Cinema Reborn

Melbourne Season 14 – 17 October 2021 A Celebration of Cinema’s Grand Heritage 1 Cinema Reborn The Films

Aimless Bullet 5 Le Corbeau 8 Criss Cross 12 Filibus 20 Vintage Ads Four flms from CAAMA 23 Vintage Ads Le amiche 28 NFSA ONLINE EXHIBITION NFSA ONLINE EXHIBITION The Juniper Tree 36 Discover the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s collection of vintage The Leopard 41 Discover the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s collection of vintage Australian cinema, radio and television advertisements, which spans six decades, Australian cinema, radio and television advertisements, which spans six decades, Shadow Panic 45 two world wars and thirteen prime ministers. two world wars and thirteen prime ministers. Sons of Matthew 46 In these ads – dating from 1914 to 1969 – you’ll see iconic brands, hear familiar In these ads – datingjingles from and 1914 possibly to 1969 recognise – you’ll a few see famous iconic brands,faces. hear familiar jingles and possibly recognise a few famous faces. Cover photo: Te Leopard, courtesy Park Circus 2 NFSA.GOV.AU 3 NFSA.GOV.AU Tis page: Te Juniper Tree, courtesy Arbelos Films Cinema Reborn CINEMA Aimless Bullet Introduction by Tony Rayns restored the flm in 2014/15, the major challenge was to digitally erase those REBORN Te flm culture of South Korea was intrusive subtitles while returning the a virtual closed book until the end images to something like their original of military dictatorships and the sharpness and grading. Tey were not A message from the Organising Committee introduction of democratic reforms in able to mitigate all the damage or restore the early 1990s. When the Busan Film all the missing frames, but their overall Cinema Reborn is delighted to present its programme, Festival was launched in 1996, one of its success is spectacular. A remarkable flm assembled and presented in a standalone, living, movie top priorities was to document and study has truly been brought back to life. house where the flms can be seen as intended by their Korea’s own flm history – and to honour flmmakers. surviving directors from the fraught Aimless Bullet (the Korean title Obaltan decades afer the Korean War. literally means ‘Stray Bullet’) ofers a Te festival is a result of the work of a community of Te dramatic relaxation of censorship discursive panorama of life in the rubble volunteers and generous supporters and our catalogue afer the change to non-military of Seoul in the immediate afermath lists all of those who have given their time and their government in 1993 made it possible to of the Korean War through the stories of two brothers: Song Cheolho (played experience on behalf of this four day exploration of key examine that period with new candour and clarity, even if the continuing tensions by Kim Jinkyu) is an impoverished moments in cinema history. with North Korea lef many critics and accountant with a pregnant wife, an As important as the work of those selecting and presenting commentators unable or unwilling elderly mother lef demented by the war to think entirely freely. But the new and agonising dental problems of his the flms may be, of equal importance is the commitment initiatives to rethink Korean flm history own, while his younger brother Yeongho of those prepared, in these difcult and fraught times, immediately ran into a major blockage: so (Choi Mooryong) is an embittered army to venture once again into a darkened room where the much work from the late 1950s onwards veteran, jobless, who spends much magical mysterious experience of seeing a movie in the was irretrievably damaged or lost. of his time hanging out with other veterans, some of them disabled. Teir company of others takes place. Probably no other flm ever screened sister Myeongsuk (Seo Aeja) prostitutes in this festival more deserves the herself to American GIs. Tey all live Long may it survive. word ‘reborn’ than Yu Hyunmok’s in a roofop shed shared with another Aimless Bullet from 1961. Te flm was family. Te flm’s narrative is linear, but recognised as an important achievement it’s not at all plot-driven: Yu cuts freely Cinema Reborn Melbourne is proudly hosted by the when it was made, and a number of between events which have few causal damaged 35mm copies (plus one 16mm Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick classiccinemas.com.au links, carefully building a bigger picture copy) survived into the 1980s, when a of life in the city’s slums. Te one thing dupe negative from 1975 was brought that non-Korean viewers need to know into the Korean Film Archive. But the is that these characters are all displaced surviving copies all came from that dupe refugees from the North – disadvantaged negative, all of the original materials newcomers to Seoul. having been lost, and all had mediocre, hand-written English subtitles disfguring Yu Hyunmok (1925–2009; his name is many of the images. (Te subtitles were nowadays transliterated ‘Yu Hyeonmok’) evidently made for a screening in San was a less prolifc director than many of Francisco in 1964.) When the KFA his contemporaries, partly because he

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interference – though Rainy Days trauma and her frequent refrain of ‘Let’s (Jangma, 1979) demonstrates his ability get out of here’ serves only to remind to create strong cinema even under the other family members that there is such constraints. From the mid-70s, Yu nowhere to go. taught at Seoul’s Dongguk University Yu was a dedicated Christian. His later where he also continued his forays into flms, Martyr (Sungyoja 1965) and Son experimental flm. In the early days of of Man (Salamui Adeul, 1980) directly the Busan International Film Festival, explore issues of faith, but Aimless Bullet Yu, a dedicated chain-smoker, could be ofers mere fashes of Christian imagery easily spotted because he was always such as marching citizens carrying accompanied by a large halo of swirling placards about Jesus during the flm’s tobacco smoke. Yu died, aged 83, in 2009. noirish bank robbery. However, Yu The Film doesn’t minimise the post-war trauma of Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok’s most living in an impoverished environment acclaimed flm, was born as the with pat spiritual philosophy. Afer window of democracy was opening playing with neo-realism, expressionism, in impoverished, post-civil war South melodrama, theatricality, and noir, the Korea, and before Park Chung-hee’s flm’s fnal images border on the abstract. dictatorship slammed the window Yu’s narrative leaves the audience to resisted censorship and the pressures interpreted the mother’s repeated cry shut in 1961. Te flm portrays South refect on its own choices on what to to make anti-communist propaganda ‘Let’s go!’ as a call to return to North Korea in the microcosmic form of an believe in, and what to do next. but also because he spent a lot of time Korea, and Yu faced a long battle with impoverished family. Like Yu who Te shoot went on for over a year. and efort on flm education and on them to get the flm widely released in was born in the northern province of According to a 1999 interview with nurturing a Korean flm culture. He 1963. His other surviving flms reveal Hwanghae, the family are cut of from the director, Yu and most of the crew was a cinephile, and acknowledged disparate ambitions, an abiding interest their ancestral home by the division of worked for minimum wages and the infuence of such flms as De Sica’s in flm-form and montage, and skilful the peninsula which was a by-product sometimes for free. ‘As we got money, Bicycle Tieves on Aimless Bullet – which approaches to staging. But Aimless Bullet, of the Korean War (1950–53). Chol- we would get some rolls of flm and was flmed on location as much as his eighth feature, stands as his fnest and ho is an honest and poorly paid public shoot for a couple of days and stop for possible. Te flm was banned soon afer most provocative movie. accountant who not only struggles to a while until the money came in.’ Te its premiere in 1961, because the censors *** support his pregnant wife and daughter, fnancial difculties and the resultant

but lives with his extended clan. Chol- extended breaks between bursts of Yu Hyun-mok ho’s brother Yong-ho is an angry and shooting account for stylistic diferences Beginning his flm career as an assistant Commonly, if misleadingly described rebellious army veteran who feels within the flm. Tere was also the director in 1946, Yu Hyun-mok was as a realist, some of Yu’s flms, such as abandoned by the freedom for which added interruption of a popular student in the vanguard of Korean cinema as An Empty Dream (Chunmong, 1965) he fought. To make ends meet their uprising which was partially welcome as the peninsula emerged from Japanese have a strong experimental streak sister, Myong-suk fraternises with the Yu explained: [the] ‘Resulting freedom Occupation and was ready to forge its which demonstrate his passion for new occupiers – the American soldiers of expression was applied in a broader place as a creative nation. Directing his breaking barriers: social, political and – much to the shame of both her sense making possible for the flm to be frst flm Te Crossroad (Gyocharo) in artistic. He didn’t always come through brothers. In a society that treasures the more charged with social issues. At any 1956, Yu completed 42 commercially unscathed. Yu was arrested on obscenity worth of education, the very youngest rate it was a hard labour giving birth to released features of which the most charges over An Empty Dream and brother, drops out of high school to that flm.’ Unfortunately, those freedoms renowned and most widely seen much of his work in the 1970s and sell newspapers on the street. Teir proved short-lived as censorship laws is Aimless Bullet (Obaltan, 1961). 1980s was compromised by government bed-ridden mother is unhinged by the introduced by the new government 6 7 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn created an atmosphere more repressive Film Archive spent two years removing company. Established in October ambiguities, deceptions and subterfuge. than when Yu started shooting. As a the subtitles with the use of visual efects 1940, it was entirely bankrolled by Most scenes in Le Corbeau seem cast in result, Aimless Bullet had a limited release before the print was returned to anything the German government, and headed deep shadows. in Seoul only, but amongst those who like its original state. by Alfred Greven in Paris, with its Le Corbeau is set in ‘une petite ville, ici ou focked to the limited screenings, the fnances, production and distribution Notes by Russell Edwards ailleurs’, ‘a little village, here or elsewhere’, response to Aimless Bullet was passionate. tightly integrated with the German which we might understand as anywhere The Restoration Director: Yu Hyun-mok; Production Company: flm industry. Continental released 30 at all. Tis village is a particularly seedy, features before ending production four Despite being the frst Korean flm to Korean Film Company; Producer: Kim Seong- sordid spot; the villagers serve as their Chun; Screenplay: Le I-Ryong, Lee Jong-Gi, years later. be accepted by New York’s Museum of own gaolers, their neighbourhood as Le Beom-Seon, from Le Beom-Seon’s short Modern Art, and remaining the most Alfred Greven their own prison. story; Director of Photography: Kim Hak- famous flm of the pre-Hallyu era, for Although the director, Henri-Georges Seong; Editor: Kim Hui-Su; Art Direction: Baek Te director of Continental Films was many years the only source print of Nam-Jun, Lee Su-Jin; Music, Kim Hak-Seong // the German producer Alfred Greven Clouzot, starts with shots of the local Aimless Bullet was enough to make flm Cast: Kim Jin-Kyu (Cheol-Ho), Choi Mu-Ryong (1897–1973). He volunteered in cemetery and church, neither place bufs shake their heads in despair. Due (Yeong-Ho), Moon Jeong-Suk (Cheol-Ho’s September 1914 for the German Army ofers any solace for the inhabitants. to 678 hand-lettered English subtitles Wife), Seo Ae-Ja (Myeong-Suk), Kim Hy-Jeong and was awarded the Iron Cross. Tose images – emblems signifying that had been burned into the surviving tradition, community, resilience and (Mother) Afer the war, in 1920, he started to print, restoration for Aimless Bullet was a conviction – have always been the staple, work in the movie business, joining the more arduous task than the usual time- South Korea | 1961 | 107 mins | B&W | Mono comforting, never-changing clichés in Nazi Party in 1931. In 1940, Goebbels consuming removal of dust, stains and Sound | Korean, with Eng. subtitles | 2K DCP French depictions of their countryside. appointed him managing director of the scratches from the image. Te Korean (orig. 35mm) | U/C15+ Te opening scene in Le Corbeau newly established Continental Films. could have been cut and pasted into The Film François Mitterrand’s campaign poster, Le Corbeau In 1994 I was privileged to attend the proclaiming ‘La Force Tranquille’, for the ffieth anniversary celebrations of the Presidential elections he won in 1981. Henri-Georges Clouzot of the hackneyed story of three men liberation of Paris. Te French were not In Clouzot’s village, however, the locals ‘Clouzot (1907–77) began his career transporting a load of nitroglycerine simply commemorating the day on which would never take a punt on a secular, with two thrillers made during the across the mountains. Les Diaboliques the German army decided to retreat reforming ex-socialist. Te locals Occupation; L’Assassin Habite au 21 (1955) was a successful thriller; Le without blowing up Paris’ historical seem devoid of peace or faith, calm or (1942) and Le Corbeau (Te Raven, Mystère Picasso (1956), an oddity monuments. Many French women and purpose. For its part, the rest of their 1943)… For whatever reason, Clouzot about the painter had a succès d’estime; men were liberating themselves from village looks a lot like the hollowed-out, was never again to equal the promise La Vérité (Te Truth, 1960) starring the national shame and guilt at France’s shuttered-up little towns which now of the ferocious Le Corbeau. Quai des Brigitte Bardot, was his last flm of any precipitate collapse in 1940, its tolerance disfgure parts of the French landscape. Orfèvres (1947) was an entertaining importance. Clouzot was dogged with of Nazi rule, its readiness to hand over Tose villages are claustrophobically illness and did not work afer 1969.’ thriller starring the delightfully French Jews and the collaboration turned inwards and backwards, as is the (Richard Roud, extracted and adapted improbable couple of Louis Jouvet which pervaded French society. Le one which Clouzot created. from the entry on René Clément and and Suzy Delair; Manon (1949), an Corbeau helps explain why those wounds Henri-Georges Clouzot in Cinema: A Te pivot of Le Corbeau is a series updating of the Manon Lescaut story, remained so raw for so long. Critical Dictionary, Secker & Warburg, of anonymous, clumsily written had its moments. His most successful 1980) In French, a ‘corbeau’ refers either to a denunciations. To begin with, the flm in box ofce terms was of course crow or a raven. Both are sinister birds village doctor is accused of being a the world-famous Le Salaire de la Continental Films of prey, both feast on carrion, both bear jester, a thief, a liar and an abortionist, a Peur (Wages of Fear, 1953), which Continental Films was a German- Gestapo-black plumage. Te metaphor beguilingly eclectic set of sins. Tat man, squeezed every drop of suspense out controlled French flm production is apposite for a flm sufused with Dr Germain (played in dapper clothes 8 9 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

Te exceptional ensemble performances Pound, sufered far more severe obloquy. in the television drama Un Village Teir reputations remain tarnished by Français (created by Emmanuel Daucé, their sorry behaviour during the war. Frédéric Krivine and Philippe Triboit, Clouzot went on to direct a tauter, 2009–17) began to appear only 66 sharper flm, Quai des Orfèvres, with years afer Clouzot’s flm. Dealing with his title referring to the building which disasters, humiliations and disgrace of Inspector Maigret has made famous. Le the order visited on France takes a long Corbeau, the flm itself, was ostracised time to absorb and to transform into a for much longer than its director. story, whether in print or on flm. We Maigret dealt in all possible shades of have seen the enemy, and he is us. grey, Clouzot in a consistently darker, Moreover, Clouzot’s flm was produced grimmer palette. Film noir might claim by Continental Films in Paris, him as one of its own. Le Corbeau might which might as well have been titled have outlived critics contending that it Collaboration Films. Te Nazi-run was ironic for Clouzot to produce a flm company turned out thirty feature about moral weakness and cowardice flms between the occupation of Paris in a State and studio structure built (1940) and its liberation four years precisely on exploiting those qualities. To later. Perversely the last product of this say the flm is fawed may be redundant, tainted studio concerned the cellars of since its impact depends on the faws with lacquered hair by Pierre Fresnay) same woman later rummages in an attic a hotel. Hotel cellars were one of the inherent in its characters and the times has already been accused of falsifying his trunk to unearth a stufed ‘corbeau’. Gestapo’s regular haunts for detaining they tried to survive. and torturing Resistance fghters. One of medical credentials. His travails, though, Clouzot does not shrink from stating The Restoration have barely begun. If the premise of the obvious, nor from simplifying and Paris’ prestigious hotels served as their Restoration by StudioCanal in 2018 with denunciations appears implausible, it exaggerating his efects. A few of the headquarters. newly translated English subtitles. is worth recalling that more than nine characters evoke rats rather than ravens. Straight afer its release in 1943, tenths of Gestapo arrests in Germany Le Corbeau does not provide any nobody seemed to hold Le Corbeau Notes by Mark Thomas stemmed from denunciations. Occupied compelling or comprehensive account in high regard. Some fgures in the Director: Henri Georges Clouzot; Production countries were still more complicit in a of France under the Occupation. Tat Resistance apparently condemned the Company: Continental Films; Producers: Raoul Ploquin, René Montis; Screenplay: surveillance society of the soul. Dobbing would be too much to ask. Te flm flm as propaganda, while the Germans Louis Chavance, Henri-Georges Clouzot; is a universal vice. was released in 1943, and decades themselves thought the work was not propagandist enough. As for Clouzot, Director of Photography: Nicholas Hayer; Clouzot builds up a feeling of foreboding elapsed before the French produced a Editor: Marguerite Beaugé; Art Design: André not entirely unlike that to be found documentary account of their war, Le afer the Liberation he was banned from making another flm, but for a Andrejew; Sound: William Robert Sivel; Music: now in Nordic noir. An exorcist, an axe Chagrin et La Pitié, (Marcel Ophuls, Tony Aubin // Cast: Pierre Fresnay (Dr Remy mere two years. Given the summary murderer or a giant wolf could readily 1969) let alone feature flms like Lacombe Germain), Ginette Leclerc (Denise Saillens), punishments associated with ‘l’épuration’, be found prowling the streets of this Lucien (Louis Malle, 1974) or Au Revoir Micheline Francey (Laura Vorzet), Héléna village. Eerie, disorientating incidents les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987). Each the cleansing, in France, that was a Manson (Marie Corbin, the nurse) are littered throughout the narrative. of those flms concerns itself with pretty sof judgment. Even misguided or France | 1943 | 92 mins | B&W | DCP (orig An odd, bespectacled girl bounces a confronting moral dilemmas and the unbalanced Anglo-Saxon collaborators, 35mm) | French with English subtitles | PG ball indoors before resorting to spying sense of menace they engender, rather the likes of P.G. Wodehouse and Ezra through keyholes. A heavily lacquered than, as with Clouzot, with amorphous, hypochondriac fashes her bare thighs, anonymous threats from someone then her bare back, at the viewers. Te unknown. 10 11 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn Criss Cross Robert Siodmak Killers which made the then little-known Born in Memphis in 1900 while his leads, Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, parents were on a business trip, Siodmak into stars. Hellinger was in the process was brought up in Germany. He directed of setting up Criss Cross with Lancaster flms in both Germany and France before and Siodmak already contracted when arriving in Hollywood, a Jewish refugee, he died suddenly, age 44, of a massive in 1940. Afer directing B movies for heart attack. Universal took it over and various studios he signed a long-term handed it to Siodmak who found himself contract in 1943 with Universal where again with scope for creative input into his brother Curt was working as a the script based on a novel by Don Tracy. screenwriter. Tere and sometimes on Siodmak wrote it in collaboration with loan-out, he directed a series of flms Daniel Fuchs, novelist and an Oscar subsequently termed flm noir: Phantom winner for best original story (Love Lady, Christmas Holiday (1944), Te Me or Leave Me). Siodmak gained the Killers (1946), Criss Cross (1948) and services of talented cameraman, another Te File on Telma Jordan (1949). He German refugee, Frank (Franz) Planer also directed flms with noir elements (Letter from an Unknown Woman) and including Te Suspect (1944), Te Spiral signed up Yvonne De Carlo whose Staircase (1945), Te Dark Mirror (1946), down-to-earth assertiveness plays more and Cry of the City (1948). He returned to credibly opposite a young Lancaster than Germany in the early ffies where (also Ava Gardner’s detached sophistication in in France and England) he directed more Te Killers. state afer two years drifing around family. A seemingly obtrusively friendly than a dozen features, the last in 1968. Both flms are notable for their dramatic the country following the break-up concern soon assumes a vindictive edge. openings. Te aerial shot of Los Angeles of his marriage with Anna. It is a In Michael Walker’s words, if Slim is the The Film at night descends on a couple, Steve more coherent use of fashback than id, Ramirez becomes Steve’s vicious While it can hardly be ignored, Criss and Anna (Lancaster and De Carlo), the multiple fashbacks that structure super ego. Cross has too ofen been curiously kissing in a parking lot. Evident is the Te Killers with the latter’s inherent When his fght with Slim boils over under-appreciated. It stands with excitement and anxiety of the double- confusion between the objective and as the gang boss pulls a knife, Steve, mainstream flms noirs like Double cross and the powerful physical bond subjective (the audience knows more in the grip of l’amour fou, refuses a Indemnity (1944), Detour (1945), Out of between them. Tey are in a sexual from what it is being shown than the way out of his involvement with Slim’s the Past (1947), Gun Crazy (1950), Te triangle with gangster boss Slim Dundee investigator in Te Killers knows from gang. Te fght is initially staged by Big Heat (1953), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), (Dan Duryea). Te flm shares a similar what he is being told). the gang to mislead Ramirez. Steve and Touch of Evil (1958), at the apex of plot to Te Killers – a heist and double- A second ‘triangle’ becomes increasingly is committed as the insider working the canon. cross, the back story unfolding in evident with the introduction of as a driver of the targeted payroll Criss Cross followed Te Killers, based fashbacks with Steve as narrator. Lieutenant Ramirez (Steve McNally). car. As Walker suggests ‘subtextually, on a Hemingway short story, a cherished A good deal of the flm is taken up More than just a boyhood friend of the exchange [with Ramirez] can be project of indie producer Mark Hellinger. with two fashbacks, linked by Steve’s Steve’s, he is his self appointed moral seen as a sexual invitation that Steve He had been impressed by Siodmak’s narration. Following the opening scenes guardian. Tere is a barely repressed refuses.’ What has unravelled between work on Phantom Lady (‘he gives you at the nightclub the night before the homo-eroticism, his interest in Steve the two former friends, leading up to back 125%’) and gave him freedom to payroll robbery we are taken back to apparent in his hatred of Anna and this crucial moment, is played out in contribute to the screen treatment of Te the time of Steve’s return in an alienated the nature of his close ties with Steve’s two succeeding fashbacks. Tis later 12 13 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn assumes disquieting proportions as Steve vulnerability brought to their roles by further reconnection. Te robbery is narrative ideology ‘. Polan Ch 5 (Power lies helpless in the enforced immobility Lancaster and Mitchum. Steve’s narration expressionistically blanketed in tear gas. & Paranoia Columbia UP 1986) argues of a hospital bed afer the robbery, is passive and uncontrolled, the converse Siodmak also brings his early that ‘in the chaotic world of flm noir, in fear of kidnap and on the edge of of a controlling point of view. He is both involvement with documentary and especially, the ordinary world undergoes consciousness. Ramirez appears as a self aware yet seemingly involuntarily realist flmmaking in Germany into play. a defamiliarization... in which the fgure of doom complementing Slim’s resigned to his obsession with Anna. A Filming in LA locations – the elevated confdence in human projects comes ‘fgure of destiny’ while the kidnapper turning point in the narrative is Steve’s Bunker Hill family home in old LA undone.’ In this chapter he traces some seems like Ramirez’s shadow. frst sighting in a fashback 22 mins into and elsewhere in the city – is efectively of the forms of this ‘defamiliarization the flm of her moving sensuously to of human coordinates in forties flm Steve puts up the proposal for the maintained in interior spaces by the Latin rhythm in the night club, evoked representation of space and time, ’ armoured car robbery to Slim Dundee careful integration of back-projected subjectively by the combination of long ultimately arguing that this ‘leads to the seemingly on the spur of the moment streets outside, in the staging of the lens and rhythmic montage. commodifcation of everyday life and when confronted by Slim’s confrmation tension in scenes in the family home and the rise of non-narrative spectacle from of the couple’s adultery. It seems clear Is the subject of Criss Cross a frequently the unobtrusive deployment of depth of within the heart of classical narrative.’. in Steve’s preceding scene with Anna in recurring preoccupation of flm noir: the feld in the crowded bar and nightclub. his bedroom that they had not discussed destruction of a basically good man by Without assuming a progressive The Restoration the idea with each other. Steve knows a corrupt woman? Ava Gardner in Te dimension, the portrayal of the fallen New 4K digital restoration by Universal- that Slim would plan to double-cross Killers seems to be there more to fulfl couple in Criss Cross is distanced International from the original camera him. He readily accepts Slim’s suggestion the function of femme fatale rather than from classical narrativity in which negative (a measure of Slim’s confdence) that provide an engaging characterisation. sequence and stylistic seamlessness are Anna look afer the post robbery pay-of. She is ‘little more than a prop used in References: ‘Robert Siodmak’ by Michael the instruments for smoothing over While the plans are being made, she lies engineering [Lancaster/the Swede’s Walker Te Movie Book of Film Noir potential and actual contradictions. asleep outside the male group. As Walker ] doom’ as Jean-Pierre Coursodon ed. Ian Cameron Studio Vista 1992, pp. Te stability of classical narrative in the recognises ‘Steve and Anna are certainly aptly describes Gardner/Kitty. Anna’s 110–51; Carlos Clarens Crime Movies W forties is increasingly interrupted in Siodmak’s most interesting and complex relationship with Steve is more W Norton 1980. Jean-Pierre Coursodon various ways, no more so than in flm heterosexual couple.’ Highlighting the ambiguous. Te couple ultimately can American Directors Volume 1 McGraw- noir, eg by fashback structure – which disruptive nature of sexual desire is be seen to be victims of a failed crime Hill 1983. in Criss Cross is middle-beginning-end*. an overt sense of quasi sexual thrill passionel Tey become increasingly Te flm dissolves into the robbery Notes by Bruce Hodsdon contained in the fear and excitement of ensnared by circumstances to which assuming expressionistically nightmarish Director: Robert Siodmak; Production high risk crime. As a noir couple Steve Steve fatally reacts. proportions in a violent break from the Company: Universal International Pictures | and Anna stand comparison with, e.g., Producer: Michel Kraike | Screenplay: Daniel A fateful sense of inevitability is unsettling naturalism of the frst half, in Mitchum-Greer, MacMurray-Stanwyck, Fuchs, from Don Tracy’s Novel | Director of suggested in the opening aerial shots turn disturbed by the loss of control in and Welles-Hayworth. In the context of searching out the couple in the night, Photography: Franz Planner | Editor: Ted J. this gallery of spider women, De Carlo’s the hero-victim’s narration. A further Kent | Art/Des: Bernard Herzbrun, Boris Leven underscored by Miklós Rózsa’s evocative destabilising element, as suggested limited range, her ‘B’ lead sexiness, theme music. Tere is a dark symmetry | Sound: Leslie I. Carey, Richard Deweese | above, is the unresolved homo-eroticism Music: Miklós Rózsa // Cast: Burt Lancaster adds credibility and ambiguity to the between the flm’s opening and closing in the intensity with which Lieutenant (Steve Thompson), Yvonne De Carlo (Anna relationship with Steve. scenes with Steve and Anna. Planer’s Ramirez attempts to destroy Steve’s Dundee), Dan Duryea (Slim Dundee), Stephen Steve’s narration in Criss Cross recalls depth of feld at moments assumes an relationship with Anna. Mcnally (Detective Pete Ramirez), Alan Napier the fatalism of Jef Bailey (Mitchum) in expressionist edge as when Steve enters (Finchley), Richard Long (Slade Thompson). Out of the Past (1947). Tese are two the bar from the street to which he keeps * Dana Polan takes up an example of flm noir that come close to bringing a returning in search of Anna. Te sudden forties noir, Dark Passage (1947), that he USA | 1949 | 88 mins | B&W | Mono Sound | tragic dimension, generally outside noir’s chance appearance of Anna in sharp fnds ‘in style and story demonstrates a English | 4K DCP (orig. 35mm) | PG ambit, to the hero’s obsession, aided focus in the crowded middle distance certain distance from classic narrativity immeasurably by the aura of resigned at Union Station initiates their fated without implying... liberation from a... 14 15 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

to the worldly Baroness Troixmond, Filibus and then the dapper, moustachioed Count de la Brive with his homburg Presented with the generous support and also interfered with any long-term and little monocle. But the fnely-tuned of David and Leith Bruce–Steer directing ambitions. Afer a false start, plot manoeuvres that Filibus instigates Mario Roncoroni he directed several feature flms in the bring into being a fourth possibility, late 1920s, but subsequently his name Mario Roncoroni directed over twenty and perhaps her most audacious, disappears from the historical records, flms in Italy and Spain between 1915 that of the detective on her trail. Te apart from a brief notice in a 1931 and 1928, specialising in adventure Egyptian statue plotline is a showy newspaper ofering his teaching services serials and melodramas. What little tease, a merciless display of ingenuity to aspiring actors. is known of his career suggests that and entrapment, and a kind of reverse his opportunities to direct were likely The Film gaslighting—given its typical gender co-ordinates—of the detective and his afected by war and social unrest: World Filibus is an exhilarating crime caper forensic calculations. Tis might be the War I and its disastrous impact on starring Valeria Creti as the flm’s most feminist plot twist of the flm, to the Italian flm industry, and then the eponymous anti-heroine who steals for suggest that Filibus is able to manipulate turbulent politics of Spanish society the thrill of it while planning an intricate and control—to the point of almost preceding the Civil War of the 1930s. trap for the detective pursuing her. It assuming his identity—the flm’s most won’t be giving anything away to say Born in 1881 in the north-eastern region patrician and authoritative character. of multi-ethnic Istria when it was still that the opening sequence sets up the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, flm’s central conceit. Filibus, in one of Watching Filibus now, being immersed in its astonishingly vibrant colours, can Roncoroni started out as a stage actor, her disguises as the elegant fox-stole- where blood and pearls rain down on feel like viewing a cinematic singularity. a career choice perhaps unsurprising clad Baroness Troixmond, reads in a group of mourners, spilling from the But it is not a one-of. It is one surviving since he was the son of an actor. His frst the newspaper that a reward is being pockets of a dead gangster tied to the example of a group of internationally credit for a flm role appears in 1912, and ofered for any information leading to clapper of the ringing church bell. popular genres of the 1910s, from two years later he signed a contract to her arrest. In a daring move, she visits the American ‘serial-queen’ action Te flm’s tone is as light and airy as work for a new low-budget production the magistrate in charge of the search melodramas with their astounding its heroine’s dirigible, yet it shares company based in Turin, Corona Film. claiming, in suitably self-deprecating stunts, to elaborately plotted crime something of that scene’s vertical—and Filibus may be his directing debut, prior and feminine style, that she is a bit of thrillers, most notably Louis Feuillade’s inverted—aesthetic. Te airship was an to two other titles he directed for the an amateur detective and she’d like to sensational Fantômas series. Tis was the elite tourist experience where one could company in 1915 which were released enter the competition for the reward. decade when cinema became a global ascend to the clouds to sip champagne towards the end of that year. Filibus is a Most boldly, when Detective Kutt- mass medium watched by millions, when and nibble on caviar. Across the course delightful archival discovery and as an Hendy (Giovanni Spano) arrives at the Charlie Chaplin became a star. Tere has of the flm’s distribution history, it went artefact of international popular culture magistrate’s ofce, she states directly that been a tendency to read Filibus as less from being a technology of the leisured it is just as important as Roncoroni’s he is Filibus and she will prove it—afer than original—even on its 1915 release upper classes to a machine of war, other notable feature flm, La nave (Te her departure from the scene, both men reviewers noted its debts to Feuillade most famously identifed with its most Ship) (Ambrosio Film, 1921), co-directed laugh knowingly together, but by the in terms of cinematography and plot successful military manufacturer, Count with Gabriellino D’Annunzio, son of the end of the flm it is Filibus who has the elements—but this was a period in von Zeppelin, and soon associated not decadentismo poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, last laugh. which imitation as adaptation was usual with leisurely ascension but with terror and starring celebrity Russian dancer Te opening prologue, where the and well-practiced. Filibus is a far cry and destruction falling from night- Ida Rubenstein. Roncoroni’s move actors are presented to the audience, from the perversions of sex and religion time skies. Filibus transmutes both of to Valencia in the 1920s to seek has already put on display all three visited upon us in Fantômas, exemplifed these associations, a transformation directing work seems ultimately to have of Filibus’s disguises—masked thief by the famous scene in Le faux magistrat greatly aided by the jittery special efect diminished his artistic connections in masculine cap and jacket dissolves 16 17 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn movements of the toy-like airship and The Restoration Four flms from CAAMA its vividly rendered artifciality. Part Te restoration of Filibus by the EYE of the delight of watching the flm is Filmmuseum, and their partnership Freda Glynn and the Evolution of guessing where and when Filibus will with US independent flm and video form a new organisation, tentatively CAAMA: A Personal Refection come into view, descending in her distributor Milestone, is testament to named the Central Australian Aboriginal airship’s clunky gondola into the world’s the dedication and labour required In the below extract from the book Kin: Media Association. spaces of wealth and leisure with a to recover the historical artefacts of An Extraordinary Filmmaking Family At the time, Freda was a single mother lurching, criminal ease. this rich period of flm history and published by Wakefeld Press, co-founder with fve children: Sue, Erica, Scott, of the Central Australian Aboriginal Filibus remains an amoral fgure, as popular culture. Without Milestone’s Robert and Warwick (then a ten-year- Media Association (CAAMA), Philip Italian flm scholar Monica Dall’Asta involvement, and the work of their old boy). She had separated from her Batty, recalls the beginnings of CAAMA, has pointed out, who at the end of the interns, we would not know the identity husband, Bob Tornton, and was and the signifcant role played by fellow flm “enjoys her stolen riches in a sort of the actress who plays Filibus, Valeria cleaning hotels to support her family as co-founder Freda Glynn. of ecstasy.” Yet who wouldn’t want to Creti [digitalcinemareport.com/ sole breadwinner. article/who-was-flibus be able to fy in their own submarine ]—for many Tis made any full time involvement in the sky and drop down, without years incorrectly identifed as Cristina I frst met Freda Glynn in 1979, at a in CAAMA impossible. Although she being observed, onto the terrace of a Ruspoli (who plays Leonora)—or have demonstration in Alice Springs. At the attended CAAMA committee meetings beautiful villa on the Ligurian coast. such splendidly rewritten inter-titles time, Central Australia was a politically and helped where she could, it would be www.milestoneflms.com/blogs/ Who wouldn’t want to steal from the [ fractured place. Te Whitlam Labor another 18 months before Freda took up news/recreating-titles-for-a-1915-flm- rich, from bankers, and get away with Government’s Land Rights Bill had the position of co-director of the new milestone-intern-austin-renna-reports it? Te flm’s fantasy of being able to ]. infamed pastoralists throughout the organisation. live beyond the weight of the body, In addition, the digital release by Northern Territory; the new Aboriginal * * * of aerial omniscience and mobility, is Milestone is accompanied by a richly Legal Aid service threatened the old local linked to another fantasy: of an easy researched press-kit [tinyurl.com/ judicial system; bigoted police had come Freda was born on Woodgreen station, technologically-enabled class mobility. flibus-press-kit] that contains more under investigation and missions had north of Alice Springs, in 1939. Her Tese dreams of living beyond the body, information and historical context, been abolished and their property handed mother, Topsy Glynn, was a traditional including the Earth’s body, and social including the flm’s literary precedents in over to Aboriginal organisations. In this Kaytetye woman who spoke several categories, are connected to a third: to the feuilleton newspaper tradition, and fraught atmosphere it was not unusual to Aboriginal languages before English. evade detection by eluding perception, popular nineteenth century detective fnd oneself at demonstrations. Topsy received training at the station as fction. a cook and subsequently worked for the to escape being known at all. A flibus Eight months passed before I met owners. is a pirate, adventurer and mercenary, Notes by Susan Potter Freda again; this time, at an event that and it turns out that Filibus is all three. Director: Mario Roncoroni; Production would change both of us irrevocably. It Freda’s father, Alfred Price, was the Tese negative fgures provide the Company: Corona Film; Screenplay: Giovanni was a tentative public meeting held in son of Frederick Price, the second last animating force for Filibus’s plot and its Bertinetti; Director of Photography: Luigi Alice Springs to discuss the formation postmaster of the Overland Telegraph central idea, told positively as a queer Fiorio // Cast: Valeria Creti (Filbus/Baroness of an organisation that proposed to Station in Alice Springs. Freda, or more and feminist story of self-invention and Trixmond/Count De La Brive); Giovannia work towards the establishment of an correctly, Alfreda, was given the female independence, while masking anxieties Spano (Detective Kutt Hendy), Cristina Ruspoli Aboriginal voice in the media. version of her father’s name, Alfred. about the relation of technologies of (Leonora), Mario Mariani (Magistrate). Freda’s only sibling, her older sister, Rona, perception to human identity and Te meeting was organised by me and Italy | 1915 | 76 mins [current restoration] was fathered by Alfred’s brother, Ronald. freedom. Who is Filibus? You’ll need to a gregarious Aboriginal man from | B&W (Tinted & Toned) | Silent with pre- As an infant, Freda was aficted with see her in action to fnd out. Oodnadatta, John Macumba. Our recorded musical accompaniment | English frst few attempts to hold the meeting a life-threatening illness and was sent, intertitles | 2K DCP (orig. 35mm) | U/C15+. failed but on the third try, a number of tucked up in a wooden egg box, to Aboriginal people attended, including the ‘Bungalow’ (aka ‘Te Half-caste Freda, who voted with the majority to Institution’) in Alice Springs to receive 18 19 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn urgent medical care, accompanied by fnancial support. Te Minister for the old studios would be renovated of the most powerful political fgures in Rona and her mother. As Freda required Aboriginal Afairs in the Liberal Fraser and production equipment installed the nation, including a Cabinet minister. prolonged care, her mother was allowed Government, Fred Chaney, was receptive for CAAMA’s use; that the new ABC Such, perhaps, was the goodwill that to stay at the Bungalow where she was but felt that his colleague, Minster for studios and ofces in Alice Springs then existed towards Aboriginal people. later employed as housekeeper and Communications Tony Staley, should would be made available to CAAMA * * * head cook. Freda says that this was ‘the fund CAAMA. while the renovations to the old studios best thing that could have happened to were completed; and that DAA would Reprinted by kind permission of the While the ministers debated their me and my family’ as it opened up the consider funding CAAMA’s production publisher. A longer version of this essay respective responsibilities, the Institute possibility of education, employment and operational costs. I still fnd it has been published on the Cinema for Aboriginal Development (IAD) in and a better life in Alice Springs. surprising, if not astonishing, that a Reborn website: cinemareborn.org.au/ Alice Springs ofered their support. Films-from-the-Central-Australian- Afer leaving school in the mid-1950s, small, untested group from the desert Tey hired flmmaker Clive Scollay was able to extract support from some Aboriginal-Media-Association Freda was immediately ofered training to organise a CAAMA media tour of and a job at the only photographic public broadcasting stations in Canberra, THE FILMS studio in Alice Springs, and for 17 years Sydney and Melbourne and, more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Eight Ladies she captured practically every baptism, signifcantly, to arrange meetings with people are advised that this program Eight Ladies follows eight women from wedding and birthday in the town. Chaney and Staley (then a Cabinet contains images of people who are now Alyawarr Country in the Sandover River Working alone in the studio’s darkroom, minister) to push CAAMA’s case. Freda enjoyed listening to the ABC, then deceased. region in central Australia on a fve-day the only radio service available in Alice Obligingly, the ministers agreed to meet My Colour, Your Kind journey into the bush to hunt echidna Springs. She says that this gave her a the CAAMA delegation at Parliament In a sequence of simple, emotionally and gather bush foods. As the women ‘great education’ about the world beyond House in early April. While Chaney charged scenes, My Colour, Your hunt together and sit around their the confnes of Central Australia. was somewhat equivocal, ofering little Kind gives a powerful, impressionistic campfre at night preparing the food, support for CAAMA, the opposite they talk about the old days and how life With the election of the federal Labor insight into the feelings of alienation was true of Staley. When we entered has changed. Filmed in an observational Government in 1972 and the creation of experienced by a teenage albino his ofce, he said, with his feet on his style, this gentle and refective flm is a the frst federal Department of Aboriginal Aboriginal girl. In a convent boarding ministerial desk, ‘Te government would school in Alice Springs, she is mis- moving revelation of the women’s sense Afairs (DAA), people like Freda were in like to ofer you a gif: the old ABC understood and bullied by a severe, of relaxed oneness with their Country. demand. Employed by the Department studios and broadcasting facilities in unloving nun. She escapes in dreams and in the mid-1970s, she received training Green Bush Alice Springs,’ and with that, he lit up eventually in reality to her mother where in development management at the a cigar. Stunned at such generosity, we she feels at peace. Every night, Indigenous radio South Australian Institute of Technology thanked Staley and headed back to Alice announcer and DJ, Kenny hosts the in the Task Force program. She was Willaberta Jack Springs. In the meantime, he issued Green Bush show. Isolated at the subsequently ofered work back in Alice a press release notifying the public of Te short flm that was later expanded station, he takes requests for music, Springs as a Community Development into a screenplay for award-winning his magnanimous ofer. However, on while at the same time coping with Ofcer, assisting people living on the feature flm Sweet Country (2017), inspecting the ‘studios’ we discovered the pressure of the community around town’s fringe camps. Willaberta Jack is the extraordinary story that they were in a ruinous state and him. Based on his own experiences as of the largest manhunt ever to take place It was during this period that I frst met devoid of any equipment. Contact was a radio DJ in Alice Springs in central in the Northern Territory. Set in 1929, Freda. immediately made with Staley’s ofce to Australia, Warwick Tornton made an Aboriginal man Willaberta Jack runs international impact with this graceful * * * alert him to the real state of the ‘gif’. for his life, pursued by the law of the and powerful short drama. In mid-February 1980, we presented a Six weeks later, on 28 May, Staley day. A riveting and atmospheric account * * * written submission to the Department and Chaney few to Alice Springs to of the harshness of outback life and of of Aboriginal Afairs announcing the speak with us. During this critically the perils of being a black man who Central Australian Aboriginal Media formation of CAAMA and seeking important meeting, it was resolved that challenged the white man’s dominance. Association (CAAMA) is an organisation 20 21 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

I have ofen argued that these CAAMA Willaberta Jack titles represent the most exciting body of Director: David Tranter; Production Company: documentary flmmaking in Australia CAAMA Productions, CAAMA Music, Imparja over the last few years. It’s a body of TV | Producer: Tranter | Screenplay: Steven work that has emerged from a unique McGregor, Tranter (uncredited) | Director of collaborative production base with Photography: Allan Collins, Robyn Nardoo, flmmakers working on each other’s Jason Ramp, Colin Richards, Warwick Thornton productions, and a cultural ethos that | Editor: Dena Curtis | Sound: David Tranter difers remarkably from the aesthetics that | Music: David Page // Cast: Lyle Jagamarra drive TV documentary elsewhere. Here Gibson, Sabrina Nungarrayi Gibson, Donald we have flms that are character-driven Kemarr Thompson (Story Teller), Alec Pitjara Peterson (Story Teller), Paul Henness (Narrator). and content-driven, in a style that is simple and clear, embodying respect for Elders Australia | 2007 | 26 mins | Colour | Stereo and their stories, and allowing them time Sound | English, Alywarre with Eng. subtitles | to speak in their own way, in their own HD Digital (orig. SD Digibeta). language, and in their own time. Eight Ladies Te flms have a distinctive social Director: Dena Curtis; Production Company: founded in 1980, and owned by the Indigenous producers, directors, camera function that ties them strongly to CAAMA Productions for Imparja TV | Indigenous people of Central Australia. crews and editors and has close ties with the community and gives them an Screenplay: Curtis | Director of Photography: It is dedicated to the social, cultural and local people and communities. importance that is far removed from Nicola Daley | Editor: Tania Nehme | Sound: economic advancement of Indigenous Te successful documentary series, the ephemeral ‘entertainment’ nature of Biannca Hoolihan, Curtis | Music: Warren people, and accordingly it has a mandate Nganampa Anwernekenhe is a much TV documentary made elsewhere. H. Williams // Cast: Mavis Young, Mary to promote Indigenous culture, language, collaboration between CAAMA Morton, Pansy Mcleod, Lena Skinner, Rosie In fact, if there are academics reading this dance, and music while generating Productions and Imparja Television, and Ngwarreye, Jeannie Pula, Judy Purvis, Katie note, I’d love to see a post-grad scholar economic benefts in the form of training between 4 and 6 short documentaries Morton, Lucky Morton, Dorothy Kunoth, Patsy and employment. Te Association somewhere taking up this collection as the were made annually for the series over Kemarra Long, Anita Bailey (Narrator). is responsible for a diverse range of focus for a serious study of their unique many years. Tis remarkable series, media products that engender pride in style and content: such a study would have Australia | 2010 | 22 mins | Colour | Stereo which celebrated its 21st birthday Sound | Alywarre with Eng. subtitles | HD Aboriginal culture, and informs and wide relevance in documenting a viable in 2008, served as a showcase for Digital (orig. SD Digibeta) educates the wider community of the model of documentary production that Indigenous flmmaking talent, with richness and diversity of the Indigenous has lasting social and cultural relevance. Green Bush contributions from such flmmakers as peoples of Australia. Warwick Tornton, Ivan Sen, Beck Cole Notes by Andrew Pike Director: Warwick Thornton; Producer: Kath CAAMA Productions is the largest and Priscilla Collins. Shelper | Screenplay: Thornton | Director Indigenous production house in My Colour, Your Kind of Photography: Murray Lui | Editor: Roland CAAMA Productions has produced Australia. Te company is based in Director: Danielle McLean; Producer: Steven Gallois | Art/Des: Daran Fulham | Sound: documentaries for national and overseas Alice Springs and was established by McGregor, Screenplay: McLean | Director of Liam Egan, David Tranter // Cast: David Page networks including the Seven and Nine the CAAMA Group in 1988, to perform Photography: Alan Collins | Editor: Nicolas Lee (Kenny), Ted Egan Jangala (Old Man), Audrey Networks, the ABC, SBS, National Martin (Rose), Leo Japinjinp Wayne (Steven). the function of a commercial flm and | Art/Des: Daran Fulham | Sound: Liam Egan, Geographic, Channel 4 and CBC. television production house for the David Tranter | Music: David Bridie & John Australia | 2005 | 26 mins | Colour | Dolby newly established Imparja Television, CAAMA has also collaborated on Phillips // Cast: Melissa Middleton, Christine Digital Sound | Alywarre with Eng. subtitles | a remote area commercial broadcast numerous feature flms by Indigenous Palmer, Rob Wenske, Sylvia Merrick. DCP (orig. 35mm) service, also based in Alice Springs. As a directors, including Warwick Tornton’s Australia | 1998 | 11 Mins | Colour | Sound | professional flm, television and creative frst feature, the award-winning Samson English | H DDigital (orig. 16mm) | M. facility, CAAMA Productions supports and Delilah. 22 23 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn Le amiche

‘What makes [Le amiche] so bracing – so patriotic drama, Un pilota ritorna (A sad and, sometimes, so funny – is that Pilot Returns, 1941), a flm of which its heroines are fallible, fawed, vain and neither felt proud. powerful, each in her own way. Tey When drafed into the army, Antonioni ofen make one another miserable, but initially managed to avoid combat by their company is always a pleasure.’ going to Paris to work as an assistant (A.O. Scott, New York Times) to Marcel Carné. Recalled to Italy, he wrote a favourable review of Visconti’s ‘Te world of Michelangelo Antonioni Ossessione (Obsession, 1943), a flm throngs with sick souls, and we may widely thought to herald Italian be slightly sick of them by now, but I neorealism that was banned by Fascist wouldn’t want them to get better.’ censors who objected to its gritty (Anthony Lane, New Yorker) portrayal of working-class life. Antonioni ‘…reality can be fltered better through then made his frst documentary, the women’s psychologies. Tey are more short, apolitical Gente di Po (People of deep focus shots in which characters, of a couture house in Turin where she instinctive, more sincere.’ the Po Valley, 1944), a flm both strongly forever thwarted in their search for was born. Preparing to take a bath in realistic and intensely poetic in which, emotional and spiritual sustenance are her hotel room, she is interrupted by (Michelangelo Antonioni) heralding a characteristic for which he dwarfed and alienated in soulless urban a screaming maid who has discovered Michelangelo Antonioni would become famed, ideas are conveyed and rural landscapes. At frst sight, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer) almost dead Michelangelo Antonioni was born in in purely visual terms. apart from the main character, Clelia, from a suicide attempt in the next room. 1913 to a middle-class family in Ferrara Afer the war, he worked as a translator, (Eleonora Rossi Drago) who provides a Tis triggers a chain of events that will in north-eastern Italy. His frst tentative flm critic and scriptwriter and made moral centre and central viewpoint, what ultimately end in a successful suicide connection with cinema began in 1935 another short documentary, Nattezza we see in Le amiche is a gaggle of wealthy, and Clelia’s decision to return to Rome. as a flm critic for the local newspaper. Urbana (1948), a study of streetcleaners bourgeois, mostly mean, gossipy, amoral But frst, Clelia is swept into the social A couple or so years later he attempted and rubbish collectors in Rome that women, their husbands and lovers, whose swirl of restaurants and casinos, artists’ to make a documentary about a mental won an important critics’ prize. Tis concept of friendship is severely limited studios and parties of four wealthy asylum. However, so traumatised were was followed by several shorts and a and whose interests and chatter rotate and vapid, mean and gossipy women, the inmates when the bright flming treatment for Lo sceicco bianco (Te around love, sex, money, status and the the supposed friends of the unhappy lights were turned on that Antonioni was White Sheik), a romantic comedy that latest fashion in couturier ball gowns. Rosetta: Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), himself too traumatised to start flming. Fellini subsequently made. One of his Te flm most certainly has melodrama a wonderfully performed whirlwind of documentaries at this time, about the and in recent years has been compared Moving to Rome in the late 1930s worldly cynicism; Nene, a talented but production of rayon, points to a love with the American romantic comedy he wrote for the ofcial Fascist flm masochistic ceramicist; and Mariella of texture, fabric and fashion that re- television series Sex and the City. Which magazine edited by Mussolini’s son, (Anna Maria Pancani), a delightful boy- emerges in Le amiche (Girlfriends, 1955). might sound like an almighty cultural crazy airhead. Vittorio. Sacked afer a few months, put-down. But in fact, purveys precisely The Film he briefy enrolled in the national flm one of the flms delights. Why did Rosetta attempt suicide? school established by Il Duce himself. Le amiche might come as a surprise to What links her to her friends? Tis is Here, Antonioni made a short flm about audiences aware only of Antonioni’s Plot not, as one might expect, a simple case a prostitute who blackmails a middle- celebrated flms of the 1970s expecting his Te lovely, thirty something Clelia of melodramatic cherchez l’homme, class woman. He then collaborated on trademark long takes, large empty spaces, (Eleonora Rossi Drago), is newly arrived although Nene’s partner, the faithless, not the screenplay for Roberto Rossellini’s massive architectural structures and long, from Rome to set up the local branch very talented painter Lorenzo (Gabriele 24 25 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

Ferzetti) certainly plays a key role in Te neorealist strategy of using actual D’Amico wrote the script. Te script designed for the Mexican model and bringing about the denouement. (Ferzetti locations are lovingly flmed by Gianni came out of a cooperation between me actress Linda Christian who married will play a similar role in L’av v e nt u r a ). Di Venanzo whose future credits and [the] two women. D’Amico is not a Hollywood star Tyrone Power in Rosetta’s unhappy afair (cynically would include La notte and L’e c l i s s e for great writer, but she’s a good writer, She Rome in 1949. Te wedding attracted encouraged by Momina, despite Antonioni, La sfda (Te Challenge) for knows the feminine mentality very well, thousands of fans and launched Italian supposedly a good friend of Nene) and Francesco Rosi, and 8½ and Giulietta But they hated each other, Suso and Alba, fashion that challenged Paris’ status as its afermath, all anticipate L’av v e nt u r a . degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits) for so they never talked together, I picked up designer capital of the world. Federico Fellini. Te flm’s other signifcant male some material from one and some more [A short break: Christian’s wedding character, Carlo (Ettore Manni), is the Screenplay material from the other and then I did dress really is a dreamy concoction, a the script… the emotional and existential handsome, working class assistant to the Adapted from Cesare Pavese’s prize- fairy tale princess gown in white satin, crises of the characters are the same head architect, Cesare (Franco Fabrizi). winning novella, Tra donne sole covered with embroidery and a with kinds of crises you fnd in my other flms.’ Cesare is designing Clelia’s couturier (Among Women Only, 1949), suicide a fve-yard train. See the newsreel salon - when, that is, he has time to spare frames the flm’s narrative. Suicide On an unpleasantly ironic note in light footage at www.youtube.com/ from his afair with the married Momina had a signifcance for both writer and of the four women friends’ constant watch?v=iP3DOAj8k6k] whose husband we never meet and is the director. In 1953, Antonioni contributed immoral and amoral gossip and Afer the Christian-Power marriage, sort of woman who doesn’t mind whom a segment, Tentato suicidio (Attempted innuendo, the Pavese’s suicide note read: the three sisters designed for more she seduces as long as they are wealthy Suicide), to an anthology flm, L’amore in ‘I forgive everyone and ask everyone’s Hollywood royalty including Ava and not working class. Apart from Clelia, città (Love in the City). Te signifcance forgiveness. OK? Don’t gossip too much.’ Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Carlo is the only character with any for Pavese was more devastating: a year Kelly, and they specialized in wedding Fashion integrity. It doesn’t do him any good. afer publication of this novella, he gowns for celebrities such as Margaret committed suicide, reportedly because Fashion plays a large role in the flm. It Truman (the US President’s daughter), Style of an unhappy love afair. Tis may gives credibility and realism to Clelia Janet Auchincloss (Jacqueline Kennedy’s For Penelope Houston, this was his explain why the screenwriters, Antonioni as a professional, working woman and sister), Princess Maria Pia di Savoia outstanding flm of the 1950s and in it she with Suso Cecchi D’Amico and Alba interestingly distinguishes her from the (whose gown is now at the Museum fnds many elements of Antonioni’s visual De Cespedes, decided to link Rosetta’s four wealthy and jobless women who of Art and Costume in Venice), and grammar: ‘Already the elements of this suicide to an unhappy afair rather than are the customers of her salon’s designer Angelita Trujillo, the daughter of the fastidious crafsman’s style were locked leave her motives unclear, as in the novel. gowns. When the suicidal Rosetta sighs Santo Domingo dictator. in place: the awareness of landscapes, ‘Why should I go on living, to decide Pavese’s suicide would have undoubtedly Whatever else the girlfriends in Le usually melancholy, the sense of people which dress I should wear? And when I afected Antonioni. amiche may have lacked, they had have decided, what’s lef for me? Do you drifing through time and space, but held Te relationship between the three exquisite taste in clothes. Te flm does pity me?’ Clelia replies: ‘Yes, I do pity always under the tightest control, the screenplay writers is intriguing. De not resile from relating wealth and you. I’m never sure about what I should persistence of vision.’ Antonioni himself Cespedes (who gets a ‘collaboration’ taste to class. In a haunting sequence say when I hear somebody reducing an explained: ‘I need to follow my characters credit) was a best-selling novelist where Clelia revisits the districts of her entire life to choosing a dress. Tere are beyond the moments conventionally and newspaper agony aunt whose working class childhood, introducing the so many important things that make life considered important, to show them only screenplay credit is for Le ‘real’ Clelia to Carlo, they bicker about worth living...’ even when everything appears to have amiche. D’Amico was an experienced what furniture she should buy for her been said.’ According to Houston, this screenwriter whose credits include flms Te gowns and fur coats in Clelia’s salon salon. She begins to understand that her was partly what so annoyed the Cannes for Franco Zefrelli, Luchino Visconti, are fabulous. Tey were designed by the hesitation in giving up her job and status audience who booed when L’av v e nt u r a Vittorio de Sica and Francesco Rosi. famed Fontana sisters, Zoe, Micol and to marry Carlo involves diferences in was awarded the Jury Prize, along with Te writing process was not a happy Giovanna. Te sisters were international taste that can be ascribed to a gap in that moral lethargy which seems to one. When D’Amico’s script was accused celebrities, whose creations were widely class status. Sadly, she tells him their overpower his characters, blocking even of sentimentalising Pavese’s novella, admired and copied. Tey were best relationship wouldn’t work: ‘We would the possibility of decisive action. Antonioni retorted: ‘I wouldn’t say that known for the wedding gown they just fght about furniture.’ 26 27 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

Feminism sexually independent women. Decades Although largely dismissed when it I work and live. Always was, always will Clelia’s decision to not give up her before cartoonist Alison Bechdel briefy played in the USA Le amiche was be, Aboriginal land. newfound income and status to marry coined her famous measure of gender admired by esteemed Village Voice critics Main sources: Carlo and her decision to retain representation on screen, L’avventura and Jonas Mekas and Andrew Sarris, both Peter Brunette (1998) Te Films of Michelangelo L’e c l i s s e would have passed the test observing that the flm’s detached look at her independence and career is just Antonioni. Cambridge U.P. one sign of what is ofen thought [My fnal commercial break: Te life among the rich and vapid anticipated L’avventura. Tey particularly admired Stephen Dalton (2020 ) ‘What Antonioni’s to be Antonioni’s prescient regard Bechdel test, you will recall, is a movies mean in the era of mindfulness and for feminism. As A.O. Scott writes, witty measure of the representation what the flm has to show and tell about #MeToo’ www.bf-staging.org.uk/news-opinion/ Antonioni’s ‘fascination with women of women that asks whether a flm women with Mekas commenting on news-bf/features/michelangelo-antonioni- is infected by a sympathy that might features at least two women who talk ‘the subtle waves of feminine emotions, modernity be called feminist. Te main characters to each other about something other passions and loneliness’ and Sarris Kevin Moore (1995) ’Eclipsing the pursue their desires and ambitions under than a man and if the two women are admiring its portrayal of women ‘cast Commonplace: Te Logic of Alienation in Antonioni’s Cinema.’ Film Quarterly. constraints imposed by custom and by actually named. See: en.wikipedia.org/ adrif in a sea of eroticism, a realm where the brute impossibility of men.’ Stephen wiki/Bechdel_test .} men are always necessary but seldom Clara Orban, (2001) ‘Antonioni’s Women, Lost Dalton concurs: ‘Viewed through 21st- sufcient and where women are always in the City’, Modern Language Studies, 31: 2 Le amiche also passes the test. century eyes, Antonioni’s grasp of gender sufcient but not always necessary.’ Penelope Houston (2007) Michelangelo Obituary, Te Guardian politics … looks unusually advanced Critical Reception Fine (The End) for his era. While he clearly had an Eugenia Paulicelli (2016) Italian Style: Fashion Le amiche was not a major commercial What makes this movie so enchanting eye for decorous young actresses, and & Film from Early Cinema to the Digital Age, or critical success when released. It and strange? It’s not that deep emotions ofen depicted women as stereotypically Bloomsbury Academic. nevertheless won some awards in Italy: and profound meanings lurk beneath moody neurotics, his proto-feminist Tony Pipolo (2016) Le amiche: Friends – Italian Valentina Cortese won a couple of the surface of ordinary actions and depiction of female characters is far Style at the Criterion Collection best actress prizes for her overwrought encounters. It’s rather that, in Antonioni’s from the leering male gaze of so many A.O. Scott, Review. New York Times, 18 July performance as the put-upon Nene. world, the superfcial and the profound directors. Indeed, his golden decade of 2010 Antonioni won three Best Director cannot quite be distinguished’ Le amiche Italian dramas from Le amiche (1955) awards including, as already mentioned, is, above all, impossible to stop watching. Notes by Jane Mills onwards is dominated by strong, smart, the Silver Lion at Venice. Director: Michelangelo Antonioni; Writing: The Restoration Cesare Pavese (novel), Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Le amiche is presented in its original Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay), Alba De aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Supervised by Cespedes (collaboration); Producer: Giovanni flm historian Carlo Di Carlo in 2008, Addessi; Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo; this 2K restoration was undertaken by Film Editing: Eraldo Da Roma; Production L’Immagine Ritrovata, with funding Design: Gianni Polidori; Set Decoration: Gianni provided by Gucci and Te Film Polidori; Costume Design: Enzo Bulgarelli; Foundation, from the original 35mm Music: Giovanni Fusco // Cast: Eleonora Rossi original camera negative. Te original Drago (Clelia); Gabriele Ferzetti (Lorenzo); monaural soundtrack was remastered Franco Fabrizi (Cesare Pedoni, the architect); at L’Immagine Ritrovata from a 35mm Valentina Cortese (Nene); Yvonne Furneaux optical soundtrack positive printed from (Momina De Stefani); Madeleine Fischer the original soundtrack negative. (Rosetta Savoni); Anna Maria Pancani (Mariella); Luciano Volpato (Tony); Maria Acknowledgements & sources Gambarelli (Clelia’s employer); Ettore Manni I acknowledge the Bidgigal and the (Carlo) Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation, the Italy | 1945 | 106 minutes | UC15+ traditional owners of the land on which 28 29 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

‘… a work of exceptional originality and beauty …’ has to her) is no longer constant in the vanishes, the shared past of Momina and Rosetta, and a scene such as the one Extracts from a contemporary view of Le amiche by Roger Tailleur flm, but rather condensed in the ‘big’ scene, hardly typical of Antonioni’s where a sightly drunken Momina dances Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1955 flm the same as those I have just described. manner, where Clelia, afer Rosetta’s with Clelia. All the transpositions, makes it hard to recount Cesare Pavese’s Antonioni distrusts Fellini-type drama, (second) suicide, vehemently reproaches however, are related to the intimate short novel (Tra donne sole / Among raised voices, teary crises. He loathes Momina in front of the entire shop. Te details of the text, and the love scene at Women Only, 1949), which it adapts. using close-ups, the freedom of his entire aspect of ‘fascination for the rich’ the fairground, created almost ex nihilo Clelia Oitana (Eleonora Rossi Drago), characters is almost total, beginning in Clelia, with which Pavese, similar to by Antonioni, is very beautiful, with young Roman woman, returns to Torino, with the freedom to move restlessly F. Scott Fitzgerald, was very intimately Lorenzo seeming to feetingly incarnate her childhood city, to open a fashion within wide shots of almost empty involved, simply does not exist for the the author of Te Business of Living. house. On the day of her arrival, Rosetta interiors and exteriors. Te distance he born-wealthy Antonioni, this aspect that It is a work of exceptional originality Mola (in the flm Rosetta Savone: puts between them and himself is the the character of Becuccio-Carlo, far from and beauty, as good as any I’ve seen Madeleine Fischer), a young woman same distance that separates the camera the best recreated by the flm, takes still from this flm auteur shunned by the from rich society, tries to kill herself in from the actors. All the elements of his further. public, tormented by the censors, and the hotel room next to Clelia’s. style – découpage, direction of actors, who is, at the same time, the greatest But it’s above all the ‘slide’ wherein framing, right up to the gleaming, icy contemporary Italian flmmaker. Pavese’s narrative style tends not to the cause of the suicide is clearly cinematography and the rare, unusual organise the drama, draw dramatic motivated, reported by Momina to *** music – tend to purify emotion, lines, build to crescendos. At every Lorenzo, prompting the Rosetta-Lorenzo Test edited from French original © Estate instant, everything remains possible, classicise it, storing it up, ultimately, for the sake of a process of distillation, connection, Nene’s jealousy and the of Roger Tailleur. English translation nothing is developed, prepared. Te prodigal lover’s return, that vulgarises © Adrian Martin 24 June 2020. First characters enjoy total freedom. Tey like a single tear that is made to shine, in oriental fashion, on the nail of a little Pavese’s world. At the same time, all published in Les Lettres nouvelles, no. 53 are not playthings of fate, of a logic sexual ambiguity in the subject matter (October 1957). crushing down upon them. Teir logic, fnger. their fatality are internal, secret, hidden Te book, which is, above all, a fragile from the author, as from the reader. bridge connecting two suicide attempts, Afer eight days, eight pages of obscure one a failure and the other successful, waiting, a gesture or a word creates, becomes, since the emphasis is placed in just a few seconds, a few lines, an on the women, the relation between unexpected moment of great intensity, two love stories. Te screenwriters can, a tearing emotion, scarcely unveiled moreover, pretend to have been faithful before it is once more inserted back into to the novel, so rich is it with allusions, the tightly condensed framework of notes, waves of memory, rich and life and passing time. Te distance that scattered like life itself. the writer takes vis-à-vis his novelistic More serious problems: Clelia is no characters is the inevitable consequence longer the narrator (that would have of their behaviour. We don’t think of prevented the web of relationships, now them as characters in a novel but as so central, between Lorenzo, Rosetta and people living among us, people who, Nene) and the moral judgement brought more or less, we know. to bear by this heroine on the world she Antonioni’s characters remain flm enters as observer (by virtue of her poor characters. However, many of the childhood, she exists in the same relation characteristics of Antonioni’s style are to Momina and Rosetta that Becuccio

30 31 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

stop motion animated short, Aves (1998) Reciting songs translated from original The Juniper Tree in which Keene continued to explore old Icelandic melodies about St the motif of bird song and themes of Veronica and St Ursula, chanting spells Nietzchka Keene extraordinary accomplishment that isolation and mysticism. A companion and incarnations from the turn of the American flmmaker, Nietzchka Keene Keene was able to produce it at all. Te piece to her previous flms Keene’s third century, ‘Out from here out from there’ was born in 1952 and raised near flm was fnally completed in 1989. feature Barefoot to Jerusalem (2008) and employing biblical readings and Boston, Massachusetts, receiving a BA In 1991, Te Juniper Tree premiered contests the medieval and biblical myth rhymes written to ft the occasion using in Germanic Linguistics from U.Mass, and competed at the Sundance Film of the she devil in the allegorical tale of the Icelandic sagas form, the power Amherst in 1975 and a Master of Fine Festival for the Dramatic Grand Jury a women’s guilt when her lover commits of belief, fuelled by superstition and Arts in Film Production from UCLA in Prize. Afer a lengthy flm festival tour, suicide. At the time of her passing black magic in a time of persecution 1979. Whilst at UCLA, Keene made two winning several awards and screening this flm was in its fnal phase of post- is evoked. Keene augments this within short flms, Still, (1978) and Hinterland predominately to an art house audience production. It was completed by Keene’s a primitive, harsh and brutal reality, (1981) and upon graduation worked as in the USA, Canada, the UK, and colleagues and released posthumously where the fear of death and loss of a research assistant to an archaeologist in more than 23 flm festivals across four years afer her death in 2008. connection, must be endured. and scholar of the Icelandic sagas in the the world, this indie flm largely self- The Film Diverging from the original department of old Icelandic linguistics fnanced and performed by a cast of Nietzchka Keene’s, Te Juniper Tree is an Grimm storyline in this feminist and old Norse literature. Keene was relatively unknown Icelandic actors in reinterpretation, Keene foregrounds deeply drawn to northern European astonishingly atmospheric work. With a the English language received, without a cast of only fve actors, heralding from the negative depiction of feminine folklore and mythology and elements marketing budget and distributor, a very power and explores the misogynistic of this interest continued to inform her a strong Icelandic theatre tradition, limited theatrical release and was then fear of womanhood as an evil doer in flmmaking practise throughout her Keene composes a lyrical and dreamlike almost forgotten. medieval fantasy that is both barbaric medieval folklore. Women practicing short career. folk medicine, once sought out for Ahead of its time, and with Iceland today and poetic. In 1985 she was awarded a Fulbright a tourist hotspot, this little seen gem Fellowship to travel to Iceland to starring Icelandic avant-garde pop icon, research and shoot a short flm, based Björk, in her frst flm role, is quickly on an Icelandic folktale, but another idea garnering cult status. Its U.S restoration for a more ambitious work, still true has given birth to a renewed recognition to this spirit was already taking shape. and fresh discovery. During this period, she researched, scripted the story and commenced pre- In 1995, Keene began teaching production in preparation for adapting flm production at the University her childhood favourite Brothers of Wisconsin–Madison where she Grimm fairy tale Te Juniper Tree, into a continued to work as a professor until stony feminist parable. Te location and her premature death from pancreatic setting; medieval Iceland, an imaginary, cancer, aged 52. Te festival circuit otherworldly, never never land. On a success of Te Juniper Tree led Keene micro budget in the summer of 1986, to direct Heroine of Hell (1996) a TV she returned with a small flm crew to movie starring Catherine Keener which shoot it. further challenged through a modern Keene was awarded a Verna Fields female lens, medieval constructs and Memorial scholarship in 1987 from iconography. UCLA to complete the edit. With She followed this work up with an such meagre fnancial reserves, it is an experimental and equally atmospheric 32 33 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn their healing abilities and intuition, of location. Te alien and unforgiving that approximated the sound of early only print, flm negatives and all the were, at the height of the hysteria of the expanse of Iceland. Te Juniper Tree Northern Europe instruments to sublime existing audio for Te Juniper Tree were middle ages, demonised as witches. An was predominately flmed along the efect. known to exist prior to this preservation underlying archetype in the gender- windswept jagged clifs and sparse eerie Te Juniper Tree is visually striking. project. Tis new digital 4K restoration based hierarchy of many of the Brothers wilderness of moss-grown lava felds in Shot by Randolph Sellars on 35mm from the original 35mm camera negative Grimm fairy tales. the south coast of Iceland. A flm framed flm stock in timeless black and white a by the Wisconsin Centre for Film and Teatre Research and the non-proft Keene’s retelling is told from the within an unpredictable environment ftting choice for a period drama of such Film Foundation, founded by Martin point of view of Margit, played and forged by extreme weather dark subject matter. To complement the Scorsese with funding support provided wondrously by 21-year-old Björk (Björk conditions. A land of inaccessible caves sparse narrative and meditative quality by the George Lucas Family Foundation, Guðmundsdóttir a recent mother and and glacial mountain passes. A grey, of otherness, the flm’s monochromatic thankfully rescued this dark and then new member of the Sugercubes). gloomy, moon-scape terrain of black severity and style was strongly infuenced foreboding American indie masterpiece Margit, on the precipice of womanhood, sand beaches, volcanic craters, estuaries, by two auteur masters. Te asceticism of for a future generation of audiences. A possesses the gif of second sight. endless rivers and mighty waterfalls. Carl Dreyer and the medieval morality major rediscovery at a time where the Her older sister Katla (Bryndis Petra tales of Ingmar Bergman. Sympathetic to the cultural traditions, works of several women directors were Bragadottir) and she, fee their home in magical practices and beliefs of medieval Te merciless beauty of the Icelandic reinstated back into the flm canon. desperation afer their mother, (Guðrún Iceland, Keene drew upon archival landscape with its northern summer Gísladóttir) and other women of their records, pagan myth and narrative and light low on the horizon created long REFERENCES kind are condemned for practicing religious symbolism, employing a single pronounced shadows that intensifed 1 Interview with Keene, www.youtube.com/ witchcraf. Gruesomely executed. lit candle, crucifxes, the motif of a the flms dramatic tonal elements as did watch?v=WT55XidlDI Stoned, drowned and or burned to death. Juniper tree, to signify protection from the hauntingly ethereal special efects by 2 Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, edited Seeking refuge Katla seduces a recently evil spirits and the enigmatic view from experimental flm pioneer Pat O’Neill. by Pauline Greenhill, Sidney Eve Matrix widowed father Jóhann (Valdimar Örn an opaque turf house window to bring An ambiguous and melancholic tone lies 3 Personal Reminiscences of Te Juniper Tree. Flygenring) from a faraway farm, with the reality of her dark and ice-cold vision at the heart of this flm and the negative By Patrick Moyroud a love spell, so that she can become his to the screen. space pervades with the impression of 4 Interview with Randolph Sellars, www. wife and keep them safe. Requiring the She shot the interior scenes with absence conjuring painful emotions of barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/in- protection of a man, Keene portrays abject despair. Convinced that the souls conversation-cinematographer-randolph- permission from the national museum in sellars-on-the-juniper-tree this belief and act of sorcery as one of one of the oldest farm houses in Iceland, of their dead mothers are still present survival. and carefully researched the elements and with their own souls inextricably 5 A Visionary Rediscovered, by Amy Sloper Te farmer’s little boy Jonas (Geirlaug of the costume design. Using layered bound, they brave, until their hearts break. Te mystical unknown between Notes by Helen Goritsas Sunna Þormar) grieving the recent clothing made from hand-woven antique the world of the living and the world of Director: Nietzchka Keene; Producer: Patrick loss of his mother resents his new fabric and shoes of sheep skin leather the dead is summoned to great efect by Moyroud | Screenplay: Keene | Director of stepmother and implores his father to in keeping with the period following the loneliness and fearful apprehension Photography: Randolph Sellars | Editor: make her leave. Feeling threatened Katla Iceland’s conversion to Christianity. of this loss. Inviting a dialogue with the Keene | Art/Des: Dominique Polain | Sound: continues to make potions and perform Keene’s flm, both hypnotic and surreal, viewer and making Te Juniper Tree such Larry Hoki, Moyroud | Music: Larry Lipkis // incantations to lure and hold on to her is expressed through the austere and a powerful and visceral flm to see. Cast: Björk (Margit), Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir new husband. Tis ill will fnally turns spellbinding original musical score of (Katla), Guðrún Gísladóttir (Margit, ‘Katla’s perilously ominous when the little boy Larry Lipkis. Te music was kept simple The Restoration Mother), Valdimar Örn Flygenring (Jóhann), accuses the woman of being a witch. to ft the grim mood of the compelling Nietzchka Keene’s entire body of work Geirlaug Sunna Þormar (Jónas). Te construction of this cruel imaginary visual moments and to compliment was donated to the Wisconsin Centre for USA, Iceland | 1990 | 78 mins | B&W | Dolby place of grisly dismemberment and the rhythm of Keene’s mesmerising Film and Teatre Research for the beneft SR Sound | Icelandic with Eng. Subtitles | 4k cannibalism is reinforced by the Nordic soundscape. Liplus researched Icelandic of future scholarship. Tis is where the DCP (orig. 35mm) | U/C 15+. folk horror setting and Keene’s choice folk music and used instruments 34 35 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

On The Juniper Tree The Leopard

Every woman ought to know that fairy that his new step-mother will replace his Luchino Visconti Visconti became that unique com- tales are not to be trusted – especially own, now long dead and buried under not those (re)written by The Brothers the juniper tree. However, he grows to Luchino Visconti was born in Milan bination of Marxist and aristocrat and he Grimm. Thankfully, Nietzchka Keene’s trust and befriend Margit, who meanwhile to one of Europe’s oldest aristocratic maintained a long association with the The Juniper Tree returns this tale to its struggles to control and interpret her own families. He directed 14 feature flms, 40 Italian communist party. Some believe rightful place: as told from a woman’s ecstatic visions – for fear that she, like her plays and 12 operas. Te plays included his politics motivated the neo-realism perspective, as too often, they are not. mother, may be accused of witchcraft. The work by Cocteau, Sartre, Arthur Miller of his earlier work and his frst flm Anyone who has read Clarissa Pinkola boy’s resentment festers and escalates. He Ossessione (1942) is ofen cited as the Estés’ groundbreaking Women Who spurns Katla’s attempts to connect with and Tennessee Williams. Te operas included four with Maria Callas – La beginning of that infuential Italian flm Run With The Wolves will welcome this and care for him. His father likewise falls movement, although there were many feminist interpretation of what (in the prey to doubt and paranoia, now caught Traviata, La Sonnambula, Anna Bolena detractors: ‘Afer the frst showing’ said Grimms’ hands) is actually an incredibly between conficting feelings of loyalty and Iphigenia in Tauris. misogynist, violent, cautionary tale to his son, desire for love, and guilt for Visconti ‘an Archbishop came to bless the His full name was Count Luchino against brave little girls who dare his desire. Everybody feels threatened room.’ Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate disobey. And anyone who hasn’t yet, – everyone except Margit, the only one During World War II, he joined the Pozzolo and he came from a family should – especially the many critics able to see through all the reactionary Italian Resistenza, helping hide allied attempting to analyze and canonize behavior to the truth of the matter. This branch of the old Viscontis of Milan. His soldiers and partisans and was once Keene’s flm in relation to the works guilelessness, however, gets her into father was the Duke Giuseppe Visconti arrested and imprisoned by the Fascists of her more familiar male peers (eg. trouble. And therein lies the true moral di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo. who found a gun in his pocket. He Bergman, Tarkovsky, or Vláčil) whose of the story, ladies: Beware your own His mother was Carla Erba, heiress to flms bear only aesthetic resemblance ability to think and see clearly, when those evaded all attempts to give up the names Erba Pharmaceuticals. to what is otherwise a truly original around you cannot. of his collaborators. modern gothic masterpiece. It seems Biographer Monica Stirling observed: Inspired by the Marxist writer Antonio appropriate that this flm should re- Beyond the pleasures of watching a ‘…a child like Luchino Visconti, with Gramsci, his second feature La Terra emerge now, after so many years of young, ‘undiscovered’ Björk perform, the ancestors still moving in tapestries flm has so much more to ofer in the way Trema (1948), is a neo-realist account being unappreciated or misunderstood, all around him, is born with a sense lost in the shadows of the zeitgeist. of story, cinematography, and – my god of a Sicilian fshing family who revolt of history’s continuity into a world of The Juniper Tree, like the rapturous and – the sound! The sensual and evocative against their exploitation by city traders. vast imaginative dimensions, full of recently re-released work of Hilma af images, actions, and landscapes are more It even starts with a title ‘un racconto communicative ghosts with familiar Klint, was – alas – ahead of its time. than enough to keep you hooked, all the d’impianto sociale’ – ‘the story of a social way to the end. Come for the Björk, yes, faces.’ (1) system’. Lino Miccichè called it the only I’ll admit, as with likely most viewers, but stay for the Keene. I’m embarrassed it was the prospect of seeing Björk in not to have known her till now. I’ll cast As an adult, however, Visconti wasn’t great Marxist flm of Neorealismo. (3) her on-screen debut that caught my as wide a spell as I can: Nietzchka Keene. content with any immutable continuity Greeted by whistles and insults at the attention. Björk plays Margit, a young Nietzchka Keene. Nietzchka Keene. of history. He had experienced a political Venice Film Festival, Francesco Rosi woman, who, along with her older ‘road to Damascus’ at the age of 29 reported the reaction of the middle-class sister, Katla (Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir) Angeline Gragasin when working in France as an assistant public to La Terra Trema was against a is forced to fee into the wilderness after director to Jean Renoir on Toni (1935). This essay frst appeared in March ‘bourgeois’ (Visconti) who had betrayed their mother was accused of witchcraft ‘I started to get close to the communists and killed. Katla encounters a single 2019 at www.screenslate.com/articles/ his class. (4) in 1936 … I did not know anything about man living alone in the wild. They fall juniper-tree. Angeline Gragasin is a Salvador Dali has remarked: ‘He was a Filipino American writer, flmmaker, and communism and Marxism. I did not know in love, and the sisters are invited to communist who only liked luxury’. move in – with him and his young son, artist. Her work can be found at www. anything about politics. But there was the product of a prior marriage. The boy angelinegragasin.com Reprinted by kind in France the Popular Front and all my Visconti’s flm career started with neo- immediately resents Katla, fearing permission of the author. friends were enlisted in the Communist realism, then moved towards heightened Party. Tey clarifed my ideas.’ (2) theatrical melodrama and concluded in 36 37 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn operatic efusion. His work included a The Film bourgeoisie is challenging the old feudal For all the flm’s epic glory, its historical four-hour flm on the life of Ludwig II of Sicily, 1860. aristocracy and although distraught, sweep and its sensuous production Bavaria (Ludwig, 1973); a psychosexual the Prince chooses to spectate rather design, the events in Te Leopard live Tere’s a dead soldier in the garden treatise on Nazism (Te Damned, 1967); than participate in the changing world mostly inside the mind of the Prince of of the sumptuous Sicilian palazzo literary adaptations from Dostoyevsky around him. Salina. (White Nights, 1957), Albert Camus (Te belonging to the aristocratic Salina family. His nephew Tancredi Falconeri (Alain And here, Burt Lancaster is just majestic. Stranger, 1967), Tomas Mann (Death in Delon), elects to join the Garibaldini and For three hours, as he struggles against a Venice, 1971), James M. Cain (Ossessione, Te Prince of Salina, Don Fabrizio fghts in the Battle of Palermo, rising to world now threatening his very concept 1942) and two flms about Italian (Burt Lancaster) has just learned of the the rank of ofcer. In Donnafugata, at the of nobility, Lancaster captivates the unifcation in the 1860s (Senso, 1954; Te invading Garibaldi army. Te Red Shirts Salinas’ summer retreat, the rapid rise of audience with his portrayal of the Prince Leopard, 1963). have landed and the Kingdom of the Don Calogero Sedàra (Paolo Stoppa), a and his stature, his self-importance, From the Venice Film Festival, Visconti Two Sicilies is destined for annexation. previously uneducated plebeian, but now his love of science and astronomy, his was awarded the Golden Lion for Sandra It’s the beginning of the Second War of a wealthy bourgeois and the local mayor, bittersweet philosophizing, his reserve, (1965), the Silver Lion for White Nights Independence for the unifcation of Italy gives the Prince of Salina real evidence of his vigor, his social graces and his (1957) and the Grand Jury Prize for – the Risorgimento. the forces reshaping his life: erudite dignity. Rocco and his Brothers (1960). Te Prince of Salina is aware his ‘We were the Leopards, the Lions; those It’s an intimate portrait of an aristocrat Te Leopard won the Palme d’Or at opulent and privileged way of life is who take our place will be jackals, for whom family, culture and status Cannes in 1963. threatened, maybe ending. Te growing hyenas and the whole lot of us, Leopards, means all, but also a man spiritually lost jackals and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking and grieving the decay of nobility. ourselves the salt of the earth.’ Whether simply shufing a pack of Tancredi, whose family is bankrupt, cards or gliding elegantly across a has fallen for Don Calogero’s daughter ballroom foor before musing alone Angelica (Claudia Cardinale). He is about his mortality, Lancaster gives the entranced as much by her beauty as performance of his career as the Prince he is by her dowry. Te Prince, aware of Salina. of securing Tancredi’s fnancial future, encourages their union and asks Don A profound and moving flm, it’s also Calogera for her hand in marriage to a vivid portrait of intellect, beauty and his nephew. history. Te concluding 45-minute ballroom scene is both rapturous and Te screenplay is an adaptation of mesmerizing, one of the fnest set pieces the only novel by Giuseppe Tomasi in the history of the cinema. A divine di Lampedusa, the last Prince of ending to one of the greatest flms to Lampedusa. Born in Palermo, Sicily, ever grace the screen. It’s Visconti’s his father was the Duke Giulio Maria apotheosis. His masterpiece. Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa, Baron of Torretta, Grandee of Spain and his The Restoration mother was Beatrice Mastrogiovanni When Te Leopard opened in the Tasca Filangieri di Cutò. United States and Australia in 1963, When he died in 1957, Lampedusa’s nearly 30 minutes had been removed by novel Te Leopard had been rejected by 20th Century Fox; the image had been several publishers. It was fnally released, trimmed top and bottom; the prints were to great acclaim, one year afer his death. degraded by the inferior DeLuxe colour 38 39 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn process; and all the actors had been conveys so many complexities at a very dubbed into English. simple level that Te Leopard has become Tere have been various restorations one of the greatest of all epics.’ G. Allen during the past 50 years and this latest Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 4K digital restoration was funded to September 2004 the tune of $900,000 by the Gucci ‘Written by the only man who could Foundation and was supervised by have written it, directed by the only man Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. who could have directed it and stars the Laboratory restoration was done by only man who could have played its title Sony’s Colorworks Digital Facility character’. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun- through a partnership involving Cineteca Times, 1 October 2003 di Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata, Te References Film Foundation, Pathé, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, Twentieth 1. Monica Sterling, A Screen of Time: A Study Century Fox and Centro Sperimentale di of Luchino Visconti, Hardcourt Brace, 1979, (quoted in R.T.Witcombe, Te New Italian Cinematografa-Cineteca Nazionale. Cinema, Secker and Warburg, 1982) Finally seeing resorations of the 2. Costanzo Coletti, L’ultimo Visconti, Milan, complete flm, critics lavished praise: Sugar Co Edizioni, 1976 (quoted in Claretta Tonetti, Luchino Visconti, Columbus books, ‘One of the greatest motion pictures London, 1983) of all time, as well as one of the most politically profound.’ Andrew Sarris, Te 3. Quoted in Witcombe, ibid New York Observer, 13 January 2005 4. Quoted in Tonetti, ibid ‘Te greatest flm of its kind made since Notes by Rod Bishop World War II.’ J Hoberman, Village Voice, Director: Luchino Visconti; Production 10 August 2004 Company: Titanus; Producer: Goffredo ‘One of the greatest achievements of Lombardo; Screenplay: Luchino Visconti, Suso Italian cinema.’ David Stratton, SBS, 1 Cecchi D’Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile, January 2009 Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa based on the novel Il Gattopardo by Giuseppe Tomasi ‘Few flms can hold a candle to Te di Lampedusa; Director of Photography: Leopard…one of those rare almost Giuseppe Rotunno; Editor: Mario Serandrei; Art perfect pristine works of the cinema… Design: Mario Garbuglia, Laudomia Hercolani, Visconti at the height of his stylistic Giorgio Pes; Sound: Mario Messina; Music: mastery…’ Adrian Martin, flmcritic. Nino Rota; Costumes: Piero Tosi // Cast: Burt com.au, October 1997/December 2004 Lancaster (The Prince of Salina), Claudia ‘Every frame of this flm is an artwork… Cardinale (Angelica), Alain Delon (Tancredi), gorgeous to see in all its glory, incredibly Paolo Stoppe (Don Calogero), Rina Morelli moving…’ Margaret Pomeranz, SBS, 1 (Princess Maria of Salina), Romolo Valli (Father Pirrone) January 2009 ‘Te feeling at the end of this Italy/France | 1963 | 185 mins | Col | 4K DCP (orig. 35mm) | Italian with English Subtitles | masterpiece – a profound meditation on PG. mortality, really – is so pitch-perfect and 40 41 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

of the visual image. Te idea of Margot Nash, 1979) were inspired by Shadow Panic structuring a flm via the female gaze the politics of feminism and the wild started to take form. uncolonised energy of the anarchists and Margot Nash would yield the gold, which memory ‘By working only with fragments the surrealists; the threads of resistance Margot Nash is a flmmaker and a would haunt forever?’ connected via the gaze, via chance, by that run throughout history. If the spirit Visiting Fellow in Communications at ‘I am the investigator, I watch, I record, I shaking up narrative expectations, I of resistance fuels ‘the return of the the University of Technology Sydney. collect evidence: little men who get rich hoped to create an atmosphere where the repressed’ and movement within the Her credits include the experimental quick, this wilful heritage, this aching land.’ poetic, the fantastic could fnd expression. unconscious creates new ways of seeing, shorts We Aim To Please (1976) and I wanted to work with the unconscious, then surely this is the quest.’ (Nash 1989) Shadow Panic (1989), the feature dramas ‘I am the fool, the hothead, distracted, not with logic, to create images that might Screenwriter/Producer/Director: Margot Nash; Vacant Possession (1994) and Call Me temporarily unavailable: in love, out of love, searching for love.’ resonate later much as a dream might.’ Production Company: As If Productions; Mum (2005) and the personal essay Director of Photography: Sally Bongers; Editor: documentary Te Silences (2015). www. Filmmaker’s Statement/s …because poetry involves gaining Diana Priest; Music and Sound: Elizabeth strength through the unconscious and… margotnash.com. Made in the late 1980s Shadow Panic Drake; Production Designer: Jan MacKay // the unconscious, that other limitless was a response to a world beset by greed, Cast: Kaarin Fairfax (The Hothead), Robin Synopsis country, is the place where the repressed natural catastrophe, war and changing Laurie (The Redhead), Rose Wanganeen (The Tree women’s worlds collide by chance. manage to survive.’ (Cixious Te Laugh weather patterns. It was a time when Investigator) of the Medusa 1976) Shadow Panic is a short innovative drama many feminist flmmakers like myself Australia | 1989 | 25 mins | Col | DCP (orig. about internal and external states of were exploring the new wave of screen Shadow Panic and its earlier counterpart 16mm) | English | PG. emergency, about personal and collective theorists and feminist philosophers and We Aim To Please (Robin Laurie & shadows, about resistance and spirit. wondering how we might construct ‘I am the dreamer, the redhead, I search images in our flms that might smash for hidden treasure: which fragment through the male-dominated hegemony Sons of Matthew

Charles Chauvel flms is a sense of history as inexorable Charles Chauvel (1897–1959) is one change, moving all nations and races of the greatest names of the Australian towards ends that cannot be foreseen, cinema. He made nine feature flms and mocking all fxed ideals.’ between 1926 and 1955. His wife Elsa The Film Chauvel was his key collaborator on all of his flms. In the Oxford Companion ‘Sons of Matthew is formally, and to Australian Film William D Routt thematically, one of the most signifcant noted that ‘Charles Chauvel grew up flms in the history of the Australian as a privileged member of the landed flm industry, and is the highpoint of gentry of south-eastern Queensland; in the Chauvels’ career. Te Chauvels’ some ways the ideas and attitudes of the knowledge of classical conventions, squattocracy can still be found in the combined with melodramatic devices Chauvels’ flms. Sometimes celebrated or and a heartfelt concern for the flm’s dismissed as little more than an ardent, protagonists and their desires, blend simple nationalist, Charles Chauvel more easily in this flm than in any other brought a great passion for Australia, in their long career.’ its land, and peoples, to all of his work. – Geof Mayer, Te Oxford Companion Intermixed with the ardour of the to Australian Film. 42 43 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn

large unit of 70 people, including the Kayser, was brought on to the location cast, set of for the main location site to accelerate the work. Te delays caused near the town of Beaudesert in the heart anxiety to Chauvel’s backers and Rydge of the wild mountain terrain. and McIntyre both travelled up to the Teir arrival coincided with one of the location to inspect progress; Rydge worst wet seasons on record and the frst has recounted how he came so close three months on location saw scarcely to abandoning the production that he three weeks of weather suitable for actually tossed a coin to decide whether flming. Tis major setback to morale he would continue to support it…. and to the shooting schedule was Shooting was fnally completed some aggravated when work began in earnest eighteen months afer it began.. and it became clear that the terrain was Te arduous months of the production far more treacherous than had ever been revealed more clearly than ever before anticipated. For six months the unit Chauvel’s passionate urge to risk any worked under very trying conditions, cost and hazard in expressing his deeply sometimes travelling by pack-horse nationalistic vision of a people in their and foot to reach remote location sites. struggle to conquer the most hostile of Changes to the script also provided terrains. His methods were somewhat unexpected extensions to the shooting vindicated, however, by the emotional schedule, and eventually a second power of the flm’s best scenes and by its camera unit, under the direction of Carl commercial success.’ Te following notes are edited from Dunn and the radio writer, Gwen Australian Film 1900–1977 by Andrew Meredith, to prepare a screenplay about Pike and Ross Cooper and are reprinted the O’Reillys and the rescue of survivors by permission of the authors. from the crash of a Stinson aeroplane in Sons of Matthew was an epic story of the mountains in February 1937. Australian pioneer life, tracing the Gradually, however, Chauvel turned story of three generations of settlers in towards the characters of the O’Reillys rugged frontier land. Matthew and Jane themselves, and by the end of 1946 O’Riordan raise a family of fve sturdy had settled on his own simple story of sons and two daughters on the farm in pioneers in a spectacular new frontier. the valley of Cullenbenbong…. Te story of making the flm was itself Queensland was Chauvel’s home state a tale of great perserverance in the face and he had long been inspired by the life of formidable physical odds. Chauvel’s story of the pioneering O’Reilly family usual fnancial backer, Herc McIntyre who had settled in the mountains of the of Universal Pictures, succeeded in south-east of the state. Bernard O’Reilly persuading Norman Rydge of Greater had written two books about his family’s Union (no great advocate of local life – Green Mountain (Brisbane, 1940) production) to join him as a partner in and Cullenbenbong (Brisbane, 1944). In fnancing the flm. A crew was assembled 1945 Chauvel acquired the screen rights with a core of technicians from to the books and commissioned Maxwell Cinesound and early in March 1947 the

44 45 Cinema Reborn Cinema Reborn The Restoration Carl Kayser , Bert Nicholas; Editor: Terry Acknowledgements Melbourne premiere of a 2016 digital Banks; Art Design: George Hurst; Sound: restoration by the National Film and Allyn Barnes; Music: Henry Krips; Assist Presented by the Cinema Reborn Organising Committee and Classic Cinemas Elsternwick with Sound Archive of Australia’s NFSA Director: Alec Kellaway // Cast: Michael Pate the Support of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia (Shane O’Riordan); Ken Wayne (Barney Restores program. Acknowledgement to Country O’Riordan); Tommy Burns (Luke O’Riordan); Australia | 1949 | 101 mins. B&W | English | We would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners, the Boonwurrung People of the Kulin John Unicomb (Terry O’Riordan); John DCP (originally35mm) | G Nation, on whose land we meet. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and extend our Ewart (Mickey O’Riordan); Wendy Gibb respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from all nations of this land. Director: Charles Chauvel; Production (Cathy McAllister); John O’malley (Matthew Company: Charles Chauvel Productions, O’Riordan); Thelma Scott (Jane O’Riordan) Patrons NBCUniversal (Mike Classic Cinemas Richard Brennan & Jill Greater Union, Universal Pictures| Phillip Adams Baard, Michael Jones) Eddie Tamir Steel Source: Umbrella Films. Ronin Films Geof Burton & Sharon Producers: Charles Chauvel, Elsa Chauvel Sue Milliken Benjamin Tamir David Stratton (Andrew Pike, Craig Raphael Tamir Bell (‘Associate Producer’); Screenplay: Charles Notes edited from Australian Film 1900– McConnell) Jessica Shields Anna Carmody Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , Maxwell Dunn, 1977 by Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper Organising Committee Studio Canal (Andrew Jaymes Durante Dominic Case Rolfe) from the novel by Bernard O’Reilly; Photo: Geof Gardner (Chair) David Churack Adrienne Davidson Kath Shelper Karen Foley (Treasurer) Ryan Beasley David Donaldson Rod Bishop Film Critics Circle of Presenters Sue Murray Online and Media Australia Adrian Danks Simon Taafe Angelica Waite Margaret Freemantle Rolando Caputo Quentin Turnour Helen Goritsas Russell Edwards Angelica Waite Program Consultants Bruce Hodsdon Vincent Giarrusso Quentin Turnour Peter Hourigan Robin Laurie For our flms (Chief Program Bet Johnston Mark Tomas Arbelos Films, (David Consultant) Jane Mills Marriott) Jake Wilson Rod Bishop Sue Murray Cineteca di Bologna/ Guy Borlée Margaret Pomeranz L’Immagine Ritrovato Program Notes David Hare David Stratton (Guy Borlée, Alessia Rod Bishop Jane Mills John & Hazel Sullivan Navantieri, Caterina Adrian Danks Sue Murray Quentin Turnour Palpacelli, Davide Russell Edwards Margot Nash Ross Tzannes Pozzi) Helen Goritsas Andrew Pike Deborah Whithear Disney Corporation Angeline Gragasin Susan Potter Anthony Wong Intramovies (Maria David Hare Tony Rayns Lanfranchi) Bruce Hodsdon Angelica Waite Contact Jorr (Rebecca Niven, Jane Mills Cinema Reborn Rodney Bolt) Margot Nash PO Box 717 Korean Film Archive Special Tanks Susan Potter (Eric Choi) Adrian Martin Waverley LPO Tony Rayns Milestone Films Lillo Guarneri NSW 2024, Australia (Dennis Doros, Amy Graham Shirley Danilo Sidari Email: info@ Heller) Roger Tailleur cinemareborn.org.au Margot Nash Mark Tomas Donors (2020 & 2021) admin@classiccinemas. National Film and David Bruce-Steer com.au Sound Archive of Publications AMP Foundation Australia (Steph Quentin Turnour Barbara Alysen Websites Carter, Miguel David McLaine Martha Ansara cinemareborn.org.au Gonzalez, Alice Geof Gardner Max Berghouse classiccinemas.com.au/ Tynan) Helen Goritsas cinemareborn Simon Taafe 46 47 Cinema Reborn

2018 … Shadi Abdelsalam, Jane Campion, Corinne Cantrill, Frances Ford Coppola, Ian Dunlop, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Norman Foster, Med Hondo, Dave Jones, Jan Muller, Max Ophuls, Yasujiro Ozu, Sergei Parajanov, Lester James Peries, Jean Renoir, Peter Tammer, Michael Tornhill 2019 … Chantal Akerman, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Jacques Becker, Alessandro Blasetti, Charles Chauvel, Ettore Giannini, Yilmaz Guney, Barbara Loden, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Nicholas Ray, Jacques Rivette 2021 … Michelangelo Antonioni, Charles Chauvel, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Dena Curtis, Cecil Holmes, Nietzchka Keene, Danielle MacLean, Margot Nash, Mario Roncoroni, Robert Siodmak, Warwick Tornton, David Tranter, Luchino Visconti, Yu Hyun-mok 2022 …

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