Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2005 Sommario / Contents

This rarely seen masterpiece of the late silent era features a triumvirate
of screen legends – star Lillian Gish, screenwriter Frances Marion, and
director Victor Seastrom – working at the peak of their powers. Under a
new contract at MGM, Gish was the project’s prime mover as she sought
more mature roles after playing ingenues for D.W. Griffith.
Ironically, Gish wrote in her autobiography, it was the wholesome reputation
she established with Griffith that put censorship groups, concerned about
the subject matter of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, at ease. Surely,
Gish would be a most chaste Hester Prynne. Yet from its opening title,
establishing Prynne’s ordeal as “a story of bigotry uncurbed,” to its tragic
finale before the public stocks of Puritan Boston, this largely faithful
adaptation comes down squarely on the side of love and ardent sensuality.
Early on, Gish, as Prynne, loses her bonnet chasing a songbird through a
summer glade.When the wind catches her waist-long tresses, Gish appears
for an instant as if she had just stepped into a painting by Botticelli.
Seastrom seizes on Gish’s vitality throughout the film, binding it powerfully
to the natural world through deftly mobile camerawork. In a dazzling
forest sequence leading up to Prynne and Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale’s first,
fateful off-screen tryst, Seastrom’s camera floats alongside the lovers for
an eternity before discreetly turning away as they disappear into the
woods. Such dreamy idylls give way to a foreboding chiaroscuro as the
forces of repression react, but the lingering impression of Seastrom’s
romantic imagery reminds us of love’s ultimate victory.
Though a few missing shots had to be copied from a 16mm print, the
majority of this film has been restored from the beautiful original camera
negative supplied by George Eastman House, along with additional 35mm
footage from the Danish Film Institute and the British Film Institute. –
PAUL MALCOLM (UCLA, 12th Festival of Preservation, 2004)
Film preservato con il sostegno di / Preservation funded by The
Packard Humanities Institute.
Restauro effettuato in collaborazione con la George Eastman
House, il British Film Institute e la Warner Bros, a partire da un
negativo immagine nitrato originale 35mm e un master positivo
35mm, nonché, per qualche breve pezzo, da un 16mm.
Restored in cooperation with George Eastman House, the British Film
Institute, and Warner Bros, from the original 35mm nitrate picture
negative, a 35mm master positive, and brief portions of a 16mm print.
Laboratorio / Laboratory services by Film Technology Company, Inc.,
YCM Laboratories.
Didascalie restaurate da / Titles restored by Title House Digital.
Si ringraziano in particolare / Special thanks to: Elaine Burrows,
Thomas Christensen (Danish Film Institute), Doron Galili, Edith
Kramer, Richard P. May, Jon Mirsalis, David W. Packard, David Pierce,
David Shepard, Jon Wengstrom (Swedish Film Institute), Caroline
Yeager (George Eastman House).
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