Italy – The Realm of Silence

Pordenone from afar (2025, Day 6)

Today we head back to Italy, this time for a contemporary drama. Brace yourselves – this one is a stunner…

L’Ombra (1923; It.; Mario Almirante). The painter Gerardo Trégner is married to the passionate, sporty Berta. Elena Préville, Berta’s friend and distant relative, comes to visit. The naïve “little doll” who arrives is soon transformed into a fashionable belle. She also takes painting lessons with Gerardo. Alberto Davis is in love with Elena and seeks Berta’s blessing and help. Elena likes Alberto, but it is not a love match. Nevertheless, her guardian assents and the pair marry. After the wedding, Berta collapses – and, barring a miracle, is feted to remain paralyzed. Berta sinks into despair, refusing even to look at herself in the mirror. Elena returns to offer her support, and Berta grows suspicious when Gerardo spends nights away from home – preparing paintings for a major expedition. Years pass. Gerardo has become famous, but Berta remains at home – living solely for her love of her husband. One day, Elena visits and announces that she is getting divorced. Both women harbour secrets: Berta has regained the use of her limbs, while Elena has had a child with Gerardo. Gerardo completes a portrait of his son, but Berta – now recovered enough to walk – visits his studio and wonders who the portrait depicts. Gerardo returns and finds Berta recovered from her paralysis. But she finds piano music and flowers, and realizes that both belong to another woman. The pair argue, and Berta discovers that the child is Gerardo’s son – and that Elena is the mother. Berta flees to a church, where she begs God to give her back her paralysis, which would be easier to bear than the knowledge of Gerardo’s infidelity. She prepares to leave for a long treatment in Vichy. Gerardo attempts a reconciliation, but Berta keeps imagining his child. In the meantime, Berta’s godfather Michele suspects that Elena is secretly seeing Alberto again. Berta confronts Elena, accusing her of cowardice and treachery. She orders her to leave, and takes possession of the child – and Gerardo. FINE.

What a superb film this is: a stirring, grand melodrama, wonderfully realized. It unfolds through a pleasing blend of long, slow scenes and sudden, startling transitions. Secrets are well hidden in this structure, allowing full space and time for the grand scenes of drama to unfold. Berta’s paralysis, her miraculous recovery, her discovery of Gerardo’s secret, her confrontation with Elena – these are given an often surprising amount of screen time, and are remarkably effective and affecting. The whole thing moves like an opera, complete with visual leitmotivs and repeated metaphors. I love how up-front L’Ombra is about its central image. When she is paralyzed, Berta tells Gerardo that she is “but a SHADOW in your life… a SHADOW full of sadness under the sun of your glorious future… / But in your heart, you see, my place must remain untouched, waiting for me to take it back when this SHADOW lights up again…”. I do love it when a character cites the name of the film, especially when that title draws our attention to it with upper case text! But the dialogue is also as grand and slow as the film. Its long scenes allow conversations – especially the confrontations – to play out in full without either occupying too much of a scene. Time and again, I was impressed by how well everything plays.

I was also utterly spellbound by how good this film looks. The photography is sumptuous, showing off the wonderfully detailed interior sets and the stunning exterior locations. The combination of tinting and toning makes the film feel almost stereoscopic. Those exteriors that show off walls of foliage, or the great vistas across the valley, are eye-poppingly beautiful to look at.

L’Ombra was restored in 2006 by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique. (I note in passing how informative the restoration credits are at the start. As they state, this film was originally 1955m long, and this restoration is 1844m.) The copy used from the collection of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique reminded me, in its colours and richness, of this same institution’s restoration of Abel Gance’s Mater Dolorosa (1917). I have praised that film elsewhere for its photography and lighting, and L’Ombra feels very similar both in content and style. There is the same focus on infidelity and parenthood, the martyring of the central female protagonist, and the superbly rich, dark, carefully tinted/tone aesthetic of the film. L’Ombra gave me the same thrill, only there was something pleasingly operatic about it – a sense of grandeur that went further than Mater Dolorosa.

And it’s not just the overall feel and tone of L’Ombra that pleases. There are so many great details that tie it all together. Look how the film observes the flowers that Gerardo gives to Berta when she is first paralyzed, then the later moment when we see the empty vase – and then the moment when Berta finds a vase full of flowers in Gerardo’s studio. Or the use of the veil over the sleeping child, the way Gerardo places it gently over him, which serves as a wonderful surprise reveal for Berta. Just by itself, it’s an astonishing image. (Talking of Gance again, it reminded me of the sublime reveal of Angèle in J’accuse! (1919), when his mother suddenly draws back her cloak to reveal her unknown burden.) But the unveiling – literal and figurative – becomes a moment both delicate and devastating. Finally, there is the moment when Berta goes to the window after seeing off Elena. There is a shot of the sky, clouds unfurling with hallucinatory speed before the sun. Then we see the sunlight pour into the studio, over the reunited couple and their adopted child. The titular “shadow” is passed. It’s a gloriously literal moment of symbolic enlightenment, flooding the scene with warmth.

Of course, as I observed earlier this week, a film can have a meaty melodramatic plot and look sumptuous without having any emotional impact. L’Ombra does have emotional impact, and it’s the result of a great combination of its rich mise-en-scène and its central performances. Italia Almirante-Manzini is superb as Berta, carrying every moment with great conviction – and maintaining great intensity across those long, grand scenes of emotional turmoil. She makes every nuance of feeling clear without lapsing into eye-bulging hysteria. There is a grand sense of pace and rhythm that makes each scene like an operatic set piece, arias turning into duos or trios.

As Gerardo, Alberto Collo is less obviously impressive – but his character is quite deliberately the least interesting in the film. He is weak-willed, unable to act or speak honestly. The drama is absolutely centred on Berta, so Gerardo’s lesser presence on screen works. Indeed, he is also overshadowed by the wonderful performance of Liliana Ardea as Elena. The naïve girl at the start of the film exists in the shadow of Berta. Her naivety is seen in her wide-eyed embarrassment, and in her girlish delight in letting Berta guide her into society (and into marriage), and clothe her in fashionable attire. But Elena’s mannerisms soon become self-conscious. She realizes that she can charm, and this extends to deception: she casts a charm over Berta, lying to her face. (That turn of the head and glance away is meant for us to see: it’s a hint of girlishness that has assumed adult cunning.) By the end of the film, we see both her pride and her lack of maturity. Her anxious tilts of the head and darting glances remind us of the naïve figure at the start of the film, but here she’s being found out: there is nowhere to hide from Berta.

Within this gloriously melodramatic world, there is a much-needed touch of humour provided by the ironic elder figure, Michele. He’s a superb character, played with great charm and wit by Vittorio Pieri. His little nods and winks, his expressive gestures with his pipe, and – most of all – his ironic comments are wonderful. But he also gets one of the most touching moments in the film, when he realizes how Berta has been betrayed. His reaction appears to be comic, but he suddenly realizes that he is crying. He scoops a tear on his fingertip to examine it. It’s such a brilliant little moment. When the source of ironic detachment in the film starts to cry, you realize the depth of feeling in this world, and you sense the history between these old friends.

For this presentation of L’Ombra, piano music was provided by Michele Catania. His score is sumptuous, full-blooded, swoonily romantic. It captured the mood and pace of the film, following each emotional beat with great skill – spanning and typing together even the longest of melodramatic scenes. Of many moments that pleased me, I single out the scene when Berta recounts her miraculous recovery to the doctor, and the moment when she raises her arm for the first time – high enough for it to slowly and surreally appear within the frame of the mirror. The score makes this scene rapturously pleasing. So too for Berta’s first attempt to raise herself on her legs. Musical exertion matches Berta’s physical and moral exertion. After the thunderous passage of music when she stands, the music slows and quietens when she sits. It’s not just capturing the tempo of the action or its sense of movement, but the emotional sense of the scene: it’s filled with tenderness, a kind of warm glow in the satisfaction of the miracle taking place. What might easily fall headlong into bathetic parody becomes supremely pleasing and moving.

In sum, this was the best film I’ve seen so far at this year’s online Pordenone: a great melodrama, beautifully shot, superbly restored and presented. Bravo.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2025, Day 5)

It’s another packed day of material from Pordenone: we get a short and no less than two features. While not quite as lengthy a programme as Day 2, it’s another full schedule for the eyes. We begin in Italy before heading to Hollywood’s high seas…

Colonia Alpina (1924-29; It.; Emilio Gallo). Our short film is a series of views of a school trip to the mountains. The opening title contains an excusatory note from the filmmaker, Emilio Gallo, apologizing for the poor quality of the material. But despite the claim of being an “amateur” production, there is much here to admire. As ever, I love this kind of fleeting glimpse into the world of the past…

A troupe of schoolchildren march along mountain pathways. Their eyes stray towards the camera as they ascend the steps to their lodge. They are served food, still glancing over their shoulders at us. They half-march, half-tumble down a slope. Their eyes catch ours. A boy salutes, and vanishes. Exercises beneath the trees and a burnished sky. The tinting – pale amber, pale green, pale pink – makes each scene glow with warmth, with the ghost of sunlight and foliage. The children scamper and laugh, innocent of their ancientness. They raise their arms in fascist salute. They are long dead, now, and they cannot imagine why we are troubled.

Il siluramento dell’Oceania (1917; It.; Augusto Genina). The Pacific. Warships at sea. Onboard the “Titan”, the Count and Countess de Martinval, and Baron Cocasson, who tries to flirt with the countess – little suspecting that both she and the count are criminals. Meanwhile, onboard the nearby “Oceania”, Captain Soranzi is asked to the bedside of the dying Marquis de Roccalta. Roccalta entrusts him with a letter to his daughter, Jacqueline, saying that the family fortune is hidden – and the instructions to find it lie in the hilt of the sword of the “Terrible Knight”. But the “Oceania” is torpedoed. Before the ship sinks, Soranzi messages the “Titan” with the news of the disaster – and the clue to Roccalta’s treasure. The signaller onboard the “Titan” takes the news of the treasure to the Martinvals, who decide to pursue the fortune. At Castle Roccalta, the widowed Marquise (who does not yet know that she is widowed) is heavily in debt. Her daughter Jacqueline is engaged to Henri de Ferval, and lives in ignorance of her impending destitution. The creditor Isaac is already taking inventories of the family jewels to take in lieu of payment. When the loss of the castle occurs, de Ferval abandons Jacqueline and the family must move out. Baron Cocasson exploits the situation, paying Isaac for ownership of the castle. While the Cocassons search for the treasure in the chateau, the impoverished Marquise dies – entrusting Jacqueline to the care of their loyal butler, Fidèle, with the desire that they should go to America. Meanwhile, news reaches Cocasson that Soranzi has miraculously survived the sinking and is now on his way to contact Jacqueline. When Soranzi arrives, the countess pretends to be Jacquline and receives the letter from her late father. While the villains search for the treasure, Soranzi travels to America and is feted at a soiree at which “Miss Dolly” performs. “Dolly” is none other than Jacqueline, who has come to America in search of her father – not knowing his fate aboard the “Oceania”. But the Martinvals are also now in America, searching for Jacqueline, who unknowingly holds the final clue to the treasure in her necklace pendant. When Soranzi realizes their deception, a chase ensues. The various parties head back to Castle Roccalta. The villains find the treasure, so another chase ensues. Eventually, Fidèle captures the villains in the mountains, allowing Soranzi to marry Jacqueline – and secure the treasure for their future. FINE.

As you can tell from the above synopsis, this is a madly diverting film, packed with madly zigzagging twists and turns. The restoration credits do not make clear the original length of this production, and the copy presented here is a French edition with some missing scenes explained by text. It feels like a much longer serial film has been condensed into 70 minutes. That said, the whole thing is extraordinarily entertaining – full of absurd twists and turns, sudden relocations, inexplicable plot devices, and characters that appear and disappear. Though I was never once moved, I was always engaged. Il siluramento dell’Oceania has all the pleasures of a serial – dastardly villains, killings, death by grief, hidden treasure, kidnapping, false identities, umpteen chases on planes/trains/automobiles – all delivered with great aplomb. It’s incredibly silly, but huge fun.

Plus, it looks absolutely gorgeous. The tinted and toned print preserved by the CNC is superb quality. The location shooting around Italy is superb. I love the sharpness of the highlights, the glow of the colours, the richness of the blacks. We get to see a wide variety of locations, from the high seas to the snowcapped mountains, and there are glimpses of gorgeous castles and dusty roads, as well as all forms of transport: ocean liners, trains, cars, planes, and bicycles. The characters might be cardboard, but they chase around these fabulous landscapes with marvellous commitment. When everything looks this good, and moves along with such gusto, it simply doesn’t matter how pulpy the story or situations. What a wonderful, mad rush through 1917. (Though I hate to keep picking on it, Day 3’s The White Heather lacks precisely the energy, fun, variety, and silliness that makes Il siluramento dell’Oceania so enjoyable and so rewarding.)

The Blood Ship (1927; US; George B. Seitz). Our second feature takes us aboard “The Golden Bough” in the 1880s, with its cruel captain “Black Yankee” Swope and his daughter Mary, who hates her father’s treatment of his crew. In San Francisco, Swope recruits a fresh crew from the harbour inn, run by “the Swede”. Mary takes the chance to run ashore but bumps straight into the sailor John Shreve. Swope forces his daughter back on board, so John decides to volunteer for the crew – as does the veteran James Newman. Most of the crew have effectively been kidnapped by the Swede, including a reverend and a diverse group of roughs from the inn. Newman confronts Swope, who kidnapped his wife and daughter (Mary) many years ago. Newman has served time for a murder Swope committed, leaving Swope free to raise Mary as his own child. The brutality of Swope and his second, Fritz, leads to the death of a young crewman. Newman is tied up and taunted by Swope, who reveals that he killed Newman’s wife. Mary overhears the truth, just as the crew mutiny. Fritz and Swope are killed and dumped overboard, and the ship sails back to San Francisco – where John and Mary can marry. FINIS.

Hmm. Well, as a drama this at least has the merit of brevity. At about 65 minutes, the film has enough plot to keep it going, but no more than that. The characters have little depth or complexity, nor are there any surprises. That said, the entire cast provide very committed performances. As James Newman, Hobart Bosworth has an especially arresting face and piercing eyes. He has tremendous presence as the wronged father and widow, and you absolutely believe in his implacable hatred and sense of mission. When he whips Swope to death, hurls his body overboard, then stretches out his arms in a gesture both of relief and triumph, it’s genuinely thrilling and disturbing. Jacqueline Logan and Richard Arlen (as Mary and John) are a very handsome couple. Both players do their best with these roles, which is enough – but no more than enough.

The cast as a whole are a series of stock, if not stereotype, characters. What’s interesting is how many “types” there are. Swope’s sidekick is called Fritz, the innkeeper is the Swede, and among the cast are Nils (Scandinavian) and the black sailor. Accents are made evident in the dialogue titles, with the latter two characters in particular having distinctive speech patterns. While the black sailor is the centre of various comic moments, he is (mostly) the originator of the laughs rather than the object of them. When another crew member ends up falling into some tar, there is an awkward moment of blackface humour – but thankfully it is the white sailor who is the subject of the black sailor’s joke. The black sailor is played by Blue Washington (who was also a baseball player), who appears last on the credits – and his character is unfortunately named simply as “The Negro”. Which is, I suppose, the kind of depth and detail one might expect from a story like this.

Despite these limitations of character and plot, the film does work. Indeed, it’s impressive that it is so successful at sustaining the drama across even 65 minutes without falling into piratical parody. The Blood Ship is very well lit and photographed and has a marvellous set and setting. The titular ship is a real and believable space, the perfect self-contained setting for the drama. The quality of the print used for this restoration is excellent, and it’s beautifully sharp and detailed. Faces have amazing texture, eyes gleam with superb clarity, and the ropes and wood of the ship have palpable weft and grain.

What more can I say? I enjoyed the film, but my brain was once more feeding on scraps. What sustained me throughout was Donald Sosin’s superb piano score. Absolutely committed to the drama, it was alternately swashbuckling, violent, tender, and tuneful. A real delight. Piano music for the two Italians films was provided by Jose Maria Serralde Ruiz, which was likewise excellent: playful, wistful, curious for the short, and energetic and expansive for the feature. So yes, a diverse range of entertainment: films that I would never otherwise have seen, presented to their best advantage.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2025, Day 4)

Being hosted by an Italian festival, it makes sense for us to visit Italy’s cinematic past. Day 4 takes us to the early days of Italian feature films, and therein to the distant Italian past…

Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei (1913; It.; Eleuterio Rodolfi). AD79, Pompei. Nidia, the blind flower seller, attracts the attentions of Claudio and Glauco. Seeing Nidia is a slave being cruelly treated by her owners, Glauco buys her – and the girl falls for her new master. But he is in love with Jone, who is also desired by the powerful Arbace, who is enmeshed in corruption with the High Priest of Pompei. Arbace tries to seduce Jone but is prevented by his political rival Apoecide. Jone seeks sanctuary with Glauco, but this drives Nidia to despair with jealousy. She goes to the temple of Isis to pray, where she encounters Arbace and reveals her secret. He promises to give her a love potion, and goes to the sorceress on the slopes of Vesuvius. The sorceress, whom Glauco has previously angered, gives him a potion that will unhinge Glauco’s mind. Arbace gives this to Glauco, believing it is a love potion. Meanwhile, Arbace argues with Apoecide, who threatens to expose Arbace’s corruption with the High Priest. Arbace kills him and blames Glauco, who is suffering the effects of the potion. Nidia wants to expose the High Priest, so Arbace kidnaps her. Glauco is condemned to be thrown to the lions, but Nidia escapes and tells Claudio the truth of Arbace’s crimes. Claudio rushes to the arena, where he publicly confronts Arbace. Just as the crowd turns on Arbace, Vesuvius erupts – and Arbace escapes. Nidia and Glauco rush to Jone’s villa, then rush to the sea. Jone and Glauco escape, but Nidia is left on the shore. In despair, she drowns herself. FINE.

Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei is a familiar beast. A classic example of the early feature film in Europe, a classic example of the ancient epic, a classic example of Italian cinema of the 1910s. In sum, its form and content are staples of books on film history, film style, and national cinema. But such scholarly familiarity can often do a disservice to the qualities of films as objects of pleasure. Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei remains an engaging watch, and seen in such a lovely restoration (from 2006) really shows off why it deserves to be remembered.

Rodolfi’s camera is always static, but it observes in a way that draws in the eye. The combination of long takes, compositions in depth, and careful choreography of the cast makes every step of the drama clear and engaging. I was talking about Feuillade’s skill with this on Day 2, and here again is proof how much you can do with economic means. Rodolfi has grander perspectives, made grander still by the use of painted backdrops at the rear of his sets: the perspectives created within the fore- and mid-ground keep going! Whole scenes unfold with careful movement from the rear to the fore, from the sides – with additional spaces sometimes even masked and unmasked and masked again by curtains or drapes. The past here is solid and expansive. The impeccable sets and their lovely details (the leopard skin rug, the wall carvings, the ornaments, the statues) make this seem like a huge space that has been and continues to be inhabited.

Though there are no close-ups of the humans in this space, we do get some striking cut-aways to cooing doves (symbol of the lovers) and then to a savage looking owl (symbol of Arbace). The unique example of such close shots in the film, they have all the more impact: they are strange, striking images. They suggest something more than just the human drama we are watching. They feel properly odd and archaic, like a classical textual reference come to life.

The performances do not make the lack of close-ups feel important. One can read their gestures and facial expressions clearly enough. There is little nuance of feeling, but feeling is enough. (Take note, Maurice Tourneur; see my last post.) These may be melodramatic figures, waving their arms or bulging their eyes, but they live their parts: the emotions are direct enough to be convincing.

The cast of characters may be pretty simple, but at the centre of the film is Nidia, who makes a compelling figure on screen. If Fernanda Negri Pouget’s performance borders on the grotesque, this makes it all the more interesting that we feel such sympathy for her by the end of the film. She is the only character with a complex range of emotions to portray. The others are fairly straightforward heroes or villains, but Nidia is more complex. Treated cruelly, then rescued, then heartbroken, then furious, then guilty, then desperate, then self-sacrificing, her character carries more than any other. In a nice echo of Feuillade’s Le Cœur et l’argent (1912), seen on Day 2, our Italian heroine here ends up floating in the water like Ophelia. But I don’t think Rodolfi’s staging is as careful or detailed as Feuillade’s, nor is it dramatically as well constructed. As I wrote the other day, Feuillade’s drama carefully foreshadows the fate of its heroine and ends with some very beautiful images of her body in the river. In Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei, I’ve never been quite sure – dramatically – why Nidia is not carried into the boat at all, other than for the convenience of having her being a tragic figure. The film never invites us to ask about her reasoning, nor the reasoning of those on the boat. (There are no closer views of the group boarding the boat, no closer shot of Nidia to share her emotions. We simply do not know why she stays behind.) And the image of Nidia in the water is, well, not exactly perfunctory, but certainly not elaborate either. I suppose it’s brutal and abrupt, and that’s a punchy way to end the film. But still, I feel Nidia might have been treated a little better: if not allowed to live, at least allowed to die with more fuss.

Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei is one of several treatments of Pompei in silent cinema, and in one aspect at least it I have always felt is falls slightly short: the eruption of Vesuvius. I remembered being disappointed by the documentary footage of molten rock used in the climactic sequence of this film, and I wasn’t disappointed in being disappointed again when seeing it today. The shots are fairly undramatic, containing little more than smoking mud, and are much less impressive than even the most distant long shots of the artificial volcano. (These are created with painted backdrops and superimposed smoke clouds etc.) However, the vivid red tinting and the general movement of the panicking crowd make the sequence effective. I couldn’t help but imagine what an orchestral score would do for this film, and these scenes in particular. I have written elsewhere of the physical impact of large-scale scores making the sheer weight of what’s happening on the silent screen tangible. Music makes present both the emotional and physical aspects of what we see. In Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei, the exploding volcano, triggering the switch to a red tint, and the resultant collapse of buildings and surge of crowds, would be much more effective in the theatre if given the sonic bulk of orchestral volume.

This is not to do down the piano music provided for this presentation by Gabriel Thibaudeau. His music is excellent, capturing the mood and slowly unfolding drama perfectly. But it isn’t on a scale matching that of the film. The screen teems with detail and with people, with huge expanses of land and sea, and (ultimately) with vast natural catastrophe. Sometimes, a piano doesn’t feel enough. Of course, I am not watching this film on a large screen, nor am I watching it with a crowd, nor am I experiencing the music performed live. In these circumstances, I imagine even the forces used on this presentation would have more impact. But I cannot but dream of a grander musical dimension. (One of my most longed-for hopes is that the 2006 restoration of Cabiria (1914), complete with its original orchestral score by Ildebrando Pizzetti, will finally get released – it has been shown live but never issued on home media. Why on earth it has lain in limbo for so long remains a mystery. That combination of music and image will surely demonstrate the power of a properly restored image and score together for exactly this kind of early feature.)

Anyway, I must conclude by saying how much I enjoyed revisiting this film. The image quality was superb, and I noticed so much more than when I first saw it. It’s always good to reacquaint oneself with canonical films, as they can often be taken for granted – or released on so many duff DVD editions that you lose track of how good they should look. And Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompei looks very good indeed.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 3)

Day 3 of Pordenone takes us to Italy, then to Germany (via Vienna and London) for a programme of immense delight. Cue laughs, pratfalls, wild dancing, and a great deal of delight…

To begin, we have the short film Per la morale (1911; It.; unknown). A moral crusade against illicit images and writing is announced in the papers, and a wealthy man seeks to join the “fight”. At another person’s home, he starts daubing black paint over the exposed flesh on paintings; in the park, he tries to cover a woman who is breastfeeding her infant, then puts his coat over a naked statue. When he tries lowering a skirt over a woman’s ankles, he is confronted, taken to court, and sent to prison for offending public morals. In a delightful coda, the Roman-style film company logo – an image of Romulus and Remus being breastfed by a wolf – is itself subject to his censorship. END.

So to our main feature: Saxophon-Susi (1928; Ger.; Karel Lamač). In Vienna, Anni von Aspen (Anny Ondra) is captivated by the career of her best friend, the aspiring dancer Susi Hiller (Mary Parker). However, her father the Baron von Aspen (Gaston Jacquet) and mother (Olga Limburg) do not approve, despite the Baron’s secret interest in chorus girls. After Anni is caught at the theatre by the Baron, she is sent away to a strict boarding school in England. At the same time, the Baron is gently blackmailed into financing Susi to go to the Tiller dance school in London. On board the ship to England, Susi and Anni encounter three rich Englishmen: Lord Herbert Southcliffe (Malcolm Tod), Harry Holt (Hans Albers), and Houston Black (Carl Walther Meyer). After discovering that one of the girls is a dancer, they place a bet on which girl it is. To impress the lord, Anni lies and says she is Susi. When the ship reaches England, Anni convinces Susi to continue their identity swap. So Susi (as Anni) goes to boarding school, while Anni (as Susi) goes to dance school. The Tiller dance school is run by Mrs Strong (Mira Doré), who asks to see how “Susi” dances in Vienna. Seeing the comically bizarre improvisation that Anni concocts, Mrs Strong sends her back to the remedial class. Meanwhile, the three men place another bet that Lord Herbert cannot sneak into the dance school to see “Susi” and then bring her to their Eccentrics Club. He does, but after “Susi” impresses with her jazzy dance routine, she overhears the men discussing the bet. Assuming Lord Herbert is interested only in showing her off to win money, she leaves him. Back at the dance school, her involvement with Lord Herbert has breached the rules and she is expelled. Just as she is saying goodbye, however, she is spotted by a producer-musician (Oreste Bilancia) who wants her to lead his review in Vienna. Back in Vienna, Lord Herbert decides to ask Susi’s parents for their daughter’s hand in marriage. Ignorant of the fact that the woman Lord Herbert has fallen for is in fact Anni, Susi’s poor mother (Margarete Kupfer) is overjoyed to accept. When “Saxophone Susi” arrives in Vienna, Frau Hiller and Lord Herbert go to see the show – where Frau Hiller does not recognize her daughter on stage. After the show, the Baron von Aspen is shocked to encounter his daughter Anni back in Vienna with a troupe of other girls. Anni lies and says that the dancers are her schoolfriends on an educational trip abroad. They all go back to the von Aspen home, where Lord Herbert also finally tracks down the real “Susi”. When “Saxophone Susi” is played on the gramophone, the girls cannot disguise their dance training and burst into a spontaneous performance. Anni’s deception is revealed, but Lord Herbert’s proposal is finally accepted, and the von Aspens are all in accord. The lovers marry, much to the confusion and consternation of Harry and Houston, who are left arguing over who has won the bet. ENDE.

What a delightful film! First and foremost, Anny Ondra is superb. She is beautiful to look at, and the camera gives her some incredibly striking close-ups. But what entirely wins you over is just how funny she is as a performer. After showing her skills at the farcical hide-and-seek from her father on stage in the opening act, we are given two standout dance sequences later in the film. The first is when she arrives at the Tiller school and must improvise an entire routine from the Viennese stage. We see her concoct a fabulously bizarre range of moves: wobbling like a ragdoll, leaping backwards and forwards, scuttling sideways like a crab, stalking like a hieroglyph, flailing madly, performing gymnastic star jumps, jiving like crazy, falling over backwards, then scuffing along the ground on her backside, before dizzily stumbling to a halt. Her dancing costume (baggy shorts and short-sleeved top with a little bow), combined with her messy hair, makes her look oddly childlike. (So too the bare dance hall, with nothing to measure her scale in the room.) But there is also something cheekily adult about her gestures and posing: she’s showing off her legs, her body, her backside. Then in the dance at the Eccentrics Club, Ondry gets to show us something no less charming or silly but far more impressive as a dance. When the club dance expert starts pulling sensationally complex and graceful moves, Ondry starts to copy him. She fails at first, but soon they fall into rhythm together: she the mirror of him. She’s never quite as skilful, but the sequence is such a delight it doesn’t matter. Her timing is brilliant, even if it’s the timing of a comic more than that of a dancers. She makes the whole thing look so fun, it’s just a pleasure to watch. When she follows the dancer up the stairs, doing a kind of stop-motion walk-cum-dance, it’s both ludicrous and brilliant. The sequence then develops into a communal dance number, with the jazz band and crowd of club members (all impeccably suited anyway) becoming an impromptu troupe: Ondry is held aloft, then walks over everyone’s heads on seat covers held up for her triumphant march and descent back to earth. Ondry is clearly having great fun on set, and it’s great fun to watch. These scenes had me grinning from ear to ear. Great stuff!

The rest of the cast is never less than good, though Malcolm Tod is a bid of a nonentity. His role is entirely superficial anyway, but for this reason it would have benefitted from someone with a bit more personality, more presence, on screen. Hans Albers, in 1928 not yet a major star, is wasted as one of the other rich Englishmen. Perhaps it’s because his face is so well known to me, but I felt much more drawn to him than to Tod. Albers is more than merely handsome: he has a kind of physical presence that Tod palpably lacks. Among the rest, Gaston Jacquet stood out as the most communicative: his twinkly sophistication is straight out of a Lubitsch film. (Though Lubitsch might have cast Adolphe Menjou for this role.) As the two girls’ mothers, Olga Limburg and Margarete Kupfer make the most out of their minor roles – they are, in their own way, even in their few minutes on screen, perfectly formed characters. Lord Herbert’s comic servant-cum-go-between (Theodor Pistek) also has some nice moments, as does the wary porter at the dance school (Julius von Szöreghy) – their best scene being their first together, as the servant pretends to be a hairdresser to gain entrance to the school. Finally, as Mrs Strong, Mira Doré gives a faintly sinister, faintly predatory performance as the dance teacher. At least one scene with “Susi” suggests that her interest in her charges is not without a sense of eroticism. (After all, her first scene in the film relays her ceaseless efforts to keep men away from her girls.) I suspect this character, as with many others in the film, might have been made more of by another director, or else via a different kind of script.

Having said that, the tone of the film is nevertheless gleefully irreverent. Nothing and no-one are taken too seriously, the film never tries to condemn anyone for their actions, and it is more than willing to show a little flesh, have a laugh, and raise a glass or two of champagne. Bodies are things of pleasure, to move and dance, to flirt and display, just as expectations are there to upturn for the sake of pleasure and for the pursuit happiness. Moral outrage is only ever comic and only ever lasts a moment, before common sense and acceptance win the day. There is also something pleasingly cosmopolitan about it all. The cast and crew are a mixture of nationalities: Czech, German, French, British, Austrian, Italian, Hungarian. I could lipread some of the cast speaking English, though I dare say a whole host of tongues was used across the production. The dual-language intertitles (French and German) enhanced this sensibility, and it was also interesting to compare the phrasing across these languages, as well as with the English subtitles. Having three languages on the screen made me feel like I was in some way joining in with the continental sophistication of it all. And though the film begins and ends in Vienna, it also shows off the streets of 1920s London in some fabulous exteriors – especially at night, with the streets lit up by illuminated billboards.

(As a side note, I should also point out that Saxophon-Susi survives only through various exports prints, from which this 2023 restoration was reconstructed. About 700m of the film’s original 2746m survive. Many of the characters’ names are different from the listings of the original German version.)

I must also mention the piano score by Donald Sosin, which was delightful: catchy, rhythmic, playful, and fun. Though Sosin’s music was a perfect accompaniment, I must confess that I regretted not having some more instruments – especially for the titular saxophone-playing sequences in the club and on stage. On this note, this restoration of Saxophon-Susi was shown in August this year at the “Ufa filmnächte” festival in Berlin, where it was accompanied by Frido ter Beek and The Sprockets film orchestra. I confess that I was all set to watch this screening via its free streaming service, only to discover that the festival no longer had a free streaming service! The “Ufa filmnächte” is one of the festivals that offered this service during and after the pandemic, but that has since withdrawn it. A shame, as I would love to have heard Saxophon-Susi with some actual saxophones. (At the premiere in 1928, it was accompanied by a jazz orchestra.)

So that was Day 3. I commend the programmers for pairing Per la morale with Saxophon-Susi. Both films are uninterested in moral proscriptions or resolutions, and are pleased to acknowledge but not to condemn a little human appetite. (In contrast, I’m thinking back to the censorious Santa of Day 2.) If neither film has any great depth, they have plenty of charm and wit. Saxophon-Susi was an absolute delight to watch, and – having missed the Berlin screening – I’m particularly glad that Pordenone screened (i.e. streamed) it. A joyful little film with a joyful performance by Anna Ondry. A real treat.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 1)

Yes, it’s that time of year again! Pordenone is once more underway, and I am not on the way to it. The furthest I’m travelling is to my study, or possibly to the living room for better Wi-Fi signal. This is because I have happily handed over my thirty euros and have my pass for the streamed content of this year’s festival. For the next ten days, I shall be posting my reviews of the digital fare on offer from Pordenone (or at least, its associated servers). Appropriately enough, Day 1 takes us to Italy for a feast of marvellous landscapes and seascapes…

We begin with Attraverso la Sicilia (c.1920; It.; unknown), one of the innumerable travelogue films produced in Italy in the first decades of the twentieth century. (This film, along with sixty others, can be found on the beautiful 2xDVD set Grand Tour Italiano, releasedby the Cineteca Bologna in 2016.) I love how even this simple film – depicting the ferry boat arriving, depositing its train, followed by a series of views of the harbour and its human and animal inhabitants – is so visually elaborate. Apart from a few shots, it is all tinted. The opening is yellow, but the first view of the little train on the ferry is orange, as though its furnace is glowing with anticipation somewhere inside it. But when it sets off it reverts to monochrome, before traversing the landscape of Sicily: the blue harbour, the orange ruins, the pink ruins, the yellow hillside. People are going about their business, a hundred years ago – and here I am, sipping my Italian coffee, a century later.

The next short, Nella conca d’oro (c.1920; It.; unknown), gives us Palermo. Palermo in blue, Palermo in pink, Palermo in gold, Palermo in split screen (postcard images, shaking in the frame), Palermo in orange, Palermo in a wash of sepia, the colour of old magazine pages. Here are centuries-old buildings, seen a century ago. Shaded colonnades from the Middle Ages, Byzantine twirls and patterns, and the people of the early twentieth century, sweeping the streets, gutting fish, building model horse and carts, wandering aimlessly. And the sea, calm, bedecked with working boats. The yellow tint a kind of oily haze upon the water, a weary warmth to the overcast sky. Flashes of leader, wobbled instructions for the printer, long dead. (It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.) Men playing cards, not bothered by our presence. The past, cut off from its moorings a century ago and deposited on my screen. FINE.

And now, to our main feature: L’Appel du sang (1919; Fr.; Louis Mercanton). The story is based on Robert Hichens’ novel The Call of the Blood (1906), and its melodramatic plot is signalled by the title…

Emile Artois (Charles le Bargy) is a veteran writer, who has earned the enmity of his peers for his unflinching attacks on “life’s artificiality”. His friend and disciple Hermione Lester (Phyllis Neilson-Terry) lives in her villa in Rome. She confesses to him that she loves Maurice Delarey (Ivor Novello) an Englishman who had a Sicilian grandmother. Artois is jealous and comes to Rome. Seeing the lovers together and obviously happy, Artois announces that he’s going to Africa. In Sicily, the lovers – now married – spend their honeymoon at Hermione’s house on the Casa del Prete on Mount Amato, with their devoted servant Gaspare (Gabriel de Gravone). In the “garden of Paradise”, the lovers are happy – but abroad, Artois is dying of fever. Maurice and Gaspare visit the “Sirens Island”, where the fisherman Salvatore (Fortunio Lo Turco) lives with his daughter Maddalena (Desdemona Mazza). On the rocks, asleep with the fisherman, Maurice dreams of sirens – and, waking early, encounters Maddalena, half-naked in the water. Meanwhile, the dying Artois sends Hermione a letter confessing his love – and insisting that she loves him. But the doctor knows that Hermione is married, so does not send her Artois’ letter – just a telegram alerting her to his illness. Once Hermione leaves for Kairouan, Maurice grows increasingly close to Maddalena. Their romance observed by her angry father, who is content only so long as the tourists keep spending money on them. Hermione aids Artois’ recovery and they journey back to Sicily, triggering Maurice’s guilt – and desire to spend his last free moments with Maddalena at the local fair. The lovers spend the night in a hotel, while Hermione anxiously awaits Maurice at her villa. In the morning, Maurice arrives, guilty and remorseful. But he cannot bring himself to tell her the truth. Salvatore hears about his daughter’s night with Maurice and locks her in her room. Maurice writes Hermione a letter confessing the truth and saying that he knows he must leave her. Salvatore wants to meet Maurice on his island, and Gaspare plays the awkward go-between. Maurice makes Artois promise to look after Hermione if anything should happen to him. Artois intercepts a letter from Maddalena, warning Maurice – and suspects the truth. Salvatore attacks Maurice and throws him from a cliff into the sea. While Gaspare rescues the body, Artois finds Maurice’s confession – and gets the full truth from Gaspare. Artois decides to burn the letter to spare Hermione’s feelings, then goes with Gaspare to confront Salvatore and Maddalena. Artois convinces father and daughter to go to America, but Maddalena visits Maurice’s grave and is discovered there by Hermione and Gaspare. Hermione realizes the truth and goes to Artois for comfort, while Gaspare seeks revenge on Salvatore. The two men fight, but it is Maddalena who is killed by her father’s gunshot. The graves of Maddalena and Maurice lie next to one another, and Hermione leaves flowers before departing. In Rome, Hermione finds Artois’ confession, passed on from the (now deceased) doctor’s possessions, and the two are finally united. FIN.

Well, well, well. First thing’s first: this is a stunning film to look at. Shot on location in Italy, the film is dominated by shot after shot of extraordinarily beautiful landscapes. The entire drama plays out against superb vistas, from views over the Colosseum in Rome to the Sicilian coastline. The whole film is also beautifully tinted and toned, from the warm gold of exterior daylight to the lustrous blue-tone-pink of evenings and the blues of nighttime exteriors. Great use is made of placing characters against these backdrops, from the terraces overlooking the landscapes to more intimate scenes along the paths and coves of the coast. The southern light is simply gorgeous, and every exterior shot of the film is a pleasure to contemplate. What an absolutely beautiful film this is.

The cast also boasts some beautiful faces. This was Ivor Novello’s first starring role, and he is strikingly beautiful in many shots – just see how the camera shows off his profile as he sits at the piano and sings, or drapes himself with open shirt across the rocks. His performance is good, but I don’t know if it’s the fault of the director or the performer that I never got a sense of depth to his character or emotions. Novello always feels slightly out of place, which suits the character – at home in Sicily without quite being Sicilian. He comes across as cutely gauche, and rather English, as he half tries to find the rhythm of the Tarantello when he first arrives on the island. In fact, he’s noticeably more convincing in his relationship with Gaspare than with either Hermione or Maddalena. The note of homoeroticism is hard to escape since the two men spend more time with each other than the married couple. Maurice goes swimming with Gaspare and his sexualized dream of sirens takes place when he is asleep with Gaspare on the rocks by the sea. Maddalena is a rival not just to Hermione, but to Gaspare: and it is the latter who tries to take revenge on Salvatore for killing his friend.

Indeed, Gabriel de Gravone was my favourite performer in the film. (Due to my decades-long obsession with Gance’s La Roue (1923), I have spent many hours watching Gravone on screen in a particular role – so I am certainly familiar with his face!) Like Novello, he is strikingly handsome – but he has an air of assurance, of physical presence, on screen that Novello never quite has for me in this film.

The rest of the cast is good, if not especially memorable. Phyllis Neilson-Terry (one of the Terry dynasty of British actors) is a strong, naturalistic lead – but her character is never given depth. I don’t think this is her fault, nor is the dullness of Charle le Bargy’s Artois; the film simply isn’t able to shape their performances or deepen their characters. Maddalena’s death, for example, is shocking – but as an act, as an event, not because I cared for (or even particularly knew or understood) her character or relationship with Maurice.

My reservations about character and performance stems, I think, from the fact that the film lacks dramatic depth. For a melodrama, even if my brain isn’t overly engaged, my heart needs to get involved: I wanted and needed to feel more from this film. It’s very, very good looking, but that’s not enough. I was purring over the landscapes, but never about the characters. Louis Mercanton is good at framing the drama against the landscapes, but his camera never gets too close to his characters. Perhaps overly conscious of showing the backdrop, there are virtually no close-ups – we are quite literally kept at a certain distance from the characters. Even so, there are other ways to create depth and complexity. Mercanton can compose a shot, and organize a sequence, but nothing ever quite builds to a single image or shot that grabs the heart or contains any kind of emotional or psychological revelation. There were no scenes where the staging struck me as being especially imaginative or striking. The fair, during which Maurice and Maddalena spend the night together, is perhaps the most dramatic of the film, with its red tinting and the lovers in silhouette at the balcony window. But this, too, is a series of pretty images rather than a fully integrated dramatic montage. (I think, inevitably, of a similar sequence in Gance’s contemporary J’accuse!, in which illicit lovers encounter one another at night during a firelit farandole – a sequence that is filled with (more) striking images and a rhythmic crescendo.) Ultimately, I was more impressed by Emile Pierre’s photography than Mercanton’s direction.

So that was Day One. Whatever my reservations, I’m very glad to have seen L’Appel du sang. It’s one of the best-looking films (I was about to say “prints”, but I suppose that’s not quite true) I’ve seen in a while, and the tinting and toning of the landscapes was a particular pleasure. But I also particularly appreciated the Italian shorts that preceded the feature. They introduced us to the period and place in which L’Appel du sang is set. Aside from compilation DVDs, such short films can be difficult to present convincingly – so slipping them into a programme in such a pertinent way is a nice touch. Seeing these three films together was a delight. A very nice way to start the festival.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2023, Day 3)

Day 3 takes us to Italy in 1917, from whence come two fragments and a feature film—all preserved in unique prints from the Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam…

La Vita e la Morte (1917; It.; Mario Caserini). It is life and death, or the first act of it. We begin with the drama underway. Choices have already been made, fates motivated. An untrustworthy figure bends beside an inert woman. There are references to Gautier’s letters, which Leda carried with her. Here are a mourning husband and child, mourning prematurely. The screen’s bluish wash is a kind of mourning, so too the faded richness of the blacks. The screen has been washed with passing time. Paul lifts Leda’s inert body. Fragments of Leda’s boat, washed ashore. A gleaming coastline, dipped in pale blue. “Poor Leda.” But at the house in Lausanne, Leda pants in bed. (Her eyes roll towards the camera. We see you, Leda.) Paul stands sinisterly over her, warning a servant not to let Leda escape. (The framerate is palpably slower-than-life, as though the fragment were dragging its feet, anxious to extend what remains of its runtime.) Paul is pleased to overhear sailors saying that Leda is dead. The gates are toned green, washed ochre. A glimpse of park or gardens behind bars. Paul’s servant is drunk, sitting guard over a disconsolate Leda. The husband reads a letter fragment from Gautier to Leda. Perhaps her death was best for them all? The child delivers flowers to mama’s grave: the water’s edge. Child and nurse turn to walk away. The film ends. An intriguing, evocative fragment—preserved in this Dutch print and nowhere else. You can find the whole plot on Pordenone’s online catalogue, but the magic is here: the fragment invites us to imagine the lost parts of the film, or simply to contemplate its loss, and ours.

[Italia Vitaliani visita il regista Giuseppe Sterni per discutere del suo ruolo in “la Madre”] (1917; It.; Giuseppe Sterni?). A studio. The director, lost in concentration. Curtains are opened. Nitrate decomposition enters, followed by Italia Vitaliani. She takes off her coat. The director brings her over towards the camera, shows her the screenplay. (A close-up of the title page.) He opens the script, begins to read. Vitaliani settles to listen. The film ends. It’s a truncated trailer for the feature we are about to watch, a glimpse behind the scenes. Yet it is also a staged performance, an invitation to see the relationship between author and actor—and the chance for the author to be an actor.

La Madre (1917; It.; Giuseppe Sterni). The two lead characters, in their own tableau: a young painter, Emanuel, and his mother. (And we recognize them both from the previous film: Emanuel is played by the director himself, while the mother is Italia Vitaliani—made to look older with her greyed hair.)

Part One. The dark interior of the Roan’s village bakery. But Mrs Roan’s son prefers painting to baking. Outside, glimpses of a sun-filled street. The dark shadows of an awning. The texture of an old wall, fragments of ancient posters. The sunlight is harsh, the shade thick: it is all palpably real, palpably parched.

A visit from an artist and connoisseur, to appraise a painting found behind the wall of the local church. The group are invited to Emanuel’s studio. The men’s faces are ambivalent. They say Emanuel lacks the resources to be a painter. But there is an offer to share the artist’s studio. Emanuel’s mother says he should go, that she will stay and earn money. Two days later, he leaves.

The mother, alone. Her room. Dark walls, small patches of light. She kneels to pray at her bedside. A quiet tableau of devotion, of moderate means, of private emotion. (Shared, of course, with us.)

A few weeks later, she makes the journey to town to see him. The world of rural transport, c.1917: a donkey and cart, a wait at a train station.

Emanuel’s work has been rejected for not sticking to known rules. He cannot pay his model.

Mother arrives. On the steps, a small black dog drowsily raises its head. Mother shuffles upstairs. She enters the studio, presents the two artists with some carefully wrapped bread—and some coins for Emanuel. (Now a letter from Isabella, his model, who returns a ring and says she cannot visit him again on instruction of her mother.) The artist explains that Emanuel is ruining himself over Isabella. Emanuel goes to see Isabella, but his conscience gets the better of him and he cannot offer the money given him by his mother to keep in Isabella’s good books (or the good books of Isabella’s mother). Mother stays with Emanuel, to “protect him” amid the temptations of the town. (Unspoken thoughts, unvoiced rivalries, unmentionable acts.)

Part Two. Emanuel is a success, but Isabella has “stolen” his heart from his mother. She arrives, the mother shuffles away to wipe away a tear in private. It’s another little tableau, this image of the heartbroken mother. But Vitaliani doesn’t overmilk our sympathies: hers is not an outlandish performance, but a disarmingly simple one. And her moments of solitude are just that: moments only.

Emanuel returns after a night out. He is well dressed these days, but he can hardly walk this night. His mother appears. He laughs off her concern. She warns him off Isabella, saying that she will ruin him. Emanuel grows cross. His face looks down in a scowl. Hers—in a patch of light, made gold via the tinting—looks up, and the camera sees her grief, invites us to empathize. Later, Emanuel is asleep in bed. His mother tiptoes in to tuck him in and kiss his brow.

“Make him listen to the advice of his sad and grey little mother!” she begs of Isabella and her mother the next day. Isabella laughs her off, says she’ll go but that Emanuel will beg her to return.

The son, before a mirror. He barely looks at himself: it is for us to see the two of him, his two roles, his two choices. His mother awaits, expecting him to reject her in favour of Isabella. “Do you really love her?” she asks. “Do you love her more than your unhappy mother?” She is his inspiration, he replies, the only one capable of sustaining his success.

That afternoon, as Emanuel contemplates his latest portrait, news comes from Isabella that she and her mother will never see him again until his mother apologizes. Mother tells him Isabella will ruin him. She struggles with her son, even grapples with him physically. The elder artist enters. “You need inspiration? She’s right in front of you!” Yes! He will paint his mother! He blacks out the painting of Isabella and begins feverish work on capturing his mother’s praying form.

Six months later. Back in the village, Mother Roan is beneath a large portrait of her son. She goes through his childhood clothing, an old photo, a shoe… A pain in her belly. She stumbles against the dresser.

Meanwhile, Emanuel’s portrait of her is nearly complete. He sends her a letter: the painting will be his greatest success. She is overjoyed but clutches her chest.

The exhibition: Emanuel’s maternal portrait wins the prize. The camera pans from the portrait through the empty gallery, pans right to left until it meets the incoming crowd; then pans left to right back toward the painting. The film cuts from a close-up of the image to the real sight of the mother prostrate in bed.

That night, he sends her word that he will be with her the next day. But no sooner does she read his words than she collapses. The next day, she is helped up and into a chair to receive first a doctor then her son. She wants everyone to hide her “grave news” from Emanuel. Emmanuel walks through crowds of locals who greet him like a returning hero. He is feted all the way home, where his mother is helped to her feet to see the crowds outside rejoicing for her son. No sooner than they embrace does she sink into a chair. “Now I can die happy.” The crowds cheer for Emanuel outside. He goes to the window to greet them. While he is at the balcony, his mother stands—then falls slowly back into her chair. From the green tinting of the outside view, the son returns to the burnished gold of the interior light and falls weeping at his mother’s side. (Her features are almost lost in the patch of light that illuminates her head: it’s as if she were already somewhere else, already effaced.) Two girls enter with a crown of laurels for the artist. He takes it and lays it at his mother’s feet. “Rest in peace”, he says—and we cut to an image of him before her angelic tomb. The End.

Day 3: Summary

A curious trio of films. The fragment of La Vita e la Morte certainly intrigued me and made me want to see more. Leda is played by Leda Gys (clearly, she stuck close to her on-screen persona, or at least her screen name). We saw Gys at last year’s Pordenone in Profanazione (1924). I thought the later was perhaps the weakest film of the 2022 streamed films. I was more intrigued by La Vita e la Morte, though I recognized Gys’s big, rolling eyes at once—her performance style didn’t seem to change much in the seven years between these films. It’s always fascinating and moving to watch a film in a state of ruin. And with such lucid filmmaking—each shot a tableau with its significance carefully laid out in deep composition—it is easy to be drawn into the glimpse into this lost on-screen world. But I wonder if the whole would live up to the promise of the fragment?

The staged prelude to La Madre was a lovely way to segue to the main feature. Even the existence of the former is historically interesting. I have a fondness for these promotional scenes of filmmakers that presage their own work. Someday I will write a piece on such appearances in the silent era—it’s a curious little theme in the 1910s, when directors became more prominent in the marketing of their productions.

As for La Madre itself, it’s a well-made film. And it’s a well-performed film. But I can’t say I wholly enjoyed it. The sympathetic piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne was a strong compliment, but I was never quite moved. Vitaliani’s performance is subtle, realist even, but the plot is so obvious that it’s difficult to be drawn entirely to her. It reminded me of Henri Pouctal’s Alsace (1916), in that another major theatre actress (in the French film, Gabrielle Réjane; here, Italia Vitaliani—a relative of Eleonora Duse) plays a dominating mother who forces her son to break off a romantic relationship with the “wrong” woman. But whereas Pouctal’s film pushes that plotline to the extreme of the mother essentially getting her son killed, in La Madre it is the mother who dies to prove her point.

Besides, La Madre takes too long to give any firm indication that the mother is right about Isabella. The first scenes with Isabella suggest noting more than young love being thwarted by interfering parents. Only when she laughs at the mother’s pleas does Isabella reveal herself to be less than a victim. But even then, Emanuel’s partygoing is never clearly linked with Isabella: only Mother insinuates that the one is the cause of the other. Unlike Alsace, where the mother’s rivalry with the daughter-in-law is pushed to insane, murderous extremes, in La Madre the rivalry is all rather tame. The mother is too self-pitying for us to feel so much pity for her.

So, in viewing La Madre, I fell back on the other pleasures of the film: the realistic settings and real streets, the rich textures of costumes and environments, the warm tinting and toning. It’s a simple, effective rendering of the story it wishes to tell. Is La Madre a great film? No. But the point of festivals like Pordenone is to show us things we would never otherwise see, and to enrich our understanding of the silent era as a whole. I have seen, I have learned; I am content.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2023, Day 1)

This time last year saw me start this blog with ten days of posts attending the Pordenone silent film festival from afar. This year, I’m once more not making the trip to Pordenone. It’s the same reasons: time, money, and the budgeting of annual leave across the year. But yet again I am inexorably drawn to the idea of Pordenone, and what follows is the first of another ten daily posts about the online version of the festival. Day 1 sees a two-part screening. First, an hour-long programme of slapstick shorts (with music by Daan Van den Hurk). Second, a feature film western (with music by Philip Carli). We’ve barely a moment to lose before the next films are upon us, so for goodness’ sake keep reading…

Le Torchon brûle, ou une querelle de ménage (1911; Fr.; Roméo Bosetti). The wife serves the husband a meal. The husband objects to the meal. The situation snowballs. Crockery is thrown. Then furniture. Soon the husband is ripping cupboards off the wall and hurling them out of the window in fury. (Down below, outside, two policemen are slowly but inevitably buried in the defenestrated wreckage of the home.) When the entire room is broken in pieces or hurled out the window, the couple turn on each other with bare hands. They role around on the floor, down the hall, down the stairs, into another room, out the window—where they land on top of the policemen. They keep on rolling: across the street, under a car (still fighting), under a horse and cart (still fighting), through a mob of merchants and shoppers (trashing a stall en route), down the street, down a manhole, into the sewer. Then a wonderfully bizarre twist: the film is reversed and the couple whizz back up the manhole and out into the street, up a set of stairs, up the road, over the broken pile of furniture (before the eyes of the disbelieving policemen), then hurl themselves through the air back into their apartment. The end. A charming, silly, anarchic, violent piece of slapstick. And a neat comment on the escalation of an argument that can quite literally go nowhere but return to its source—presumably to begin again the next day.

Rudi Sportman (1911; Aut.-Hu.; Emil Artur Longen). A man and woman sit outside a tennis court. The man irritates the woman, the woman irritates the man. Presumably frustrated by his inability to smoke and read the paper in peace, the man begins the next scene trying to get on a horse. He does so backwards, forwards, falls off, remounts, then is jettisoned by the horse. Frustrated again, the next scene shows him trying and failing to ride a bicycle. The woman from the first scene ends up being run down and chasing the man away with a stick. The man (still dressed in frock coat, shirt, and tie) now bunders onto a football pitch, where his attempts to enter the game end in him being chivvied and kicked and beaten by the players. Enthused (and presumably suffering from the debilitating effects of his various falls and beatings), he next tries hurdles, then tennis. (All the while, there are glimpses of a lost European world in the background: the buildings, the officials, the way of life… What happened to those young men playing football in 1914? What became of the lads diving into the pool to save the hapless rower? Did the boat attendant become a military attendant?) The man’s enthusiasm sends him stumbling, falling, summersaulting—and leaving. Next to the rowing pool, where he swiftly ends up in the water. Reprimanded by the attendant, he finds solace in the final scene with the woman—a man in drag, who might or might not be his other half, who now seems both pleased that the man has been severely injured and pleased that he has returned to her. She gives him a kiss, licks her lips, and the film ends.

At Coney Island (1912; US; Mack Sennett). It’s familiar Mack Sennett fare: two alternately grinning and gurning men fight over a woman. Around them, the swarm of life: real life in 1912 Coney Island, with groups of Keystone players dotted around, embodying grotesque families, arrogant fathers, scurrying girls, violent adulterers, and a midget policeman. A chaotic mess of desire sends men and women scuttling into fairground rides, and (just as quickly) out again. Wives chase after husbands, children scream. Couples illicit and singles jealous hurl after one another down terrifyingly unsafe rides, stopping only to shake their fists at each other, gurn, jump up and down in fury. Soon a kind of turquoise dusk descends. But why should continuity concern anyone in this madcap world? The dancehall is a light rose, the tent a bright orange. Time passes, but the men keep chasing their desire—and I’ve hardly had time to unpick who is being chased by whom, or whether the policeman is after the father or the lover or the child, when the film ends.

En Sølvbryllupsdag (1920; Den.; Lau Lauritzen Sr.). “Their Silver Wedding Anniversary”. Already the title bodes ill. The wife wakes Mr Taxman with the news of their anniversary. In his separate bed a little way from the wife, the Taxman—a walrusy sort of fellow—yawns, turns from gurn to grin, kisses his wife, and mourns their lack of money. Talk is of money, but it soon escalates: “You’re a lazy, fat, spoiled bastard—so the woman from the culture centre says”, his wife informs him. “And you are an old, mean, sleazy sea-goose. That what I say!” Soon these two heavy-set middle-aged people are out of bed and shouting at each other. In tears, the wife leaves home. Chuntering, the Taxman goes back to bed. Cue a passing brass quartet. They troop up to the Taxman’s house and start blasting him a serenade. Whereupon… he weeps! It’s weirdly touching, this comic scene: a reminder of time past and passing, of regret and age and loss. But it’s also funny, for soon the emotion shifts gear: the Taxman throws a jug of water out the window to chase away the band. A visitor to the taxman (now deemed a lawyer in the title). He relays an offer of 25,000Kr from an uncle, but only on the condition that the agent reports that the couple lead a harmonious life together. The husband leaves the agent with a large case of cigars, a glass, a soda siphon, and a whole bottle of spirits. He goes on “The Wild Hunt for the Silver Bride!” (Meanwhile—and this is a lovely touch—we see the agent contemplate the bottle, turn it away from him, then give up and slowly fill his glass to the brim. A tiny dash of soda later, he settles down to his drink.) Where is Ludovica? She’s gone on a trip. We follow the jacketless husband through the streets of Copenhagen—these glimpses of a century-old world are always so beautiful—and into a women’s meeting, where he tries to silence the speakers at the podium so he can yell for Ludovica, only for the entire hall of women to run him out. (Meanwhile, the agent pours a second and third glass—and by the third he misses the glass with the soda altogether.) The man meanwhile charges into a women’s bathing area and peers into each and every booth, only to be chased and ejected yet again by a crowd of women. (A fourth glass goes down the agent’s throat.) The man returns home, finds his wife in tears on the stairs, and hurries her in. The agent, now drunk out of his head, sits giggling in the chair where we left him. But he can hand over the cheque, amid blasts of cigar smoke, to the old couple. “Remember: you can’t buy silver for gold!” a final title reminds us. (And a final treat in the last title: an animated logo for Nordisk Films, complete with real bear atop a globe.)

From Hand to Mouth (1919; US; Alfred Goulding). Harold Lloyd is The Boy, “hungry enough to eat a turnip and call it a turkey”. We are introduced to various kinds of will (people and objects). Will Snobbe gets my favourite intro: “His head would make a fine hat rack”. Meanwhile, outside, the Boy, amid scenes of poverty. (How long since scenes of outright poverty and hardship were the mainstay of American comedy?) He gazes longingly at a cheap restaurant. He puts on a napkin, takes a think bone out of his pocket, and chews on it. The Boy steals a biscuit, which is then stolen by a child. He chases the child, retrieves the biscuit, but the child is so cute he gives it back to her. Meanwhile in the lawyer’s office (the lawyer being called Leech, of course), the will is being fought over. Snobbe and Leech are in cahoots. The plot proceeds. Child and Boy (now friends) find cash, buy food—only to find the money is counterfeit. (They have also befriended a dog with a broken paw, who—just as they drop their unpaid-for food—drops his unpaid-for food.) Boy meets Girl, who rescues him from arrest. Cue various lost wallets, found wallets, biffed policemen, angry policemen, a kind of whack-a-mole sequence with the Boy popping up between two manholes, and a high-speed chase that mashes the Boy’s chase into the plot handed down from Snobbe to his ruffian underlings. At night, the Boy accompanies them on their robbery. A delightful gag about opening a window (assuring the band he knows how to jimmy open the window, the Boy systematically smashes it with a crowbar) is accompanied by a little gag in the titles: an anthropomorphic moon looks at the dialogue on each card, then appears to laugh at the payoff. Of course, the house being robbed is the Girl’s, and the Boy (after trying to eat the entire larder) soon takes her side in the robbery. Via a dazzling chase (Boy lassoing a car from a bicycle, which he then rides without steering), the Boy tries to summon the police to help him. None are interested, so he summons them via a series of vengeful acts: he hits them, insults them, hoses them down, vandalizes a police station (then reaches through the smashed glass to pull a cop’s nose)—until dozens of officers are pursuing him to the villains’ lair, where they treat the baddies to some good ol’ fashioned police brutality. Boy and Girl arrive just in time to scoop up the inheritance from the lawyer and chase out Snobbe. A lovely final scene shows Boy and Girl, with street child and dog-with-broken-paw, eating a hearty supper. A final longing look of love, as the Boy sneaks a spoonful of her pudding. An absolute delight of a film.

Cretinetti che bello! (1909; It.; André Deed). “Too beautiful!” a title announces, and it needs to do so to clarify the almost inexplicable events that follow… A man in an absurd wig and jazzy waistcoat is invited to a wedding, so he dons an enormous top hat, clown shoes, and powders his face with an inch of powder. Now with monocle and cigar, he marches along, looking so beautiful he attracts women (all men in drag) from his house, a gelato stall, and a park bench. At the wedding, more women (most of whom are again men in drag) fall for him, including the bride and the women of both families—who chase him outside, through a park, and tear him—quite literally—to pieces. Horrified and disappointed, they run off. But the pieces start moving around and eventually reanimate themselves, so that Segnor Cretinetti delightfully comes back to life and jigs with glee. A joyfully silly film, and a nice way to round off the programme of shorts.

Next, our main feature presentation…

The Fox (1920; US; Robert Thornby).

A sleepy town on the edge of the desert. Suddenly, an eruption of violence, horses and cars and lassoes careering through the streets. The Sheriff is called for, violent gangmen are everywhere. Enter Harry Carey as Santa Fe. (“They didn’t know where he came from, and they didn’t care.”) He sees a bear tamer threaten a child. Cue fistfight, the tamer using the bear for self-defence(!). Santa Fe chases off the father, only for the child to chase him. The child admits the man wasn’t his father. “He found me, just like you”. The two outsiders make friends. One mishap with the law later, and the child is effectively adopted—they are put in the same cell together. But the Sheriff’s daughter Annette pleads for Santa Fe’s good nature. The old sheriff offers Santa Fe a job. But the child remains in jail as a “hostage”, to make Harry more liable to do the Sheriff a favour. First, Santa Fe takes a job as a porter in the local bank. (Carey is very funny here, and throughout: the way he playfights, the way he tries to kill a fly, the way he holds a duster.) But Santa Fe’s here to spy on the goings on behind-the-scenes at the bank. Coulter, the dodgy president, enlists the help of his clerk Farwell to take the fall for his own emptying of the bank’s funds.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe is at a restaurant—carrying stacks dishes, rushing with the precarious skill of a comedian. In the desert, Farwell is captured under false pretences (all according to Coulter’s plan). In the restaurant, Santa Fe prepares a surprise for some gang members: mustard in their coffee. But to his surprise, they love it: “Now that’s good coffee!” But a fight nevertheless ensues, with hurled furniture and crockery. “Can you only fight?” the Sheriff asks, bringing him back to the jail. Now the gang, drunk, barge in and start a fight in a store. But the Sheriff arrives, only to be bested by the gang. (In this section of the film, there are some very nice low-key lighting for the night scenes. And a nice shot of Santa Fe in jail, beautifully lit, highlights on the bars and his shoulders—the same light that catches the flies buzzing in the foreground.) Santa Fe comes to save the day, gun in hand, and earns the respect of the Sheriff and Annette. His esteem warrants him a better hat and a sturdier pair of trousers: he slowly starts to look the part of the cowboy rather than the hobo. He heads into the desert to chase the gang and the missing clerk. He finds the “Painted Cliff Gang” hideout in the desert cliffs: a kind of “city”, hidden from the outside world. He finds and rescues Farwell, then returns to the town. Santa Fe reveals that he is a government agent and offers his full support.

So, to the desert, where the gang—armed with Lewis machine-guns—fight the forces of town and law. They are waiting for the cavalry. And they arrive in style, these “Veterans of the Argonne”. Hails of bullets, falling bodies from cliffs, sticks of dynamite, Santa Fe climbing cliff walls, a huge explosion, the charge of the army, machine-gun fire sawing through a bridge support, “waves of lead and cold steel”. The bad guys are marched off and the cavalry chase after Coulter. But it’s Santa Fe who finds him, and the missing funds. Various happy endings ensure: Farwell marries the sheriff’s younger daughter, while Santa Fe goes off with Annette and the child—who Santa Fe hopes to enlist in the army. The makeshift family ride off into the desert. The End.

Day 1: Summary

A breathless start to the online festival. I found the hour of slapstick from across the globe an absolute delight. Even the least cinematically interesting (Rudi Sportman) had the delight of its real locations in a lost world, a lost time. Pratfalls in the foreground, history in the background. And talking of comedy, I was surprised by how many comic touches there were in The Fox. It was the first complete Harry Carey film I’ve ever seen, so a real treat. And a surprise, too. For I could imagine Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd playing a similar role to Carey’s “Santa Fe” (the outsider hiding his physical abilities while timidly wooing the girl of a patrician figure), and the stray child could be a companion for Chaplin. Even the way Carey flirts, or looks longingly, is a little comic—comic in the way he’s so shy, and turns away when the girl catches him lingering. I like the way he slowly accrues the imagery of the cowboy: first the gun, then the hat, the jeans, and finally the all-action heroics of the finale. He moves from smart outsider, impressing with his deft touches and wit, to become the lawman and gunfighter of physical action. A solid, compact, oddly light film. (I admit, I’m not much for westerns—and I did prefer the slapstick to The Fox today.) A lot to see, but all new to me. And no time to dawdle! It’s only day one and already I feel the schedule nipping at my heels…

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2022, Day 3)

Profanazione (1924; It.; Eugenio Perego)

A ripe melodrama from Italy: after her brother Alfredo secretly steals her husband’s money, Giulia (Leda Gys) must ask help from Roberto, who obliges but then forces himself upon her; after Giulia has a second child, her husband Luciano suspects that the daughter growing up in their house is not his…

At last, a bad film! For the sake of my time and fingers, I’m relieved that I don’t have to write or think as much of Profanazione as previous films. That said, it is only an hour long and packs enough unexpected (which is to say, clumsily inserted) twists to give one enough of a reason to stick with it.

But the problems are manifest from the start. The performances are not bad, as such, but rather obvious: when drama strikes, eyes begin to bulge and hands begin to ascend towards heads and faces. The camera is almost inert, though there are enough neat compositions to ward off aesthetic hunger. What disappoints most is the way that the intertitles do too much work, substituting text for visual imagination.

When Giulia visits her rich admirer Roberto, we read: “Before she crosses the threshold of his house, she feels all the anguish of the sacrifice of her woman’s pride.” [N.B. The original word “orgoglio“ (“pride”) is mistranslated as “watch” in the available subtitles on the stream.] All that we see, with only a second or two to linger, is Giulia closing her eyes outside the gates.

Elsewhere, text invokes complex emotions that widening eyes and static poses cannot. “She seeks comfort for her pain in the love of her children, but in vain”, says a title. We see Giulia in her chair. Another explanatory title. Cut back to Giulia in the same chair. And so on, and so on, and so on…

What keeps the film failing completely is the sheer brutality and narcissism of all its male characters, who bully, ignore, abuse, and exploit Giulia and (later) her two daughters. It isn’t sophisticated fare, but it stops you falling asleep. Faced by Roberto’s brutal advances, Giulia fights with her gun and then with her teeth, then (after she has been violated off-screen) takes the flowers Roberto gives her and thrashes his face with them. It’s an extraordinary set-up, but somehow the crudeness of the surrounding film bled dry the feeling it should have invoked. This film was released in 1924. If it had been an Italian film made ten years earlier, I can’t imagine it being this lacking in atmosphere, feeling, texture. It’s a world away from the great “diva” films of the 1910s.

In Profanazione, the male violence keeps coming. A few years later (how time flies!), Roberto threatens to come to Giulia’s house and see “his” daughter. Giulia drives out of town to ward him off. She breaks down. “How fate is against her…” Yes, and the screenwriters too. For Roberto arrives from the other direction and they drive back together. At home, Giulia’s children (dressed in ridiculously frilly tea cosies) play and crash their toy car: cue the inexplicable sight of Giulia and Roberto plunging off a cliff.

The husband, Luciano, arrives at the scene. The best thing he can do to his insensate wife is grab her and shake her arms. (Weirdly, he’s gentler to Roberto, lying on the other bed.) But wait—Luciano has contracted a rare eye-bulging condition. A stroke? No, he is suspicious! As Luciano is refreshing himself on the details of the plot through various bits of incriminating paperwork wrested from the unconscious bodies, Giulia awakes—and it’s her turn for bulging eyes. (It’s contagious.) Luciano acts “like a madman” and searches documents for evidence. (Not only do his eyes bulge, but his neck apparently swells too much for his collar; perhaps he has a parchment allergy?)

Bits of the film fly by in-between cuts inflicted by time, others by design. Is anger leeching from the frame, between the frames? Is the melodrama so potent it’s causing the celluloid to buckle, break, flee? The film breaks itself into numbered parts, most of the transitions between parts occurring mid-scene. Thus: we see Giulia sitting. End of Part 3. Part 4: Giulia is still sitting! Oh dear, her eyes are closing. The next day. Luciano is pacing. A telegram. Giulia is havering in the doorway again. Roberto is in a wheelchair, too feeble for Luciano to slap him about. “I will wait for you to answer until I die!” The nurse (a nun, by the looks of her) says: “If he has sinned, God will punish him—not you.” Roberto lies about which is his child: he says it’s Mimì to protect his real child (I must have missed her name) from wrath. So Luciano goes home to embrace “his” own child and hits the innocent Mimì. “I’ll keep my child, you keep his!” he screams at Giulia. Great stuff, Luciano.

(I’ve already written too much on the film, but I’ve come this far…)

Giulia stomachs this for a scene, then tells Luciano everything: we see again Giulia hitting Roberto with roses, but no more. (How one longs for the film to do something, anything, visually imaginative with memory, feeling, subjectivity etc.) Does Luciano believe his wife or Roberto? But news just in: Roberto is dead. Giulia’s eyes bulge and she walks slowly away. Upstairs, Mimì “falls into an uncontrollable fit of weeping”. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Giulia lifts her arms and prays; her pose dissolves onto an image of the Virgin Mary. It’s one of the film’s few attempts at complex visual design, and all it can reach for is cheap Catholic tat.

The images of birds in a cage, the children superimposed over them, is so obvious that even Luciano gets the message. He finally forgives everyone. And, complete with a duff subtitle translation that somehow suits the lazy sentiment, we read: “The heart wants what its want” [sic]. Now Alfredo returns from his travels (he buggered off early on in proceedings, having caused Giulia’s predicament in the first place) and confesses his role. It’s a shame that Luciano has now recovered his cool so doesn’t vent some rage on Alfredo, who (for my money) has eased his way undeservingly through all trouble.

The film’s last title waves goodbye with a breezy note: “THE END / Good evening, thank you!” It’s as if it senses that we’ll be in a hurry to leave at the end. I certainly was.

Paul Cuff