Friday, June 30, 2017

Kafka geht ins Kino / Kafka va au cinéma / Kafka Goes to the Movies (an illustrated performance by Hanns Zischler and Stefan Drössler)


The image on the dvd cover: from Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer (The White Slave Girl).

Text: from the writings of Franz Kafka.
A live reading performance by Hanns Zischler and Stefan Drössler in English.
PowerPoint.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna.
Sala Auditorium, 30 June 2017.

Hanns Zischler: About Franz Kafka and the Cinema (Edition Filmmuseum 2017):

"A great many of Kafka's scattered notes on cinema(going) represent a deep imprint, an echo of things he had seen or experienced. They are comparable to residual fragments of dreams in their elliptical brevity. The only more extensive and contextual contemplation a word that formed the title of his first volume of prose was dedicated primarily to the 'Kaiserpanorama' rather than to cinema itself. Kafka was fond of stereoscopic photography, which had by then already gone out of fashion, because the images seemed to him "more vivid than in the cinematograph", whereas the latter was defined by the "restlessness of motion". He ultimately dreamed much like Peter Rosegger before him, and, for purely commercial reasons, the inventor of the Kaiserpanorama himself of a "union of cinema and the stereoscope" as an intensified immersionin noctambulous adventures."

"Kafka was acutely aware of the paradoxical power of cinema. Notwithstanding its undeniable trivial realism and the obvious transparency of its production process Kafka once spoke of "old film inventions" cinema manages, by means of larger-than-life projection in an artificially darkened room, a hitherto unimaginable sensory onslaught; indeed so strong is this onslaught that, as Kafka writes, it transfixes the spectator. This similarity to dream visions seems self-evident, yet it is at the same time misleading: self-evident because the oneiric moment, the daydream, is similarly difficult to summarize and 'apprehend' as the film, but misleading because the daydream is an extremely individualized inner experience which, in contrast to film, can never be shared with others. Like a suddenly occurring natural event, cinema has the power to move us, to confuse us and to overwhelm us. One of the first demonstrations of this power to overwhelm took place in Prague, when Rabbi Löw sent Emperor Rudolf II and his court into a state of fear and awe with a projection using the laterna magica."

"To counter these fleeting images which, like daily newspapers, were short-lived goods, Kafka employed the style of the telegram, a form of rhetoric that was familiar to the consummate letter-writers of the last century and which had indeed become something of a second language to them. With stenographic economy and with an unerring sense for the punchline Streets full of water. Please advise, wrote Robert Benchley in a telegram on his first visit to Venice the fleeting, fleeing image and its direct emotional effect is "captured": Went to the cinema. Cried. Lolotte. The good pastor. The little bicycle. The parents' reconciliation. Boundless entertainment. The rollercoaster of emotions continues immediately: First a sad film, Accident at the Docks, afterwards, a funny one, Alone at last.
" Hanns Zischler (Edition Filmmuseum, 2017)

KAFKA GEHT INS KINO
30 JUNE 2017
NINE CHAPTERS:

1. Jízda Prahou otevřenou tramvají (A Tram Ride through Prague) - Czech 1908 - Directed, written, photographed and produced by: Jan Kříenecký - Restored by: Národní Filmový Archiv, Prague
    AA: A phantom ride.

2. Primo Circuito Aereo Internazionale di Aeroplane in Brescia (First International Competition for Airplanes in Brescia) - Italy 1909 - Produced by: Manifatture Cinematografiche Adolfo Croce, Milano - Restored by: Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna.
    AA: The fascination of modern technology.

3. Kaiserpanorama slides 
    AA: Kafka was an avid panorama goer.

4. Nick Winter et le vol de la Joconde (Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa) - France 1911 - Directed by: Paul Garbagni - Cast: Georges Vinter - Produced by: Pathé Frères, Paris -Restored by: Gaumont Pathé archives, Paris
    AA: Mona Lisa had actually been stolen at the time.
+ Prazdnovanie 300-letija Doma Romanovych (Celebrating 300 Years of the Romanov Dynasty) - Russia 1913 - Produced by: Pathé Frères, Moscow - Restored by: Russian States Archives for film and photo documents, Krasnogorsk

5. Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer (The White Slave Girl / Die weisse Sklavin) - Denmark 1911 - Directed by: August Blom - Written by: Peter Christensen - Cinematography by: Axel Graatkjær - Cast: Clara Wieth, Lauritz Olsen, Thora Meincke, Otto Lagoni, Frederik Jacobsen, Peter Nielsen - Produced by: Nordisk Film, Kopenhagen - Restored by: Det Danske Filminstut, Kopenhagen / Filmmuseum München
    AA: The Jan Olsson scene: the three-way split screen telephone conversation (see image above).

6. Theodor Körner - Germany 1912 - Directed and written by: Gerhard Dammann, Franz Porten - Photographed by: Werner Brandes - Cast: Friedrich Feher, Hermann Seldeneck, Thea Sandten - Produced by: Deutsche Mutoskop- and Biograph GmbH, Berlin - Restored by: Filmmuseum München
    AA: The biopic on the German poet and fighter against Napoleon. Music: Körner's "Lützows wilde, verwegene Jagd".

7. Der Andere (The Other) - Germany 1912 - Directed by: Max Mack - Written by: Paul Lindau - Kamera: Hermann Böttger - Cast: Albert Bassermann, Emmerich Hanus, Nelly Ridou, Hanni Weisse, Léon Resemann, Otto Collot - Produced by: Vitascope GmbH, Berlin - Restored by: Filmmuseum München
    AA: The first German Autorenfilm, written by the highly regarded author Paul Lindau. Kafka's film enthusiasm peaked before the German intelligentsia widely embraced the cinema.

8. Daddy-Long-Legs / Táta Dlouhán - USA 1919 - Directed by: Marshall A. Neilan - Written by: Agnes Johnson, based on the novel by Jean Webster - Kamera: Charles Rosher - Cast: Mary Pickford, Milla Davenport, Percy Haswell, Fay Lemport, Mahlon Hamilton, Lillian Langdon, Marshall Neilan - Produced by: Mary Pickford Company, Los Angeles - Restored by: The Library of Congress, Culpepper / Filmmuseum München
    AA: When cinema became respectable Kafka stopped mentioning films, but he loved Mary Pickford's Daddy-Long-Legs. She was advertized as "the American Henny Porten".

9. Shiwat Zion / שִׁיבָת צִיּוֹן / (Return to Zion) - Palestine 1921 - Directed, written, photographed and produced by: Ya'acov Ben-Dov - Restored by: Národní Filmový Archiv, Prague.
    AA: Kafka gave serious thought on participating in the building of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

AA: The third of my three greatest highlights in this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato.

A wonderful reading illuminating Franz Kafka's passion for the cinema from many sides, illustrated with film clips and other visual materials. Hanns Zischler's voice brought resonance to Kafka's words.

A very good and profound Kafka experience, documenting an encounter of a great artist with a new art form still in its infancy. This presentation sheds new light on Kafka in many ways.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DVD INFO BY EDITION FILMMUSEUM:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DVD INFO BY EDITION FILMMUSEUM:

Kafka va au cinéma (Kafka geht ins Kino) - France 2002 - Directed and written by: Hanns Zischler - Cinematography by: Hanns Zischler, Ute Adamczewski, Miriam Fassbender - Produced by: Movimento Production, Paris

The 4-disc DVD Kafka Goes to the Movies (2017) presents for the first time the surviving films Kafka saw in his lifetime and mentioned in his writings: documentaries, early feature films, newsreels. All the films were restored by archives in the U.S., Germany, Czechia, France, Italy, Denmark, and Russia and presented in new versions with new scores performed by Günter A. Buchwald and Richard Siedhoff.

DVD 1

    A Tram Ride Through Prague 1908, 2'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    First International Competition for Airplanes in Brescia 1909, 13'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    Italian travelogues 1907-1913, 20'
    Score by Günter A. Buchwald

    Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa 1911, 10'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    The White Slave 1911, 55'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    Theodor Körner 1912, 41'
    Score by Günter A. Buchwald

DVD 2

    Celebrating 300 Years of the Romanov Dynasty 1913, 16'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    The Other 1913, 77'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

    The Heart Breaker 1913, 47'
    Score by Richard Siedhoff

DVD 3

    Daddy-Long-Legs 1919, 99'
    Score by Günter A. Buchwald

    Táta Dlouhán 1919, 10' (excerpt)

DVD 4

    Return to Zion 1921, 78'
    Score by Günter A. Buchwald
    Audio commentary by Stewart Tryster

    Kafka Goes to the MovIes 1913, 55'

28-page trilingual booklet with essays by Hanns Zischler and Stefan Droessler

Edited by: Filmmuseum München and Goethe-Institut
DVD authoring: Tobias Dressel, Gunther Bittmann
DVD supervision: Stefan Droessler, Stewart Tryster

First Edition May 2017
    4:3 (PAL)
    1.33:1
    Music score: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
Price: 39,95 EUR (incl. 19% VAT, excl. shipping)

Jízda Prahou otevřenou tramvají (A Tram Ride through Prague) - Czech 1908 - Directed, written, photographed and produced by: Jan Kříenecký - Restored by: Národní Filmový Archiv, Prague

Peschiera / Lago Maggiore e lago di Como / Liguria / Il corse de Mirafiori (Italian travelogues) - Italy 1907-1913 - Produced by: Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino / Società italiana Cines, Rome - Restored by: La cineteca del Friuli, Gemona

Primo Circuito Aereo Internazionale di Aeroplane in Brescia (First International Competition for Airplanes in Brescia) - Italy 1909 - Produced by: Manifatture Cinematografiche Adolfo Croce, Milano - Restored by: Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna

Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer (The White Slave Girl) - Denmark 1911 - Directed by: August Blom Written by: Peter Christensen - Cinematography by: Axel Graatkjær - Cast: Clara Wieth, Lauritz Olsen, Thora Meincke, Otto Lagoni, Frederik Jacobsen, Peter Nielsen - Produced by: Nordisk Film, Kopenhagen - Restored by: Det Danske Filminstut, Kopenhagen / Filmmuseum München

Nick Winter et le vol de la Joconde (Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa) - France 1911 - Directed by: Paul Garbagni - Cast: Georges Vinter - Produced by: Pathé Frères, Paris -Restored by: Gaumont Pathé archives, Paris

Der Andere (The Other) - Germany 1912 - Directed by: Max Mack - Written by: Paul Lind - Kamera: Hermann Böttger - Cast: Albert Bassermann, Emmerich Hanus, Nelly Ridou, Hanni Weisse, Léon Resemann, Otto Collot - Produced by: Vitascope GmbH, Berlin - Restored by: Filmmuseum München

Theodor Körner - Germany 1912 - Directed and written by: Gerhard Dammann, Franz Porten - Photographed by: Werner Brandes - Cast: Friedrich Feher, Hermann Seldeneck, Thea Sandten - Produced by: Deutsche Mutoskop- and Biograph GmbH, Berlin - Restored by: Filmmuseum München

La Broyeuse de coeurs (The Heart Breaker) - France 1913 - Directed and written by: Camille de Morlhon - Cast: Léontine Massart, Pierre Magnier, Camille Licenay, Jeanne Brindeau - Produced by: Films Valetta, Paris - Restored by: La Cinémathèque Française, Paris

Prazdnovanie 300-letija Doma Romanovych (Celebrating 300 Years of the Romanov Dynasty) - Russia 1913 - Produced by: Pathé Frères, Moscow - Restored by: Russian States Archives for film and photo documents, Krasnogorsk

Daddy-Long-Legs - USA 1919 - Directed by: Marshall A. Neilan - Written by: Agnes Johnson, based on the novel by Jean Webster - Kamera: Charles Rosher - Cast: Mary Pickford, Milla Davenport, Percy Haswell, Fay Lemport, Mahlon Hamilton, Lillian Langdon, Marshall Neilan - Produced by: Mary Pickford Company, Los Angeles - Restored by: The Library of Congress, Culpepper / Filmmuseum München

Shiwat Zion (Return to Zion) - Palestine 1921 - Directed, written, photographed and produced by: Ya'acov Ben-Dov - Restored by: Národní Filmový Archiv, Prague.

No comments: