The Venice Festival
CONTINENTAL film festivals seldom pass with- out international bad temper and a lot of com- mercial publicity of 'cheesecake' or other varieties. The thirteen days of the Venetian festival, which ended on Sunday, have been exceptional for their good humour and their comparative lack of bare-legged, bosomy apd other exploitation. On the other hand, this year's festival (which is the oldest in Europe) was subjected to an Anglo-American boycott
—an emphatic one by the American Motion Pictures Association, a more indefinite one by the British Film Producers Association.
This squabble was of some significance to the craft as distinct from the commerce of films. The organisers of the festival, newly appointed since last year, introduced a new principle: instead of allowing each national industry to send along the films of its own choosing, the organisers themselves selected a short list of feature films to be submitted to the festival, for a final choice to be made by an international jury. There was an attempt to return to the high aspirations of the first Venetian festival (in 1932), to reinforce the artistic integrity of the occasion and to reduce the opportunities for commercial exploitation by the big producers' organisations. The American MPA, as a result, refused to play; the British FPA was less categorical but in fact provided no feature film.
The Italian organisers of the festival, them- selves organised into a viewing committee of four, saw seventy-five feature films out of which they chose fourteen for the international jury and the festival. This procedure—how- ever laudable the principle which they were asserting—laid them wide open to counter- attack. If the purpose of the festival (a new purpose it would be) were simply to show, in uncompetitive fashion, those films which the organisers liked best, then there could be no objection. But if (as is the case) important prizes were to be offered, on a basis of internationally judged merit, then this process of purely Italian preselection was question- able.
The Italian committee of four, having them- selves chosen the short list of fourteen films, were risking their festival's reputation. In the event it has survived, though not entirely un- scathed. The two American entries were -lamentable; it is hard to think that, had the MPA co-operated, something better than Bigger Than Life (with James Mason as an addict of cortisone) and Attack (with the American Army of 1945 shown to be led by corrupt psychopaths) would not have been on show. Neither of the two Italian films in the short list were up to standard. One of the Japanese entries, The Street of Shame, was another bad choice—all the sadder since it was the last work of an eminent director, Kenzi Mizouchi, the maker of 0-Hare, who died only last month. 'I he Russian The Immortal Gar- rison was also a mistake—a specimen of flat propaganda.
The festival's salvation has been two films each from Spain and France, and one each from Japan, Germany and Mexico. All have been interesting, the Mexican Torero because it is the most comprehensive, most authentic account yet given by the cinema of the life and .fears of a matador, the Japanese Harp of Burma because, with all its concessions to Western taste, it gives an extraordinarily poignant impression of the feelings of the Japanese soldiers in the last war. The two French entries, Autant-Lara's La Traverser de Paris (an episode from German-occupied Paris) and Rene Clement's Gervaise (taken from Zola's L'Assomoir) were outstanding for sheer technical ability. But the most significant items were the two from Spain, Berlanga's Calabuch (a tiny fantasy with a big moral) and Bardem's Guile Mayor (which is just a study in man's inhumanity to woman). Barden) and Berlanga have served notice that the Spanish cinema has abruptly come of age. As it turned out the international jury awarded only the prizes for acting—to Maria Schell for Gervaise, and to Bourvil for La Travers& de Paris. The principal prize—for the best film—was not awarded. Apparently it was partly that indecision reigned as be- tween The Harp of Burma and Calle Mayor but also that no film was considered quite good enough. If the festival's organisers were brave (albeit a bit reckless) in their methods of preselection, the festival's jury was also brave (and probably right) in refusing to express a final preference. The festival should not suffer because its top prize was withheld.
JAMES KENNEDY
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