Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:18 pm
Ouiiiii.... I watched this late last night on arte TV, though I had never heard of that film (let alone its director) ever before, and also not expecting too much from an Italian film of that time. Gee... twelve hours later now I'm still totally blown away by it.
"Rapsodia Satanica" is apparently the last film by director Nino Oxilia, and it's a 45 minute variation of the Faust story. It goes like this: an old aristocratic woman sells her soul to the devil and regains her youth and attractivity, without however being able to fall in love. She of course becomes a femme fatale, causes some unlucky events in the life of her lovers, and finally she's old again and her soul is taken by Satan. Sounds pretty much like standard fare, I know. But HOW it is done: this is for the most part NOT a horror/expressionist film, but rather a very melancholic, 'quiet' and extremely beautiful filmic 'poem'. For long stretches it looks like a Rossetti painting or some of the more decadent D'Annunzio novels come alive. Apart from the sheer beauty of the main actress and the interiors, Oxilia manages to get some utterly stunning outdoor images (again: often composed like a late-romantic painting), including some amazing contre-jour photography. A fantastic sense of space in the mise en scene and few, but very effective close-ups add to its dreamlike quality, all enhanced by the apparently original hand-tintings. I felt utterly, utterly entranced by it.
The whole thing was restored in 2007 by the usual suspects, i.e. L'Immagine Ritrovata of Bologna, and arte recorded the original orchestral score by Pietro Mascagni for it, which fitted the images perfectly . Apart from two brief missing scenes, the print was in surprisingly good shape for the most part. I only hope that this will come to dvd via arte stummfilmedition in the not too distant future.....
I guess this one has made it immediately into my top ten list of silents, and I consider it a real major discovery by the good folks at arte, perhaps comparable to that of the films of Evgeni Bauer a few years ago (and perhaps that's the only real comparison I can think of, despite the absence of camera movement in the Oxilia film). I haven't seen many other Italian silents, only the usual stuff like "Cabiria" and "Pompeji" and those short films on the "Silent Shakespeare" disc (which left me pretty cold). So, my question is: has anyone else seen it or can give some comments/info on this film or on Oxilia? Does it fit into a special movement at the time, are there other works which are similar (and perhaps even available on dvd)?
"Rapsodia Satanica" is apparently the last film by director Nino Oxilia, and it's a 45 minute variation of the Faust story. It goes like this: an old aristocratic woman sells her soul to the devil and regains her youth and attractivity, without however being able to fall in love. She of course becomes a femme fatale, causes some unlucky events in the life of her lovers, and finally she's old again and her soul is taken by Satan. Sounds pretty much like standard fare, I know. But HOW it is done: this is for the most part NOT a horror/expressionist film, but rather a very melancholic, 'quiet' and extremely beautiful filmic 'poem'. For long stretches it looks like a Rossetti painting or some of the more decadent D'Annunzio novels come alive. Apart from the sheer beauty of the main actress and the interiors, Oxilia manages to get some utterly stunning outdoor images (again: often composed like a late-romantic painting), including some amazing contre-jour photography. A fantastic sense of space in the mise en scene and few, but very effective close-ups add to its dreamlike quality, all enhanced by the apparently original hand-tintings. I felt utterly, utterly entranced by it.
The whole thing was restored in 2007 by the usual suspects, i.e. L'Immagine Ritrovata of Bologna, and arte recorded the original orchestral score by Pietro Mascagni for it, which fitted the images perfectly . Apart from two brief missing scenes, the print was in surprisingly good shape for the most part. I only hope that this will come to dvd via arte stummfilmedition in the not too distant future.....
I guess this one has made it immediately into my top ten list of silents, and I consider it a real major discovery by the good folks at arte, perhaps comparable to that of the films of Evgeni Bauer a few years ago (and perhaps that's the only real comparison I can think of, despite the absence of camera movement in the Oxilia film). I haven't seen many other Italian silents, only the usual stuff like "Cabiria" and "Pompeji" and those short films on the "Silent Shakespeare" disc (which left me pretty cold). So, my question is: has anyone else seen it or can give some comments/info on this film or on Oxilia? Does it fit into a special movement at the time, are there other works which are similar (and perhaps even available on dvd)?
