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NYFF retrospectiveItaly's silent divas shine again
NEW YORK (CNN) -- They were the first, decades before Whitney Houston and Diana Ross sang, years before Garbo and Dietrich sizzled. They were the queens of Italy's silent films: Francesca Bertini, Leda Gys, Pina Menichelli, Lyda Borelli. Each was una diva -- a goddess. "These women were fantastically famous," says Richard Pena, chairman of the selection committee of the 38th New York Film Festival, which is showcasing the retrospective "Passion and Defiance: Silent Divas of the Italian Cinema." Fifteen restored silent films made in Italy between 1914 and 1928 are being screened through October 6 in New York's Walter Reade Theater.
Each features a diva like Bertini, Gys, Menichelli and Borelli. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which organizes the NYFF, promotes the series as "the unexplored period when the Italian diva was in full flower." For Pena, who teaches film studies at Columbia University, it's a chance for film lovers to get acquainted with the stars and a style of filmmaking from another era. "What is so exciting about seeing these films is that they really represent just another conception of cinema, one far more based on the image, less on notions of continuity or creating a real world for the action to take place in," says Pena. "They're very abstract films. And the thing is, they were enormously popular in their time. They were seen all over the world." Among the retrospective's titles are: Though Italian cinema flourished in the early part of the century, its popularity was to be short-lived. By the mid-to-late 1920s Hollywood would take over the stage of world cinema, and the silent Italian goddesses would fade from public consciousness, says Pena. "Because the style of cinema that was emerging from America, these films were forgotten or seen as old-fashioned or very theatrical," says Pena. "Nowadays, I think we no longer have those prejudices and we see this as another trend or approach to filmmaking in the silent era that produced a lot of extraordinary work."
Pena's favorite Italian diva is Menichelli. Nicknamed "the goddess of contradiction," she was capable of juggling sensuality, cruelty and innocence. "She was amazing," Pena says. The idea to stage the retrospective, Pena says, came to him three years ago in a discussion with Angela Dalle Vacche, a professor of film studies at Emory University. "She told me about this book she was doing on Italian cinema and it sounded really interesting, and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could get a series together?'" Pena says. Pena contacted the Cineteca di Bologna in Italy, which provided the restored 35 millimeter prints to the NYFF. The series has been a popular attraction at the NYFF so far. "We've had wonderful crowds over the weekend and people who saw the films loved them, and my sense is they'll be coming back and bringing friends," says Pena. "What I'd like to see (this retrospective accomplish) is, when people are writing and teaching film history, suddenly they say, 'Yes, in 1915 there were several different ways they were making film,'" he says. "My hope is that it will have its place in another school of artistic work." RELATED STORIES: Independent Feature Film Market: Studio reps search for that one great movie RELATED SITES: New York Film Festival |
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