A BOLOGNA DIARY - IL CINEMA RITROVATO DAY 5 - Nostalgia - Vittorio Cottafavi - Asta Nielsen - Updated critics' chart

OK here are a couple of photos  that came to light as dinners were consumed and nostalgia reigned. They both feature my friends Ross Barnard and Tony Rayns. One was taken in 1986 at the Sydney Film Festival  and the other last night after a splendid Cantonese noshup at Chung Fai just off Via Dell Independenza in Bologna, where we were welcomed back with open arms. 

Today featured more Mitchell Leisen, his frenetic Swing High, Swing Low and a repeat of one of the lesser Daisuke Ito's. Treasures were found elsewhere and each had a full house. Vittorio Cottafavi first came to attention way, way back. I reckon it was an out of the blue notice in an early edition of Movie. "Who is Vittorio Cottafavi" rang out when it became known he had directed a number of those Italian sword and sandal epics that were briefly a thing. Il Cinema Ritrovato unearthed a 57 minute TV film apparently made as part of a TV series called "Racconti dell'Italia di oggi". The catalogue comes up with the title The Cutting of the Forest. The film itself simply says "Woodcutting". It's about a widowed 35 year old played by Gian-Maria who wins contracts to cut down forests. His two kids are hardly ever seen, looked after by his sister. His crew of workers are articulate about the ills of society. Rivetting and a model of a kind of state-sponsored filming of society that is rarely seen. 

Die Fremde Vogel 

Then there was Asta Nielsen in a beautifully restored copy of her Die Fremde Vogel. The catalogue tells us that the film was backed by an unprecedented promotional effort, Urban Gad's Der fremde Vogel was released simultaneously in several German cities on November 11, 1911. Part of the first "Asta Nielsen series," the film marked a radical departure in early cinema, establishing the star system as the foundation for a new production model in Germany based on feature films. Produced by Deutsche Bioscop GmbH for Projektions-AG Union (PAGU), the internationally successful series and its pioneering promotional campaigns helped establish Nielsen as one of the first stars of European cinema. Mashe Matzke's overlong intro gave a lot of detail already in the printed catalogue. The film gripped from the start - very subtle for its time. 

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 (Darish Mehrjui)	****
Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher)		***	***
La Derive (Paule Delsol)	***		**
Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francisco Barilli)		***
Accident (Joseph Losey )		**
The Damned (Luchino Visconti)		***
Die Fremde Vogel (Urban Gad)	***
Senso (Luchino Visconti)		****
Lenny (Bob Fosse)		***

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 (Darish 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)	****