My shorter-than-usual trip to Il Cinema Ritrovato saw me hit the wall of exhaustion in record time, so that nearly everything I went to on my second full day saw me falling almost asleep. So we began with THE ROARING TWENTIES, which you just CAN’T sleep through but I found I could lose focus successfully. But I did pick up on one previously-unnoticed (by me) element — the way Bogart’s bad guy keeps saying lines that read like rough sketches for “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” Umberto Eco would take encouragement from that, as proof that CASABLANCA really IS a sort of compendium of movie lines and situations.
I stayed more or less awake for THE SNAKE PIT, which I adore. And no film festival can be really complete without a movie that reduces one to a snivelling wreck.
But then Jacques Feyder’s PENSION MIMOSAS took me to my limit: I couldn’t sleep during it, and I could follow it OK, but I couldn’t CARE. Not, I think the film’s fault, just my tired brain running out shits to give. So I bailed on it. Sorry, Jacques.
I had a seat booked for COEUR DE LILAS (Anatole Litvak again) but I let some other bum sit in it while I recovered what passes for my mojo. I learned later from eyewitnesses that the film is still unrestored, the same faded print I saw at the Lumiere Festival, so taking some time out to recover was a wise investment of time, terrific though the movie is.
It enabled me to be in top condition for PEPE LE MOKO, which I hadn’t seen in decades, I fear. So I got my Gabin fix. A pristine restoration of a staggering film, and yes, again I could see more connections with CASABLANCA, and not just in the casting of Dalio.
After that, social events took over from film-viewing. This meant I couldn’t see PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID that night — so I saw it this morning. More on that next time.
shadowplay 