Clarabelle Cow (flute), Horace Horsecollar (percussion), Peter Pig (trumpet), Paddy Pig (tuba). - In the poster, Gideon Goat plays the trumpet but is replaced in the film by a dog trombonist. - Donald Duck is the flute-playing lemonade, popcorn and ice cream vendor who crashes the concert.
    There is no dialogue in this musical animation.
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema: early Technicolor, centenary of Technicolor) (pre-programme to Cocoanuts [1929, early sound]), 5 Dec 2015

Revisited Mickey Mouse's first colour film, the third film with Donald Duck, one of the most highly acclaimed Walt Disney shorts.

This early classic Walt Disney Technicolor animation belongs to the Mickey Mouse series but could equally be one of the Silly Symphonies.

Already the first shot is amazing: a distant shot of the park band and its audience, with many funny figures with simultaneous distinct movement patterns synchronized. We are invited to a world full of life.

Music was essential to Walt Disney from the start. Already many of his silents were based on a dance-like choreography, the rhythm of the movement synchronized by metronome. Playing instruments and dancing are fundamental activities of Disney's animated characters.

Mickey Mouse the conductor with the outsized coat and sleeves is able to manage his crazy band, but along comes the obnoxious Donald Duck the lemonade vendor who insists in playing "Turkey in the Straw" so persistently that the band is distracted.

The film is based on a twin conflict: Donald Duck vs. Mickey Mouse - and both of them vs. the tornado.

The main concept is a magnificent hyperbole: the outdoors park orchestra plays the "Storm" sequence of Rossini's William Tell Overture with such inspiration and abandon that an actual tornado materializes.

First we see leaves flying in the air, then giant clouds appear on the horizon. The twister emerges all of a sudden, devouring everything, even sucking some of the firm-looking ground. The park band audience is caught unaware, disappearing into the vortex.

Also the band is absorbed and jerked into the sky, but they keep playing without missing a beat, as if both conducting and being conducted by the formidable cyclone.

The rhythm of the sequence is based on Rossini's "Storm" part of the Overture, with a new gag at every beat. It is an avalanche of absurd and surreal inventions appearing so fast that the film needs to be seen many times to appreciate them all. Park benches move like horses. Three trees are palmed together with Donald Duck squeezed in between. When the tornado disappears and the musicians fall from the sky they land on the branches of a huge, crazy tree where they bring the "Storm" sequence to the conclusion. The only remaining audience member is the indestructible Donald Duck still eager to play his annoying flute.

The Band Concert is a beautiful expression of the profoundly animistic and magical essence of animation. The spirit of life is conjured in a way only available to animation.

Beautiful colour in this 1988 Mickey Mouse 60th anniversary re-release print.

Le mani sulla città / Hands Over the City

Kaupungin valtias / Våldförd stad. IT/FR 1963. PC: Galatea Film / Societé Cinématographique Lyre. P: Lionello Santi. D: Francesco Rosi. SC: Francesco Rosi, Enzo Provenzale – based on the novel by Raffaele La Capria. DP: Gianni Di Venanzo – Arriflex II C – b&w – 1,85:1. ED: Mario Serandrei. PD: Sergio Canevari. Cost: Marilù Carteny. Makeup: Franco Corrodoni. M: Piero Piccioni. S: Fausto Ancillai. C: Rod Steiger (Eduardo Nottola), Salvo Randone (De Angelis), Guido Alberti (Maglione), Angelo d’Alessandro (Balsamo), Carlo Fermariello (De Vita), Marcello Cannavale (Nottola's friend), Alberto Conocchia (Nottola's friend), Terenzio Cordova (commissario), Dante di Pinto (presidente della Commissione), Gaetano Grimaldi Filioli (Nottola's friend, Vincenzo Metafora (Sindaco), Dany Paris (Dany, amante di Maglione). Voice dubbing (Rod Steiger): Aldo Giuffrè. Loc: Naples. Telecast in Finland: 20.3.1971 MTV1 - VET 74876 (Suomi-Filmi 24.11.1966: the film was classified but not theatrically released) - S - 105 min
    A Svenska Filminstitutet / Filmarkivet print (101 min) with e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Francesco Rosi in memoriam), 2 Dec 2016

IMDb synopsis: "Prior to a city council election, the collapse of a building leaves a land developer and his political backers defending themselves against a scandal."

Revisited Francesco Rosi's tough political movie which I had not seen since its first Finnish telecast 44 years ago.

Rosi returns to his hometown Naples where he had also directed his solo debut feature film, the powerful camorra drama La sfida / The Challenge which focuses on the vegetable market.

The spirit of neorealism is still powerful in Le mani sulla città in which there is a passion for documentary realism.

It is also a work of epic cinema in the Brechtian sense. There is no identification figure, no identification structure. Le mani sulla città is a drama of politics; we are invited to observe the political theatre. Huge deals are being made, financial ones and political ones, but there is also an election, and voters must be convinced which is why it is necessary to keep up facades.

Le mani sulla città is a drama of the period of massive reconstruction after the war, the industrial miracle. Rod Steiger plays Nottola the construction tycoon. The Germans have a word for him: ein Baulöwe (a construction lion; the wit of the expression is lost in translation); the Finnish word is grynderi (a speculative builder). Nottola is voracious, unstoppable, moving at overspeed, ignoring the city plan.

The film starts with a huge crash of a block of flats. On Nottola's construction site a giant jackhammer has been busy at work, and a neighbouring house has not been properly protected. There are casualties. Nottola's son, the superintendent of the construction site, disappears.

A powerful drama is launched. The establishing shot is from a helicopter juxtaposing shantytowns with high rise districts. We witness documentary scenes at the construction site and violent debates at the City Hall. We enter Nottola's premises on top of the city with vast scenes all over Naples. We see mothers pacified with wads of bank notes ("see how democracy works"). We observe a huge archival room (qf. Ladri di biciclette) where blueprints and permissions are kept. We arrive at a children's ward at the hospital where victims are taken care of. There are huge demonstrations, the media is alerted, the opposition is furious. Further spaces of significance include a restaurant where Nottola is a regular, and a gambling hall where the biggest political boss is a regular. And, importantly, the church where Nottola makes a sign of the cross; the political boss has a private chapel with an invaluable painting by a Renaissance master.

The canny powers-that-be are quick to make deals that ensure that nothing changes. But appearances must be kept. There are honest politicians in all parties. One of them would like to refuse to participate if Nottola is allowed to continue. "Half of our civil servants should be put to jail". "A tutti un occhio sul golfo” is Nottola's election slogan.

A quick succession of striking deals ensures that everything continues as before. The camera tracks back as corruption goes on consecrated by the Church. City property is sold at bargain prices to irresponsible speculators. There is a sound of a whistle, and the magnificent jack hammer strikes again.

The cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo is stark, conducted in available light, or a good semblance of it. There is a rich array of angles, and a an exciting montage concept without an identification approach. The agony and the suffering are made clear but in a distanced way. The lighting is often hard, and there are no warm, soft, or intimate moments.

Women are almost non-existent. Rosi's films are either about the power games of men or Spanish stories with sensuality and women.

Piero Piccioni's music theme is harsh, vigorous, and full of defiance.

The print is brilliant. It looks like it could have been struck from the negative and has hardly ever been screened before.

Sorok pervyi (1927) / The Forty-First

Sorok pervyi (1927) poster by Grigory Borisov and Nikolai Prusakov. Please click to enlarge the images!

Sorok pervyi (1927) poster by Vladimir and Georgii Stenberg.

Сорок первый / Sorok pervyy / [Tyttö ja vanki] / [Neljäskymmenesensimmäinen]. The film was not released in Finland. SU 1927. Year of production: 1926. PC: Mezhrabpom-Rus. D: Jakov Protazanov / Yakov Protazanov. SC: Boris Lavrenjov / Boris Lavrenyov and Boris Leonidov based on the tale (povest) (1924) by Lavrenjov. DP: Pjotr Jermolov / Pyotr Yermolov. AD: Sergei Kozlovski. Ass D: Juli Raizman / Yuli Raizman. C: Ada Voitsik / Ada Vojtsik (Marjutka / Maryutka), Ivan Koval-Samborski (lieutenant Govoruha-Otrok), Ivan Shtrauh (Evsjukov / Evsyukov, commissar).
    Sovetskie hudozhestvennye filmy I: premiere 4 March 1927, 6 reels, 1800 m  /18 fps/ 87 min
    KAVI print (from Gosfilmofond, print made in 1972) (reels 3 and 4 out of the original 6 shortened) 1504 m /18 fps/ 74'
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Yuli Raizman), piano: Ilari Hannula, e-subtitles in Finnish by Anna-Maria Hakanen, 2 Dec 2015

Yakov Protazanov was a Protean director who had made 90 films already before his emigration to France after the revolution. Perhaps the fact that he had been with the White emigrants of Russia for seven years made him especially capable of bringing a sense of balance to a revolutionary tale such as The Forty-First.

I saw Protazanov's version for the first time. We had never screened it before, having somehow forgotten its existence. It took the enterprising Mr. Otto Kylmälä to discover it in our vaults for his Loud Silents festival.

I only knew Grigory Chukhray's colour remake from 1956, his debut film, one of the first great internationally noted films of the Thaw, a symbolic work during the Cold War because it acknowledges the dignity, valour, and humanity of the enemy.

All this is valid also in Yakov Protazanov's original film adaptation of Boris Lavrenyov's story which we screened in our Yuli Raizman tribute. The Protazanov-Raizman connection is relevant in many ways. Both were survivors during wildly different periods of regime in Russia (Raizman started as an assistant in the era of NEP freedom, survived Stalin's grimmest period, the war, and the "malokartina" draught of minimal production, flourished again during the Thaw, carried on somehow during the stagnation, and managed to make it to the Glasnost). Both were professionals who mastered many kinds, forms, and genres of the cinema. Both had a sober approach to the film syntax. Both focused on the human personality as expressed through the actor. Most importantly, there is an interesting female leading role in Sorok pervyi, as there is in several of Raizman's films. Even further, there is an acknowledgement of the female look in the way the male lead is shot, including beefcake shots (as there are in Raizman's films).

The film starts as a grim civil war story at the Karakum desert. A red army unit embarks on a trek through the desert and captures a white lieutenant carrying a secret message from General Kolchak to General Denikin. The sharp-shooter Maryutka is assigned the task to bring the important prisoner to the headquarters for interrogation. But a storm breaks out at Aral Sea, and Maryutka and the lieutenant are stranded on a desert island where they find shelter in an empty fishermen's cabin. The second part of the story is a Robinsonade.

Maryutka and the lieutenant are young and healthy, but this is not just the story of pussy and dick having their way amongst civil war adversaries. Already during the desert trek Maryutka has defended the lieutenant, securing him his share of the scarce water and bread ratios. At night Maryutka has eased the ropes of the prisoner giving him a chance to better rest. The lieutenant has gotten to read some of Maryutka's naive poetry ("good but it needs work"). On the island the lieutenant catches a high fever which makes him lose his consciousness and survives thanks to Maryutka's tender care.

An ideological compromise never takes place in the love affair between Maryutka and the lieutenant. Maryutka never relents from her Bolshevik conviction.

The sensuality is beautiful and restrained. The approach is not clichéd in the images of the stormy sea and the boiling kettle. There is something Buñuelian in the image of the bucket full of live crayfish that topples as Maryutka and lieutenant fall into a passionate embrace. The sensual images of hands touching has a reticent quality reminiscent of Bresson.

The dénouement is deeply tragic as a boat finally approaches, turning out to be one of the White Army. Maryutka shoots the lieutenant who has given them away and falls into a final embrace with her dead lover in a true Liebestod ending.

The film is built on contrasts of the red and the white, man and woman, desert and sea, and also soldiers and peace-loving Muslims of the desert.

Strengths of the film include:
a good dynamics of the ensemble of actors
a strong sense of the place (the desert and the sea)
a feeling of authenticity in dress
fine, unobtrusive visual touches (scenes in silhouette, stark compositions, memorable images)

The translation by Anna-Maria Hakanen was good.

Our print is almost unused but it is based on battered sources with bits missing here and there (the print is some seven minutes short); yet it is the best there is we are told. It is impossible to fully appreciate the rhythm of the editing for instance in the resolution.

The visual quality varies wildly. There are good passages that help appreciate how the film must have have looked. Even with its uneven visual quality The Forty-First is an impressive and memorable experience.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY LAURI PIISPA:

Vertigo 6 - the 1996 restoration in 70 mm

Vertigo: Barbara Bel Geddes, James Stewart. Please click to enlarge.

Vertigo in 70 mm. The 1996 restoration by Robert A. Harris and James A. Katz with sound on DTS / Dolby Digital.
A print from Universal Germany by permission from Universal City Studios.
Viewed at Bio Rex, Helsinki (a KAVI 70 mm special screening), 29 Nov 2015.

For the first time I saw a good print of Vertigo. This 70 mm print really is worthwhile, doing justice to the cinematography better than regular 35 mm prints of the same restoration. The image is more solid and the picture is of a high quality. The digital sound is also impressive, but there are the well-known issues of re-recording. For me they are not too jarringly obtrusive.

In July I wrote five articles on Vertigo based on the Bologna screening of the vintage Technicolor print from La Cinémathèque française.

Each time it's different. There was heartfelt laughter in the audience in the dialogue of Scottie: The color of your hair... Judy: Oh, no! Scottie: Judy, please, it can't matter to you. There was applause after the restoration credits. (It would be difficult to applaud right after the thundering final chord of Herrmann's score of the movie proper). The 70 mm image was magnificent at Bio Rex, a cinema perfect for Clint and Bond, and perhaps less so for a deeply personal film like Vertigo. The landscapes looked especially impressive now. Not for nothing is the format called VistaVision. There was always a touristic aspect in Hitchcock.

I now paid more attention to the dream sequence in which Scottie arrives at the open grave of Carlotta Valdes after which we see a silhouette crashing down on the roof of the Mission San Juan Bautista. But the silhouette is that of Scottie instead of Madeleine - visual proof to Robin Wood's thesis that Vertigo is about Scottie's identification of Madeleine as a personification of death.

A detail: in the first sequence of Scottie with Midge there is a demonstration of a new brassiere model with "revolutionary uplift" (see image above). The scene is the first contribution to the film's theme of the construction of the feminine image. Midge and Madeleine wear those things, Judy doesn't.

In my introduction to the screening I mentioned the 150th anniversary of Tristan und Isolde (1865), a turning-point in the history of music where Richard Wagner took the classic-romantic chord concept a step towards an unprecedented psychical tension. The Tristan chord became integrated in Hitchcock's sound of suspense in Vertigo. There is a sound sample of the Tristan chord in Wikipedia. The Wagnerian Liebestod (love death) theme is taken to an even more general level in Vertigo's theme of der Todestrieb (the death drive).

I also mentioned that having seen the Bologna screening of Vertigo last summer I have been thinking about Vertigo when Jean Sibelius's The Swan of Tuonela is playing. Madeleine in Vertigo is Hitchcock's swan of Tuonela. (Tuonela is the Land of Death). *

I argued that Vertigo is about an illusion which prevents us to face reality, and also about an illusion that leads us to discover another reality.

* Erik Tawaststjerna's magisterial Jean Sibelius biography in five volumes starts with the coincidence of Sibelius being born in the same year when Tristan und Isolde had its premiere. Wagner became a challenge which also Sibelius had to face but which he chose to bypass.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY HEIKKI NYMAN BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK

Setsuko Hara remembered

Setsuko Hara in Kurosawa's The Idiot (Hakuchi), based on Dostoevsky, in a role based on Nastassya Filippovna.

Setsuko Hara, the great star of the Japanese screen, died in early September, but I first read about it in Variety two days ago when her death was first announced. The film world does not seem to have noticed her passing yet.

Like Olivia de Havilland and Deanna Durbin in Hollywood and Regina Linnanheimo in Finland Setsuko Hara disappeared totally from public life after the end of her career.

She was born on 17 June, 1920, and died on 5 September, 2015. She started her film career as a teenager during Japan's imperialist era in the 1930s and had her breakthrough in the famous Anticomintern film co-directed by Arnold Fanck (the master of German mountain films) and Mansaku Itami called The Daughter of the Samurai (1937). It ends in a celebration of the life on the "New Earth" of Manchuria (Northeast China) which Japan attacked and occupied in the first prelude to WWII.

After the war Setsuko Hara became a soulful star for Akira Kurosawa, most memorably in The Idiot where she interpreted Dostoevsky's Nastassya Filippovna who perishes tragically in the violent rivalry of Kinji Kameda and Denkichi Akama (Myshkin and Rogozhin).

That was a Shochiku production, and her most immortal roles Setsuko Hara created for Shochiku's master directors Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse. When Yasujiro Ozu crystallized his film style to his final, mature, reduced form, it started in a film starring Setsuko Hara, Late Spring. With her Ozu created his "Noriko trilogy" (Late Spring, Early Summer, Tokyo Story). Noriko is a modern, intelligent, independent woman who is spiritually capable of transcending the ballast of tradition but remains deferential to tradition and family ties.

Like Ozu himself and like many characters she played Setsuko Hara stayed single and had no children; but she was family-oriented and devoted to her friends.

Although Hideko Takamine was the main actress for Mikio Naruse, Setsuko Hara performed memorably for him, too. In Meshi (Repast, 1951) she played an estranged wife. Yama no oto (Sound of the Mountain, 1954) was a distinguished adaptation of a novel by Yasunari Kawabata. Naruse and Hara collaborated also in Shuu (Sudden Rain, 1956), and Musume tsuma haha (Daughters, Wives, and a Mother, 1960).

In her last Ozu roles Hara played a separated wife (Tokyo Twilight, 1957), a widowed mother (Late Autumn, 1960), and a widowed daughter-in-law (The End of Summer / "Autumn for the Kohayagawa Family", 1961). After Ozu's death in 1963 Setsuko Hara retired from public life.

My jazz record of the week project

At Digelius: a record launching concert by Hans Olding-Jaska Lukkarinen Quartet. Hans Olding (gtr), Karl-Martin Almqvist (tenor sax), Mattias Wellin (bs), Jaska Lukkarinen (dr). Please do click to enlarge!

Digelius Music. Laivurinrinne 2, 00120 Helsinki, +358 9 666375, info@digelius.com – A world class jazz record store since 1971. CEO: Ilkka "Emu" Lehtinen. Wikipedia article on Digelius in English. The store is at the Viiskulma (the Five Corners) where five streets meet, easily accessible by foot, tram, or bus. There is even a taxi station right by the store.

Last year instead of buying a Friday wine bottle from Alko I decided to switch into purchasing a Friday jazz record from Digelius.

I am a jazz ignoramus, and happy to take advantage of the situation. I now get to hear the all-time great jazz records for the first time selected by Emu himself.

There is no system in the selection. There are classics (Miles Davis: Kind of Blue), spiritual discoveries (John Coltrane: Crescent), inspired tributes (Amarcord Nino Rota produced by Hal Willner), and Nordic gems (Jan Johansson: Jazz på svenska, Juhani Aaltonen & Henrik Otto Donner: Strings). A record that I would never have found otherwise is Duke Ellington 1940 the double lp. They say Ellington's instrument was his orchestra, in which each player was an individual. In 1940 his orchestra was perfect.

The realm of jazz is vaster than I knew, and there is no end in sight in this project.

2014
22.8. Charlie Parker: Great Quartets & Quintets
29.8. Charlie Parker: A Studio Chronicle (5 cd)
5.9. Eddie Condon: Jam Session Coast-to-Coast (Eddie Condon and His All Stars / Rampart Street Paraders)
12.9. Bill Evans Trio: The Village Vanguard Sessions
19.9. Charlie Haden: The Ballad of the Fallen
26.9. Louis Armstrong: Hot Fives and Sevens (4 cd)
3.10. Billie Holiday: Lady Day – The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 (10 cd)
10.10. –
17.10. –
24.10. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
31.10. The Gil Evans Orchestra: Out of the Cool
7.11. The Modern Jazz Quartet: Django
14.11. –
21.11. Charles Mingus: Mingus Plays Piano
28.11. Miles Davis:
– Cookin'
– Relaxin'
– Workin'
– Steamin' (4 separate cd's)
5.12. –
12.12. Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus
19.12. Duke Ellington: Original Album Classics:
– Such Sweet Thunder
– Far East Suite
– "And His Mother Called Him Bill" (3 cd)
26.12. –

2015
2.1. The Best of Chet Baker Sings
9.1. Yusef Lateef: The Blue Yusef Lateef
16.1. John Coltrane: Blue Train
23.1. Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown
30.1. Juhani Aaltonen & Otto Donner: Strings
6.2. The Young Tuxedo Brass Band [Jazz Begins, funeral and parade music]
13.2. –
20.2. The Ben Webster Quintet: Soulville
27.2. Jazz in Polish Cinema (4 cd)
6.3. John Coltrane: Africa / Brass
13.3. –
20.3. –
27.3. Duke Ellington 1940 (2 lp)
+ The Very Best of Duke Ellington (cd)
3.4. Clifford Brown & Max Roach
10.4. Duke Ellington: The Complete Orchestral Suites
– Creole Rhapsody
– Black, Brown and Beige
– Nutcracker Suite, etc. (5 cd)
17.4. M. A. Numminen: Swingin kutsu
24.4. Lester Young: Jammin' the Blues
30.4. John Coltrane: Crescent
8.5. –
15.5. Keith Jarrett:
– Fort Yawuh
– Death and the Flower (2 cd)
22.5. B. B. King: From the Beginning (2 lp)
29.5. Dexter Gordon: Gettin' Around
5.6. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
12.6. –
19.6. Charles Mingus:
– Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
– Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
26.6. Ornette Coleman:
– The Shape of Jazz to Come
– Change of the Century
– This Is Our Music
– Free Jazz
– Ornette! (a box of 5 cd's)
---------------------------
14.8. Jan Johansson: Jazz på svenska
21.8. Various artists: Amarcord Nino Rota (lp, prod. Hal Willner)
29.8. Steve Lacy with Don Cherry: Evidence
4.9. Barry Harris Plays Tadd Dameron
11.9. Art Tatum – Ben Webster The Album (1956)
18.9. Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant
25.9. Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch
2.10. –
9.10. –
16.10. Anita O'Day:
– Trav'lin' Light
– Waiter, Make Mine Blues
23.10. Wynton Kelly Trio & Wes Montgomery: Complete Live at the Half Note (2 cd)
30.10. Herbie Hancock: Takin' Off
6.11. Charlie Haden:
– Études
– Old and New Dreams
– A Tribute to Blackwell
– Silence
– First Song (5 cd)
13.11. Art Pepper: The Art of the Ballad
20.11. Sonny Rollins: The Bridge
27.11. The Oscar Peterson Trio: We Get Requests
5.12. Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard, Steve Swallow: Trios
12.12. –
19.12. Stanley Turrentine with The Three Sounds: Blue Hour. The Complete Sessions. Master Takes
23.12. Steve Lacy: Solos Duos Trios (6 cd).
– Only Monk
– More Monk
– Sempre amore
– Communiqué
– The Flame
– The Window

2016
2.1.  New Thing! (2 cd) (Maulawi, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Paris Smith, Travis Biggs, Rashied Ali & Frank Lowe, Archie Shepp, Hannibal & Sunrise Orchestra, Amina Claudine Myers, Alice Coltrane, Lloyd McNeill, East New York Ensemble, Robert Rockwell III, Eddie Gale, Stanley Cowell, Steve Davis)
8.1. Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell:
– All Night Long
– All Day Long (2 cd)
15.1.  Sun Ra and His Arkestra:
– Jazz in Silhouette
– Sound Sun Pleasure!!
22.1.  Miles Davis: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
29.1.  Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section
5.2.  The Roland Kirk Quartet:
– Rip, Rig, and Panic
– Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith
11.2.  Lee Morgan: Candy (1957)
18.2.  Ben Webster, Harry Edison: Complete Sextet Studio Sessions (4 albums:
– Sweets [1956]
– Some of My Favorites [1957]
– Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good To You [1957]
– Songs for Hip Lovers [1957] (2 cd)
26.2.  Duke Ellington: New Orleans Suite (1970)
4.3.  The Gary Burton Quartet:
– Duster (1967)
– Country Roads & Other Places (1969) (two albums on one cd)
11.3. –
18.3.  Stan Getz: Sweet Rain (1967)
25.3. –
2.4.  Chick Corea: Return to Forever (1972)
9.4.  Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder (1963)
15.4.  Back to Back: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges Play the Blues (1959) special cd with nine bonus tracks
22.4.  Erik Lindström Sextet: No Money No Music (1975)
29.4.  Ray Charles: Genius+Soul=Jazz. Complete 1956–1960 Sessions with Quincy Jones (3 albums:
– Genius+Soul=Jazz [1960]
– The Genius of Ray Charles [1959]
– The Genius Hits the Road [1960]
and the Quincy Jones sessions from The Great Ray Charles [1956] and The Genius After Hours [1956]) (2 cd)
6.5.  Side by Side: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges plus others (1959)
13.5.  Jacques Loussier, Christian Garros, Pierre Michelot: The Original Play Bach Vols. 1 & 2 (1959, 1960) (two albums on one cd)
20.5.  Django Bates: Belovèd Bird (2010)
27.5.  Mal Waldron: Moods (1978)
3.6.  Charles Mingus: Blues & Roots (1959)
10.6.  Sonny Rollins: A Night at the Village Vanguard (1957) (2016 2 cd reissue with bonus tracks)
21.6.  Cecil Taylor: Silent Tongues (1974)
-----
6.8.  Carola & Heikki Sarmanto Trio (recorded 1966, published 2004)
13.8.  Christian Schwindt Quintet: For Friends and Relatives (1966) (2011 cd issue with three bonus tracks)
20.8.  The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out (1959)
27.8.  John Coltrane: My Favorite Things (1961) lp
3.9.  Red Garland Trio: Groovy (1957) – RVG: remastered by Rudy Van Gelder (1924–2016) in 2008
10.9.  Miles Davis: Miles Smiles (1967) lp
17.9.  Tommy Flanagan Trio: Overseas (1957) lp
24.9.  Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else (1958) cd – RVG: remastered by Rudy Van Gelder in 1998
30.9. –
7.10. –
14.10. Tomasz Stańko: Balladyna (1978)
22.10.  The Essence of Louis Armstrong (Phontastic, Sweden, 1987) lp: A 1: Reminiscin' with Louis 1947, 2: Cake Walking Babies (1925), 3: St. Louis Blues (1925, Bessie Smith), 4: Sugarfoot Stomp, 5: Heebie Jeebies, 6: Big Butter and Egg Man (1926), 7: Hotter Than That (1927), 8: West End Blues (1928), 9: Muggles (1928), B 1: Just a Gigolo (1931) *, 2: Evn'tide (1936), 3: Darling Nellie Gray (1937), 4: Struttin' with Some Barbecue (1938), 5: I Double Dare You (1938), 6: Jeepers Creepers (1939), 7: Some Day (You'll Be Sorry) (1947), 8: Mack the Knife (1955).
28.10. –[Dylanology]
4.11. –
12.11. –
19.11.  Django Reinhardt: Vol. 6: 1940: Nuages
26.11.  Sinikka Oksanen – Antero Stenberg: Radio Sessions 1959–1966 (Artie Music 2005)
3.12.  Charles Lloyd: Forest Flower, live at Monterey
9.12. – [Dylanology]
16.12. –
23.12.  Albert Ayler: Goin' Home

2017
30.12. –
7.1. –
13.1.  Dollar Brand Quartet: Africa – Tears and Laughter (1979) (lp)
20.1.  Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1961) (lp)
27.1.  Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (1970) (2 cd)
4.2.  Duke Ellington: Piano Reflections (1953)
11.2.  Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: In a Mellotone (tracks from 1940–1942, compilation by Nat Hentoff in 1956)
17.2.  John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)
24.2. –
3.3. –
10.3. –
17.3. –
25.3.  Eero Koivistoinen: For Children (1970) (2007 lp reissue)
1.4.  The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin: The Inner Mounting Flame (1971)
15.4.  Billie Holiday: 5 Original Albums (5 cd, 2016)
– Lady Sings the Blues (1956)
– Body and Soul (1957)
– Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)
– Stay with Me (1958)
– All or Nothing at All (1958)
21.4. Miroslav Vitouš: The Bass (1972)
28.4. –
5.5. –
13.5.  Joe Henderson: Page One (1963) The Rudy Van Gelder Edition 1999
15.7.  Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts (1957)
18.7.  Freddie Redd: Six Classic Albums (4 cd, 2013)
– Introducing Freddie Redd (1955)
– The Music from The Connection (1960)
– Shades of Redd (1960)
– Gene Ammons: All Star Sessions (1956)
– Howard McGhee: The Music from The Connection (1960)
– Rolf Ericson and His American Stars (1956)
24.7.  John Coltrane: Ballads (1962)
John Coltrane: Impressions (1963)
John Coltrane: Live at Birdland (1963)
John Coltrane: Ascension (1965)
John Coltrane: Meditations (1966)
4.8.  Lee Konitz: Very Cool (1957) lp
12.8.  John Coltrane: Coltrane "Live" at the Village Vanguard (1962)
19.8.  Fats Waller: The Joint Is Jumpin' (compilation made in 1987)
26.8.  Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 1 (1951) (2001 reissue, Rudy Van Gelder)
26.8.  Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 2 (1952) (2001 reissue, Rudy Van Gelder)
2.9.  The Booker Ervin Sextet: Heavy!!! (1967) (1998 cd reissue with a bonus track)
12.9.  Jazz on Film: Biopics (6 cd, covering 10 soundtrack albums)
– The Gene Krupa Story (1959) with Gene Krupa
– The James Dean Story (1957) Johnny Mandel & Bill Holman version with Chet Baker, Bud Shank
– The Five Pennies (1959) with Red Nichols
– St. Louis Blues (1958) with Nat "King" Cole, Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson
– The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) with Carmen Cavallaro
– The Glenn Miller Story (1954) with Louis Armstrong, Barney Bigard, "Trummie" Young
– Young Man with a Horn (1950) with Harry James, Hoagy Carmichael, Doris Day
– Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) with Dick Cathcart, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald
– The James Dean Story (1957) original Leith Stevens score transfer
– The Benny Goodman Story Vol. 1–2 (1956) with Benny Goodman, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Stan Getz
Sunday 22.10. shock news: Emu Lehtinen is dead, at two days' notice of diagnosis.
Selected by Emu, purchased posthumously:
27.10.  Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners (1957) selected by Emu
11.11.  Horace Parlan: Up & Down (1961) selected by Emu
18.11.  John Coltrane: Live at the Village Vanguard Again! (1966) selected by Emu
29.11.  John Abercrombie: Timeless (1975) selected by Emu
2.12.  Charlie Rouse: Unsung Hero (1961) selected by Emu
16.12.  Charlie Mingus: Pre-Bird (1960) (1999 re-release) selected by Emu
23.12.  Eero Koivistoinen Quartet: Illusion (2017) not selected by Emu
30.12.  Kenny Burrell: Soulero, incorporating The Tender Gender (1967) selected by Emu

2018
5.1.  Erroll Garner Plays Misty 3 (original recordings 1953–1954), the last one selected by Emu.
Selected by the Digelius staff after Emu:
13.1.  Riitta Paakki Trio: Riitta Paakki Trio (2000)
13.1.  Peggy Lee: It's a Good Day. Original Recordings 1941–1950 with Benny Goodman & Dave Barbour (2002) bonus disc selected by myself

20.1.  DDT Jazzband: Vintage (recorded in 1982 at MTV Music Studio, album released in 1995)
– Rick Wahlstein, trumpet
– Fred Andersson, clarinet
– Carl G. Nyman, clarinet
– Raimo Näätänen, trombone
– Christer Sandell, piano
– Pentti Mutikainen, bass
– Pekka Mesimäki, banjo, guitar
– Christian Schwindt, drums
TRACK LISTING:
1. Tiger Rag, 2. Jazz Me Blues, 3. Creole Love Call, 4. Memphis Blues, 5. When I'm On My Journey, 6. Naughty Sweetie (Blues Foxtrot), 7. Rockin' Chair, 8. Working Man Blues, 9. Bourbon Street Parade, 10. Stevedore Stomp.

26.1.  Mikko Innanen & Innkvisitio: Clustrophy (2010)
– Mikko Innanen, alto, baritone and soprano saxophones, Indian wooden clarinet, percussion, whistles, toy instruments
– Fredrik Ljungkvist, tenor and sopranino saxophones, clarinet
– Daniel Erdmann, tenor, baritone and soprano saxophones, toy clarinet
– Seppo Kantonen, synthesizers
– Joonas Riippa, drums, percussion, pocket trumpet

3.2.  Severi Pyysalo: Autumn Leaves – Severi Comes (1982)
– Pentti Mutikainen, bass– Christian Schwindt, drums
– Ilpo Murtojärvi, guitar– Severi Pyysalo, vibraphone, producer, arranged by

10.2.  Heikki Sarmanto featuring Art Farmer & Bertil Lövgren: Many Moons – July '69 (live recordings) (recorded 1969, double cd released 2009)
DISC ONE
– Bertil Lövgren, trumpet
– Juhani Aaltonen, alto saxophone
– Esa Pethman, tenor saxophone, flutes, piccolo
– Heikki Sarmanto, piano
– Teppo Hauta-Aho, bass
– Matti Koskiala, drums
DISC TWO
– Art Farmer, trumpet
– Heikki Sarmanto, piano
– Teppo Hauta-Aho, bass
– Matti Koskiala, drums

17.2.  Olli Ahvenlahti: The Poet (1976)
Bass – Pekka Pohjola
Composed by, Arranged by – Olli Ahvenlahti
Cover [Painting] – Kari-Juhani Tolonen
Drums, Percussion – Esko Rosnell
Layout – Jorma Auersalo
Percussion – George Wadenius, Tommy Körberg
Photography By – Timo Kelaranta
Piano, Electric Piano, Organ, Synthesizer – Olli Ahvenlahti
Producer – George Wadenius
Recorded By – Christer Berg
Soprano Saxophone – Pekka Pöyry
Tenor Saxophone – Eero Koivistoinen
Trombone – Bertil Strandberg
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Markku Johansson

24.2.  Grazing in the Grass: The Best of Hugh Masekela
3.3.  Edward Vesala Sound & Fury: Nordic Gallery
7.4.  Verneri Pohjola Quartet: Ancient History (2012)
14.4.  The Five Corners Quintet featuring Mark Murphy: Chasin' the Jazz Gone By (2005)
21.4.  Eero Koivistoinen Kvintetti & Sekstetti: Odysseus (1969)
28.4.  Ilmiliekki Quartet: March of the Alpha Males (2003)
19.5.  Keep It Light: A Panorama of British Jazz: The Modernists (3-cd) (2017)
9.6.  Cool Europa: European Progressive Jazz in Germany 1959–63 (cd [also on 2-lp] (2017)
4.8  Nicole Willis & UMO Jazz Orchestra (2017)
11.8.  Antõnio Carlos Jobim: Wave (1967. Van Gelder Studios. Conductor: Claus Ogerman. Bass: Ron Carter. Drums: Bobby Rosengarden. Flutes: Jerome Richardson. Trombones: Urbie Green, Jimmy Cleveland)
18.8.  Sinatra / Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings (original recordings 1967, 1969, this compilation 2010)
25.8.  Olli Ojajärvi Trio: Out of Mind (rec. 2007, rel. 2009)
1.9.  Manuel Dunkel: A Step Forward (2009)
12.11.  Juhani Aaltonen Trio: Mother Tongue (2003)
18.12.  Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley (1961)
29.12.  Timo Lassy: Moves (2018)

2019
NB. I got as a Christmas present a 8 cd Anthony Braxton box set of his Black Saint and Soul Note records, not part of the Digelius project.
NB. I listened to the complete weekly Yle Finnish Broadcasting Corporation series of jazz radio discoveries from week 52/2018 until week 25/2019. My jazz quota was full during these projects.

5.1.  Pepa Päivinen & Good Romans: Felix Culpa (2018)
14.8. Getz / Gilberto (1964)
24.8.  Alder Ego: II (2018)

Opium (1919)

Opium poster painted by Theo Matejko. Please click to enlarge.

DE 1919. PC: Monumental Filmwerke GmbH (München). P+D+SC: Robert Reinert. DP: Helmar Lerski. M for a cinema orchestra: I. Poltschuk. C: Eduard von Winterstein (Prof. Gesellius), Hanna Ralph (Maria Gesellius), Werner Krauss (Nung Tshang / Nung-Tschang / Nung Chiang), Conrad Veidt (Dr. Richard Armstrong), Sybil Morel (Sin / Magdalena), Friedrich Kühne (Dr. Armstrong, Sr., the father), Alexander Delbosq (Ali), Sigrid Höhenfels (the opium girl), Loni Nest (girl). Pressevorführung: 29.1.1919 Düsseldorf, Uraufführung 2.1919 Berlin. Not released in Finland. 1982 m /16 fps/ 108 min (Le Giornate del Cinema Muto). 2486 m /16 fps/ 135 min (Filmportal)
    Print: Svenska Filminstitutet / Filmarkivet (bought from ARRI, Munich, 1965) – black and white – 1876 m /16 fps/ 102 min
    Viewed at Cinema Orion (Helsinki) (History of the Cinema), Ilari Hannula at the piano, e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio, 19 Nov 2015.

Revisited a film I had not seen since the Babelsberg 80th anniversary retrospective at Berlin Film Festival in 1992 (the exteriors of Opium were shot in and around Berlin). There is a set of 12 photographs of Opium at the Filmportal site and two more photographs in Chris Horak's essay in Griffithiana.

I missed the very late night screening in Pordenone of Opium in 1997. The GCM program note: "A Chinese opium dealer seeks revenge on Westerners who have corrupted his wife. Opium is both an exploitation film (released in that brief period when there was no censorship in Germany) and a meditation on the modern condition. The film is seemingly archaic, but its metaphorical content is in keeping with its style. Struck from the original nitrate negative. Of particular interest the hand-painted intertitles, which visually paraphrase Chinese and Indian characters." (Jan-Christopher Horak, GCM 1997).

Chris Horak wrote in 1997 a solid introduction to the director for Griffithiana 60/61, "Robert Reinert: Film as Metaphor", outlining a remarkable and ambitious career. Reinert had a penchant for big themes and metaphorical content. In the beginning he was highly productive, often working with Conrad Veidt and Helmar Lerski. In July 1918 he slowed down and started to produce select "monumental films" for his own company. The first of these was Opium. Horak pays attention to the mastery of Reinert and Lerski in deep focus composition. Horak states that Reinert was a conservative avantgardist and cultural philosopher comparable to Spengler. "Reinert's style of cinema was archaic before its time. A traditional moralist and symbolist Reinert (and Lerski) adhered to 19th century pictorial conventions of spectacle which went out of fashion with the rise of American style classical narrative. While German cinema in the 1920s embraced modernism, Reinert held on to traditional concepts of morality and a symbolic language that deconstructed any attempts at fast paced action" (Horak).

David Bordwell has kept championing the Robert Reinert films Opium and Nerven, most prominently in his book Poetics of Cinema (New York / Oxon: Routledge, 2008 - Chap. 9: "Taking Things to Extremes. Hallucinations Courtesy of Robert Reinert"). According to Bordwell, following Horak, during WWI European filmmakers persisted with a more archaic practice of film aesthetics than Americans, including long takes and staging in depth, often with great sophistication. Yet Reinert "found a weirder way to tell his stories visually". He was capable of staging extended scenes at a middle distance. He pushed the norms to violent limits in order to intensify his manic plots and performances. He subjected his figures to harsh contrasts of scale and position. "Like Hofer and af Klercker, he favors sets that create a dense array of masses through which characters pass". In Opium and Nerven "Reinert sets his characters closer to the viewer more consistently than any other 1910s depth-oriented director I know". He is even "willing to sacrifice sharp focus, in one plane or another, for the sake of aggressive foregrounds". "How, then can you place two or three characters in semi-close-ups and still preserve depth? Reinert finds one answer in limiting the rear playing space to small slots". "His typical depth shot is neither a tableau composition (...) nor a part of an American-style editing pattern (...). "A Reinert 'full shot' may present a relatively small patch of the scene's space, and we may never be properly introduced to the overall arena of action". In this Bordwell sees Reinert coming up with a fragmentary scenography that looks ahead to the strategically incomplete establishing shots of Bresson, Straub & Huillet, and Hartley.

AA: Opium the film is itself like a fever dream. There is an inspired, charged, foolhardy, devil-may-care attitude in the film, yet at the core it is deadly serious. It is about the lure of an escape to a world of drug addiction when the reality of the world is overwhelmingly hard to face.

Nobody is safe from madness. All the three doctors with a mission to save the world succumb themselves to opium addiction, and all their lives are ruined.

Robert Reinert relishes in dramatic excess. During the period of no censorship he indulges in reckless abandon. Opium may be at the surface a sensation film but Reinert, Helmar Lerski, and their team are at home in the realm of dreams and nightmares. There is a genuine oneiric quality in the delirium that is Opium. Especially dream-like are the appearances of Nung Chiang.

The plot is outlandish, and the Chinese and Indian episodes belong to the realm of exoticism if not xenophobia or even racism. There is an aspect of Fu Manchu in Nung Chiang.

As Horak and Bordwell have observed Reinert is a distinguished special case in the development of film aesthetics. In no way does he hide his background in the histrionic legacy of the overdone pantomime of the early cinema, including Film d'Art. He flaunts it and seems to take infinite pleasure in it. Especially Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt make a virtue out of the old-fashioned burden of over-acting. It is a pleasure to watch them together here in a film made before Caligari.

And as Horak and Bordwell state, the early cinema's plan-séquence, deep focus, long shot, long take aesthetics is exceptional in Opium. Reinert and Lerski are masters of the mise-en-scène. One can learn even today from the way they stage and light a scene. They create a dynamic, exciting space from their archaic-looking starting-point.

Opium is not just a case of art for art's sake (or sensation for sensation's sake). There is a sense of striking a nerve in the scenes of drug addiction. It was an acute problem during and after the war when heavy drugs were needed to palliate indescribable pain. And the tragic story of the illicit love between the young Dr. Armstrong (Conrad Veidt) and his mentor's wife, Maria (Hanna Ralph): "six years I was alone" must have been an often-heard remark at the time. "6 Jahre lang allein". "Dem Glück der Welt galt Deine Arbeit": "Your work was about the happiness of the world. What about our happiness?" There is a spirit of understanding that is similar to G. W. Pabst's Westfront 1918. Even one year alone is a long time in a young woman's life.

Not far beyond the chinoiserie and incredible plotting there is a genuine feeling of agony. Especially Krauss and Veidt are magical and charismatic in tapping into that feeling. They may grimace and gesticulate as much as they will but there is always an inner center of gravity in their performances.

The film has art intertitles in styles of Chinoiserie, Indianesque and English sobriety. The wording is impressive both in lengthy descriptions and blunt statements such as "KEIN AUSGANG" (no exit) and "SCHICKSAL" (destiny).

Helmar Lerski's cinematography is first-rate, the sense of lighting, composition and movement impeccable.

In this print one can appreciate the quality of the image which is often good enough. There is often a slight flicker on the left side of the image. In 1994 the original nitrate negative was discovered and a new print was made at Münchner Filmmuseum. Next time we need to screen that print.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON JOHN DEBARTOLO BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:

100 Years of Taidesalonki and the Bäcksbacka Collection (exhibition at HAM)

Rafael Wardi: A Yellow Still Life, 1969. © Photo: HAM/Yehia Eweis. Please click to enlarge.

Auli Järvelä (born 1954): Autumn. Undated. © Photo: HAM/Hanna Rikkonen. Please click to enlarge.

Exhibition:
100 Years of Taidesalonki. Curated by Christina Bäcksbacka and Sanna Tuulikangas. HAM • 25.9.2015-10.1.2016
HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Tennis Palace, Eteläinen Rautatiekatu 8, 00100 Helsinki. Tue – Sun 11–19. www.hamhelsinki.fi

Catalogue:
Christina Bäcksbacka & Sanna Tuulikangas (ed.): Satavuotisen toiminnan jälkiä. Taidesalonki 1915-2015 / Spår av en hundraårig verksamhet.  Konstsalongen 1915-2015. Bilingual. Large format. 339 p. Kirjokansi 84. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2015

Official introduction:

100 years of Taidesalonki

"The Taidesalonki 100 years exhibition celebrates the centenary of Taidesalonki, the oldest still operating art gallery in Finland, which was originally established by Leonard Bäcksbacka. The exhibition collects one hundred works that have passed through the halls of Taidesalonki, representing some of the most unique visual works of their time."

"From the very beginning, Taidesalonki’s central focus has been paintings based on the power of colours. For one hundred years, gallerists Leonard, Ingjald ja Christina Bäcksbacka have been displaying contemporary art and supporting artists in numerous ways. HAM’s centenary exhibition sheds light on the gallery itself, the gallerists' preferences and their importance as supporters of Finnish art."

"The majority of the one hundred works on display in the exhibition belong to HAM’s collection, in addition to which other museums have lent works from their collections that have at some point passed through Taidesalonki. The exhibition is curated by Christina Bäcksbacka and HAM’s curator Sanna Tuulikangas."

The Bäcksbacka Collection, heart of HAM

"In addition to organising exhibitions, the Bäcksbacka family assembled a sizeable art collection of their own, which was donated to the City of Helsinki in 1976 in accordance with Leonard’s wishes. The Bäcksbacka collection forms the core of HAM’s collection, which belongs to the people of Helsinki."

Taidesalonki centenary exhibition and book

"Taidesalonki is still operating as an art gallery today under the management of Christina Bäcksbacka, with exhibitions primarily showcasing contemporary Finnish artists. The gallery’s own centenary exhibition Uudisrakennus reaches for the future with a total work of art by Paavo Paunu, Tomas Regan and Viggo Wallensköld. In the autumn, Taidesalonki will also publish a centenary book in collaboration with the Finnish Literature Society."

AA: This is an autumn of remarkable exhibitions featuring Finnish art collectors / gallerists / patrons / and / or connoisseurs, such as Sigurd Frosterus, Amos Anderson, and the Bäcksbacka family. The most prominent is the series of three simultaneous exhibitions celebrating the centenary of Taidesalonki (The Art Salon) run by the Bäcksbacka family in the three generations of Leonard, Ingjald, and Christina Bäcksbacka.

The exhibitions cover many of the same periods and artists, and Frosterus and Bäcksbacka even have the same focus on colour, relevant even in the wonderful Alvar & Ragni Cawén exhibition at Tampere Art Museum. Similarities notwithstanding the approaches are all different.

The HAM Taidesalonki exhibition has been hung with great taste and insight. It displays variety yet gives space for multiple works of key artists such as Alvar Cawén, Marcus Collin, Ragnar Ekelund, A. W. Finch, Auli Järvelä, Unto Koistinen, Tiina Laitanen, Anitra Lucander, Mauno Markkula, Unto Pusa, Tapani Raittila, Valle Rosenberg, Jalmari Ruokokoski, Tyko Sallinen, Sigrid Schauman, Ellen Thesleff, Heikki Tuomela, Viggo Wallensköld, and Rafael Wardi. It is worth visiting forward and backward, and worth revisiting. Having seen the Tampere Cawén exhibition I was struck by the power of the Cawén section at HAM. And having seen Finch at the Frosterus exhibition I enjoyed also this display of the original colourist.

The large catalogue is worth reading and studying. At first glance at the café by the museum I was impressed by the exceptionally high quality of the reproductions which do justice to the originals which I had fresh in my memory. What is more, I was not only feeling that I saw authentic reproductions but that I revisited the artworks in a new way.

The book expands the tribute significantly. There is a catalogue of all Taidesalonki exhibitions during a century. The HAM exhibition covers the century of contemporary of Finnish art that has been exhibited at Taidesalonki and collected by the Bäcksbacka family. The book expands the chronological scope by more than another century to the late 18th century of the young Finnish art history. Here we also meet Schillmark, Kügelgen, the Wright brothers, Holmberg, Berndtson, and Edelfelt - the great tradition of Finnish quality painting before Modernism.

The main substance of the book consists of excellent studies of key works and artists written by Ville Lukkarinen and Sanna Tuulikangas.

There is a long fascinating case study written by Timo Vuorikoski devoted to Tyko Sallinen's early Mirri image which he painted of his wife in Paris in 1909. Sallinen himself rejected that early version which was later rescued by others from the waste paper basket. Sallinen is my favourite Finnish painter but not in the way he is exhibited and presented nowadays. Furthermore, reproductions of Sallinen usually fail to convey the atavistic force of his colour world and brushwork. Sallinen was a deeply disturbed and unbalanced artist who managed to create searing, wildly unsettling, highly original visions in his paintings. I do not love them all, and for me Sallinen's Mirri cycle is an especially difficult (though undeniably central) special case. In that cycle Sallinen painted his wife as an animal, and that has made him a favourite target for feminist criticism. All they say is correct but I think it is important to realize that Sallinen was not painting his external or internal vision of his wife at all. Instead, he was inspired by his wife to paint his own disturbed inner feminine image, his anima, which turned out to be monstrous and hideous.

Sallinen's Mirri paintings are an example of a development that introduced something new to the classical categories of the history of art. These paintings are not beautiful or sublime. They are ugly, and they are about the ugliness of the spirit. Their aesthetic value is based on their courage to face that.

The still active artists on display include Rafael Wardi whose At the Window (1974) is perfect colour therapy to the gloomy autumn and winter of Helsinki. Auli Järvelä does not use a brush, instead painting by her bare hands with broad strokes for instance in Autumn (undated). Viggo Wallensköld is a painter of dreams. He is not a surrealist, but there is a similar, profoundly personal, oneiric quality in his figurative works displaying persons whose sexual identity deviates from the norm or who may be even merged with furniture or machinery.

Jerker A. Eriksson: Flammande vildmark (a book of essays on film)

A book of essays on film:
Jerker A. Eriksson: Flammande vildmark. Essäer om film. 185 p. Helsingfors: Schildts & Söderströms, 2015.
    [The title is the Swedish title of Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford, 1939). Literally translated back to English: The Flaming Desert.]

Jerker A. Eriksson (born 22 October 1931), the grand old man of Finnish film criticism, has published a book of film essays, many of which are previously unpublished. Eriksson is at his best in this book. The analyses are sober, the issues are big, and there is a subtle current of humour running through the book.

The first essay is a cinephilic confession, an affectionate reminiscence of the cinemas in the writer's life in Helsinki, most of them long gone but still alive in his memory. Eriksson's cinema memories start in the 1930s with images from the Spanish civil war in a newsreel at Bio-Bio. Bio-Bio remained for decades a famous non stop cinema where one could "enter and exit at will". Non stop cinemas were rare in Finland. First recently have I learned that they were the norm in the United States which is why Alfred Hitchcock had to issue a special ban not to enter the cinema after the beginning of Psycho.

In 1943 Eriksson started to take systematic notes of films. Among the early ones: La Bataille silencieuse, Woman of the Year, The Man Who Came to Dinner... Cinemas were "the universities of my youth" for Eriksson. Air raid alarms were defied. Finland was still a co-fighter with Germany when Sergeant York was nevertheless released here, and in February 1944 Eriksson went to see it. The screening was interrupted by alarms so many times that the film came to an end first at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Eriksson has fond memories of dozens of cinemas. Athena (now our Cinema Orion) was the cinema where he saw Adam Had Four Sons and Reap the Wild Wind, for Eriksson the best thing Cecil B. DeMille ever did.

Cinema was not a highly regarded art during Eriksson's school days. While his schoolmates enthused over Pär Lagerkvist, Sartre, and Svenska Teatern, Eriksson was interested in Humphrey Bogart, John Ford, and Barbro Kollberg in Kungsgatan. When the discussion drifted to the fyrtiotalisterna (the generation of the 1940's, a parallel to existentialism in Sweden) and their world of anxiety Eriksson was thinking about Michel Simon in Julien Duvivier's Panique. But most he loved American cinema.

Eriksson hated the idea of spending a summer holiday in the countryside. His most favourite summer memory is of a Sunday in July 1944 when he saw four films starting with South of Suez. The last film for him had to end by ten PM because there was curfew for the underaged at night.

Eriksson praises a book by the Dane Jörgen Stegelman called Mine Biografer [My Cinemas] which inspired him for these reminiscences.

In 1951 Eriksson started his professional career as a film critic which continued until he was appointed director of the Finnish Board of Film Classification in 1963 where he launched an enlightened era. He has also had a distinguished academic career as a historian, specializing in American history.

A film that came to mean much for Eriksson was A Place in the Sun about which he wrote a famous essay for Jörn Donner's Arena magazine in 1952. Having seen the film 15 times he wrote a treatise balancing a view of society, a comparison between Theodore Dreiser's novel and George Stevens's film written by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown, and an account of the director's cinematic insight. Eriksson's essay became a model for a generation of cinephiles which re-launched a film society movement on a never before seen scale in our land and also founded the Finnish Film Archive in 1957. Many trends of film criticism have come and gone since. Eriksson has been following his own path. He has hardly been even provoked by excesses of passing trends.

Eriksson's 1952 essay on A Place in the Sun is still a world-class contribution to understanding a powerful classic. In the new book Eriksson writes with fresh insight about George Stevens's "American trilogy": A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant, in direct continuation to his writings of the 1950s but with new thoughts and references.

American cinema from the early days of Hollywood until today is the common theme of the essays. There is a fascinating essay on the premieres of Charles Chaplin's early films in Finland (since 22 March 1915, with instant success). John Ford is Eriksson's favourite director; the essay here focuses on Drums Along the Mohawk. From William Wyler Eriksson discusses The Little Foxes. Eriksson finishes his book with an exciting essay on the career of Robert Rossen until the black list, focusing on All the King's Men.

The first essay after the cinephilic introduction is an interesting study on Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg and its American spirit; Eriksson compares it with István Szabó's Taking Sides. It is followed by an analysis of the theme of paranoia in American cinema from the 1930s until today, from Gabriel Over the White House to Edge of Darkness. This chapter is interesting to compare with Matti Salo's recent excellent book on political cinema, Viitta ja tikari [Cloak and Dagger, 2015].

The generation of Finnish cinephiles who started in the late 1940s and the early 1950s is still going strong. They are 80-something and busy publishing works that belong to their best. Besides Jerker A. Eriksson and Matti Salo there is the psychoanalyst Mikael Enckell whose new book Okändhetens följeslagare: Med frågan som drivkraft och mysteriet som färdmål [Companions of the Unknown: The Question as the Driving Force and Mystery as the Destination, 2015] includes an essay on Limelight. And there is the miracle man Jörn Donner who has this year published two books, not film-related; instead he has directed a new film himself, Armi Lives, on Armi Ratia, the founder of the fashion company Marimekko, and has been amazingly busy with many other things.

Special characteristics of Eriksson's film essays include a profound knowledge of American history and literature. He has also the genial, jovial and social attitude typical to the Swedish community of Finland (as have Enckell and Donner, which does not prevent them from being polemical). Common to all is also the unperturbed atmosphere of a generation that has experienced war. Both Eriksson and Donner belonged to the early champions of The Unknown Soldier.