Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

26 tions from foreign authors, like Dumas, Sardou and Bataille, were all treated in the D'Annunzio manner, which gave to ordinary events passion, « superhuman » sinfulness and all manner of spectacular embellishment. The first Italian « femme fatale » of the screen was the beauteous Lyda Borelli, of the ravishing, sinuous movement. She fitted into this glamorous aura perfectly, an aura that was capable of transmuting even the dour Ibsen into purple D'Annunzio, as in Hedda Gabler, directed by Piero Fosco, and Satana (Satan), in which Mario Bonnard played the devil in a top hat, eternally laughing, eternally smoking cigarettes among the ruins. Hamlet, too, succumbed to the fatal charm of the lyrical author of The Flame and was played not in its austere, traditional style, but by the elegant and esthetically irreproachable Ruggero Ruggeri. The first films in which the players wore the clothes of the day were : Serenata (Serenade) and Dopo la morte (After Death), Lussuria, U ultimo dei Frontignac (The Last of the Frontignacs), Idillio tragico (Tragic Idyll) and Danzatrice mascherata (The Masked Dancer). But the hit among them all, which which was to have reverberations for years to come, was But My Love Won't Die (1913). This film, directed by Cesarini, starred Lyda Borelli and Mario Bonnard. Directors, actors, authors were to remake that film for years. Here, if ever, was a film wafted to the screen on the wings of the D'Annunzio myth. The protagonists meet in churches — he plays the organ, she passes the back of her hand across her fevered brow, trellised by its recalcitrant curls. Borelli's fame as an actress grew « by leaps and bounds », as the expression goes — « the supreme, the divine Borelli » flourished resplendently in the Italy of Giovanni Giolitti. Girls dyed their hair orange and had themselves photographed with their hands folded under their chins. Ladies wrapped themselves in flowing garments, and little middle-class women adopted weary and disdainful attitudes. So there was more to write about and new film periodicals sprung up — • Tirso al Cinematografo (Tirso at the Films) (doubtless the successor of Tirso, a popular literary and theatrical gazette edited by Luca Cortese). We are now in 191 6 — amid a veritable avalanche of new films. 77 sopravissuto (The Survivor), Genina's adaptation of the vicissitudes of Giannino Anton Traversi, with Bertini as a « gigolette » and Ghione as an « apache » (the first Italian « apache ») . Lucio d'Ambra reminds us that Genina was «the rising star among film directors)). Also appearing were La piccola fonte (The Little Spring) by Roberto Bracco («a profound and inspired work» they said), again with Bertini and with Annibale Ninchi ; La papilla riaccesa (The Rekindled Eye — now there was a title for you ! ) and Sentieri delta vita (Paths of Life) by Emilio Perego and Carlo Strozzi, with Pina Fabbri, Lina Millefleurs (and there a name !), Giulio Donadio, Amadeo Chiantoni ; La portatrice di pane (The Baker's Girl — ■ presaging a famous French film to come) and II Tenebroso affare (The Shady Affair), both with Maria Gandini ; L'imboscata (The Ambush), with Ghione ; Diana I'affascinatrice (The Fascinating Diana) with La Bertini ; La perla del cinema (Pearl of the Cinema) by de Liguoro ; Mistero di una notte di primavera (Mystery of a Spring Night)... « an imposing masterpiece in four acts », as it was described; Marcella, with the « dazzling » Hesperia, « who plays with superhuman sincerity » as the advertisements stated, as if human sincerity were not enough. Where, indeed, are the snows of yesteryear ?