Il Cinema Ritrovato

Each summer in Bologna at the end of June there is a film festival featuring movies that have been ritrovato (recovered or rediscovered).  These may be old motion pictures from the late 19th or early 20th century that are truly new-found, or they might be commercial movies up to the 1970s, but they have all been restored  frame by frame to allow audiences to discover their best qualities.  They are shown in their original language with Italian and English subtitles (sottotitoli) if necessary.  (In Italy, commercial films are almost always dubbed into Italian rather than shown with subtitles, so seeing them with the original language is unusual.)  There is generally a featured director (Howard Hawks this year) as well as a featured Italian film maker along with lots of silent films accompanied by live, internationally known musicians.  There are hundreds of films and symposia over the course of about a week.  For more info about this film festival, click here.

Most of the films are screened at three indoor cinemas throughout the day and evening, but the fun place to watch is sotto le stelle (under the stars) in the huge Piazza Maggiore in front of the Basilica of San Petronio.  

1800 chairs in Piazza Maggiore

The projection booth

They have set up an enormous screen at one end (known as a maxischermo) and a professional projection booth at the other.  In between are about 1800 chairs, most of which are available for free.  For popular films the seating fills by 9:30 and the overflow crowd camps out on the steps of the basilica, at cafe tables and in much of the remaining open space.  The program starts at 10 p.m.  (You'll notice perhaps that the front of the Basilica di S. Petronio is undergoing restoration and is enveloped in a full-size graphic reproduction of the façade beneath.  This technique is common in Italy to help minimize the impact of restauro on large edifices.)

Just before show time, a slide show of the sponsors.

Last Tuesday night we watched Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in the piazza, a Howard Hawks musical from 1953 starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, and it was great.  The film has been restored to perfection, and the projected images were bright and clear, with colors not over-saturated like some restorations I’ve seen.  The movie is very engaging, but occasionally I found myself thinking about the strange confluence of 1950s American exuberance (Jane Russell singing “Anyone Here For Love?” while roaming among the U.S. men’s Olympic team, who are exercising in flesh-colored swim trunks aboard an ocean liner bound for France!) and a crowd of about 3000 watching it with Italian subtitles on a warm summer night in the centro storico of Bologna.

Jane Russell and the Olympic team...

Before the feature film on Tuesday they showed two silent films, one French from 1914 showing 6 minutes of views of the Thames near Oxford and Windsor that were so beautifully shot that they could have been done last week—except for the 100-year-old canal locks and boats—and it was in partial color with under-saturated green trees and brown buildings.  The other silent was a 9-minute Italian comedy from 1911.  Both were accompanied by a single fisarmonica (accordion) played live on the stage in front of the big screen and amplified just right for all to hear. 

Last night (Friday, July 1st) the feature in the piazza was the silent version of Phantom of the Opera from 1925, starring Lon Chaney, accompanied by a full orchestra from the Teatro Comunale, including an organ for the critical scenes in the Phantom’s elaborate refuge.  And there was a soprano soloist (Gerda Findeisen) to voice the heroine during scenes in the Paris Opera.  The score was written in 1990 and directed last night by the composer, Gabriel Thibaudeau, and beautifully matched the action on screen.  

The Phantom carries Christine down to the 5th sub-basement. The orchestra's music stand lights are below.

A still shot with the Phantom unmasked in his lair.

As you might guess from the foregoing, this print was the definitive version, complete with tinted film stock—reddish in the subterranean catacombs, blueish in the shadowy backstage, an eerie green in the Phantom’s lair—and a short color section during a party in the opera house.  The color scenes culminate with the Phantom dressed as The Red Death clinging to an enormous statue atop the opera house at night, with his huge red cape billowing in the wind, as our heroine and her lover plan their escape in the shadows below, unaware of his presence.  It’s an amazing piece of cinema.

Color party scene in the Paris Opera

1925 Poster

The audiences for these performances were a mix of ages, nationalities and presumably education and experience, but they were remarkably attentive and polite.  The most amazing thing is that I never heard a cellphone ring—this in a crowd of thousands in a city where every third person walking down the strada is talking on a telefonino!

Roberto

La Cenerentola

Last week we went to the Teatro Comunale to see the Rossini opera La Cenerentola, a version of Cinderella.  (Cenere means ashes in Italian.)  Four years ago when we were in Bologna we saw the hilarious Dario Fo production of another Rossini work, L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers), complete with flying bicycles.

The Teatro Comunale is a classic European opera house, horseshoe-shaped and with layers of boxes, or palchi, rising to the romantically painted ceiling.  It opened in 1763 and still has 18th century stage machinery preserved under the auditorium and stage.  It also has a cool digital clock built into the ceiling above the proscenium arch.  Our seats were in the first level of boxes.

Production designers have fun with Rossini, so it wasn’t too surprising that this Cenerentola was set in the 1950s kitchen of a palazzo, where Angelica (Cinderella) sang of her dreams while the bread in the oven burned to a crisp.  The sides and back of the stage looked like monolithic gray walls, but had doors, ramps and decorative shapes that opened or slid out and were often met by stairs lowered from the fly above or rolled onstage.  The chorus was dressed in tuxedos (except when they took off their clothes in a drunken stupor).  They also occasionally did some tap dancing in the background.  All the singers and chorus did a great job, as you might expect in an Italian opera.  The show we attended was the last of this production in Bologna, and the applause at the end went on for 10 minutes while the lead singers and conductor took bows.

I couldn’t take pictures during the spettacolo, but I found a YouTube video called Cenerentola Backstage that shows this production in rehearsal, so you can get an idea of what the show was like. You can find it  here.

Roberto
 

La Cuoca

Our language school includes various social activities outside of class to help us learn Italian culture and have some fun while hearing and speaking Italian in practical settings.  These are all optional, but there was a pretty good turnout for an afternoon stroll across town to La Sorbetteria, a shop noted in guidebooks for its original flavors.  And gelato was followed by a wander through Giardini Margherita, a large urban park with trees, a lake, fountains and great expanses of lawn.

But this time I’m writing about an extracurricular cooking class and dinner arranged for four of us students, Alex, Peter, Cyndy and me, in the home kitchen of a woman named Alessandra.  We didn’t really know what to expect except that the menu sounded good and the cuoca (cook) came with high praise.   What we found was someone molto gentile e simpatica (very kind and companionable) with a small but well-organized kitchen in a modest third-floor apartment.  

We arrived about 6 p.m. and had our aprons on and tiramisù underway in just a few minutes.  Dessert came first because it had to chill for a couple of hours after assembly before we could eat it.  Here Cyndy, Alessandra and Peter layer coffee-soaked Savoiardi biscuits into the mascapone custard. (We call them ladyfingers, but they originated in the 15th-century Duchy of Savoy—which later became the royal house of Italy.)

A more ambitious project was lasagne including freshly-made pasta and ragù Bolognese.

Here’s the ragù simmering on the stove.

To make the pasta, Alessandra started with a little volcano cone of flour and slowly worked eggs into it.  The eggs had the most amazingly bright orange yolks!  With a few adjustments of a bit more flour and a bit of water the dough was ready for rolling.  In addition to normal rolling, she used a technique we’d never seen of stretching the dough along the length of the rolling pin while it wrapped around.  Lots of flour on the dough so it didn’t stick to itself while rolling.  Then she sliced wide strips of the pasta and laid them out to dry a bit while she made the béchamel sauce (in Italian it’s besciamella).  The lasagna was assembled with layers of ragù, pasta, besciamella and grated cheese, then popped into the oven.

Alex rolling lasagne pasta

While the lasagna baked, we completed the menu with polpettini di melazane, which you might think of as eggplant meatballs, made of cooked eggplant, fine breadcrumbs and grated parmigiano reggiano.  Here Peter, Alex and Cyndy cut up melanzane.  After it was cooked and pulped and blended with the other ingredients, the balls were formed, rolled in more breadcrumbs and briefly fried in olive oil.

Everything was ready by about 7:45, so Peter opened the wine, a very nice Negroamaro from Salento in Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot.  

Here’s the lasagne ready to eat, and the tiramisù, after severe depredations. Yum yum! 

(Or in Italian, gnam gnam.)

All this time Alessandra had been describing the recipes, ingredients, history of the dishes, and techniques.  When we all sat down to eat the conversation ranged from the simple but true, caldo! caldo! (yikes that’s hot!) after my first bite of sizzling lasagne to discussions about food, wine, regions of Italy and even Italian politics.  We left about 9 p.m., well stuffed and with a few left-over polpettini to take home.

One good result of all this is that Cyndy was inspired to make tiramisù here in our apartment.  Here’s a picture.

And here’s the ricetta. 

Buona fortuna,

Roberto

TIRAMISÙ

INGREDIENTI (per 4 persone):

1 confezione di savoiardi

3 uova

Caffè (circa 10 tazzine)

60 gr di zucchero

500 gr di mascarpone

Cacao amaro

PREPARAZIONE:

Per prima cosa preparate il caffè , tanto quanto basta per inzuppare i savoiardi, versatelo in una ciotola (se volete zuccheratelo a piacere) e lasciatelo intiepidire.

Per la crema:

Montate i tuorli (rossi) delle uova insieme allo zucchero fino ad ottenere un bel composto chiaro e cremoso.

Montate con uno sbattitore elettrico i 2 albumi (bianchi) delle uova con un pizzico di sale.

Aggiungeta all’impasto il mascarpone e gli albumi montati, mescolate fino ad ottenere una crema senza grumi.

 Adagiate in un contenitore i savoiardi e iniziate ad bagnarli col caffè ; dovranno essere ben imbevuti ma non completamente zuppi. Ricoprite i savoiardi inzuppati con uno strato di crema al mascarpone. 

Disponete poi  il secondo strato di savoiardi. Ricoprireteli con la restante crema.

Terminata questa operazione spolverizzate con abbondante cacao amaro la superficie del vostro Tiramisù.

Riponete in frigo per qualche ora per far compattare il dolce.

La Scuola

We’re about to start our second week of Italian language classes at Madrelingua school.  Roberto is in the low intermediate class, while Cinzia is advanced.  We pretty much knew that before we ever got here, but the placement test the school gave us when we registered confirmed it:  Roberto 23/44  correct, Cinzia 41/44.

Every weekday morning we walk about six minutes from our apartment to the school, stopping along the way for a cappuccino and pastry.  We probably pass 8 or 10 bar/cafes where we could get excellent coffee, but Impero and Severio on Via dell’ Independenza are the current favorites.  Here’s the portone for the school (and a dozen other enterprises and apartments in the building).  Class starts at 0930. 

One story up from the street are the modern classrooms and offices of Madrelingua. The school is truly international.  Last week between our two classes there were students from Germany, Sweden, Brazil, the Azores, Spain, China, Japan and the U.S.A.  It’s no wonder that all business and class work is conducted only in Italian.  It’s the only language everyone has in common!

Grammar occupies the first two hours of the day.  Last week we distinguished between passato prossimo and imperfetto; covered imperativo, futuro semplice and futuro anteriore; and struggled a bit with comparatives among other challenges.  That can be hard work, so every day at 1130 the whole school, including all the teachers, troops down the street to a bar/cafe for a hit of caffeine and perhaps a small panino.  We sit in small groups and carry on social conversations in Italian while savoring a pleasant habit of life in Italy.

About noon or a little after we return to our lessons until 1330, when normal instruction ends and the traditional Italian lunch period starts.  Both of our classes have been reading articles (at different levels of difficulty) about social conditions (workplace equality, stay-at-home adult kids) and lifestyle topics (food, film).  On Friday we also had a little test that involved both writing a letter to a friend and reading comprehension.  I did great on the comprehension.  I haven’t gotten my graded letter back yet, but I’m afraid it might have been mine that got the instructor laughing uncontrollably.

The school also organizes activities outside of class to help us feel comfortable in public and to have some fun.  One day after class ended about 10 of us went for lunch at a nearby osteria, a simple neighborhood  restaurant.  Bread, salad, a plate of pasta, dessert and wine.  It took the better part of two hours, but we didn’t need dinner and it was very reasonable.  Another evening about 6 p.m. we went with one of the staff to a bar near the Piazza Maggiore for drinks and what the bars call aperitivi.  This actually amounts to a buffet of vegetables, salads, cold meats, pastas, and various savory bites—which are free when you buy a drink.  Another evening when we didn’t need more for dinner—though we did find space for some gelato.  The school also organized a cooking class and dinner, but that will be the subject of another entry coming soon.

This week will probably be our last at the school.  We should be in pretty good shape to improve on our own after that and to function comfortably in Italian society.  And the cool thing is that to eat like a king you only have to be able to speak to the padrone of a ristorante as well as a 5-year-old does—and I think I’m getting close.

Roberto

La Ferramenta

At Strada Maggiore, 7, in Bologna is a wondrous place, Ferramenta Castaldini.  A ferramenta is a hardware store, and this one must be in the top five of the best I’ve ever visited.  (Doesn’t everyone keep a list of great hardware stores?)   Out for a stroll one day, Cyndy was attracted by the vast array of baking tins and other tools of the cucina in one of the show windows.  We went back together and she had to drag me out gibbering and pointing at all the beautiful goods.

Today we returned and actually bought something, in part so I’d have an excuse to take a few pictures without too much embarrassment.  We bought a screwdriver along with a special key to open the brass plate that houses the campanelli (doorbells) and residents directory at the portone (big front door) so I can put our names there.  Here’s the little packet the clerk made up to hold our tool, and the tool itself.

And here are some photos of the store inside.  (If you click on a picture it should open in a larger format in a new window.  You can search out some of the things on offer.)

First are shelves of baking tins, pots and other cose per la cucina (things for the kitchen):

Next is a look back along the service counter and the bank of bins behind it with beautiful fittings of all kinds, many remnants of another age.

And now an array of ceiling medallions for light fixtures, and if you look carefully, some replacement candle holders for your chandelier and a few supports for your heavy draperies:

In the foreground at right below are tools to cut pasta dough in various ways.  Below and behind are knobs, pulls, latches, stops, pins and angles in brass, bronze and glass.  At the far left edge of the photo is the cookie cutter rack.  Hundreds of shapes.

Door hardware is next.  Bologna has lots of very big doors with beautiful handles, keyhole decorations, knockers, hinges and bosses.  Some of the rolls of chain can be seen here as well.  There must be 40 kinds at least.

Decorative finials and drapery rod caps:

And finally, repair and replacement pulls, handles and filigree for your antique furniture:

These pictures are just a small sample of what's packed into this small store, yet the sales clerks in the ferramenta seemed to know where everything was and what it was for.  The fellow ahead of me bought a beautiful board for rolling out pasta and shaping it on, about 3-feet square.  A woman was matching some old brass doorknobs.  There were tools for every trade, plumbing and electrical parts, pots for garden plants, and walls of bins and drawers full of untold treasures.

Cyndy may have to buy some of that chain to restrain me.

Roberto