Leda Borelli: Back to Turin

A moment of light in the gloom of the local enthusiast film scene occurred when the Italian Cultural Institute imported and screened two of the films of Lyda Borelli at the Newtown Dendy last week. Borelli was one of the celebrated Divas of the Italian Cinema in the World War One period, when its Turin Studios were a leader in film production. Occasionally we read about these but, outside of Pordenone where they are considered the home team, this material usually remains a footnote in film history. 

Beginning at the age of eighteen, Lyda Borelli became a prominent figure on the Italian stage, triumphing in works like the Oscar Wilde Salomé. As the new film industry emerged, it was natural that she would become involved.  Her first movie, Mario Caserini's 1913 Ma l'amor mio non muore.../But My Love Does Not Die/ Love Eternal was on show and proved exemplary.  A sharp, detailed copy ran at the right speed in the correct format and with clear English sub-titles. Reproducing the original tinting would have helped but we have the moon...  Signora Borelli’s flamboyant hand gesturing, hair tossing theatricality fitted right in.

But My Love... is a fascinating demonstration of the ability of the first European filmmakers to produce work that comes down the years effectively, though it is made in the conventions of early cinema with minimal editing inside the proscenium arch frame and making no use of fades, dissolves or optical devices until a final black vignette isolates our heroine's face. There are some effective sorties into exteriors but the most imposing material is sustained, static runs of the camera in detailed art deco studio-interior settings. A copy of Le peit journal spread on a table flutters to the floor blown in the breeze, suggesting that these have been constructed in the open air to take full advantage of sunlight and get their striking depth of field.

In a WW1 Europe torn by intrigue, a brief intro shows that shifty Giampalo Rosimo in a frock coat can only escape the burden of his excesses-induced debt by stealing the battle plans of the Duchy of Wallenstein from  Col. Vittorio Rossi Pianelli.  We then move into the set piece interior in the decorated Pianelli home living room with alcove, where the camera remains bolted (?) to the floor and the characters move in full-length shot, cropping at the ankle if they get close enough.

At dinner in the home with fellow guest, uniformed mutton chop whiskered Col. Ellio Petacci, Rosimo cultivates piano-playing daughter Borelli. It is only when the officers move to the dim alcove to study the plans that we get an edit, the jump covered by the insertion of a full-screen title. 

  Love Etern - Borelli, admirers, mirror & perforations

Grasping a chance to rifle their unattended document case,  Rosimo wastes no time motoring the documents to his employers. Discovery of the theft brings disgrace, with suicide the only option. Borelli is exiled, driven to the ridiculously under-manned border crossing. The signpost. reads "Suisse & arrow"  However in her new home, her musical talent is recognised by impresario Camillo De Riso, who makes her an opera star, acknowledged with giant flower baskets in her dressing room - another fixed camera decor where having a full length three panel mirror increases movement-in-the-frame, reflecting diner suit admirers crowding through the screen-right door and later (they don’t get this one quite right) doubling up the passionate embrace.

Love Etern - Bonnard & Borelli.

Though feted on all sides, Lyda is attracted to fellow loner Prince Mario Bonnard (his directing career will extend to the Steve Reeves Last Days of Pompeii) who isn’t anywhere near as good at making the theatrical gestures, overdoing his palm to the brow grief. They go sailing together, reclining in the stern of the speeding sailboat (one shot that seems to get into all the compilations) There’s also an impressive paddle wheel steamer landing.

However the evil Rosimo is also smitten with Lyda (a regular event in her movies) and she takes the chance to destroy him, only to expire on stage watched aghast by true love Bonnard, from his theatre box seat.

This all holds attention surprisingly well. Director Caserini has mastered the Turin film craft of his day. He manages to fill his static frames with high-fashion detail and showcase Borelli’s flamboyant performnce. 

 

The second film Malombra was another matter. By 1917, director Carmine Gallone had been able to absorb the advances introduced by Birth of a Nation. As happened throughout Europe, the innovations that would become the basis of film language were taking hold in Italy. Not only is this one tinted but it uses the full vocabulary of the new international cinema - close ups, dissolves, action matched on movement within the shot, fades frame a flashback, a double exposure shows Borelli falling under the evil spell. 

 In this one Lyda is welcomed by her uncle Francesco Cacace to Malmobra Castle and rejects the gloomy chambers allocated to her, wanting the room with a view of the lake. The flunkies are horrified, considering this to be haunted by the spirit of the Count's father's dead wife. However Lyda has her way. There she accidentally opens the secret drawer in the desk and discovers a diary, (another) mirror and a hank of hair, the instruments of the curse placed on the nobleman's descendants after he unjusly suspected his young wife of encouraging the advances of a castle guest, in a green-tinted flashback.

Leda's life ceases to be a matter of being feted by the peasants in aquatic flower festivals. After breaking the mirror, she becomes the agent of the dead woman's vendetta against the count. This is not going to end well. Possession and death ensue. 

Unfortunately, as would be the case throughout his long career, Gallone failed to understand what will make his on-screen action play for an audience. Compositions are awkward and pacing erratic. Also the reconstituted Desmet Process copy had become disturbingly contrasty in trying to reproduce the original colour tints.

So much for an opportunity to demonstrate the development of film language, the encroaching Hollywood model, the dominance of feature length. No such luck. The Italian Culture Jefe wheeled in a USyd Film Studies Senior Lecturer's live introduction, complete with a young woman wearing a replica of Borelli's Liberty Culture wardrobe. The comparison between those and the outfit for her Salmomé has been noted. No comment on how ugly this style was, in the gap between hoop skirts and bobbed hair. 

Not only was there no attempt at film study but we were told that the inset titles, which were part of the film's structure, didn't require translation (not even a handout synopsis). Customers whose Italian was better than mine confessed themselves baffled. We were still making up our own plotlines when the lights came up. To work out what was really happening I had to go home and run the YouTube Copy - murky but literate English language captions.

The Italians had rounded up Mauro Colombis to provide one of his expert piano scores. The effort of mixing this with a voice-over translation, let alone providing English subtitles proved beyond the team. This was not the first time a silent film became an add-on to live music here. 

Even so, I rated this a great chance to increase understanding of the evolution of world cinema. Leda Borelli was a dominating performer. Her body language ranked her with Brigitte Helm or Bette Davis. Decades later she could have had a career to compare with theirs. Isa Miranda or Kay Francis would have been no competition. There were curious anticipations - is Malombra the point of departure for later Italian spooky film makers like Ricardo Freda and Mario Bava? Borelli's death is shown by inverting her face, as with Cocteau's Orphé or Albert Lewin's Living Idol. Are we watching the first of the malignant female movie presences that will surface in the forties as Rebecca, The Uninvited or the Isa Miranda re-make of Malombra? 

 However Leda Borelli married well and abandoned her career early. She set about destroying all memorabilia - posters, programs, costumes. I wonder if this is the reason that I'd not seen her before, where her more proletarian fellow Diva Francesca Bertini has been given occasional showings. 

Well, when you live in Australia where there hasn't been a National Cinematheque for fifty years, I guess you should be grateful for anything that comes along.

Love Etern - Bonnard, Borelli & iris.

Barrie Pattison - 2025