Gaslight (USA, 1944)
Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes
Directed by: George Cukor
Written by: John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, John L. Balderston
Based on a drama Angel Street by Patrick Hamilton
Starring: Charles Boyer (Gregory Anton), Ingrid Bergman (Paula Alquist), Joseph Cotton (Brian Cameron)
One of the greatest directors of classic Hollywood began to work on the adaptation of Hamilton’s drama after numerous takes on adapting literary works for the screen, "David Copperfield" (1935), "Romeo and Juliet" (1936), "The Lady of the Camellias" (1936). "Gaslight" can therefore be considered his more mature and thoughtful work. 1295 Broadway shows of "Angel Street" by the English playwright were the reason for the rich film studio to produce a lavish film adaptation. The play was legendary in America. But there was also a real problem connected with the production. In 1940, a great British film adaptation of the play was made. The Americans had to face a very good predecessor. It was not yet the age of remakes, even if Cukor's film turned out to be the first important remake in the history of cinema. MGM tried to discredit the predecessor and destroy the film copies available on the market in order to leave only the new American production in cinemas. Cukor fought with his European predecessor more subtly – he turned the English thriller into an American film noir. The change of genre, however, made the same story different. In this sense, we are dealing here with a quite exceptionally dark film in the director's work. Ultimately, the film is completely different from the British one, but certainly no less valuable. Cotton and Boyer are brilliant in their male roles, but it is Ingrid Bergan who gives the really dazzling and captivating performance. This is one of her films that completely justify the opinion of Bergman as a brilliant screen artist. She consulted the role with psychiatrists to faithfully portray a psychic downfall of her character. On the set, Bergan and Cukor decided that she would sleep little and drink a lot of coffee to look exhausted. At the same time, Cukor wanted the impossible – he wanted Bergan to be beautiful and physically exhausted in front of the camera, and this is what she looks like on the screen. She won the Best Actress award for her role in "Gaslight" when she was working on "The Bells of St. Mary’s" (1945). She told the audience at the awards ceremony, "I'm glad I won, because tomorrow morning, I start shooting the sequel to 'Going My Way' with Bing Crosby and Leo McCarey, and I was afraid that if I didn't have an Oscar, they wouldn't speak to me."
THE ACADEMY OF FORGOTTEN FILM MASTRPIECES PRESENTS: Trans-Literations
Ladies and Gentlemen, in the project of modern civilization the film art appeared to be a syncretic blend of the potential and tradition of artistic expression of literature, theatre, painting, music, etc. In the construction of mass civilization, the film was almost supposed to replace all traditional forms of art. It cannot be concealed, however, that the classic cinema – in its search of topics interesting to the audience – heavily relied on the narrative resources of literature. Since the beginning of its 100-year-long history, the cinema has been exploiting the problem of adapting literary works for the screen. At the beginning, the adaptations were naturally quite schematic and reproductive. Early theories of the "literary" character of film narratives suggested that films should faithfully imitate literary techniques. Over the years, these theories were deconstructed and revised by screen experiments of the avant-garde and author's cinema. The experiences of artistic cinema did not go unnoticed in Hollywood. Ambitious and talented artists such as Wyler, Ford, Huston, Stevens, Mankiewicz, Minelli or Kramer did not stop the specific race with literature, struggling against the popular opinion that film adaptation must always be secondary and flat when compared to its literary original. This year we will focus on the TRANSFORMATION of the literary language medium into a complex structure of the film medium. Focusing on the history of Anglo-Saxon sound films from the 1930s to the 1970s, we will try to show representative examples of faithful film adaptations, and, on the other hand, adaptations illustrating various possibilities of filmmaking. We want to show the interaction of both arts and their complementary sensitivity in the mimetic effects of portraying the world. The differences between the artistic language of literature and film and, at the same time, the fundamental unity in communicating deep messages will be perfectly reflected by the examples of acknowledged adaptations of outstanding literary works, such that both artistic media would are equally worthy, and sometimes even competitive to each other. We assure you that this year's program will be filled with spectacular, fascinating and moving works, ones that still encourage a fresh reflection on the human world.