Cinema is the art of us, of the individual who is multiplied. Would Marlene Dietrich have existed without Josef von Sternberg? The “Lubitsch touch” without the actors? If you don’t believe us, try to see one of the great character actor in the history of cinema, Felix Bressart, made famous by Ernst Lubitsch, in Nie wieder Liebe! (No More Love), the first film in the Litvak retrospective. Tilda Swinton, starring in The Protagonists, said that with Luca Guadagnino, here in his directorial debut, she felt like family: “We are brother and sister, playmates. Ours is an ongoing conversation.”
Even by following just one actor this year, you’ll witness a remarkable range: Emil Jannings, in 1924, is an exaggerated and decidedly over-the-top Nero in Quo Vadis? by Gabriellino D’Annunzio, but he is also the doorman demoted to bathroom attendant in Murnau’s The Last Laugh. Then there are double roles in the same film that draw unforgettable performances of one of the greatest stage performers, Enrico Caruso in My Cousin, and of one of the most refined German actresses, Henny Porten, who plays two starkly different sisters in Lubitsch’s comedy Kohlhiesel’s Daughters (Kohlhiesels Töchter, 1920).
Many films this year explore the dynamics of couples: for example, The Sting would not have been memorable without the brilliant duo of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Conversely, in The Body Snatcher, we encounter two beasts, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, slimier than ever, performing together for the last time in a deadly duel on screen. The collaboration between Kaneto Shindo and Kozaburo Yoshimura was so pivotal it led them to create a production company for making their most personal films. Similarly, Parajanov developed his distinctive style working with editor Marfa Ponomarenko, who worked side by side with him from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors to his later films. We cannot but be amazed by the quality of Pietro Germi’s scripts, and not surprised that he co-wrote them with future colleagues and extraordinary screenwriters.
Let’s face it, the most famous couple in the history of cinema, will be at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024: eight silent short films featuring Laurel & Hardy, their first pictures, which had been previously only seen in tattered prints, are now fully restored. Fans will delight in discovering the roots of their most famous gags, made in the absence of their voices – which later became a cornerstone of their comedy. They are the perfect duo, but even more so when James Finlayson appears!
For those seeking fresh discoveries, the couple to watch at the festival is in The Annihilation of Fish by Charles Burnett. He has just been released from a psychiatric institution, and she is arguing with her invisible partner, to whom she is officially engaged – the ghost of composer Giacomo Puccini…