Compulsively Yours
Although I’m no longer a member of Il Cinema Ritrovato’s DVD jury, two other visitors to Bologna in June who are familiar with this column presented me with new DVDs:
1. A year ago in this column, while celebrating Edition Filmmuseum’s PAL DVD release of Max Ophüls’ Liebelei (1933) and the German version of his 1955 Lola Montez (which I misspelled as Lola Montès, the title of the French version), I registered the minor complaint that the “bilingual” booklet, which I hoped would explain how and why Marcel Ophüls finally withdrew his obscure objection to the German version (which I regard as the best version, above all for its colours), was only in German. It turns out that this lapse was just a printing error, and the corrected bilingual version of this two-disc set is now available. (Furthermore, I gather that the withdrawn objections of Ophüls fils were basically a matter of money.) Combined with the recent and long-overdue publication of François Truffaut’s Chronique d’Arts Spectacles 1954-1958—Gallimard’s collection of his texts for a prominent right-wing weekly that, in the opinion of some French cinephiles, are superior to his reviews for Cahiers du Cinéma, and which includes some rapturous writing about Lola Montès (the French version), including praise for its “[un] natural” colours—this makes me want to resee the German version yet again.
2. Due to my recorded enthusiasm for Maurizio Nichetti’s first slapstick feature, (1979), and his no less loony and hilarious fifth, (1989), I was handed a restoration of his equally loony but less hilarious third, (, 1983), co-starring Nichetti and Mariangela Melato, on a PAL DVD with optional English subtitles (not always idiomatic or grammatical) released by Collana Forum Italia. The film was described to me as an homage to Méliès, but unfortunately the charming Méliès pastiche occurs only behind the opening credits and then recurs briefly towards the end. The remainder of the movie has something to do with an independent TV news crew (Nichetti and Melato) stumbling upon extraterrestrials (the Mélièsian cutouts) who like to dance, and who persuade earthlings to dance as well. This clearly has as much social satire as Nichetti’s first and fifth forays, but I suspect
