shadowplay

At around 2am I attempted to sum up the Il Cinema Ritrovato experience with the words “deep joy accompanied by constant physical discomfort.” The heat is one major cause of the latter aspect, but it’s not alone.

Still, on Friday I managed to attend six shows, and one of these was the three-hours-and-change monster THE SEVEN SAMURAI. And I then made it to the pub for the only time this fest. I’m hardcore, me.

The day began with coffee and SHANGHAI EXPRESS which I’d watched on Blu-ray very recently but which benefitted hugely from the big screen and dark room experience. And, since Sternberg declines to emphasise his dramatic points, save by repetition, I found there was quite a lot I’d missed. Maybe I ought to review all the Sternberg-Dietrichs…

Then I listened Roger Spottiswoode being interviewed about his storied career, then I raced from the Cinematek to the spectacular subterranean cinema that is the Modernissimo, to see my favourite film of all time, HE WHO GETS SLAPPED. Here’s where some new forms of physical discomfort manifested themselves.

First, a big bloke stepped on my toes on his way to his seat. Nothing serious, though. It may have earned me some karmic credit, though: see below.

The film was progressing nicely — Leo the lion got a nice laugh, he doesn’t roar in this one, he just scans the auditorium, looking directly at about four specific punters and sizing them up for edibility.

I began to be aware of an intense discomfort in my bladder. Now I had “gone” right before the movie. But everyone in Edinburgh had urged me to stay hydrated — think of Dr. Michael Mosely — so I had been thinking of Dr. Michael Mosely and gulping like a goldfish. With the result that I was now faced with watching the main reason for my trip while doubled up in agony. A Lawrence Tierney solution — peeing in a cup — seemed unthinkable in such a classy venue.

Fortunately, though HWGS is my favourite film, it doesn’t have a conventional second act. It has an elaborate prologue and first act, and an agonizingly protracted climax (which I was now contemplating with dread), but in between it’s just Norma Shearer and John Gilbert having a picnic. I decided to make a break for it.

Now, I was sitting in the dead centre of my row. And in extreme discomfort. So I go barging along the row, using seat backs for zimmer frames, nearly seizing Dave Kehr’s head in the dark, treading on seemingly every foot in my path. Made it!

There was no way I was going back to me seat past a gauntlet of lame enemies, though. But there was a comfortable step right at tje back, so I enjoyed the rest of the show in perfect comfort.

Intros and shorts had made the thing overrun, so I then had to get to BLUES IN THE NIGHT at the Jolly with mathematical timing, and thence to SHOOT THE PIANIST at the Arlecchino. But after that I had a decent break before committing myself, in a fit of madness, to THE SEVEN SAMURAI.

More drama. This was in the Piazza Maggiore under the stars (I counted about four stars), billed as a 9.45 start but they always have a bunch of introductions, which also have to be translated from Italian to English or vice versa. But this time the first introduction, by the representative from Toho, was interrupted when the man scheduled to deliver the second introduction collapsed on stage — with an alarming CRASH. An ambulance arrived in no time at all (they must have them on standby for such events) and at the end of the show we were told the poor man had recovered and was back at his hotel.

So stay hydrated! I did my bit by repairing to the pub for a brace of Guinnesses. And that, in summation, was my last (very) full day in Bologna. I may have short-changed you on the actual cinematic aspects but there’ll be time for that later…