Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

William Neill: la proiezione anticipa le celebrazioni dell’imminente centenario della Technicolor. L’UCLA Film & Television Archive ha magnificamente restaurato il
capolavoro di Clarence Brown The Goose Woman, a partire da una copia a 16mm del film “perduto” che Kevin Brownlow scovò 54 anni or sono e che diede un
impulso decisivo alla sua leggendaria passione per il cinema muto. Le riscoperte italiane di quest’anno sono il commovente Gli spazzacamini della Val d’Aosta di
Umberto Paradisi, tratto dal dramma che Giovanni Sabbatini dedicò nel 1854 alla miserevole condizione dei fanciulli spazzacamino (vittime di frequenti abusi e
soprusi ancora nel 1914, quando il film fu realizzato) e Idillio infranto di Nello Mauri, uno degli ultimi film muti italiani, il “sogno di celluloide” con cui l’uomo d’affari
pugliese Orazio Campanella volle celebrare l’atmosfera e la cultura della regione natia. Ci auguriamo che Sir Sydney Samuelson possa essere con noi per presentare
due film prodotti da suo padre G.B. Samuelson e diretti da Walter Summers: The Unwanted e A Couple of Down and Outs (1923), che anticipa la trama di War
Horse di Spielberg. Il progetto Hans Steinhoff culmina con la pubblicazione del volume che Horst Claus ha dedicato a questo controverso regista e la proiezione del
più sorprendente film di Steinhoff, Familientag im Hause Prellstein. Realizzato appena sei anni prima del noto Hitlerjunge Quex, è l’adattamento di una commedia
del Teatro Ebraico di Berlino, i cui interpreti – tra i quali due futuri beniamini di Hollywood, S.Z. Szakall e Sig Arno – sarebbero stati presto costretti a emigrare
oppure a prepararsi al peggio in Germania. Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi presenta un’altra delle sue antologie di comiche delle origini, questa volta dedicata alla figura
della suocera, eterno bersaglio degli strali degli umoristi.
Come di consueto, il Collegium porterà a Pordenone 12 nuovi giovani studiosi appassionati di cinema muto mentre a un collegian dell’anno scorso verrà assegnato
il premio annuale della Banca Popolare FriulAdria Crédit Agricole riservato al miglior “Collegium paper” – un riconoscimento vivamente apprezzato per i 14 anni
di lavoro del Collegium, nel corso dei quali abbiamo visto numerosi ex collegians portare il proprio talento ed entusiasmo nel mondo accademico e archivistico.
Per una volta non ci lamenteremo delle restrizioni economiche che di questi tempi colpiscono la cultura. Il problema è universale; non resta che fare quanto
possibile per superarlo. Noi speriamo di riuscirci con la collaborazione dei nostri ospiti, ai quali chiediamo di capire le ragioni che stanno dietro la riduzione
dell’ospitalità o l’applicazione delle quote per l’accredito.
Per tutti i collaboratori delle Giornate quest’anno è stato dolorosamente segnato dalla scomparsa di Sara Moranduzzo. Entrata a far parte delle Giornate nel
1995, quando fu allestita la mostra per il centenario del cinema, Sara nel corso degli anni era diventata una presenza indispensabile nelle pubbliche relazioni; in
particolare, si era prodigata per rafforzare i legami tra il festival, la città e le istituzioni regionali. Nel momento in cui rendiamo omaggio a Charles Dickens, uno
scrittore da lei molto amato, Sara, con la sua generosa vitalità e il suo humour, ci manca più che mai. – LIVIO JACOB, DAVID ROBINSON
It is an axiom of film festivals that if the programme is not better than last year’s – it is worse. We have no such fears for our 31st programme; and when we assert
that it offers more exciting rediscoveries and surprises than ever before, it is no boast on our own part, since the credit is due not to us, the Giornate team. All
is thanks to our friends and essential supporters, those international film archives who have generously given their time, research, and films to make the festival
possible, and those who have dedicated themselves to curating the different sections, and contributing to writing this catalogue.
The Cinémathèque française has granted us the première of a momentous rediscovery, the 1902 Les Aventures de Robinson Crusoé, in many respects the most
beautiful film by Georges Méliès that has re-emerged since his rehabilitation began more than 80 years ago. Equally, we have been granted the absolute premiere
of the remarkable restoration of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, one of the wonders of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. The Cinémathèque française and Gaumont,
in association with Lobster Films, have recovered and restored practically the entire repertoire, including seven of the ten films which originally had synchronized
sound, recorded on phonograph cylinders. The result is not just a historical curiosity, but a living record of the greatest stage stars of the Belle Époque, including
Bernhardt, Coquelin ainé, and Réjane; the étoiles of the ballet, Mauri, Zambelli, and Cléo de Mérode; and outstanding figures of the opera, operetta, and music hall.
Talent, we discover, doesn’t fade: after 12 years, this is still an all-star show.
Robinson Crusoe constitutes the first item of the opening musical serata, composed and conducted from the piano by Maud Nelissen. The feature film that follows
is King Vidor’s The Patsy, with the incomparable Marion Davies confronted by the formidable Marie Dressler. The closing gala will be Clarence Brown’s A Woman
of Affairs, starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, with the theatrical premiere of Carl Davis’s score, conducted by the composer himself. Our third major musical
presentation is a spectacular innovation for the Giornate: Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc will be performed in the Duomo of Pordenone, with a new score by
Touve Ratovondrahety, composed for the Duomo’s superb historic 1749 organ, chorus, solo cello, three trumpets, and two trombones. The musicians are all from
the renowned Coro San Marco and Orchestra San Marco of Pordenone, thus fulfilling the festival’s constant ambition to integrate its international role with the
cultural life of the city. This wish will be further achieved by the greater involvement of students from the regional musical institutions in the Festival’s annual
Masterclasses in film accompaniment, this year celebrating their 10th anniversary. As usual our resident musicians will work daily with two gifted guest pianists,
and these Masterclasses can be recommended as one of the best shows in town, offering remarkable insights into film interpretation. An especially valued civic
collaboration, now established as a popular annual tradition, is the Sunday afternoon comedy film show accompanied by Pordenone schoolchildren.
The festival’s major programme strand is “Dickens, Father of the Screenplay,” marking the bicentenary of the British novelist’s birth and bringing together the
largest collection yet assembled of silent film adaptations of his works. We present the first complete retrospective of the silent films of the mesmeric Anna Sten,
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a Russian actress whose unique qualities were to be eclipsed when Hollywood set out to transform her into a star. Further exploring the pioneering American studios
often neglected in official history, we offer a selection of the surviving productions of Selig Polyscope. The new biography by Andrew Erish, who has curated the
programme, is justly titled Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood. Among his lifetime of innovations, Selig built the first studio in Los Angeles,
was the first to film Westerns on real locations with real cowboys and Indians, made America’s first two-hour feature (The Spoilers), created the first American
newsreel, inaugurated the serial, and launched stars like Tom Mix and Kathlyn Williams.
To the British Silent Film Festival we owe the rediscovery of the series of adaptations of the short stories of W.W. Jacobs – “the O. Henry of the Waterfronts”
– made early in the 1920s by the director-writer team of Manning Haynes and Lydia Hayward. Very English in their deceptively gentle, sharply ironic humour,
they are exemplary in structure and their use of location and character – and irresistibly enjoyable. To follow last year’s programmes of Japanese animation, we
present two programmes of German animation of the silent period, which bring to light unknown talents, many working in the advertising sector, rather than the
well-known art and avant-garde animators. The early cinema programme includes the earliest-known Dickens adaptations, rediscoveries by Méliès and Velle, and
a further selection from the riches of the Corrick Collection – even now not exhausted: we can offer yet another selection in 2013. Besides La Passion de Jeanne
d’Arc, the fourth annual selection of “The Canon Revisited” sets new restorations of familiar classics like Pabst’s Joyless Street alongside less-known masterworks
like Friedrich Zelnick’s Die Weber.
This year’s “Rediscoveries and Restorations” section could be a festival in itself, featuring, for a start, three major restorations. Herbert Brenon’s The Spanish
Dancer has long been known only in cut-down and hardly comprehensible versions. Now, restored by EYE Film Institute, we can appreciate why it was regarded as
the wonder film of 1923. Warner Bros. have made a new print of Roy William Neill’s The Viking specially for the Giornate screening: the serata screening anticipates
a planned programme to celebrate the coming centenary of Technicolor. The UCLA Film & Television Archive provide a magnificent restoration of Clarence Brown’s
masterpiece The Goose Woman, largely established from the 16mm print of the “lost” film which Kevin Brownlow found 54 years ago, and which was one of the
impacts which inspired his legendary dedication to silent cinema.
This year’s Italian rediscoveries are Umberto Paradiso’s supremely moving The Chimney Sweepers of the Valley of Aosta, based on Giovanni Sabbatini’s 1854 play
about the plight of child chimney sweepers – an abuse still current when the film was made in 1914; and Nello Mauri’s Idillio infranto (Broken Idyll), one of the
last Italian silent films, the “celluloid dream” of a Pugliese businessman, Orazio Campanella, who wanted to celebrate the atmosphere and culture of his native
Puglia. We hope that Sir Sydney Samuelson will be with us to introduce two films produced by his father G.B. Samuelson and directed by Walter Summers – The
Unwanted and A Couple of Down and Outs (1923) – a contemporary anticipation of the story of War Horse. The Hans Steinhoff project climaxes with the publication
of Horst Claus’ definitive book on this most controversial director and the screening of Steinhoff’s most surprising film: Familientag im Hause Prellstein, made only
six years before the notorious Hitlerjunge Quex, was an adaptation of a play from the Berlin Jewish Comedy Theatre, with a cast – including the future Hollywood
favourites S.Z. Szakall and Sig Arno – who were soon to emigrate or suffer worse fates in Germany. Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi presents another of her anthologies of
early comedies – this time dedicated to the eternal joke of the Mother-in-law…. And much more. We are obliged to offer a warning to guests that this year’s
programme is brutally demanding: there is nothing that may safely be skipped.
The Collegium will as usual bring to Pordenone 12 new young scholars and enthusiasts of silent film; and one of last year’s collegians will be selected for the annual
Award presented by the Banca Popolare FriulAdria Crédit Agricole, for the year’s best Collegium Paper – a greatly appreciated recognition of the Collegium’s 14
years of work, which have seen many former collegians go on to bring enthusiastic new talents to the archival and academic worlds.
Finally, we shall not lose energy complaining about the predictable current economic restraints on culture. The problem is universal; the challenge is to overcome
it in the best way we can. We hope we are achieving this, despite tough budget cuts, with the collaboration of our guests who – generally willingly and generously
– share part of the burden, whether as patrons, or in understanding the need for higher accreditation charges and more restricted hospitality. We hope that all our
guests agree that the Festival offers enough to deserve this degree of extra support.
The year has inevitably been shadowed for everyone working at the Giornate by the early death of Sara Moranduzzo. Sara joined the Giornate 16 years ago to work
on our Centenary of Cinema exhibition, and over the years had become a vital personality in the work of public relations, in particular always striving to consolidate
the links between the Festival and the city. One of her favourite authors was Charles Dickens. Pordenone will greatly miss her vital and always endearing presence.
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LIVIO JACOB, DAVID ROBINSON