The world economic crisis seen through the eyes of those who have already experienced it: our "grandparents" of the 30s. This is the proposal of the Cineteca di Bologna which, for the upcoming Cinema Ritrovato festival, an international review of restored films of rare beauty, has decided to give space to the section “After the fall. Cinema and the crisis of '29”. It can be an opportunity to look at ourselves through the eyes of the past, to cry, but also to laugh at the fear of the future that always grips peoples in crisis, to reflect on mistakes and keep away from them, to highlight differences. On the other hand, if it is true, as Prometeia predicts, that the crisis will last until 2019, it is better to start shaking off this fear a little and take advantage of the cathartic opportunity offered by the Bologna event. The festival, curated by film historian Peter von Bagh, is scheduled from 23 to 30 June, when the large open-air screen will be set up in Piazza Maggiore, attracting spectators from all over Europe.
The start will be given by "David Golder", by Jiuliene Duvivier, from 1931, known in Italy with the title "The mockery of life", an implacable portrait of a Jewish industrialist and his family, the rise and fall of an empire. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Irène Némiroski, recently published by Adelphi, the artist who at the age of 26 was already an established writer and who died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz like the Jewish protagonist of the film Harry Baur.
Metaphors aside, “Zeitprobleme: wie der arbeiter wohnt” (Germany 1930), a documentary by Bulgarian-born filmmaker Slatan Dudow. The title in German inspires a bit of fear, but it's only 15 minutes in which it is told how the workers of the time lived (badly). Also by Dudow, who also collaborated with Brecht and Fritz Lang, Il Cinema Ritrovato brings another pearl, the feature film entitled "Seifenblasen" (Soap Bubbles). We are no longer in a proletarian environment, but a bourgeois one and this time it is a manager who is fired and finds himself walking around in a world of ephemeral values like soap bubbles.
Man's Castle (Vicino alle stelle, Usa/1933) by Frank Borzage (an Oscar winner in '27 with "Settimo cielo") and a moral: "Hope is a man's real castle", says the protagonist and since it is Spencer Tracy in his infancy we are inclined to believe him.
Evicted and unemployed in Vienna he is the protagonist of Sonnestrahl (Long live life, Germany-Austria 1933), directed by Paul Fejos, a case in which love is a cure for all ills. But in the exclusive roundup there is also room for a film with an anti-Semitic flavor that doesn't come from Germany but from Sweden: Petterson & Bendel (translated Petterson and partner, 1933), by Per-Axel Brenner.
From the master of cinema Mervin LeRoy ("Quo Vadis"), the film library chooses Hard to Handle (The business becomes complicated, Usa/1933), while by Max Ophus (stage name of Max Oppenheimer) it will be possible to see Komedie om geld (The Jokes of Money, Holland/1936), an implacable denunciation of the deceptions underlying money and its mechanisms of exchange, circulation and accumulation. Ophus is the director who signed the Ronde in the 50s (from Schnitzler's comedy) perhaps for this reason also loved by the great Stanley Kubrick. Finally an Italian proposal, to smile and remember how good we were: "I will give a million" by Mario Camerini, screenplay by Cesare Zavattini and interpretation by Vittorio De Sica. We are in 1937, times are dark but ingenuity is undoubtedly sharp.
Doesn't everything bad have a silver lining? Meanwhile, the occasion is tempting: "ours is the only festival that travels in space - says Gian Luca Farinelli, director of the Cineteca - because the films and spectators come from all over the world, but also over time, since we offer fantastic films of the past. The total cost is 500 thousand euros, but the return for the city between tickets sold and induced is at least three times as much". In short, the crisis also brings some money and opportunities.
