Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli
Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli
Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli
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compressa, spesso sbrigativa. <strong>La</strong> caratterizzazione può qua e là<br />
difettare di profondità psicologica, ma le dramatis personae sono<br />
presentate con chiarezza e coerenza – “creature dickensiane vere<br />
e non mere caricature come è dato molto spesso il caso” – sancì<br />
The Dickensian. Hepworth fu tuttavia particolarmente <strong>del</strong>uso dal<br />
ragazzino americano che interpretava David da bambino, Reggie<br />
Sheffield (accreditato come “Eric Desmond”), rammentando che<br />
“troppo spesso guardava in macchina o verso il produttore quando<br />
gli veniva rivolta la parola”. Sembrerebbe un giudizio troppo duro per<br />
un interprete che il succitato recensore aveva lodato come “uno dei<br />
più brillanti bambini-attori che si siano mai visti”. Il giovane Sheffield/<br />
Desmond ritrae con finezza un bambino che subisce senza capirne<br />
il motivo i trattamenti più duri finché non decide di scappare. Il suo<br />
David è pienamente credibile sia nelle scene in cui subisce le angherie<br />
più cru<strong>del</strong>i (in casa da Murdstone; a scuola da Creakle; nella fabbrica di<br />
bottiglie dai suoi piccoli compagni di lavoro; durante la sua spossante<br />
fuga da Londra), sia nei <strong>del</strong>iziosi momenti comici (il cameriere che fa<br />
fuori la gran parte <strong>del</strong> suo pasto; Micawber che prepara il punch o il<br />
signor Dick che fa volare l’aquilone).<br />
Nondimeno, come avviene spesso nelle produzioni di Hepworth,<br />
i punti di forza <strong>del</strong> film risiedono nella ricercatezza compositiva e<br />
nella qualità pittorica degli esterni: i sentieri <strong>del</strong> Suffolk, le scogliere<br />
di Dover, la tempesta a Yarmouth, le strade di Canterbury, le case<br />
di Highgate. The Dickensian concludeva definendolo “il più bel film<br />
dickensiano visto finora … Per la sua fe<strong>del</strong>tà narrativa, l’accurata<br />
messa in scena e la recitazione realistica … nessun appassionato di<br />
Dickens dovrebbe perdere l’opportunità di vederlo”.<br />
Nel periodo <strong>del</strong> muto, Bentley girò almeno altri sei film dickensiani,<br />
tutti andati perduti. Il più ambizioso di questi fu sicuramente Barnaby<br />
Rudge <strong>del</strong> 1915. Il primo romanzo storico di Dickens si svolge ai<br />
tempi dei disordini antipapisti dei tardi anni ’80 <strong>del</strong> 1700 – un’opera<br />
negletta che non è più stata adattata per il cinema. L’opulenta versione<br />
Hepworth/Bentley fu la più dispendiosa produzione britannica fino ad<br />
allora realizzata. Ne rimane solo il pressbook, dal quale si evince che<br />
l’autenticità topografica era nuovamente garantita dalle scene girate<br />
nelle località <strong>del</strong>l’Essex descritte nell’originale, ma anche che un<br />
imponente set <strong>del</strong>la Londra di fine ’700 (dallo sbalorditivo costo di<br />
2000 sterline) era stato costruito a Walton-on-Thames, dove le scene<br />
<strong>del</strong>la rivolta avevano coinvolto una massa di circa 1400 comparse.<br />
Sarebbe davvero meraviglioso se questo epico film perduto potesse<br />
un giorno o l’altro tornare alla luce. – MICHAEL EATON<br />
This film has a hallowed status as it is sometimes considered, arguably,<br />
the first British feature. It was certainly the longest production thus<br />
far from a Dickensian source. In the 1906-1914 volume of her History<br />
of the British Film, first published in 1949, Rachael Low provided<br />
an extensive standard-setting analysis, which concluded that its<br />
preservation “is one of the few pieces of good fortune enjoyed by the<br />
historian of the early British film”.<br />
The film pioneer Cecil Hepworth was the son of a lantern lecturer<br />
48<br />
whose most popular show was The Footprints of Charles Dickens,<br />
so his collaboration with Bentley was a perfect match. In his 1951<br />
autobiography Came the Dawn, Hepworth wrote: “So when Thomas<br />
Bentley presented himself to me as a ‘great Dickens character<br />
impersonator and scholar,’ my heart naturally warmed to him and<br />
I was readily receptive when he offered to make a Dickens film<br />
for me … Oliver Twist was the first and its length was nearly four<br />
thousand feet. It may not have been outstandingly good but it was<br />
very successful and it marked the beginning of a Dickens series …<br />
The next one on our list was the dreadfully difficult story of David<br />
Copperfield. Bentley certainly loved his Dickens and there is no<br />
gainsaying the fact that he turned out a great deal of very good work<br />
which rebounded considerably to his credit and also to ours. He was<br />
a rum chap but I found him very pleasant to work with. He went to<br />
Dover among many other places in the making of this film. When he<br />
came back he told me that he had found the very house that Dickens<br />
had described. I remember the joyful glee with which he recounted<br />
how he had managed to secure in the picture, the fascia board upon<br />
it saying that it was ‘the House immortalised by Dickens as the<br />
Home of Miss Betsy Trotwood’. I do not think he ever understood<br />
why I received this news with so little enthusiasm.” Nevertheless,<br />
Hepworth didn’t balk from trumpeting topographical authenticity;<br />
the opening credit declares: “On the Actual Scenes Immortalised by<br />
Charles Dickens”.<br />
Never known to stint on the use of titles, Hepworth realized that this<br />
book – the most autobiographical of Dickens’s works, his “favourite<br />
child” – is “such a complicated and diffuse story”. The film would be<br />
hard to follow without substantial recourse to important information<br />
being given in writing, whether in the form of intertitles or filmed<br />
letters. Though these are usually what Low called “the old advance<br />
summary”, telling the spectators what they are about to see and<br />
altogether eschewing dialogue, most of the intertitles are unusually<br />
in the first-person, which does go some way to evoke the central<br />
consciousness of the book.<br />
The narrative progresses at quite a lick, necessarily compressed,<br />
frequently perfunctory. Certainly the characterization may be devoid<br />
of psychological depth, though the dramatis personae are clearly<br />
and consistently presented: “Dickens’s creations to the life and not<br />
mere exaggerations as is so often the case” was the opinion of The<br />
Dickensian. Hepworth, though, was particularly disappointed with the<br />
American youngster playing David as a child, Reggie Sheffield (credited<br />
as “Eric Desmond”), remembering that he “too often looked at<br />
the camera or the producer when he was spoken to”. This seems<br />
a particularly harsh assessment of a performer the above reviewer<br />
praised as “one of the cleverest child actors we have seen”. Young<br />
Sheffield/Desmond gives a fine portrayal of a boy uncomprehendingly<br />
enduring the harshest of treatments until he makes the decision to<br />
run away. He seems equally capable in scenes in which David is cruelly<br />
abused (at home by Murdstone, at school by Creakle, at the bottle<br />
factory by his fellow child-labourers, or on his exhausting escape from<br />
London), as well as in <strong>del</strong>ightful comic moments (the waiter eating and<br />
drinking more of his meal than he does, Micawber mixing punch, or<br />
Mister Dick kite-flying).<br />
However, as is so often the case with a Hepworth production, it is<br />
the beauty of the pictorial compositions and the picturesque quality<br />
of the exteriors – the lanes of Suffolk, the cliffs at Dover, the storm at<br />
Yarmouth, the streets of Canterbury, the houses of Highgate – which<br />
remain the greatest achievement of this production. The Dickensian<br />
concluded that it was “the finest Dickens Picture Play we have yet seen<br />
… With the narrative so well maintained, the scenery accurate, and<br />
the acting so life-like … no Dickens lover should miss the opportunity<br />
of seeing it.”<br />
Bentley went on to make no less than six other Dickens films in the<br />
silent era, all of them now missing. The most ambitious must surely<br />
have been Barnaby Rudge in 1915. Dickens’s first historical novel<br />
takes place against the background of the anti-Catholic “No Popery”<br />
riots of the late 1780s, and this neglected work has never been the<br />
subject of any other feature adaptation. The lavish Hepworth/Bentley<br />
version was the most expensive British production yet undertaken.<br />
Only the pressbook now remains, but this is sufficient to show that,<br />
once again, topographical veracity was ensured by scenes filmed in<br />
the Essex landscape of the original, but also that a massive set of late-<br />
18th-century London was built in Walton-on-Thames at the amazing<br />
cost of £2,000, with the riot scenes involving a mob of no less than<br />
1400 extras. It would be wonderful if this lost epic were one day<br />
rediscovered. – MICHAEL EATON<br />
Wonderful London (serie/series)<br />
DICKENS’ LONDON (Graham-Wilcox Productions, GB 1924)<br />
Regia/dir: Frank Miller, H.B. Parkinson; orig. l: 780 ft.; 35mm, 807 ft.,<br />
10' (20 fps); fonte copia/print source: BFI National Archive, London.<br />
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.<br />
Qualora vi fossero dei dubbi sulla persistente centralità dickensiana<br />
nella tradizione iconografica di Londra, basterebbe a fugarli questo<br />
<strong>del</strong>izioso cortometraggio. Prodotto da Graham Cutts (che stava per<br />
fare i film con “the Rat”, co-sceneggiati da Constance Collier, che fu<br />
la Nancy <strong>del</strong> Fagin di Beerbohm Tree e <strong>La</strong>dy Dedlock in Bleak House<br />
di Elvey) e da Herbert Wilcox (regista, l’anno seguente, <strong>del</strong>l’ultimo<br />
Dickens muto, The Only Way), è questo il solo esempio di una serie<br />
che descriv e i vari aspetti di Londra a prendere spunto dalla vita e dalle<br />
opere di una figura letteraria.<br />
54 anni dopo la morte <strong>del</strong>lo scrittore, la topografia dickensiana stava già<br />
diventando un retaggio <strong>del</strong> passato, e oggi, la nostalgia psico-geografica<br />
evocata da questo film è accentuata dalle tante sparizioni successive.<br />
Luoghi reali associati all’Uomo diventano intercambiabili con i luoghi<br />
fittizi <strong>del</strong>le Opere. Le copertine dei suoi libri diventano porose e le sue<br />
creature si siedono l’una accanto all’altra su un omnibus a motore. E<br />
dove potevano recarsi, nel 1924, questi personaggi destinati a vivere<br />
per sempre pur senza aver mai vissuto? All’Esposizione <strong>del</strong>l’Impero<br />
Britannico di Wembley. – MICHAEL EATON<br />
49<br />
Should there be any doubts about the continuing centrality of Dickens<br />
to the iconographical heritage of London, this <strong>del</strong>ightful short must<br />
dispel them. Produced by Graham Cutts (going on to make the “Rat”<br />
films co-written by Constance Collier, who was Nancy to Beerbohm<br />
Tree’s Fagin and <strong>La</strong>dy Dedlock in Elvey’s Bleak House) and Herbert<br />
Wilcox (directing, in the following year, the final Dickens silent The<br />
Only Way), this was the sole instance from a series depicting aspects of<br />
the capital to be organized around the life and works of a literary figure.<br />
Fifty-four years after the writer’s death the topography of Dickens<br />
was already becoming a thing of the past, and today the psychogeographical<br />
nostalgia of this film is enhanced by so many subsequent<br />
disappearances. Real places associated with the Man become<br />
interchangeable with the fictional locations of the Works. The covers<br />
of his books become porous and his creations rub shoulders together<br />
on a motor omnibus. And where, in 1924, would these ever-living<br />
characters who never lived be going? To the British Empire Exhibition<br />
at Wembley. – MICHAEL EATON<br />
Prog. 6: Bleak House<br />
GRANDFATHER SMALLWEED THE MISER (British Sound Film<br />
Productions, GB 1928)<br />
Regia/dir: Hugh Croise; cast: Bransby Williams; DigiBeta, 3'50" (24<br />
fps), sd.; fonte copia/print source: BFI National Archive, London.<br />
Versione originale in inglese / English dialogue.<br />
L’inclusione di quest’originale cortometraggio, il primo “talkie” tratto<br />
da Dickens, è giustificata dal suo protagonista, “l’Irving <strong>del</strong> musichall”<br />
Bransby Williams (1870-1961), che fu il maggior interprete di<br />
personaggi dickensiani <strong>del</strong>la prima metà <strong>del</strong> XX secolo: attraverso i suoi<br />
monologhi, con un repertorio che comprendeva Mr. Micawber, Uriah<br />
Heep, Tony Weller, Bill Sikes, Fagin, Sydney Carton e, naturalmente,<br />
Scrooge, egli portò lo scrittore alle masse. Risale al 1903 la sua prima<br />
registrazione sonora di A Christmas Carol per il fonografo Edison;<br />
nel 1913 incise un’altra serie di recital imperniati sul vecchio avaro,<br />
un personaggio che avrebbe continuato a portare sulle scene fino<br />
all’età di 80 anni: la sua ultima interpretazione fu per una trasmissione<br />
televisiva <strong>del</strong>la BBC <strong>del</strong> 1950. Williams apparve anche in numerosi<br />
adattamenti teatrali di opere <strong>del</strong>lo scrittore e divenne vicepresidente<br />
di The Dickens Fellowship. Purtroppo <strong>del</strong> suo Scrooge filmato dalla<br />
British Sound Film, che aveva la licenza per l’utilizzo <strong>del</strong>la tecnologia<br />
De Forest Phonofilm, nulla è sopravvissuto. Rimane però questa<br />
produzione complementare, in cui Williams impersona Smallweed, il<br />
grottesco, avaro rentier di Casa desolata. <strong>La</strong> posizione <strong>del</strong>la macchina<br />
da presa rimane la medesima mentre cambiano le tre inquadrature con<br />
l’avaro che rimbrotta l’invisibile moglie – “la vecchia immagine” – e<br />
istruisce un altrettanto assente nipote su come spremere a fondo i<br />
creditori. – MICHAEL EATON<br />
The inclusion of this novelty short, the first Dickensian “talkie”, is<br />
justified by its performer. “The Irving of the Music Halls”, Bransby<br />
CHARLES DICKENS