Deneuve at Cannes in 2014 |
When you come through the week at Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato you start
to have dreams of only attending festivals of films made long ago, that have as
they say, stood the test of time and now warrant a new place in the sun via new
prints or, even better, digital restorations performed by geniuses like
Sony/Columbia’s Grover Crisp. Theirs is the work that brings movies back to
that moment of their premiere screening. You cant watch a film like Charles
Vidor’s Cover Girl (USA, 1944), starring a pre-MGM Gene Kelly and the scrumptious, luminous Rita Hayworth without the additional
modern day awe at the skills employed by Grover and his team. One critic has
even gone so far as to suggest that the cinema might be a better place if all
new movie-making ceased for a decade and we all had a breathing space simply to
catch up on the 100+ years of what’s already gone. At Bologna this seemed like
a very good idea.
Expanding way beyond privileged access at Bologna and elsewhere in the
new digital world, where you can see wondrous things you never thought you
would ever see or see again, things are changing rapidly. Making restoration
copies is now all the go. Cable TV stations and companies like Netflix have
insatiable desires for more and more movies (though you might not sense that if
you are a subscriber to the Foxtel movie package) from more and more sources
and the digital age enables all the work to be done – restoration followed by
circulation.
That ‘circulation’, access if you like, is the key word.
And, just as an example of what might happen more and more, there is one thing interesting happening via the major distributor
Studio Canal. In conjunction with the Alliance francaise, they have selected a
half dozen films featuring Catherine Deneuve and will be presenting them at
GU’s Event Cinema in George Street and the Cremorne Orpheum over a weekend in
September. I assume its going round the nation as well. Not a bad selection either - The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Belle de Jour, Un Flic, Young Girls of Rochefort,
Indochine and Potiche. Two, maybe more, masterpieces there. I’m not listing
years and directors but close to fifty years of the great
lady’s career is covered. (I’m happy to hear from anybody who might like to
suggest another four to make it up to ten. My choices would be Vadim’s Vice and Virtue, Varda’s Les Creatures, Truffaut’s Mississipi Mermaid and another
Demy, Peau d’Ane . That leaves 111 films to choose alternate titles To get help if your
memory needs a jog you can go here.)
So as I despair at the selection that makes up the Alliance francaise's
annual festival of new films, endlessly veering away from quality towards mediocre
comedies and routine dramas, almost entirely ignoring the works of major film-makers year after
year, suddenly the Alliance pops up with this event. Its thanks to the new
digital technologies that it can happen of course. The ease of sending round DCPs around the world makes sure of that. And we are prmised that this is to be annual event - Bardot, Gabin, Moreau, Delon, Belmondo, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, ....that list is endless too to say
nothing of Ophuls, Renoir, Gremillon, Clement, and Duvivier, all of whom have
had major films restored in recent times. Endless, endless...a vista leading to
our own Cinema Ritrovato sometime somewhere,maybe even starting small just like
this bit of outreach.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.