Fiaccola sotto il moggio, La
(1916) Director: Eleuterio Rodolfi –
Production: Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino –
Original lenght: 1085m –
Lenght: 625m –
Intertitles: Italian –
Censorship certificate: n. 12028, 21/09/1916 –
Première: 01/03/1917 –
Cast: Elena Makowska (Angizia), Umberto Mozzato (Tibaldo di Sangro), Linda Pini (la prima moglie/the first wife ), Anna De Marco (Gigliola), Empedocle Zambuto (Bertrando, il fratellastro/the half-brother), Mary Cléo Tarlarini (la madre/the mother), Filippo Butera (il serparo/the snake charmer), Ersilia Scalpellini (una nutrice/a nurturer), Umberto Scalpellini (capo dei manovali/Laborer Chief)
The film:
The tragedy of the house of di Sangro, an aristocratic family fallen on hard times, takes place in Abruzzo in the first half of the nineteenth century inside a once splendid castle now "crumbling, threadbare, eroded, cracked, covered in dust, doomed to perish." The film adaptation is faithful to the text but tells the story in a linear succession making - even in this only surviving incomplete copy without intertitles - a fluid narrative, despite D'Annunzio's solemn writing style.
«The cinematographic interpretation of the works by D’Annunzio continues. We are really glad because the choice denotes a smart taste and an excellent artistic standard that honor those who start the arduous labor.
The Casa Ambrosio starts the work with severe consciousness, and it is enough to say that the beautiful Elena Makowska will play the role of the protagonist to be sure that the film will be a triumphal success.»
[From the original reviews on Italian silent cinema: «L’arte muta», a. I, n. 2, 15 July 1916, p. 58 Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, Coll. / Online collections: Documents from Torino's era of silent films: http://www.museocinema.it/collezioni/Muto.aspx]
The film restoration:
The restoration of La fiaccola sotto il moggio was carried out by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, and it was based on a positive nitrate tinted and toned print without intetitles, held by Jugoslovenska Kinoteka, Belgrade.
The nitrate print was scanned at 4K and digitally restored at 2K.
The source of the reconstruction of the Italian intertitles and titles has been the antique brochure conserved at the Biblioteca Comunale Centrale of Milano. The graphic and the coloration of the intertitles have been suggested by the intertitles on plate and the nitrate copies of the coeval Ambrosio Film production, conserved at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. The blanks have been signaled with 10 black frames; the copy is 1045 mt. ca compared with the 1085 mt. marked on the censorship visa.
The restoration was carried out in 2016 at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna.
