Jone ovvero gli ultimi giorni di Pompei Last days of Pompeii [GB] / The last days of Pompeii [US](1913) Director: Giovanni Enrico Vidali –
Director of photography: Raimondo Scotti –
Production: Pasquali & C., Torino –
Original lenght: 2500 m –
Lenght: 2060 m –
Intertitles: Italian –
Censorship certificate: 1013, 1/12/1913 –
Availability date: 08/1913
Cast: Suzanne De Labroy (Nidia), Cristina Ruspoli (Jone), Luigi Mele (Glauco), Ines Melidoni (Giulia), Giovanni Enrico Vidali (Arbace), Giuseppe Majone Diaz (il taverniere/the publican Burbio), Michele Ciusa (Caleno), Giovanni Ciusa
The film:
Pompei, year 79 aC. Life flows full of splendor, pleasures and misery in the shade of the Mount Vesuvius. Jone and Glauco are the most admired couple of the city, Nidia is a poor blind dancer, slave of Burbio the tavern keeper. Their destinies sre going to interlace together in a love, jealousy and death intrigue with the destinies of the minister Arbace, the vain Giulia and the epicurean Sallustio. The jealousy of Arbace, with the unaware help of Nidia, will bring Glauco to distraction and to the sentence of death, but right when the whole city reunites in the arena to watch his death penalty, the volcano starts erupting. The eruption destroys the entire city, covering the splendors and the misery of Pompei with smoke and lava.
Jone is the third adaptation of the Bulwer-Lytton’s novel in the silent cinema. The production stories about this title present some unusual features: the production company Ambrosio presented one version in 1908 and one in 1913. [http://www2.museocinema.it/restauri/muti_restaurati.php?id=17&l=en /
The release of the 1913 version was expensively promoted and the Pasquali film studio took advantage of it, producing a new cinematographic version of the novel.
The Ambrosio accused the Pasquali film studio forcing it to change the title of the film with Jone ovvero Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei. This caused a real war of production and a legal action, innovative for the history of cinema copyrights. However, the two films were released almost at the same time. The rivalry stimulated the public opinion to such a degree that lining up with one of the two adaptations became fashionable.
The Ambrosio choice to simplify and focus on the charm of the characters and on the figurative composition, was counterposed by Pasquali production company with an intrigue, more complex and faithful to the novel, therefore partially loosing the rhythm, but gaining over complexity. From the visual point of view, the film stands out, in addition to the mass scenes, for a refined use of the light.
The film restoration:
This restoration of Jone ovvero gli ultimi giorni di Pompei is part of a project - promoted by Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna - aiming at preserving and promoting silent films produced by Torino production companies.
The restoration of Jone was carried out by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, in collaboration with the Österreichisches Filmmuseum of Vienna, the British Film Institute of London and the Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen of Berlin.
The restoration was based on an first generation tinted nitrate positive print with Czech intertitles which is conserved in Vienna, on an incomplete safety dupe negative with English intertitles, in black and white but with color indications noted on the leaders which is conserved in London, and on an tinted nitrate positive print without intertitles conserved in Berlin. The restoration of the images was mainly based on material from the nitrate positive print in Vienna, which in a few cases was integrated with portions from the other prints. The Italian intertitles were based on the translation of the Czech intertitles and were then compared to the English version, to advertising material from the era and to copies of the novel from the same period as when the film was released. Since no documents were available with the text of the Italian intertitles, it was decided to reconstruct the intertitles in black and white using a neutral font which was inspired by characters of the era but without reproducing the scroll ornaments used in those years by Pasquali productions. The title of the print that was distributed in Italy was based on the protocol book of the censor’s documents. The only differences that resulted from a comparison of the coloration of the positive prints and the color indications marked on the negative regarded the intertitles. The colors of the prints were thus reproduced using the Desmetcolor method, in part comparing them with the colorations in nitrate prints of Pasquali productions from the same era that are conserved at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema and at other Italian film archives.
The restoration was conducted at the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna in March 2008.
