Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center No 20th-century composer has had a greater impact on cinema than the protean, perpetually adventurous Igor Stravinsky. To provide an appropriately multifaceted exploration of Stravinsky's world and legacy, the SummerScape 2013 Film Festival will be broken into two overlapping parts: a retrospective of Russian émigré filmmaking and a series of films influenced by the composer’s work.
The first two weekends will focus on the fascinating films produced by the Albatros studio, which combine elements of early 20th-century modernism with a classic sensibility rooted in both French and Russian traditions. The collaboration of Stravinsky and Sergey Diaghilev on L’oiseau de feu in 1910 made the Ballets Russes into an international phenomenon, creating a vogue for Russian aesthetics that eased the transition of those who left after the 1917 Revolution. In its treatment of an impresario patterned after Diaghilev, its reinvigoration of fin-de-siècle creative models, and its haunting depiction of all-consuming artistic obsession, The Red Shoes sets the tone for the Festival. The silent films included here, some of them presented for the first time in the United States, make similarly synthetic use of then-contemporary developments in narrative form, performance, and design.
Émigré studios like Films Albatros helped support French directors committed to pushing the boundaries of cinematic art, including Jean Epstein, Marcel L’Herbier, Jacques Feyder, and Jean Renoir. They also provided an opportunity for exiled filmmakers to make the most of their encounter with the new styles available in Paris, extending the achievements of the pre-Revolutionary Russian cinema in dynamic ways. The pivotal link between these two streams was Ivan Mozzhukhin, whose hypnotic screen presence and emotionally expressive gestures made him immensely popular in both Russia and France. Mozzuhkhin is the central figure during the second weekend of the festival, which also includes the most important sound film produced by Albatros.
The second phase of the festival begins with one of the defining films of the 1920s, Marcel L’Herbier’s L’inhumaine, which includes a scene recreating the famous riot in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées during the premiere of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps. Other films during the last two weekends make provocative use of particular Stravinsky pieces (The Truth); were created by artists who collaborated with him on important works (Rapt, Orpheus); or meditate upon his practice – Jean-Luc Godard’s stylistic heterogeneity is in dialogue with that of Stravinsky while New Wave compatriot Claude Chabrol admired the composer’s assiduous dryness. Jacques Rivette’s La belle noiseuse brings the series full circle, using sections of Stravinsky’s late ballet Agon to enrich a subtle and profound exploration of the relationship between painter and model, the nature of creativity, and the meaning of a work of art.
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July 12
The Red Shoes
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948, UK, 132 minutes
One of the great color films, The Red Shoes is adapted from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and takes the Ballets Russes as a model for total commitment to art (Diaghilev’s pupil Léonide Massine helped to choreograph the central dance sequence). 35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funding provided by The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
July 13
The Lion of the Moguls, 2:00 PM
Le lion des Mogols, Jean Epstein, 1924, France, 93 minutes
The most reflexive of the émigré films, The Lion of the Moguls is also one of the most fascinating – a comic gem demonstrating the wide-ranging talent of the Russian colony in Paris. The new, color-tinted Desmet 35mm print was restored by La Cinémathèque française with the collaboration of the Franco-American Cultural Fund - DGA MPA SACEM WGA.
This screening will include live piano accompaniment by Ben Model and will preceded by a lecture by series curator Richard I. Suchenski.
July 13
Casanova
Alexandre Volkoff, 1927, France, 132 minutes
A visually lush superproduction starring Ivan Mozzhukhin and directed by one of the most important Russian émigré filmmakers, Casanova blends witty gags with epic scope and is as remarkable for its stylistic exuberance as its elaborate sets. The color-tinted print was restored by the Cinémathèque française.
July 14, 2:00 PM
Le double amour, Jean Epstein, 1925, France, 104 minutes
L'or des mers Jean Epstein, 1932, France, 72 minutes
This special presentation of two rare films by the same director offers a chance to explore the options available to ambitious filmmakers in this period. Both prints were restored by La Cinémathèque française. The new tinted Desmet 35mm print of Double Love was restored with the collaboration of The Franco-American Cultural Fund - DGA MPA SACEM WGA.
July 19
Le brasier ardent, Ivan Mozzhukhin, 1923, France, 97 minutes
Les ombres qui passent, Alexandre Volkoff, 1924, France, 100 minutes
Both with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model
The film that allegedly convinced Jean Renoir to direct, The Burning Brazier demonstrates Ivan Mozzhukhin’s flamboyant eccentricity at its finest. Mozzhukhin also wrote Passing Shadows, a comic masterwork inspired by Chaplin and Keaton. This is the North American premiere screening of new, color-tinted restorations by the Cinémathèque française.
July 20
The Late Mathias Pascal
Feu Mathias Pascal, Marcel L’Herbier, 1926, France, 175 minutes
The Late Mathias Pascal is an utterly unique synthesis of Ivan Mozzhukhin’s mercurial acting, Marcel L’Herbier’s cool elegance, and the labyrinthine structure of Luigi Pirandello’s source novel about a man who pretends he is dead. This is the North American premiere screening of a new, color-tinted restoration by the Cinémathèque française.
July 20
The Lower Depths
Les bas-fonds, Jean Renoir, 1936, France, 90 minutes
In the last major Albatros production and one of the key films of the Popular Front, Jean Renoir continues his reinvention of theatrical adaptation, using Maxim Gorky’s classic play and a charismatic performance by Jean Gabin to create “a realistic poem on the loss of human dignity.”
July 21, 2:00 PM
The Living Image
Le vertige, Marcel L’Herbier, 1926, France, 118 minutes, with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model
Marcel L’Herbier traces the journey of a Russian family from Petrograd to Nice, expressing the emotions of the story through sets and costumes designed in collaboration with Robert Mallet-Stevens and Robert and Sonia Delaunay. The 35mm print was restored by the Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy.
July 21, 5:00 PM
The New Gentlemen
Les nouveaux messieurs, Jacques Feyder, 1929, France, 123 minutes, with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model
Jacques Feyder’s satirical treatment of Third Republic politics is distinguished for its location footage in Paris as well as its comic verve. This is the North American premiere screening of a new restoration by the Cinémathèque française.
July 26
L'inhumaine
Marcel L’Herbier, 1924, France, 132 minutes, with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model
One of the signature films of the silent era, the quintessentially modern L’inhumaine restages the riotous premiere of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps and connects Symbolist aestheticism to Art Deco design. The 35mm print was restored by the Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy.
July 27, 1:30 PM
Rapt by Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1934, 86 minutes, France/Switzerland
Autumn Mists by Brumes d’automne, Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1928, France, 12 minutes
Chanson d’Armor by Jean Epstein, 1934, France, 38 minutes
The first adaptation of a novel by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, who wrote the libretto for Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat, Rapt features a nuanced performance by Dita Parlo and makes extraordinary use of mountain landscapes, contrapuntal sound, and an original score by Arthur Honegger. The 35mm prints are courtesy of La Cinémathèque française and La Cinémathèque suisse, with kind support from the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York.
July 27, 6:30 PM
The Truth by La vérité, Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960, France/Italy, 130 minutes
Altair by Lewis Klahr, 1994, USA, 8 minutes, 16mm
In Henri-Georges Clouzot’s response to the French New Wave, Brigitte Bardot’s relationship with a young composer is linked to Stravinsky’s The Firebird, the same piece used in Lewis Klahr’s experimental short Altair.
July 27, 9:00 PM
Pierrot le fou
Jean-Luc Godard, 1965, France/Italy, 110 minutes
Jean-Luc Godard’s classic exploration of love on the run—starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina—can be compared, in both its formal ingenuity and emotional range, to Stravinsky’s treatment of mythological themes.
August 2
Les bonnes femmesClaude Chabrol, 1960, France/Italy, 100 minutes
Claude Chabrol’s characteristic mixture of black humor, sophisticated mise-en-scène, and behavioral naturalism is abundantly evident in this nuanced depiction of the lives of four Parisian women (two of them played by New Wave icons Bernadette Lafont and Stéphane Audran).
August 2, 9:00 PM
La cérémonie
Claude Chabrol, 1995, France/Germany, 112 minutes
Sandrine Bonnaire and Chabrol veteran Isabelle Huppert develop an unusual friendship in this enigmatic and eerily ritualistic critique of complacency and hypocrisy.
August 3, 2:00 PM
Orpheus
Jean Cocteau, 1950, France, 95 minutes
Jean Cocteau, who collaborated with Stravinsky on the opera Oedipus Rex in 1927, made this oneiric film about one of the most important Greek myths two years after Orpheus, the ballet Stravinsky developed with George Balanchine, premiered.
August 3
La belle noiseuse, Jacques Rivette, 1991, France/Switzerland, 238 minutes
Three Homerics, Stan Brakhage, 1993, USA, 6 minutes, 16mm
Michel Piccoli, Emmanuelle Béart, and Jane Birkin star in this masterpiece about the mysteries of art, which makes insightful use of excerpts from two Stravinsky ballets (Petrushka and Agon).