The ‘Revolution screen’ showcase

Kino i kino (Cinema and cinema, 1922) by Vladimir Mayakovsky was not born only as a Manifesto to “set a guideline” to what the Futurist Marinetti defined “the whims of modernity”.

It is a “realistic” photograph of what was being shown daily on the screens in Moscow and in St. Petersburg: Dziga Vertov’s “constructivist Eye” pirouetting over the world, in conversation with Rodchenko’s photography; the Revolution in sexual mores staged by Abram Room in Tretya meshchanskaya (Bed and sofa) aided by Formalist Viktor Sklovsky; the avant-garde socialism of Aelita by Protazanov, produced (and we are well beyond science-fiction imagination here) by Calabrian Francesco Misiano with Mezrabpom; the realism in Mat (Mother) by Pudovkin; the comedies and everyday reflections from History in Okraina (Outskirts) by Boris Barnet; the Futurism eccentricities of Kosintzev and Trauberg, the militant elegy of Dovzhenko. And above all, the great epic of the Revolution, staged in a rigorous "dramaturgy of form" by S. M. Eisenstein: like the prow of the battleship in the insurgents' hands, his Battleship Potemkin is a masterpiece, resisting unscathed to a more destructive mechanism than that of time: parody.

The great narrative machine of the Revolution would continue to produce epic frescoes over the following decades, such as Doctor Zhivago by David Lean or Reds by Warren Beatty. But perhaps the most surprising film remains Noi vivi (We, the living) by Goffredo Alessandrini, shot in 1942 during Fascist Italy, featuring the two “regime stars” Alida Valli and Fosco Giachetti, drawn from the novel by Ayn Rand, who wrote about the Revolution devouring ideals twenty years before Pasternak. While Gramsci and Gobetti’s working-class Turin connected with Soviet cinema, in a sort of “internationalism in imagery”, through Baryshnya i khuligan (The young lady and the hooligan) by Yevgeni Slavinsky and Vladimir Mayakovsky, derived from De Amicis, which was screened – together with the documentary on Fiat in 1911 by Luca Comerio and the 1920 “working-class melodrama” Il delitto della piccina (The child’s crime) – as a comment on Giancarlo Carcano’s reconstruction of the struggles in Turin in 1907 in order to “act like Russia”.

Utopia within Revolution images is analysed in the eponymous film by Emmanuel Hamon, offered here as a premiere; and it is this very same mythopoetic force which induces a journalist like Ezio Mauro to go beyond the limits of reportage, and give a narrative plot to historical reconstruction in his Cronache di una Rivoluzione (Chronicles of a Revolution), which is opening the retrospective in the “filmed version”.

Sergio Toffetti

 

The showcase curator is Sergio Toffetti with Stefano Boni, Grazia Paganelli and Elena Testaand it is organised by the National Cinema Museum and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

The National Film Archive–CSC, Polo del ‘900, Slow Cinema, Piccolo Cinema, Vera Nocentini Foundation, Gramsci Institute and GAMeC have collaborated.

 

The showcase will be inaugurated on Monday 30 October at 8.30 p.m. at the Cinema Massimo on Screen Two, by a special evening with the screening of Chronicles of a Revolution (Italy 2017, 72’), the documentary in instalments made for Repubblica, in which Ezio Mauro talks, for the centenary of the Russian Revolution, about what that 1917 signified for Europe and the world. Twelve episodes curated by Francesco Fasiolo. Ezio Mauro and Francesco Fasiolo will be attending. Moderated by Donata Pesenti Campagnoni and Sergio Toffetti. Admission free.

Special event on Monday 6 November at 6.00 p.m. in the Temple Hall at the Mole Antonelliana, with the screening of the version restored by the Bologna Film Archive of Battleship Potemkin by Sergei M. Eisenstein, introduced to the public by Sergio Toffetti. Reduced admission to the museum 8.00 euro.

Eisenstein’s masterpiece will be repeated over the following days (please check calendar) in the framework of the “Rediscovered Cinema at the Cinema” showcase, promoted by the Bologna Film Archive, at the cost of 7.50/5.00 euro.

For all the other films the cost of the ticket is 6.00/4.00/3.00 euro.

 

Screenings calendar

 

Sergei M. Eisenstein

Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potëmkin)

(Ussr 1925, 68’, DCP, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

Born on commission to celebrate the Revolution of 1905, this film raised immediate international enthusiasm. "Potemkin it is not one of those ships that can be sunk with torpedoes. It has weighed anchor forever. It sails. Its wake contains everything" (Robert Desnos, 1927). Print soundtrack with the music composed by Edmund Meisel for the German premiere of the film.

Monday 6 November at 6.00 p.m. in the Temple Hall at the Mole Antonelliana.

Tue 7, at 8.30 p.m. - The film is introduced by the shorts Mest kinematograficheskogo operatora (The cameraman’s revenge) by W. Starewicz (1912, 5’) and Steps by Z. Rybczynski (1987, 26’)

Mon 13 and Tue 14, at 4.00/6.00 p.m., Mon 20, at 4.00/6.00 p.m., Tue 21, at 8.30 p.m. – Admission 7.50/5.00 euro

 

Aleksandr Medvedkin

Happiness (Schastye)

(Ussr 1934, 95’, b/w, or.caps it.s/t)

The last silent film shot in the Soviet Union recounts the vicissitudes of a farmer who fails to get a good harvest. An act of courage will bring peace back to himself, to the others, and to his wife.

Tue 7, at 4.00 p.m.

 

Boris Barnet

The girl with the hat-box (Devuska s korobkoy)

(Ussr 1927, 67’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

Young milliner Natasha lives in the country with her grandfather and often travels to Moscow to deliver the hats she has made. One day she meets Ilya, a student looking for accommodation. Natasha decides to help him, but in order to comply with Condominium Committee regulations, the two must be married.

Tue 7, at 6.00 p.m.

 

Yakov Protazanov

Aelita

(Ussr 1924, 113’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

On the outskirts of Moscow, in a large building that looks like a barn, engineer Los is building a spaceship with which to escape from everyday problems. While they are at a radio station, Los and his colleague Gussev pick up some mysterious words and are convinced that the message comes from queen Aelita, who reigns on Mars.

Wed 8, at 4.00 p.m.

 

Vsevolod Pudovkin

Mother (Mat)

(Ussr 1926, 90’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

Pelageya Nilovna, the widow of an alcoholic worker, fears for the fate of her son Pavel, who has joined revolutionary movements. To protect him, she decides to reveal the place where he has hidden weapons to the police. She then realises the mistake she has made, so that, after the death of her son, she herself leads the march on 1st May, brandishing the red flag.

Wed 8, at 6.30 p.m.

 

Emmanuel Hamon

L'utopie des images de la révolution Russe (The utopia of Russian Revolution images)

(France 2017, 88’, DCP, col. o.v. it.s/t)

Following the Russian Revolution, a group of young people revolutionised the seventh art over twenty years. This artistic Revolution was carried forward by filmmakers, actors, technicians and poets. They are the protagonists and the voice of this film, which tells us about the struggles for a new society, in which creative freedom becomes an essential vehicle, through images filmed from 1917 to 1934.

Tue 14, at 8.30 p.m. – The film is introduced by Natacha Laurent

 

Dziga Vertov

Man with a movie camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom)

(Ussr 1929, 67’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

A cameraman walks around a Russian town, filming its life, from early dawn to sunset: the city waking up, people, streets and markets, while the man with the camera gets right into homes. In the evening, the camera falls out of the operator's hands and improvises an ironical dance inside a cinema.

Wed 15, at 4.00 p.m.

The film is followed by Leninskaya Kinopravda (Cinema truth on Lenin) by D. Vertov (Ussr 1925, 36’)

 

Lev Kuleshov

The extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the bolsheviks (Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov)

(Ussr 1924, 94’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

A rich, naive American is the victim of a conspiracy, once he arrives in the Soviet Union: his luggage is stolen and he is framed by an adventurer who wants to rob him with the help of a false countess. He is saved by the Bolsheviks, and foreigners thus discover the true face of the Ussr. Played among others by Boris Barnet and Vsevolod Pudovkin.

Wed 15, at 6.00 p.m.

 

Ivan Pravov/ Olga Preobrazhenskaya

Women of Ryazan (Baby ryazanskie)

(Ussr 1927, 67’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

Set in a Russian village before the Revolution and in the first few years after it, it tells of Anna's various vicissitudes and of her difficulties in accepting change, to the point of suicide, and of her vital sister Vasilisa, who is openly opposed to the old style of life.

Fri 17, at 4.00 p.m.

 

Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky

The cigarette-girl of Mosselprom (Papirosnitsa ot Mosselproma)

(Ussr 1924, 112’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

Presented as the first Soviet comedy at the time of its release, it was one of the great successes of the season in the USSR. But the adventures of young Zina, who discovers the reality behind the seventh art by falling in love with cameraman Latugin, were received more coolly by critics: the film was judged too flimsy and ideologically 'inconsistent'.

Fri 17, at 5.30 p.m.

 

David Lean

Doctor Zhivago

(Usa/Italy/Great Britain 1965, 200’, HD, col., o.v. it.s/t)

Zivago, a Russian doctor of noble feelings, falls in love with Lara, whom the circumstances will turn into his mistress. We are fully within the bolshevik Revolution, and events separate them both on several occasions. Zhivago dies after saving Lara, who is pregnant by him, from imminent political persecution. Five Oscars: music, photography, scenery, costumes and screenplay.

Sat 18, at 4.00 p.m.

 

Vsevolod Pudovkin

The end of St. Petersburg (Konets Sankt-Peterburga)

(Ussr 1927, 91’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

A young naive farmer, forced by hunger and poverty to abandon his native village, arrives in St. Petersburg in 1914 to earn a living, and thus finds himself facing the harsh school of class struggles for the first time. Ending up in a factory in the midst of a strike, and believing the strike to be harmful for the workers, naive as he is, he reports its leaders.

Sun 19, at 6.00 p.m.

 

Sergei M. Eisenstein

Strike (Stachka)

(Ussr 1925, 82’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

In the Russia of 1912, a worker is unjustly accused of theft by his employers and commits suicide. The factory workers organise a solidarity and protest strike, which is not only an act of accusation for the employers' harshness, but also an example of brotherhood among workers.

Sun 19, at 8.30 p.m.

 

Boris Barnet

The house on Trubnaya (Dom na Trubnoy)

(Ussr 1928, 84’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

The old and the new clash and coexist in a myriad of symbols in Parasha's story, as she arrives in the capital from the countryside seeking her uncle. Trubnaya Square, once one of the most popular places in town, is gradually losing its outlines in a Moscow which welcomes, rejects and contains everything.

Tue 21, at 4.00 p.m.

 

Abram Room

Bed and sofa (Tretya meshchanskaya)

(Ussr 1927, 70’, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

A painter comes to dwell in the tiny room where a young couple are living a life of sacrifices, invited by the husband. During his absence, however, the inevitable happens and when the husband returns he must resign himself to find a place on the sofa. Finally, the woman leaves the two men, tired of washing and sewing for them.

Tue 21, at 6.00 p.m.

 

Boris Barnet

Outskirts (Okraina)

(Ussr 1933, 98’, video, b/w, or.caps. it.s/t)

The life of a small Russian town on the eve of the Great War and of the 1917 Revolution, described with great simplicity and in a way that is absolutely free of magniloquence and rhetoric. Two brothers leave for the front. They get to know the atrocities of war, they go through disillusionment and eventually become politically aware, driven by the October Revolution.

Wed 22, at 4.00 p.m.