He taught film history at the University of California in Berkeley, but his vast knowledge extended to all fields. Brilliant, loving, generous, enthusiastic about life, he was a formidable speaker and at the same time capable of listening, curious about everything. A great expert on Walt Disney (he co-authored two books that we published, Walt in Wonderland and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies), D.W. Griffith, Erich von Stroheim, Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and much more, since 1986 he had not missed a single edition of the Pordenone festival, which presented the Jean Mitry Award to him in 2018 for his tireless work on silent cinema.

He loved opera and all music (Bob Dylan first and foremost), dance (he could also dance the merengue!), and art, including the art of the Friuli region, never missing the chance to discover more of our local artistic heritage each year thanks to the cultural tours organized by the festival. He was so in love with Venice that we nicknamed him “The Doge”.

It is hard to accept that his great heart has stopped beating. He leaves a huge void in the lives of all who knew him, because Russell was unique. We were looking forward to seeing him in Pordenone again, together with his beloved wife Karen, next October. We still cannot believe he won’t be with us anymore. But he will live on in our hearts, and in the spirit of the festival he loved so much.

The 42nd edition of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival will be dedicated to Russell Merritt.

L'articolo THE PORDENONE SILENT FILM FESTIVAL AND THE CINETECA DEL FRIULI MOURN THE PASSING OF RUSSELL MERRITT (1941-2023) proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

LA PERFORMANCE DI JOHN SWEENEY PER LA DIXIÈME SYMPHONIE DI GANCE È IL MIGLIOR ACCOMPAGNAMENTO PER PIANO SOLO

Alla fine di ogni anno, studiosi e appassionati di cinema muto sono chiamati a raccolta da Silent London, seguitissimo blog della nota giornalista britannica Pamela Hutchinson, per decretare il miglior festival al mondo in questo settore e, sempre per somma di voti, assegnare il titolo di “migliore” in categorie come gli accompagnamenti musicali, le riscoperte, le pubblicazioni di film muti in blu-ray/dvd e molto altro.

Il sondaggio relativo al 2022, partito il 14 dicembre scorso, dopo aver raccolto un numero record di voti ha stabilito ancora una volta che le Giornate del Cinema Muto di Pordenone sono il miglior festival di cinema muto dell’anno.

Le soddisfazioni non si fermano qui. Altri due importanti riconoscimenti, che le Giornate condividono con l’Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone, arrivano per gli eventi speciali di apertura e di chiusura. Il titolo di miglior evento orchestrale è andato a The Manxman (L’isola del peccato, 1929) di Alfred Hitchcock, che ha chiuso la 41^a edizione delle Giornate con la partitura composta da Stephen Horne, orchestrata e diretta da Ben Palmer ed eseguita dall’Orchestra San Marco a cui si sono aggiunti i solisti Louise Hayter e Jeff Moore. L’evento di apertura, The Unknown (Lo sconosciuto, 1927), capolavoro di Tod Browning, con Lon Chaney e Joan Crawford, si è aggiudicato una menzione d’onore nella stessa categoria grazie alla nuova partitura di José María Serralde Ruiz, che ha diretto nell’esecuzione i musicisti dell’Orchestra San Marco. Il film, presentato in anteprima mondiale a Pordenone nella copia virtualmente completa (più lunga di dieci minuti rispetto all’unica precedentemente conosciuta) ritrovata alla Cineteca di Praga e restaurata dal George Eastman Museum di Rochester, ha avuto una menzione d’onore anche come miglior restauro di cinema muto 2022.

Per quanto riguarda gli accompagnamenti al pianoforte, a stravincere è stata la trascinante performance – che il pubblico del Verdi aveva già premiato con una lunga standing ovation – di John Sweeney per La Dixième symphonie (La decima sinfonia, 1918) di Abel Gance, capace di esaltare al massimo il contenuto artistico e la carica emotiva del film. La musica di Sweeney è risultata la migliore anche per le presentazioni online: il suo accompagnamento di Manolescu (1929) di Victor Tourjansky, con Ivan Mosjoukine e Brigitte Helm, presentato nella sezione del Canone rivisitato, si è aggiudicato la vittoria ex-aequo con Stephen Horne ed Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, che per lo Stummfilmtage di Bonn hanno accompagnato Moral (1928) di Willi Wolff, film fra l’altro presentato a Pordenone nel 2021 nell’ambito della retrospettiva dedicata a Ellen Richter.

Se a vincere come miglior Blu-ray/dvd di cinema muto uscito nel 2022 è il cofanetto targato Kino Lorber Cinema’s First Nasty Women, co-curato da Laura Horak, Maggie Hennefield e Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, risultato del progetto pluriennale dedicato alle “Nasty Women” che il pubblico delle Giornate ben conosce, si è aggiudicato una menzione d’onore Casanova, pubblicato da Flicker Alley e risultato della collaborazione fra le Giornate del Cinema Muto, la Cinémathèque française e Lobster Films. Il film di Volkoff, con Ivan Mosjoukine nei panni di Giacomo Casanova, accompagnato dalla musica composta e diretta da Günter Buchwald ed eseguita dall’Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone aveva chiuso le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2021.

Anche per quanto riguarda le riscoperte, il festival di Pordenone è stato giudicato fondamentale per la retrospettiva dedicata all’attrice americana Norma Talmadge, “il cui nome si legge spesso ma che raramente si ha la possibilità di vedere sullo schermo”. In questo caso la vittoria è condivisa con il programma “In the Eyes of a Silent Star” che il BFI ha dedicato a Londra ad Asta Nielsen.

I risultati completi del sondaggio con i vincitori di tutte le categorie sono consultabili a questo link

L'articolo SILENT LONDON DECRETA ANCORA UNA VOLTA LE GIORNATE DI PORDENONE MIGLIOR FESTIVAL DI CINEMA MUTO DELL’ANNO proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

“Le Giornate del Cinema Muto di Pordenone sono un punto di riferimento fondamentale in materia di conservazione e salvaguardia del patrimonio del cinema muto. Propongono ogni anno una programmazione di film da tutto il mondo, con accompagnamenti musicali dal vivo eseguiti dai migliori musicisti e compositori. Da qualche anno a questa parte, la Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé è orgogliosa di poter offrire al pubblico parigino una selezione di film dal programma delle preziosissime Giornate.”

È quanto scrive la Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé presentando la rassegna curata insieme al direttore delle Giornate del Cinema Muto Jay Weissberg che dal 19 ottobre al 1° novembre 2022 proporrà a Parigi alcuni dei titoli visti alla 41^ edizione del festival, da poco conclusa.

Il posto d’onore è per l’attrice Norma Talmadge, star assoluta nella Hollywood tra gli anni ’10 e ’20, ingiustamente dimenticata e che finalmente, grazie alla collaborazione tra la Library of Congress e Cohen Media, è ora possibile rivedere in diversi film che rendono giustizia al suo talento. Oltre ai corti della Vitagraph del periodo 1912-13 sono stati selezionati tre lungometraggi: The Lady (Una vera signora, 1925) di Frank Borzage, The Sign on the Door (Il segno sulla porta, 1921) di Herbert Brenon e Graustark (La principessa di Graustark, 1925) di Dimitri Buchowetzki.

Quest’ultimo film funge anche da collegamento con l’altra maggiore retrospettiva delle Giornate 2022, Ruritania, regno di fantasia inventato da Anthony Hope nel suo romanzo Il prigioniero di Zenda, teatro di avventure, storie d’amore e lotte di potere. Il programma parigino prevede Hans Kungl. Höghet shinglar (Sua maestà il barbiere, 1928) di Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, Den Sorte Kansler (Il cancelliere nero, 1921) di August Blom e Sui gradini del trono (1912) di Ubaldo Maria del Colle.

Infine, dalla sezione Riscoperte e Restauri, l’Eye Filmmuseum presenta Just Around the Corner (1921) di Frances Marion, uno dei film più apprezzati a Pordenone, restaurato in collaborazione con la Library of Congress, e ci sono anche Profanazione di Eugenio Perego (1924) e Lāčplēsis (L’uccisore di orsi) di Aleksandrs Rusteiķis (1930), che tra storia e leggenda racconta l’epopea dell’indipendenza della Lettonia.

Tutte le info sull’evento QUI

L'articolo LE GIORNATE DEL CINEMA MUTO A PARIGI proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

L’edizione 2022 ha segnato la ripartenza delle Giornate, senza l’obbligo delle restrizioni che le avevano penalizzate nei due anni precedenti: nel 2020 infatti il festival si svolse esclusivamente online e nel 2021 con la capienza del teatro dimezzata. Non essendo ancora fuori completamente dalla pandemia, per permettere la sanificazione della sala, sono aumentati gli intervalli tra le proiezioni e ne ha quindi risentito la quantità dei film in proiezione; volendo guardare il bicchiere mezzo pieno possiamo dire che i nostri ospiti hanno avuto più tempo libero con indubbio beneficio di bar, ristoranti e attività commerciali.
Come è noto il festival si è sempre contraddistinto per l’internazionalità dei partecipanti e quest’anno finalmente molte sono state le presenze provenienti da altri paesi anche se il timore dei viaggi, soprattutto per chi veniva da lontano, è stato ancora un deterrente per molti. Il numero totale degli accreditati è di 700, ci stiamo quindi riavvicinando ai numeri pre-pandemia, di cui il 65% stranieri con la solita prevalenza degli Stati Uniti (105) seguiti da Gran Bretagna (62) e Germania (50). Particolarmente confortante è stata la presenza di appassionati arrivati dall’altra parte del mondo: Australia, Colombia, India nonché da Islanda, Messico, Giappone, Ucraina.
Lunghe file si sono formate fuori dal Teatro Verdi per tutti gli eventi serali, segnale dell’ottima risposta anche da parte del pubblico proveniente da tutta la regione.
«Quest’anno i titoli in programma sono stati 187 – ha dichiarato il direttore delle Giornate Jay Weissberg – ma con varie pause tra una proiezione e l’altra per una maggiore sicurezza. Questo ha favorito la socializzazione dei nostri ospiti, che finalmente sono stati riaccolti nella nostra grande famiglia. Da David Robinson (direttore emerito del festival) in poi, abbiamo sempre considerato le Giornate una grande comunità accogliente: Pordenone è un paradiso, non solo per i film che si proiettano, ma anche per l’atmosfera ed è commovente vedere il pubblico che torna ogni anno, nonostante lo stop della pandemia, per vivere insieme questa magia».
L’internazionalità delle Giornate si è rispecchiata anche nel programma, dove oltre alla massiccia presenza di film americani c’erano importanti restauri e riscoperte di opere di altre nazioni. A cominciare da Nanook Of The North di Robert Flaherty, che fa parte del patrimonio culturale delle popolazioni Inuit del Canada e di cui ricorreva il centenario; e 102 anni fa era uscito anche il film islandese La Storia Della Famiglia Di Borg una produzione danese che utilizza luoghi e attori islandesi e che segna la nascita della produzione cinematografica in quel paese. Grande interesse hanno riscontrato i 3 programmi dei film coloniali olandesi, concentrati più che sull’aspetto etnografico, sul lato propagandistico che esaltava l’ammodernamento che gli olandesi portavano in Indonesia, allora loro colonia. I corti della collezione norvegese Hans Berge e quelli amatoriali ci hanno condotti in giro per il mondo e si sono visti 24 Pathé-Baby del formato 9,5mm. quasi tutti a colori.
Gli eventi speciali di apertura e chiusura hanno avuto l’eco maggiore, anche per quanto riguarda i media, e non poteva essere altrimenti trattandosi di supercult come The Unknown (Lo sconosciuto) dell’accoppiata Tod Browning regista e Lon Chaney protagonista (senza dimenticare la folgorante presenza di Joan Crawford) e The Manxman (L’isola del peccato) ultimo film muto del maestro della suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Molto successo anche per le due retrospettive principali: Norma Talmadge e Ruritania. La prima ha finalmente fatto luce sull’attività di una star assoluta degli anni ‘10 e ‘20 che con la fine del muto era stata dimenticata; con la seconda si è iniziato un ciclo, che continuerà anche l’anno prossimo, su quei film che a partire dal successo del romanzo Il prigioniero di Zenda del 1894 avevano dato vita ad un vero e proprio genere, Ruritania appunto, un mix di esotismo, avventura, storie d’amore, lotte di potere ambientate in un luogo non definito fra la Mitteleuropa e i Balcani, il più delle volte chiamato Ruritania ma anche Silistria o Anciovia. Un’altra sezione molto apprezzata ha reso omaggio ai 90 anni della Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia con la riproposta dei 4 muti presenti nell’edizione del 1932, fra cui il celebre corto di Joris Ivens, Regen (Pioggia), e Tikhi Don (Il Placido Don), tratto dal romanzo di Mikhail Sholokhov, che per la prima volta fa assurgere al ruolo di protagonista gli spazi sterminati del paesaggio russo.
Altri appuntamenti cha hanno contraddistinto il festival sono stati il documentario di Jean Epstein sull’eruzione dell’Etna del 1923, La Montagne Infidèle, che era considerato perduto e trovato dalla Cineteca di Barcellona. Europa di Franciszka e Stefan Themerson, capolavoro polacco dell’avanguardia; La Dixième Symphonie del grande Abel Gance; Just Around The Corner uno delle due prove registica di una grande sceneggiatrice di Hollywood, Frances Marion. E hanno fatto sbellicare dalle risate Stanlio e Ollio, con il primo film doppiato in italiano, Ladroni, una ricostruzione del sonoro accanto al negativo delle versioni spagnola e di quanto rimaneva di quella italiana, più lunga di ben 15 minuti rispetto all’americano The Night Owls.
Altro titolo importante di questa edizione delle Giornate è stato Three Weeks del 1924, che non era mai uscito in Italia e l’unica copia conosciuta era al Gosfilmofond di Mosca. Nel 2020 la Cineteca del Friuli si era offerta di ricostruire digitalmente il film sulla base della sceneggiatura originale appartenente ad una collezione della University of Southern California, e nel 2021 furono mandati in Italia dalla Russia i file DPX 4K del film, che ora finalmente è stato proiettato al festival.

Le Giornate non sono solo cinema, ma anche musica. E soprattutto quest’anno possiamo ben dire grande musica. Se è infatti ormai quasi superfluo sottolineare la qualità dei musicisti che compongono il team ormai collaudato – composto da Frank Bockius, Neil Brand, Günter Buchwald, Philip Carli, Mauro Colombis, Stephen Horne, Maud Nelissen, José María Serralde Ruiz, John Sweeney, Gabriel Thibaudeau, Daan van den Hurk, Andrej Goričar, Louise Hayter, Jeff Moore, Bjarni Frimann e Ben Palmer – bisogna dire che il festival di quest’anno ha presentato delle importanti novità che vanno nella direzione di quella internazionalità e attenzione alle culture del mondo che, come abbiamo visto, sono una della caratteristiche precipue della manifestazione. Il primo riferimento deve andare alla musica che ha accompagnato la proiezione di Nanook. La nuova partitura di Gabriel Thibaudeau si è sapientemente ispirata anche ai suoni della natura artica e ha utilizzato il caratteristico canto di gola delle popolazioni Inuit portando a Pordenone dal Canada le cantanti Lydia Etok e Nina Segalowitz. Un evento musicale di gran fascino cui hanno contribuito il quartetto di flauti dell’Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone e i solisti Alberto Spadotto e Anna Viola. Alla musica spagnola, e a De Falla in particolare, si è ispirato il musicista messicano José María Serralde Ruiz che in questo modo ha voluto mettere in risalto l’ambiente nel quale si svolge la torbida vicenda del film inaugurale The Unknown, quella di un circo spagnolo. Elementi legati alla cultura tradizionale islandese unitamente a tracce di salmi religiosi sono sati materia su cui ha lavorato il musicista Thordur Magnusson per la nuova partitura di La storia della famiglia di Borg.
Un altro evento speciale – anteprima a Sacile e poi nel programma delle Giornate a metà settimana – è stato Up in Mabel’s Room (Nella camera di Mabel), presentato con una nuova partitura musicale di Günter Buchwald, che ha anche diretto la Zerorchestra.
Al musicista britannico Stephen Horne è stata commissionata una nuova partitura eseguita dall’Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone, arricchita per l’occasione di alcuni musicisti specializzati in musica celtica sotto la direzione di Ben Palmer, per The Manxman (L’isola del peccato), l’ultimo film del periodo muto di Alfred Hitchcock. L’evento replica domenica 9 ottobre alle 16.30 sempre al Teatro Verdi di Pordenone.

Novità assoluta della 41^ edizione delle Giornate del Cinema Muto è stato il primo incontro sull’importanza dei costumi nel cinema muto, frutto dell’inventiva di Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costumista di film di grande successo come The Blues Brothers, Indiana Jones e Il principe cerca moglie, per il quale ha ricevuto la candidatura all’Oscar. Lo spunto di quest’anno è stato offerto dai film di Norma Talmadge attraverso i quali la costumista e storica della moda Michelle Tolini Finamore ha analizzato la storia della moda e dei costumi nel cinema delle origini.
Deborah Nadoolman Landis, assieme al marito John, sono stati per la seconda volta, anche ospiti illustri per tutta la durata del festival.

Grazie allo streaming e all’ormai collaudata collaborazione con MyMovies, anche quest’anno il festival è stato seguito da ogni parte del mondo, esattamente da 37 paesi. Al primo posto gli Stati Uniti, seguiti da Gran Bretagna, Italia e Giappone. Il film più visto è stato film The Runaway Princess.

Le Giornate avranno anche quest’anno, per la quinta volta, uno spin-off a Parigi alla Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé a fine ottobre. The Unknown, con la partitura composta da José María Serralde Ruiz, verrà proposta a vari festival internazionali.

Per il 2023, il festival si svolgerà dal 7 al 14 ottobre. Proseguirà la retrospettiva dedicata alla Ruritania, con più commedie, e anche gli incontri sull’importanza dei costumi nel cinema muto.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto sono realizzate grazie al sostegno della Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, del Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, del Comune di Pordenone, della Camera di Commercio Pordenone-Udine e della Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo MISSIONE COMPIUTA: LA 41a EDIZIONE DELLE GIORNATE HA RIPORTATO A PORDENONE OSPITI DA TUTTO IL MONDO proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

Every year, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival assigns an international prize, the Jean Mitry Award, to individuals and institutions who have distinguished themselves in the work of recovering and enhancing film heritage. Established by the Province of Pordenone in 1986, the award has now reached its 37th edition and has been supported since 2017 by the Fondazione Friuli. The award will be delivered by the Fondazione’s vice-president Bruno Malattia on Friday, October 7th at 9PM at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone during the 41st edition of the festival. This year’s winners are Eva Orbanz and Stella Dagna.

Born in Berlin in 1942, Eva Orbanz started working at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) in 1966, developing an intensive interest in film production and film history. She trained as a film archivist at the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique (Bruxelles), and at the British Film Institute (London). From 1973 to 2007, she worked at the Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin – Museum für Film und Fernsehen in various positions until her appointment as Curator for the Film Department in 1982, and as Senior Curator for Special Projects since 2008.
Over the years, she collaborated on several events, projects, and publications for the Deutsche Kinemathek and the Goethe Institute. She also participated as jury member for international film festivals in Nyon (Switzerland), Chicago (USA) and Kalamata (Greece). Within FIAF (Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film), she was elected to the executive committee, of which she was a member from 1981 to 1989, then secretary general (1989 to 1995), up to President (2003 to 2009).
She has been Honorary Member of FIAF since 2009 and of the Chinese Film Archive in Beijing since 2012.

Stella Dagna is an archivist and restorer. After gaining her degree in philosophy and a PhD in the History of Visual and Performing Arts, she worked for fifteen years at the Cineteca of the National Cinema Museum in Turin, devoting herself in particular to the silent film collection. During her archival career, she co-curated over one hundred preservations and restorations, mostly in the fascinating and sometimes challenging area of Italian silent film production.
Her past projects include the restoration and dissemination of the surviving films of the Maciste series played by Bartolomeo Pagano, the restoration of the different silent versions of Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, the reconstruction of Camillo Negro’s anthology of neuropathological films (1908-1918), and the project for recovering unidentified fragments in the Turin Museum’s nitrate collection.
Pursuing the professional role of archivist-researcher, Stella Dagna has paid close attention to the politics of collaboration with scholars and cinephiles, promoting transparency in the culture of archives. She has worked with the University of Turin since 2009, and in 2010 she held an internship at the Cineco laboratory in Amsterdam for professional specialization in the audiovisual archives sector, coordinated by the Haghefilm Foundation.
Her teaching and research activity is centred on issues related to archive and restoration ethics, and she is an advocate for the awareness of Italian silent cinema. In recent years, her special focus has been on the question of film archives in the era of digital transition.
Among her publications in this field are Perché restaurare i film? (ETS, 2014) and Ma l’amor mio non muore (Mimesis, 2014).

L'articolo THE 2022 JEAN MITRY AWARD GOES TO EVA ORBANZ AND STELLA DAGNA proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

The Ruritania retrospective will continue next year with a second part, but bids goodbye for this edition with a brace of comedies: Rupert of Hee Haw, with a freewheeling Stan Laurel poking fun at the romanticism of the genre. In the afternoon another short, Long Fliv the King, features a formidable trio of comedians, Charley Chase, Max Davidson, and Oliver Hardy.

According to Hitchcock the silent film was the purest form of cinema. He said this to François Truffaut, in the famous interview book published in 1966. In the same text, when asked about THE MANXMAN, his last silent, the director dismissed it in a few words, saying it was not a Hitchcock picture. We can judge for ourselves when The Manxman is shown as the Giornate’s closing special event on the evening of Saturday 8 October at 21.00 in the Teatro Verdi (repeated the following day, Sunday 9 October, at 16.30 in the Teatro Verdi). In Hitchcock’s extraordinary career two films emphasized their original authors in the opening credits, Sir Hall Caine for The Manxman (1929) and Daphne Du Maurier for Rebecca (1940), which clearly reflect a situation that hampered his preferred strategy of free adaptation. Nevertheless, both films can now be appreciated as landmarks in his career. Only in recent years has critical attention been turned to The Manxman. The fact that Hitchcock did not recognize it as entirely his is likely due to external conditions, that he did not have complete control. Rebecca, Hitchcock’s first American film, was higher in his estimation in later years, undeniably influenced by the film’s great success (it won two Oscars, for Best Film and Cinematography), but it still wasn’t his film; producer David O. Selznick was known for his incessant detailed memos, and the best-selling novel was too well known to be altered. As in all of Hitchcock’s films, at the centre of The Manxman is a woman, among the most moving in his oeuvre, brought to life by the Czech actress Anny Ondra, whom the director also cast in his next project, Blackmail, his first sound film. Ondra was the first “Hitchcock Blonde” in his gallery of leading ladies. Re-evaluating The Manxman also means paying homage to screenwriter Eliot Stannard, who worked with Hitchcock throughout the silent period, and sadly died poor and forgotten. A new score for The Manxman by Stephen Horne will be performed by the Orchestra San Marco of Pordenone, conducted by Ben Palmer.
The Ruritania retrospective waves farewell this year (there will be a return engagement in 2023), with Rupert of Hee Haw (1924), directed by Percy Pembroke. A brilliant parody of the works of Anthony Hope, author of The Prisoner of Zenda, it unleashes Stan Laurel on this romantic genre.  Rupert of Hee Haw precedes the Hitchcock film; it can be said that this combination represents an excellent culmination of a week of silent cinema.
Laughter will also be heard in the afternoon, at 17.00, with a short by Leo McCarey, Long Fliv the King (1926), featuring a formidable trio of comedians, Charley Chase, Max Davidson, and Oliver Hardy; while the The Runaway Princess (1929) directed by Anthony Asquith, an English-German co-production inspired by a novel by Elizabeth von Armin, starring Mady Christians, presents a perfect synthesis of Ruritanian themes and characters in comic mode.

The homage “Venice 90” at 14.00 presents Tikhi Don (The Quiet Don / And Quiet Flows the Don, 1931), the first screen adaptation of one of the most famous novels of Russian literature, whose author, Mikhail Sholokhov, was awarded the Nobel Prize in the 1960s. For the first time in Soviet cinema the landscape became an active character; and the two directors, Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Ivan Pravov, employed many talented young actors who would appear in classic Soviet films, and also involved the peasants of the Cossack farm where the film was shot in the production, as both performers and local consultants. The Association of Workers of Revolutionary Cinematography denounced the film’s ideology as petit-bourgeois, and expelled its makers. Only the intervention of Sholokhov made the film’s release possible, after a six-month ban.
On our last day, a special mention for the Italian film Profanazione (1924-1926) by Eugenio Perego, active with Lombardo Film of Naples, which features the company’s principal star, Leda Gys, the mother of Goffredo Lombardo, founder and the head of Titanus Film for many decades. The careers of both Perego and Leda Gys were in the silent period. The print was digitized by the Cineteca del Friuli of Gemona, and the screening is scheduled for Saturday 8 October at 10.30 at Cinemazero, as the Teatro Verdi, home of the festival’s screenings, will be occupied with rehearsals by the Orchestra San Marco for The Manxman.

The online festival on MYmovies presents its last two programmes, at 17.00 [Japan i Fest] and Norma Talmadge in The Lady; and at 21.00 the comedy Up in Mabel’s Room, starring Marie Prevost.

The Giornate del Cinema Muto festival is realized thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, the Comune di Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, and the Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo THE GIORNATE CLOSES SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER WITH THE MANXMAN proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

The festival spotlight on Friday 7 October is on the Ruritania retrospective, which has already screened many films, and will be continued in next year’s edition of the Giornate. Today’s programme intertwines fiction and historical documents. Our main fiction feature is Three Weeks (1924), directed by Alan Crosland. The film was never released in Italy, and the only known existing copy, with English flash titles, was at Gosfilmofond in Moscow. In 2020 the Cineteca del Friuli offered to reconstruct the film based on an original continuity script at the M-G-M collection at the University of Southern California, and in the summer of 2021 4K DPX files were sent to Italy from Russia. The film was finally ready in time for this year’s festival. Scandal swirled around the property from the start, beginning with the publication of Elinor Glyn’s erotic romantic novel in 1907, and it continued when this film version hit cinema screens in 1924. Branded obscene in conservative circles for its open depiction of female sexual desire, the novel was translated into many languages, including Italian, enjoying great success everywhere. The protagonist of Three Weeks is the queen of a Balkan country who is dissatisfied with her marriage, and seeks and conummates a relationship with a younger man. Yesterday and today, passion and a power struggle are always a winning combination. At the time of the film’s release memories of the assassination of King Aleksandar I of Serbia and his consort, Queen Draga, were still vivid, and can be discerned in the script’s treatment of the commonly held view of Slavic nature as passionate and violent. The film of Three Weeks features scenes of bloody hordes of rioters attacking the palace of the debauched king, which are not in the novel. Contrary to what we see on screen, there was also no love between its stars, Aileen Pringle (the Queen) and Conrad Nagel (her lover Paul Verdayne). Their acting nevertheless evokes the hothouse atmosphere of torrid passion, but it is above all the photography and the exceptional set design by Cedric Gibbons that still arouse unanimous admiration today.
A completely different Ruritania is seen in the supporting short, the comedy His Royal Slyness (1920), directed by Hal Roach and starring Harold Lloyd, always a guarantee of quality. The subjects of these operetta kingdoms provided ample opportunity for satire, and here it is applied with a free hand. Variety’s review called the film “by far the best comedy that has ever been put out with Lloyd, and it evoked genuine laughter, the kind that comes from within and is unrestrained”.

The Norma Talmadge retrospective’s programme at 10.45 features Within the Law (1923) by Frank Lloyd, in which the actress plays two different roles, not of two different people, but a woman whose personality changes when she is unjustly imprisoned, and is radically transformed by the experience. The film’s screenwriter is Frances Marion, the prolific author of around a hundred screenplays, who won Oscars in 1930 and 1932. She was also a war correspondent, writer, and director. The programme on Friday 7 October, at 14.00 in the Teatro Verdi, pays tribute to Marion with the screening of the second of the two films that she directed, Just Around the Corner (1921). The film tells of the efforts of a poor, sick widow who struggles to ensure that her two children have an honest life; the story is treated conventionally and moralistically, which is a bit strange considering that in private life the director, and Fannie Hurst, the author of the original story, were both well known as fierce feminists.
Don’t forget the Canon Revisited section, which at 16.30 features Manolescu (1929) by Viktor Tourjansky, the first big production that this director from Ukraine made in Germany, after having been Gance’s assistant director on Napoléon. Inspired by the story of a Romanian fraudster that was much covered in the Berlin press at the turn of the last century, the film’s starry cast includes such greats as Ivan Mosjoukine, Brigitte Helm, Heinrich George, and Dita Parlo, with a celebrated director of photography, Carl Hoffmann, who worked on big Ufa productions by Lang and Murnau.

To open the evening, at 21.00 in the Teatro Verdi, is the ceremony presenting the Giornate’s prestigious accolade, the Jean Mitry Award, which since 1986 has been given to personalities and institutions that have distinguished themselves in the recovery and valorization of the heritage of silent cinema.
The online festival programme continues on MYmovies at 21.00, with Manolescu (1929), directed by Viktor Tourjansky, starring Ivan Mosjoukine and Brigitte Helm.

The Giornate del Cinema Muto festival is realized thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, the Comune di Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, and the Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo MELODRAMAS AND PARODIES OF RURITANIA proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

“Ladroni, the first film by Stanlio and Olio with Italian dialogue”. This is how the Rivista Quindicinale degli Spettacoli, in December 1930, announced the release of the first film in Italian by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the virtuosos of laughter. The pair were already famous internationally during the silent era, and now they faced the challenge of sound, a momentous change to which not all stars were able to adapt. Producer-director Hal Roach, who originally had the ingenious idea of pairing the two comedians, once again confirmed his intuition, deciding to produce multiple-language versions of their films for the international market. Besides acting in the original English versions, the stars had to “dub” themselves by speaking in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. This lasted a few years, until the technique of dubbing was perfected and taken over by the very talented Italian voice actors, the most famous of whom was Alberto Sordi, who for several years was the voice of Oliver Hardy. Some of the humour actually originates in the pair’s funny mispronunciation of Italian, when Laurel and Hardy were forced into a linguistic “tour de farce”; the effect was hilarious, and distributors had no doubt that from then on all Italian voice actors should stick to that model. Of the pair’s original films shot in Italian there is no trace today, but at the Giornate on Thursday 6 October, at 21.00 in the Teatro Verdi will be shown, thanks to the Project “S.O.S. Laurel & Hardy”, a version of Night Owls (directed by James Parrott, written by Leo McCarey) derived via comparison with the Spanish version, Ladrones (1930), with what remained of the negative of the same film released in Italy under the title Ladroni. The result is a short running 15 minutes longer than the film released in America, in which you will be able to hear, albeit very briefly, the voice of Oliver Hardy in a single line delivered in a mixture of Spanish and Italian. Laurel and Hardy’s famous “Cuckoo” theme appears for the first time over the credits of Ladroni, a musical motif inextricably linked with Stan and Ollie’s films.
Thursday evening’s programme on 6 October also includes the entertaining comedy Up in Mabel’s Room (1926), directed by E. Mason Hopper, featuring a sparkling performance by Marie Prevost. The Canadian-born actress plays a fashionable young lady who wants to win back at all costs the husband from whom she is divorced. At the root of it all is the purchase of a sexy chemise that generates sometimes mischievous misunderstandings, like the striptease staged by Mabel, concealed by a screen, while her ex-husband is being entertained by an admirer. The film was a big hit, inspiring a brand of lingerie launched with a big publicity campaign, filling American shops with stand-up cut-outs of Mabel wearing the chemise. The new musical score is composed by Günter Buchwald, conducting the Zerorchestra.
Speaking of divas, Thursday’s programme also includes more films from our Norma Talmadge retrospective (at 9.00 in the Teatro Verdi), which aims to remedy the undeserved oblivion of this actress for decades and bring her back into the spotlight.
Today’s offerings include Herbert Brenon’s The Sign on the Door (1921), a melodrama based on a Broadway success, and an 11-minute fragment of an adaptation of Dumas’ immortal Camille, brought to the screen in 1927 by Fred Niblo, with Norma Talmadge in the role of Marguerite Gautier, from the Library of Congress.
Also unfortunately incomplete, because it is all that remains of a key Ruritania film of great interest, is Graustark (1925), featuring Norma Talmadge (at 14.00, also in the Teatro Verdi). If in British films the hero who solves the entangled situations of the folkloric and quarrelsome Balkan states, identifiable behind the imaginary country of Ruritania, is always a gentleman, the approach in Graustark is more democratic, because the protagonist is an ordinary person. This allowed the audience to identify with the story and even imagine that the dream of marrying a nobleman or a royal could come true. Norma Talmadge is particularly convincing, sensitively directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, who deftly exploits the beautiful settings, including a magnificent Art Deco garden. Look for a very young Joan Crawford in a small role, when she was still called Lucille LeSueur.

This year the Giornate is inaugurating a new annual lecture series dedicated to “Character, Costume Design, and Silent Cinema”. The first lecture, on Thursday 6 October at 17.15 in the Teatro Verdi, will be given by fashion historian Michelle Tolini Finamore, introduced by costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis, noted for The Blues Brothers and Indiana Jones. The cue for this year’s lecture is the films of Norma Talmadge, through which the history of fashion and costumes in silent cinema will be analyzed.

The online festival continues on MYmovies at 21.00, with a Ruritania film from Britain, The Runaway Princess (1929), by Anthony Asquith, starring Mady Christians.

The Giornate del Cinema Muto festival is realized thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, the Comune di Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, and the Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo LADRONI, THE FIRST LAUREL & HARDY FILM WITH ITALIAN DIALOGUE proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

A tour of the world in one day. The Giornate del Cinema Muto presents a kaleidoscope of places and images shot in many countries and continents. The most important rendezvous of the day for Wednesday 5 October, the evening show at 21.00 in the Teatro Verdi, takes us to Iceland, with Saga Borgarettarinnar (The Saga of the Family of Borg, aka Sons of the Soil, 1920) by Gunnar Sommerfeldt. The epic story of a family over a period of 20 years is a Danish megaproduction fittingly lasting almost 3 hours, shot entirely in Iceland using a Danish and Icelandic cast. Marking the beginning of film production in Iceland, it is based upon the debut novel of Gunnar Gunnarsson (who was later nominated several times for the Nobel Prize); the author also has a small role in the film. Greeted lukewarmly at its premiere in Copenhagen, The Saga of the Family of Borg was an immediate triumph in Iceland, where it is still shown in cinemas and on television. To celebrate the film’s centenary, the Icelandic National Archive, the Gunnar Gunnarsson Institute, and the Cultural Association Akureyri have curated a digital reconstruction in high definition for the Giornate. The composition of a new musical score was a big challenge for Thordur Magnússon, who has chosen to employ many diverse styles, from post-Romantic to Baroque, to Icelandic folk music and Lutheran psalms. The score was originally intended for a full orchestra, but taking into account that in the period that the film was released in Iceland full orchestras were rarely used, in the end for the Giornate event the composer opted for a core 9 elements from the Orchestra San Marco of Pordenone.

In the section on amateur cinema, “The IAC World Tour”, at 9.00, the short To Egypt and Back with Imperial Airways (1931-1932) naturally takes us to Egypt. The film is the work of Ruth Stuart, an English prodigy who shot this footage when she was only 16, travelling alone, and on a trip purportedly unknown by her parents. In 1933 the film won various international competitions for amateur filmmaking, and throughout the 1930s Stuart’s productions continued to win important awards.
In the section “Venice 90”, at 14.00, we go to the mountains of Poland for Biały Ślad (The White Trail, 1932), which represented Poland at the first Venice Film Festival (Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica). It was directed by Adam Krzeptowski, a skiier and journalist in the 1920s who opened a photographic studio and soon dedicated himself to the making of documentaries exalting the beauties of the Tatra Mountains and the region around Zakopane. The White Trail is his most ambitious work, and it took him two years to make, an exceptionally long time by the standards of the Polish film industry. The plot hinges on a love story, but this is not the strong point of the film, as the actors were not professionals but sports friends of Krzeptowski. The quality of the film is due to the splendid photography of the beauty of the mountain landscapes, and the novelty of the daring shooting of winter sports – the footage was appreciated everywhere, and also used in other films.
Norma Talmadge is present once again in the programme of Wednesday 5 October at 11.30 with the screening of Yes or No (1920), yet another example of the actress performing a dual role, this time playing both a rich woman and a poor one. The film allows Talmadge to show off various clothes that were the height of fashion. Talmadge and her clothes will be the subject of a lecture on Thursday 6 October by fashion historian Michelle Tolini Finamore, introduced by costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis.

Also on Wednesday 5 October, at the Ridotto of the Teatro Verdi at 17.00, the annual Jonathan Dennis Memorial Lecture, dedicated to the memory of the founder of the New Zealand film archive, will be given by Stella Dagna, on the theme The Ethics of Restoration: Secrets and Lies.

A complete session of the Collegium, at 13.00 in the Ridotto of the Teatro Verdi, is devoted to Norma Talmadge, a diva now being rediscovered.

Also in the Ridotto of the Teatro Verdi, at 16.00, the theme of today’s FilmFair presentations by authors is slapstick comedy, with a book by comedy historian Steve Massa that unearths actors and directors of classic American slapstick, as well as a brand-new biography by James Curtis of the iconic Buster Keaton, master of the visual gag.

The online festival programme, on MYmovies, at 21.00 presents Kralj Aleksander na Bledu (King Alexander’s Visit to Bled, 1922) by Veličan Bešter and Po Horách, Po Dolách (Over Mountains, Over Valleys, 1930) by Karel Plicka.

The Giornate del Cinema Muto festival is realized thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, the Comune di Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, and the Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo THE SAGA OF THE FAMILY OF BORG MARKED THE START OF FILM PRODUCTION IN ICELAND proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

NORMA TALMADGE, THE LADY. TUESDAY 4 OCTOBER CONTINUES THE RETROSPECTIVE DEVOTED TO THE AMERICAN STAR

The Ruritania retrospective presents two historic documentaries from 1912 featuring King Nicolas of Montenegro, one from Italy by Luca Comerio, Dalla Villa Reale di Rjeka (Montenegro), the other from France by Gaumont, Le Roi Nicolas de Monténégro.

The Italian title of Frank Borzage’s film The Lady (1925), being shown Tuesday 4 October, at 21.00 at the Teatro Verdi, is “Una vera signora”, which translates as “A Real Lady”, which perfectly describes Norma Talmadge, the subject of a major retrospective of this year’s Giornate. In the 1910s and 1920s she was a star assoluta, an actress praised for her versatility and elegance. Her acting style was subtle, avoiding overly accentuated gestures; instead, the expressiveness and mobility of her face allowed her to play different roles even within the same film, a talent which was much praised. Very popular in her time, her fame was totally eclipsed in the ensuing decades, probably because her films became unavailable. This situation is now being remedied, thanks to the fact that in the late 20th century a collection of films produced by Joseph M. Schenck, Talmadge’s producer and also her husband, were acquired by the Library of Congress, and a more systematic study of her work has begun. The Lady, like many of Talmadge’s films, was based on a successful Broadway stage play. It represents an exception in her career, however, because it did not meet with the usual popular success. In this instance, some critics were even fierce, and her fans were bewildered to see their favorite in the role of an old woman, telling the tragic story of her past to a sympathetic customer at her bar. We learn she is a former music hall singer, seduced and abandoned, forced to turn her baby over to the care of others, and she spends the rest of her life searching for her son. It was a plot that was too melodramatic and even a bit rough for respectable audiences, especially those in the heartland of America, because it was not difficult to guess her real occupation.
The day starts at 9.00, with a programme featuring two more Norma Talmadge films: the first is a short from 1914, during her period at Vitagraph; the second is a 1919 feature directed by Sidney A. Franklin,  The Heart of Wetona, in which she plays a Native American.
Two films from the Ruritania retrospective open the afternoon programme at 14.30. Both are historic documentaries from 1912 featuring King Nicolas of Montenegro, one Italian, by Luca Comerio, Dalla Villa Reale di Rjeka (Montenegro), the other French, by Gaumont, Le Roi Nicolas de Monténégro. Nicknamed “the father-in-law of Europe”, having married 5 of his 9 daughters into royal families (Elena became the Queen of Italy), Nicolas was the first King of Montenegro, a country which corresponds perfectly to the mythical Ruritania, for the inaccessibility of its territory and the bellicose character of its inhabitants. Its image was very picturesque, including that of King Nicholas himself, who was always portrayed in national costume and armed.
A short film from the Slovenian Archive, Kralj Aleksander na Bledu (The Visit of King Alexander to Bled, 1928), by Veličan Bešter, a pioneering cameraman of Slovenian cinema, documents the visit of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and his wife Queen Maria to the tourist locale of Lake Bled. We see panoramas of the lake and Seebach Castle (demolished in 1939 and later replaced by Villa Bled, the residence of Marshal Tito), and the arrival of the royal couple.
Completing the evening’s Ruritania programme is Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar (His Majesty the Barber, 1928), the last in a series of seven German-Swedish co-productions by the Isepa company at the end of the 1920s, which aimed to internationalize the Swedish film industry.
From the section “Rediscoveries and Restorations”, at 11.15, alongside a selection of Pathé-Baby 9.5mm shorts, is a feature that deserves to be singled out, Lāčplēsis (The Bear Slayer, 1930), inspired by an old Latvian legend, whose protagonist is a hero of extraordinary strength who comes to the defense of his people. Its director Aleksandrs Rusteiķis is considered one of the founders of Latvian cinema, and in this film he masterfully blends historical fact and legend.
An homage to Italian silent cinema, critical and passionate, lyrical and visionary at the same time, is a French-Italian production, Italia. Il fuoco, la cenere (2021), by Céline Gailleurd and Olivier Bohler, narrated by Isabella Rossellini, showing at 17.00 in the Teatro Verdi.

Tuesday 4 October at 13.00 is the second session of the Collegium that is also open to the public: its themes will be the beginnings of the cinema in Switzerland and the centenary of Pathé-Baby 9.5mm, the first format for home and amateur use.
Also on Tuesday, at 16.00 in the Ridotto of the Teatro Verdi, are more FilmFair book presentations by authors: L’oro di Atlantide. Il cinema muto italiano e le arti (Kaplan), edited by Céline Gailleurd, and Sguardi privati. Teorie e prassi del cinema amatoriale (Meltemi), with Paolo Caneppele.

The online festival programme, on MYmovies, at 21.00 presents two Ruritania films, Rupert of Hee Haw (1924), a comedy short by Percy Pembroke starring Stan Laurel, and the feature Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar (His Majesty the Barber, 1928) by Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius.

The Giornate del Cinema Muto festival is realized thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema, the Comune di Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, and the Fondazione Friuli.

L'articolo NORMA TALMADGE, THE LADY proviene da Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.