In the Kingdom of Shadows
Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there.
So begins Maxim Gorky’s famous description of watching a film in July 1896. The whole experience of being at the Silent Film Festival in Pordenone is a bit like this, but it applies perhaps most precisely to this evening’s showing of a recreation of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre from 1900. Watching the flickering ghosts of French actresses, singers and dancers from over a century ago – and what’s more watching some of them in colour and with original synchronised sound – was truly strange. Strange and rich and wonderful and moving and, well, magnifique. The 80-minute programme, which was receiving its world premiere, was alone worth the trip to this festival (although I have other posts in process) – and in a way I still cannot quite believe what we saw – and heard.
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was an attraction at the Paris Universelle Exposition in 1900. It was presented in its own pavilion on the side of the Seine, where visitors watched a sequence of short films – some with synchronised sound, and some with hand-coloured images – of the stage stars of the day. The showing tonight was by far the most substantial presentation of this since the early 1900s (the showed toured, including to Britain, for a couple of years), and it was made possible by a impressive collaboration between Gaumont-Pathé Archives and La Cinémathèque francaise, together with Lobster Films and an expert in early sound recordings, Henri Chamoux.
One other element was also of fundamental importance – the piano (and the extensive research) of John Sweeney, whose immaculately synchronised playing accompanied the films that did not have original sound (of which there are now just eight out of thirty-four). So as on the screen the legendary Carlotta Zambelli and Michel Vasquez performed Pas de la Castillane from Le Cid, John Sweeney brought them to life with the music of Jules Massenet.
And ‘brought to life’ does somehow seem like an appropriate metaphor, for from these flickering fragile frames – each sequence of which presented an unvarying medium-shot – figures from the Belle Époque seemed to be before us: an imperious Sarah Bernhardt playing out the fatal duel with Laertes from Hamlet; Benoit-Constant Coquelin (who joined the Comédie-francaise in 1860!) speaking – in a distant and scratchy recording – lines from Moliere; and music-hall star Little Tich with a routine involving boots longer than his modest height.
The comic actress Gabrielle Réjane performed for us a celebrated mime of the temptations of Paris, including the can-can, from which she has stopped her husband from sampling. Her grace and charm is apparent across the years, and one understands instantly just why Marcel Proust drew on her in part for the character of Berma in A la recherché du temps perdu.
Here too was Mariette Sully performing a a fragment of Edmund Audran’s comic opera La poupée, which opened – with Sully – in 1896. The staging is basic but the actress’ doll-like dance has a unique beauty and brilliance. We saw the celebrated ballerina Rosita Mauri, who was painted by Degas and Manet and Renoir and others. And the opera singer Jeanne Hatto, with impossibly natural yet painted-on skin tones, in a glorious fragment of Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride… and on and on.
How we laughed and cheered and clapped! Yet here too before us was something uncanny and unsettling. For the moments they were on the screen, despite – and because of – the rescued sound and the emulsion scrapes and scratches of more than one hundred years and the hand-colouring, these performers felt vividly, vitally present. It was as if part of me was back in Paris in the summer of 1900. But I understood too – of course I did – that I was watching people who were long since dead, great artistes who decades ago had joined another kingdom of shadows. If you only knew how strange it was to be there.
Image: detail of the original programme for Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, 1900; courtesy David Robinson Collection.
After 34 years and 2400 film in concert performances and 3750 miles of frames I thought to know everything about the Golden Silent Era. One night in Pordenone added another 50%.I couldnt stop to wonder about what I saw and – even more – to erupt more than one time into unrestrained BRAVOS for the excellence of John Sweeny´s and his little Band´s accompaniment. A moment of just LOVE !
You will be cheered to know that only ten of the 41 films were synchronised with phonograph cylinders; and of the ten cylinders, eight have been retrieved and are heard in the restored programme – a good survival rate. The rest – dances, pantomimes and the like – were accompanied in performance by live music, which also accompanied the vocal recordings. So far we have no idea what was the accompaniment in the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre pavilion – piano or ensemble. In Pordenone, John Sweeney provided an impeccably synchronised piano accompaniment, supported by Frank Bockius (percussion) and Romano Todesco (accordion). The result was an enchanted and enchanting time machine, with wonderful artists freely bridging 112 years, to exist and work together.
Nothing I have read about Pordenone this year makes me wish I had been there more than the posts about this event here and by Neil Brand. I can only imagine, knowing John’s tremendous musicianship, how the evening must have been and hope that before too long the show will travel to the US, where it will find an eager and enthusiastic audience. Bravo, John, Frank and Romano, and kudos to all those who created this amazing-sounding assemblage of historic films.
Many thanks to Guenter, David and Donald for these comments and clarifications.
I should also say that, although I know that Donald Sosin was not able to be in Pordenone this year, all his tremendous work on the score for The Spanish Dancer bore fruit in what was for me the other fabulous event of the festival – that screening too was a glorious experience.
I agree with John Wyver and Günter Buchwald about PHONO-CINÉMA-THÉÂTRE, and congratulations to David Robinson and all the partners: it was a magnificent event. Some of the clips I think I had seen before, but in this event they grew into something much bigger. It was a great showcase of the performing arts during la Belle Époque. Scanned digitally, there was probably no other way because of the Parnaland perforation, yet the sense of the digital nightingale was not fatal.
I agree also about the guitar-flavoured THE SPANISH DANCER. Maud Nelissen brought a sense of warm joy into her Méliès and Vidor shows, and Carl Davis thrilled with his Liszt-inspired score for A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS. And the children of Pordenone silent comedy concertos: when LIBERTY started (Washington… Lincoln… Laurel and Hardy running away from prison) they played “A Star Spangled Banner” with great inspiration.