Blood and Sand (Mamoullian, 1941): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 1.50pm
This blog, as befits the name, has always favoured screenings from
celluloid for our daily picks of the best in repertory screenings in
London so the four-day festival at BFI Southbank dedicated solely to
film presentations is the most exciting season of the year in London as
far as we are concerned. You can read about the full programme here. Today's screening selection is sold out currently but do get there early and queue up for returns on the day.
BFI introduction to the season:
BFI Film on Film Festival is a brand new film festival to take place at BFI Southbank, 8 to 11 June 2023 and the first film festival in the UK wholly
dedicated to screen works solely on film, spanning film formats
including 16mm, 35mm and 70mm as well as rare nitrate. While the
majority of films are now shown digitally in cinemas, the experience of
film projection from film is a very different one. For contemporary
filmmakers like Christopher Nolan (Tenet), Mark Jenkin (Enys Men) or
Greta Gerwig (Little Women), the decision to shoot on film is primarily
an artistic one on how their film will look to the viewer when
projected. BFI Film on Film Festival celebrates this materiality of film, recognising the uniqueness of film as a physical medium. BFI Film on Film Festival will comprise screenings of new and vintage film prints, programmed by the BFI National Archive’s curators from the national collection, giving audiences access to work held in the BFI National
Archive which can only be seen on film and which would otherwise never
been seen. The full festival programme will be announced in 2023. Like
the experience of listening to a great album on vinyl rather than a
digital platform, part of the pleasure and meaning of watching a film on
a film print comes from the different look and emotional impact when
projected. A whole generation of young filmgoers have grown up not
seeing film projected on film, the BFI Film
on Film Festival is designed to deliver a unique, cinema-based
experience enabling audiences to enjoy the physical materiality of film
in all its glory, exploring its aesthetics and challenges – and
celebrating the skills required to work with it, with expert voices from
the BFI’s world-leading conservation and projection teams.
Time Out review (35mm Nitrate print screening):
One of the great colour films (with Rouben Mamoulian taking the
inspiration for his lush visuals from Spanish masters like Goya,
Velasquez and El Greco), this is melodramatic romance of the first
order. The story is hardly a stunner, taken from Ibañez and telling of a
young man's rags-to-riches rise as a matador, only to fall under the
spell of Rita Hayworth's aristocratic temptress, who lures him away from
virginal childhood sweetheart Linda Darnell. What makes the film so enjoyable
is the sheer elegance of the execution, with Mamoulian's sense of
rhythm, the rich Technicolor, and Richard Day's sets conjuring up an imaginary Spain of the heart, poignant location of love in the shadows and death in the afternoon.
Geoff Andrew
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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