You don’t have to be superstitious to notice when the date is Friday the 13th, and conduct yourself cautiously as a result. And of course I am not superstitious – unless you count the fact that I am convinced I willed this evening’s gala into existence by the power of my mind. But that’s a story for later on…
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 7Tag Archives: Ruritania
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 1
Watch your step, Pordenauts. Leaving the Verdi after the first afternoon of screenings at this sun-soaked Giornate, I almost walked into the path of the Pordenone Pnthlon relay race. A timely reminder that this festival of silent cinema is a marathon not a sprint, so get set, but don’t tear off too fast, we have eight days ahead of us.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 1
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 8
So the 41st Giornate del Cinema Muto, and my personal 11th, draws to a close with two British silent films. What is that they say about saving the best for last?
I was certainly in Italy this morning, with the Italian drama Profanazione (Eugenio Pergeo, 1924-6) – a tale of adultery, corruption, suspicious, lost pets and automobile accidents. This was spirited drama, if very heavy on the intertitles, with Leda Gys as a woman who strays and yet is more sinned against than sinning. That title translates into English as “defilement”, which gives you a sense of the subject matter, I think, and why censorship delayed the film’s release for so long. Gys is every inch the star, though notably more restrained than the diva mode, and she is the heart of this film that despite its twists and turns, is very much a serious film for grownups.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 8
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 7
Day Seven of the festival and the mood on campus is very much “Thank God it’s Friday”. Not because anyone is glad the Giornate is nearly over (perhaps apart from the festival team perhaps who have worked tirelessly to ensure everything has run beautifully, as usual), but because today’s lineup is especially toothsome. More Norma! A Frances Marion-directed feature! And Ivan Mosjoukine and Brigitte Helm smouldering opposite each other! That’s before we even get to tonight’s Ruritanian romp – the 1924 adaptation of the silent era touchstone that is Elinor Glyn’s Three Weeks. Hold on to your string of pearls, we are going all-in.
First, an especially timely effort from Team Talmadge. In Within the Law (Frank Lloyd, 1923), Norma plays a shop girl who fights back. Exploited under capitalism, and imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, young Mary finds “going straight is a tough proposition”. Instead she teams up with a pretty blonde cellmate to take revenge on the moneyed male establishment with a breach-of-promise scheme that exploits men, cashes the big and stays strictly “within the law”.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 7
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 4
What’s your favourite Latvian nationalist historical fantasy war epic? From the silent era, I mean. Taking a little while to decide? Cool, I’ll share mine. It’s Lāčplēsis AKA The Bear Slayer (Aleksandrs Rusteiķis, 1930), newly restored by Riga’s Studio Locomotive.
To reassure the squeamish among you – there is no bear slaying in this film. The Bear Slayer is a strongman of Latvian legend, so burly he can kill a bear with his bare (sorry) hands, but he uses his might for right. This film starts with a hell of a bang, in full-on fantasy mode as an evil “Black Knight” (Osvalds Mednis) with an alarming bullet-shaped head and a supremely sinister gaze tries to bear down on a damsel in distress (Lilita Bērziņa) in a castle. She has an enchanted brooch that will save her, but the Knight gets his ghoulish, wizardy goblin pals to reverse that charm. They begin preparing the cauldron with the usual eye of newt etc and at the last minute, as they prepare to take the blood of an innocent dove, the Bear Slayer/Lāčplēsis (Voldemārs Dimze) throws his sword into the works and foils the dastardly scheme.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 4
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 3
Holiday hats on everyone. The sun is out in Pordenone. And although it can be a struggle to choose the dark of the cinema over basking in the Italian heat, there are compensations. Even if, this afternoon, the heavens opened in the Verdi with a screening of Joris Ivens’ splashy art film Regen (1929), part of the strand celebrating 90 years of the Venice Film Festival.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 3
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 2
There’s something about Nanook… A century after it was first released, you might not expect a film with such a complex history to be, as Jay Weissberg said, one of the most anticipated events of the festival. But it certainly was. A quick straw poll of Pordenone attendees confirmed that yes, most of us had first seen Nanook of the North in a film studies classroom or lecture hall, and that we had been told both that it was a box-office sensation, and that it was partly a dupe. But this centenarian film is more than just a notch on the documentary cinema timeline, and it has a beguiling beauty and humanity that commands respect.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 2
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 1
Welcome home, to your home away from home, Pordenauts. It’s the 41st Giornate del Cinema Muto and the assembled crowd in the Teatro Verdi is bursting with questions. Questions like: do we know what is unknown in The Unknown? Would you like to sin with Elinor Glyn? How much Norma is Talmadge? Does a Pathé-Baby sleep through the night? How many men could a Manxman mank if a Manxman could mank men? And (I may actually have been asked this one in all seriousness) can you point to Ruritania on a map?
Time will provide answers. Meanwhile, let us savour eight days in the make-believe land of silent cinema, once upon a time and far, far away from the troubles we left behind with our morning newspapers.
Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2022: Pordenone Post No 1
Silent London 