
This month I’m borrowing a subtitle
from James Agee’s great book Let
Us Now Praise Famous Men in order to
signal the fact that I’m postponing
my newsletter on Limelight until
I’ve gotten my stuff unpacked in my
new house and can find all the notes I made.
I thought you all might not mind if I used
this newsletter to describe my recent experience
at Il
Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna,
Italy, where my Progetto Chaplin book was
launched. Needless to say, it was a once-in-a-lifetime
experience.
I arrived as I usually do—without
fanfare—but when I checked in with
Cecilia Cenciarelli and the Progetto Chaplin
folks, I soon discovered just how well-received
the book already was. “The Book”
is a new edition of Charlie’s 1931-2
travel memoir, A Comedian Sees the World,
which Progetto Chaplin very kindly chose
to be their 5th book in the series.
In addition to Charlie’s engaging travel memoir, it features approximately 160 images of one kind or another—photos, of course, but also images of Chaplin artifacts and postcards of Chaplin venues contemporary to the time. It also includes eight pages of manuscript and typescript documents, showing us that Charlie’s writing process was very similar to his way of making films. Revise, revise, revise! Anyway, besides the fact that the Cineteca director actually spoke to me in English about how pleased he was with the book—a rare thing--I also got the word that Bernardo Bertolucci wanted to meet me because an associate of his had so enjoyed it. This never happened, but the comment did its work anyway. I was ready to enjoy a memorable week. That first evening, we all enjoyed a very special showing of Ernst Lubitsch’s silent film Lady Windemere’s Fan with a new Timothy Brock composition as accompaniment. It was shown in Bologna’s very old and very lovely Teatro Comunale. What a film! This is a not-very-well-received Oscar Wilde play adapted to the screen (and much improved!), featuring a very young Ronald Coleman, among others. It was by far, my favorite film of the week, outside of the Charlie films, of course, and beautifully accompanied.
Ah, the film festival. An odd bird it is, too. I’ve never been to one in Europe before, but kind of knew what to expect from ones I’ve attended here, but I had forgotten. It’s basically a lot of manic film viewing—jostling about for the best seats or the best companions to sit by—standing up, sitting down, standing up, as the seats fill up on either side of you. I never really understood why people needed companions at a film festival. Why do you need to sit next to someone to enjoy a film? You shouldn’t be talking about it while it’s going on anyway. So, I just took my seat—whatever seat—and enjoyed myself watching everyone else fuss around.
Besides my book launching, other
Chaplin aspects of the festival
this year included a showing of
8 new Keystone restorations (I only
got to see five) and a showing out
on the Piazza Maggiore of A
King in New York introduced
by Michael Chaplin. Michael was
also supposed to be a significant
part of the Dossier Chaplin, which
would take part on Saturday late
afternoon (the last day). I was
to give an introductory lecture
on my book at that time as well.
So, most of the week was spent watching
rare films and working in the Progetto Chaplin office on my next book,
the first study of the life and
art of Syd Chaplin, Charlie’s
inimitable half brother—until
Friday. Friday, July 7th, was earmarked
as the day of the big press conference,
featuring Cecilia Cenciarelli, Kate
Guyonvarch of Association Chaplin,
the Cineteca director, Gian Luca
Farinelli, Chiara Mazzotti from
Fondazione Carisbo, the bank foundation
that financed all of this, Michael
Chaplin and myself. Michael didn’t
quite make it into town in time,
but the rest of us performed our
duties very well.Truly, this was
right out of the movies. Lovely
old restored building with all sorts
of hand-painted wall decorations
and such and then the state-of-the-art
pressroom, with boxy burnt-orange
leather chairs behind a completely
transparent Lucite dais. The room
actually filled up with press folks,
including a couple of photographers
and one cameraman. Thank god I packed
a skirt or two for such occasions!
This was serious business. And I
had somehow gotten the bright idea
of speaking off-the-cuff, but thankfully,
I didn’t do too badly. That
was to come!
Read on...