Granatiere Roland, Il (Campagna di Russia 1812) Grenadier Roland(1911) Director: Luigi Maggi –
Director of photography: Giovanni Vitrotti –
Production: Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino –
Original lenght: 332m –
Intertitles: German –
Cast: Alberto A. Capozzi (il granatiere Roland/Grenadier Roland), Mary Cléo Tarlarini (Elena), Giuseppe Gray (il tenente marito di Elena/Lieutenant – husband of Elena), Mario Voller Buzzi (un ussaro/Hussar), Ernesto Vaser (l’oste/Innkeeper), Gigetta Morano (la vivandiera/Sutler), Arrigo Frusta (Napoleone), Oreste Grandi, Ercole Vaser, Serafino Vité (soldati / Soldiers), Mario Voller Buzzi (un ufficiale/Official)
The film:
Roland the grenadier, discharged by the Napoleonic army, goes home and discovers that his girlfriend Elena, in his absence, married another man. Disappointed, he enlists for other seven years, and departs for the Russian campaign finding the relief of the pains of love in the military life. The destiny though follows him also in the snowy clearings outside Moscow, rebuilt by the set designers of the Ambrosio at the outskirts of Torino. He meets again Elena, wife of an officers, in Russia to follow his husband. Roland, initially angry and then touched, plays the role of the generous odd one out. He rescues the fortunate injured rival taking him on his shoulders and offers his cape to his former girlfriend, by the time the wife of another man.
At the end what remains is the heroic sacrifice: he dies alone in front of a horde of Cossack to cover the escape of the couple. The copy, without ending, saves to the main character the gloomy ending, placing him under the Russian fire, disarmed but still alive.
The film was a great success in 1912, especially thanks to the battle scenes in the snow. The screenwriter Arrigo Frusta, inspired performer of Napoleon, in his memoirs tells about the adventures of the shooting among cold background actors and recalcitrant horses. Moreover, Frusta narrates that, at a certain point, the real snow stopped falling and, with the displeasure of the troupe, they had to provide artificial snow. The incident doesn’t look bad though, because it creates an effect on the screen that looks especially poetic.
The film restoration:
Il Granatiere Rolandwas restored in 2018 by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino from a tinted nitrate copy with German intertitles, preserved at BFI- National Archive and belonging to the Joye collection. Restoration works were carried out at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna in 2018.
