A BOLOGNA DIARY - IL CINEMA RITROVATO DAY 4 - Daisuke Ito, Henry King, Paule Delsol - Updated critics' chart

Kinuyo Tanaka, Masahiko Tsugawa, Shishi No Za/ The Lion's Throne 

And finally a Daisuke Ito movie that justifies in spades all the attention...and that was notwithstanding a false start when it turned out the 35mm had been laced into the projector back to front. Record minimum time to get it fixed and we sat enthralled by Shishi No Za/ The Lion's Throne (Japan, 1953). Set in the 1850s it's a drama about a family who present a classic Noh play once every generation. The young son who has a crucial part, is shaking with nerves and isn't helped by his mother, played by the luminous Kinuyo Tanaka, whose attempts to get him ready involve, basically, child abuse. Finally a reason to see why Ito is admired and another reason to regret missing the three silent films in the retrospective, the period when Ito was apparently at his peak.

But the day began with a viewing of a film it's taken me my lifetime to see, Henry King's Tol'able David (USA, 1921) starring Richard Barthelmess and presented as part of a strand curated by Tamara Shvediuk devoted to "Matinee Idols: Women's Male Stars". Not all sure of the syntax there but we get the idea as we are offered silent movies starring Rudolph Valentino, Wallace Reid, Thomas Meighan, and the aforementioned Barthelmess. I recall missing the movie at a MUFS Classic night and its taken  60+ years to make up the oversight. It's a wonderful movie, made even more wonderful here by Tamara's excellent intro and John Sweeney's fine piano accompaniment.

Then there was Paule Delsol's La Derive/Drift from 1964, an early post-New Wave movie, a rarity in being directed by a woman in the male-dominated French industry. (What national indutry wasn't male dominated when you come to think of it?). The film was apparently not appreciated even by the French censors who slapped ban on it for under 18s. Dick Prowse would have banned it back in the day if Erwin Rado or David Stratton had attempted to bring it in for an MFF or SFF screening. The ubiquitous "low moral tone" category which was employed to ban films where people had a lot of casual sex would have been activated. Its a terrific little movie and the crowd in the Arlecchino loved it.

Updated opinion chart below.

Film	Geoff Gardner	Spiro Economopoulos	Ross Barnard
L’Innocente (Luchino Visconti)		****
Kuroi Junin No Onna/Ten Black Women (Kon Ichikawa)	*	***
Ten Seconds to Hell (Robert Aldrich)		***	***
Osho /The Chess Master(Daisuke Ito)	*
Amma Ariyan (John Abraham)	*
Geru No Kobi/The Servant’s Neck (Daisuke Ito	***
Oborokago/The Inner Palace Conspiracy (Daisuke Ito)	***
Ladies of Leisure (Frank Capra)			***
Sunrise (F W Murnau)			****
Night Nurse (William A Wellman)			***
The Overcoat (Grigory Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg)			*
La Bugiarda (Luigi Comencini)			***
Putney Swope (Robert Downey)			***
Eight Girls in a Boat (Richard Wallace)	*		***
The Devils (Ken Russell)			****
Mirages de Paris (Feodor Ocep)	**
The Cycle (Dariush Mehrjui)	****
Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher)			***
La Derive (Paule Delsol)	***		**

 

A BOLOGNA DIARY - IL CINEMA RITROVATO DAY 3 - Dariush Mehrjui, Mitchell Leisen, Daisuke Ito, Roy Del Ruth - Updated critics' chart

 

Lyle Bettger, Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, No Man of Her Own

The day got off to a ripping start with a screening of Dariush Mehrjui's 1974 masterpiece The Cycle. Restored by the Cinematheque Francaise from apparently the only surviving print (with burnt in French subtitles) this mighty film remains as a fearless stick poked at the rampant petty corruption in Iranian society... but its what you do to make a living.

 

It's becoming clear that Daisuke Ito had a very uneven output. I did not book any tickets for the silent films with Benshi accompaniment. An oversight I regret that arose largely because of my desire to restrict my schedule to the Jolly, Arlecchino and Lumiere cinemas. Mistake. The programming into the Modernissimo is probably the most adventurous and already includes the remarkable 3D screenings of Lumber Jack-Rabbit (Chuck Jones, USA, 1953) and The Phantom of the Rue Morgue (Roy Del Ruth, USA, 1954). The name Roy Del Ruth usually produces something between a shrug, an eye roll and oh no. The young person doing the intro gave us a brief history of 3D, mentioned the 'star' Karl Malden and was generally enthusiastic. Was Karl Malden ever a 'star'? I don't think so.

But four films into the Ito sound selection, with the latest being his possibly monumentally intended Oedo Gonin Otoko/Five Men From Edo (1951) have their longueurs. The last named film wasn't helped by an interminable and largely uninformative intro by Italian director Francesco Sossai. It included a sequence of Kabuki theatre that also lasted a couple of reels to make its point that the local Daimyo had a few skeletons in his closet.

The day was saved by Mitchell Leisen (USA, 1950). Leisen does it everywhere all the time, and another viewing of his great and only noir No Man of her Own confirmed his mastery. Imogen Sara Smith's intro was also a model of its kind.

Below is the latest chart with some entries by new contributor Ross Barnard long time administrator of the Sydney Film Festival (a role now elevated to the designation CEO) and now Secretary of the Cinema Pioneers.

Film	Geoff Gardner	Spiro Economopoulos	Ross Barnard
L’Innocente (Luchino Visconti)		****
Kuroi Junin No Onna/Ten Black Women (Kon Ichikawa)	*	***
Ten Seconds to Hell (Robert Aldrich)		***	***
Osho /The Chess Master(Daisuke Ito)	*
Amma Ariyan (John Abraham)	*
Geru No Kobi/The Servant’s Neck (Daisuke Ito	***
Oborokago/The Inner Palace Conspiracy (Daisuke Ito)	***
Ladies of Leisure (Frank Capra)			***
Sunrise (F W Murnau)			****
Night Nurse (William A Wellman)			***
The Overcoat (Grigory Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg)			*
La Bugiarda (Luigi Comencini)			***
Putney Swope (Robert Downey)			***
Eight Girls in a Boat (Richard Wallace)	*		***
The Devils (Ken Russell)			****
Mirages de Paris (Feodor Ocep)	**
The Cycle (Dariush Mehrjui)	****

 

Il CINEMA RITROVATO - A Bologna Diary Day 2 - An early critics' chart

 

Kuroi Junin No Onna/Ten Black Women (Kon Ichikawa)

Some quick opinions 

Film	Geoff Gardner	Spiro Economopoulos
L’Innocente (Luchino Visconti)		****
Kuroi Junin No Onna/Ten Black Women (Kon Ichikawa)	*	***
Ten Seconds to Hell (Robert Aldrich)		***
Osho /The Chess Master(Daisuke Ito)	*
Amma Ariyan (John Abraham)	*
Geru No Kobi/The Servant’s Neck (Daisuke Ito	***
Oborokago/The Inner Palace Conspiracy (Daisuke Ito)	***

I dont want to make too much of a thing of it but the translated title of the Kon Ichikawa film Ten Black Women is surely an inaccurately rendered translation. I reckon it should be TEN WOMEN IN BLACK... Just saying before it goes too far on the international circuit if indeed it does, being somewhat of a disappointment to moi at least

IL CINEMA RITROVATO - A Bologna Diary - Opening Day and some underwhelming moments

Fists in the Pocket

Il Cinema Ritrovato gets underway on a Saturday afternoon. That's after a bit of show business involving the festival's artistic direction team in the marvellous Modernissimo cinema under a corner of Bologna's Piazza Maggiore. Last night  a few people sneaked off to see Marco Bellocchio introduce a 4K restoration of his debut feature Fists in the Pocket.  It was hailed as a masterpiece back in the day and remains so..or at least that was the advice of someone who was there. Two years ago Bellocchio, who is the Chair of the Foundation that manages the Cineteca di Bologna (pardon if my understanding of the governance arrangements is a bit thin) presented his film Slap the Monster on Page One, a brilliant excoriation of the right wing yellow press which Cinema Reborn went after for its 2025 season but to no avail. The rights holder didn't answer our polite email enquiries.

But the real show started today and for me there were three screenings in a row in the Jolly Cinema. Two years ago it was loudly trumpeted that the aircon in the Jolly had finally been fixed but the sad news is that it seems to have, like many Catholics, lapsed once more. The swelter seems to be back.

Amma Ariyan

First up though was Amma Ariyan (John Abraham, India, 1986)  from India's Parallel Cinema cohort. The catalogue notes tell us this was  "Abraham’s final work before his untimely death in 1987. It is a film that details the history of revolutionary politics in Kerala through the prism of the road movie, adopting an iconoclastic structure in which flashbacks, ellipses and inserts punctuate the narrative with personal and historical reports on social resistance and political disillusionment, including the militant labour riots of Cochin in 1953." 

The restored film screened in Cannes Classics just last month and the restoration work was done by Shivendra Singh Dengapur's Film Heritage Foundation. Anti Alanen told me how impressed he was by it, a profound film. I found watching it a slog I have to say. Screened in a superb 4K restoration where a lot of work has been done on the sound.

Publicity shot for Easy Living

Light relief followed with Mitchell Leisen's Easy Living,  screening on a 35mm print, the first film in the Leisen strand and kicking off with one of the director's least subtle comedies. There are likely more pratfalls in this movie than in the rest of Leisen's entire career. It's called screwball and the moments when Jean Arthur expresses her incomprehension as to why such privilege and lavish hospitality is being rained down on her are brilliant. Preston Sturges script is either too broad for comfort or Leisen made it so. Who will ever know but it may have been one of those crucial moments that caused Sturges to want to film his own scripts.

Daisuke Ito may well have been a totally unknown (outside Japan) name until the Bologna team announced it was devoting a major retrospective to him. Curator Johan Nordstrom spelt out in detail just how much institutional and corporate assistance has gone into the Daisuke Ito selection - three silent films with Benshi and traditional Japanese instrumental accompaniment, plus a seven film sound period selection. 

Osho

Co-curator Alexander Jacoby introduced the first Ito sound film Osho  suggesting that it was slightly to one side of Ito's Jidaigeki  movies. The catalogue note says Osho is "Arguably the most famous film of Ito’s postwar career, ... a biopic of a master of shogi (the canonical Japanese variant of chess). From a humble background, illiterate and initially selftaught, Sakata Sankichi (1870-1946) rose to rank among the great players of his generation. Ito focuses on his rivalry with Kinjiro Sekine, the leading professional player of his era.

Chess is not a great background for a movie of interest to many. Dont ask me how I know this, I just do. This film doesn't jump that hurdle and the ecstasy of an obsessed man and the agony of those who have to put up with his obsessions is not something that grabbed me. I think I'm going to be even more appreciative of the jidaigeki movies to come.

The excitement of the day wasn't/isn't on the movie screen. As I write this Ivory Coast is putting up a great show in its World Cup match against Germany. The Africans are far more imaginative, elegant and exciting...It's 1/1...who knows...