It may seem that the Giornate is in its own bubble, a hundred years or more removed from the real world, wrapped up in the fashions and the fads of the past. But we’re still looking out at the world every day, and no matter how the text on screen tries to guide us, we bring our 21st-century interpretation to everything that passes in front of our eyes. Sometimes the challenge is to wind back the clock, to see the past as our ancestors did when they were living through it. Sometimes we have no choice but to view images of the world as it was while burdened with the knowledge of our shared history, and of our violent present.
My day opened with simpler fare, a couple of Sine Nomine gems, including the most astonishing Danza Serpentina, stencilled in rainbow stripes of colour. And it officially began with a programme officially devoted to Syd Chaplin, and introduced with another sweet anecdote from David Robinson. But for me, Betty Balfour stole the show, or at least my heart, in the feature. Beforehand we saw Syd in knockabout comedy Giddy, Gay and Ticklish (F. Richard Jones, 1915), and then alongside Charlie and Edna in the far-more-charming-than-it-needed-to-be The Bond (Charlie Chaplin, 1918), a promo for Liberty Bonds.
But the main even was A Little Bit of Fluff (Jess Robbins, Wheeler Dryden, 1928), a British bedroom farce with Syd as a rascally husband, and Betty as his glamorous cabaret-star neighbour with friends in low places. The setting is a very plush set of London apartments and they all run around being silly and sexy to great impact in such luxe surroundings. Syd carries the show and performs remarkable old-school spinning and twisting slapstick pratfalls. Betty wears gold lamé pyjamas and looks divine; she gamely appears in the bath, and even does a full floor number, but silently. Her vivacity is kind of excessive for this character, but that is just the sort of detail that elevates a film out of the generic. This is a film every bit as substantial and profound as its title suggests and all the better for it. These kids know how to have fun. As did Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius with their gleeful accompaniment, which took us for a glorious bed-hopping, bonce-bashing ride.
There was more mischief to be had in the afternoon with a triple-bill devoted to Louis Feuillade’s collaborations with the elusive Léontine – put together by curatorial powerhouse and Léontine superfan Maggie Hennefeld. Léontine was stunning as the maid who has to pass as a society lady at the opera in Lagourdette, Gentleman Cambrioleur (Louis Feuillade, 1916) – in a tale bookended with appearances from Musidora as a young woman obsessed with… Les Vampires. Great to see Léontine slightly older, and less manic but still every inch of her twitching for humour, from her bushy eyebrows to her tilted heels. And that topknot, with a feather on top – simply inspired.
The funniest film in this set, however, was L’Homme aimanté (Louis Feuillade, 1907). No need to explain why but the hero of this tail goes about with a chainmail vest underneath his shirt. Crucially, a chainmail vest that has been electromganetised so… he becomes magnetic. Tea trays, shop signs and drain covers – they all cling to him. And when he is arrested, the gendarme’s swords began to rise to the occasion in a most suggestive fashion – the entire Verdi absolutely lost the plot. Which is fine, as there hardly was one. Was it that funny by itself, or even funnier because of the way Meg Morley played for it? I don’t know…
To transition between today’s comic capers and more serious fare, a moment of appreciation for Jane Gaines and her gently provocative Jonathan Dennis Memorial Lecture with the fantastic title Imagine! Silent Era World Film History with Only Women. Many familiar names and beautiful examples in this talk, which slipped from continent to continent following the advances and connections made by women in film history. I like the depiction of how diva style travelled the world, and the story of how melodrama grew out of female involvement in filmmaking, as well as the emphasis of collaboration – and the questioning of the reality behind prominent female credits. Plenty to chew on, and as ever go to Women Film Pioneers Project to blow your mind and expand your horizons. What Gaines started there, and the team including Women and Film History International president Kate Saccone continue to do, is an epic act of co-operative scholarship and restoration. Plus, the stories are great.
While we are recommending websites, a shoutout to Weimarcinema.org, which has just uploaded its Fall 2025 selection of essays and dossiers. I bet you a cappuccino in the Posta that there is more on there than you think. A valuable resource, tied to some great films. And speaking of Weimar films, today we saw a new restoration of one that I didn’t know, but I think it was quite a stunner. The Woman with the Mask (William Thiele, 1928), starts out promising a street film, with a harrowing montage of hyperinflation hell provided by Hans Richter. It’s a street film in part, but more of a psychological drama, with Arlette Marchal as Doris, a reduced aristocrat forced by newfound penury to take a job in a revue, which involves appearing in a very skimpy costume – a gig she won from Dita Parlo’s Kitty, who may be sleeping with the boss, but can’t walk in a straight line. Hence Doris steps in, but wears a mask to hide her identity if not her curves. Father mustn’t know. She also has a love interest, in the form of Alexander (Vladimir Gajdarov), also in reduced circumstances, working as a waiter. But he does have access to riches, stashed in a pair of boots, if only he can find them… Meanwhile, the boss of the revue, a rather grim Gyula Szőreghy, has switched his affections to Doris. Really well done this, with a great ending (and then another in the final caption of this lovely new restoration, as reported in a film magazine). Marchal is really terrific, and this is a gorgeous-looking film, with sets by Erich Czerwonski. And Gunter Buchwald and Frank Bockius brought put the best of it, I am sure.
Tonight’s evening screening was in two parts, and in terms of presentation and musical accompaniment, really encapsulates what I was trying to get at at the top of this post. The Imperial War Museums have restored 1917’s The German Retreat and the Battle of Arras; Laura Rossi has composed an astonishingly rich, poignant score, incorporating songs and poetry. This is embedded, but plotted, sometimes even you might say performed, frontline filmmaking. Raw but not unfiltered. There is pain, camaraderie, reflection, and devastation, but no chaos. The landscape of northern France is here ripped apart, and we know both how the grass will grow back, and what future horrors will advance and retreat in years to come. The screening was very powerful, almost reverent in tone. Rossi’s score was performed by Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone and Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia, conducted by Andrej Goričar. My spine tingled when those voices soared to the top of the auditorium. As the camera panned up the derelict Arras Cathedral, and the train station too, in the moment it felt as if the theatre had too been transformed into some kind of monument.
We have seen rather more of Gaza than of Arras on the news recently, of course. The second part of the evening show was something unusual for the Giornate: an edited montage of archive footage. Also, this was a screening that was introduced and contextualised by Jay Weissberg, not with reference to restoration notes or archival findings, but as part of our collective knowledge of Palestine, our understanding of its past destructions and how that news has traditionally been understood outside the middle east. Palestine: a Revised Narrative (Rana Eid, 2024) was commissioned by Berlin’s Arab Film Festival and was made up of footage also from Imperial War Museums, mostly of the British forces, under the command of General Allenby (who was also at Arras) marching in to the middle east to take the land, considered holy by so many, by force. The beauty of Palestine, its coast and greenery, the architecture of the religious sites, the people praying and living and taking care of the land… all these images mix with the intertitles informing us of the progress of Allenby’s men on their colonising mission. The footage was edited together into a really tight half hour by Cynthia Zaven, who also played live piano to complement the complex but subtle sound design, by Rana Eid. It could have been bombastic, but this was one of the most reflective moments I can remember in the Giornate. We only wish it didn’t carry so much power.
Intertitle of the Day.
“The first commandment of marriage is: you shall always obey your wife.” Lysistrata ou la Grève des baisers (Louis Feuillade, 1910). Characters in silent films do often forget this rule
Huh? Intertitle of the Day
“You’re just an old carburettor looking for a new start.” So many wacky lines in A Little Bit of Fluff, but for some reason this one really stuck in my gears.
Furry friend of the Day
Fluff takes this category too – the little doggy licking stamps is so tiny, and so… efficient!
Sexual innuendo of the Day
Fluff wishes it could compete here, but nothing beats those two blades bobbing to their magnetic master in L’homme aimenté.
