Saturday, September 6, 2008

Chautauqua Journal (Day 4, Wednesday, August 6: “Intermezzo” at the Chautauqua Cinema)


If you want to know my favorite movie showcases, they’re the single-screen types—like the Plaza Theater of my youth in Englewood, N.J. (its marquee, seen briefly in Annie Hall, gave it a form of immortality; nowadays it’s been transformed into the Bergen Performing Arts Center); the recently deceased and lamented Rialto Theater of Ridgefield Park, N.J.; and the still-vigorous Lafayette Theater of Suffern, N.Y.—places with plenty of seating, sightlines that don’t force you to bend your neck at angles that even a chiropractor can’t fix, and a sound system that might even support a piano or organ.

Chautauqua Cinema in upstate New York is a more demure cousin to these. It’s not one of those 24-plex monstrosities that run for much fanfare until the 30-screen cineplex a few miles away opens, at which time the customers desert and the management skips on bathroom maintenance; that contain walls a millimeter thin, so the Surroundsound from an adjacent room with a loud coming attraction drowns out the quiet, character-driven feature you’re watching; or that require a shameful amount of parking that can be used for other, better purposes, such as greenery. (Once you’re on the grounds, you can walk to the show.)

In a way, it’s appropriate that Chautauqua feature films on the grounds; after all, Thomas Edison was here visiting his in-laws when the site of the current Chautauqua Cinema, formerly named Higgins Memorial Hall, opened in 1895. And that 20th-century embodiment of the pure motion that is at the essence of cinema, Theodore Roosevelt, had breakfast at the hall in 1905, just before delivering a speech at the Amphitheater. After being used for other social and educational purposes, the 350-seat building has been used for cinemas since 1916.

I’ve been passing by the Chautauqua for more than a decade, but I did not find out about its history—or the current ownership structure that keeps it going, Uniplex Cinemas--till now. The theater is part of a circuit, but that’s of uniplexes, so as far as I’m concerned it gets a pass.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure how Chautauqua Cinema makes a dime—it’s so far removed from any large population center. At the height of summer—the only season it’s open—it competes for the attention of tourists like myself who have so much to occupy us—on this particular August night, for instance, I had the choice of attending a photography exhibit, a community choir rehearsal, a concert at the Amphitheater, a voice-department opera performance—or, for people so inclined (and there are still many, many such people here who want to leave the world behind), simply sitting on the front porch of their inn, talking or reading a book. A year ago, I had passed up the chance to see Away From Her, with Julie Christie. I didn’t want to miss another fine film.

The uniplex features art-house, independent and classic cinema—fare that many visitors here might not get in their hometowns. During the week I was there, for instance, it played Before the Rains, No Country for Old Men, The Savages, The Great Debaters, and Wall-e.

But what really attracted to Chautauqua Cinemas was the Classic Film Series, hosted by film historian David Zinman. That particular midweek show featured Intermezzo, with Ingrid Bergman in her first American film, and Leslie Howard, who you might have heard of from another movie made in 1939: a little-appreciated, unsung number called Gone With the Wind.

(I was drawn to the event partly by the prospect that I might, with luck, win a free film book, 50 Classic Motion Pictures, by Zinman for my nephew Sean, the youngest film buff in the family. Someone at Carey Cottage Inn, where I was staying, said an audience member had won the prior year in what was, in effect, sheer luck of the draw. So it proved this time—Zinman asked the audience for a number, then walked a certain number of rows and picked a member of the audience who was at the spot. Oh, well—you’ll have to wait till next year on that book, Sean!)

Before I get to Intermezzo, I should discuss the 1932 Oscar-winning Laurel and Hardy comic short that preceded it: The Music Box. It’s a variation on the Myth of Sisyphus, played out, to excruciatingly hilarious effect, on a steep Southern California hillside, as the team attempted to move the piano to the top.

A brief discussion followed the film. Seldom have I seen so many divided opinions on a single feature. Many in the audience (including myself) laughed uproariously throughout, but others were unmoved, including a lady of mature years who announced to the group, in a reedy but unswerving voice: “I saw this movie when it first came out. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now!”

I had really come for Intermezzo, though. For a vintage movie in a vintage year, it doesn’t pop up on TCM or at Blockbuster as much as you might think. In any case, hearing a film historian’s take on the film might prove enlightening. So it proved.

If anything, the movie divided the Chautauqua audience even more sharply than The Music Box. Leslie Howard plays a concert violinist who becomes enraptured by the playing of his daughter’s music teacher, Anita Hoffman (Bergman). It is striking that Howard takes notice of Anita’s virtuoso piano playing before her good looks (some might also call that unrealistic, but we won’t get into that).

What struck everyone about the film was how old-fashioned it was. It took a long time for Howard and Bergman to begin their affair. Naturally, this being the 1930s, that fling was punished, and in the harshest possible way imaginable. Likewise, the self-sacrifice displayed by one of the principals, I believe, could not possibly be understood in our individualistic age.

One aspect of the film that a number of audience members identified as—and I quote—“sleezy” was the age disparity between Howard and Bergman. (At the time of her breakthrough role, Bergman was 23; Howard, 46.) I was a little taken aback by this reaction—not because I disagreed with it, but because it came from a group that, like most other Chautauquans, tend to be non-judgmental and politically progressive.

As for myself, I gave the film a B to B-minus. The direction was not particularly distinguished and the script was conventional. The chief allure of the film—and it remains considerable—lies in the leads.

If you ever see this film, put away any notion you might have had of Howard as the sensitive, world-weary type he played in Gone With the Wind, Of Human Bondage or The Petrified Forest. His violinist’s self-absorption is much closer in spirit to another role that had won him an Oscar nomination the year before—Henry Higgins, in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. With those long, delicate fingers, however, he sure looked like an aesthete.

(Zinman related a fascinating fact about Howard—he had been gassed and shell-shocked as a British soldier in World War II. Upon his release, he was advised to take up acting as therapy. The lessons took hold pretty well, wouldn’t you say?)

As for Bergman, all the promise of her later great roles is right here. Crucial to the film and her impact, I learned from Zinman’s post-show discussion, was the contribution of cinematographer Gregg Toland (who also performed wonders for directors such as Orson Welles and William Wyler).

Intermezzo was originally a Scandinavian film, released in 1936, when Bergman was only 20. Right after seeing it, producer David O. Selznick not only bought the film’s rights but secured the services of its female star so the film could be remade for an American audience—a common enough practice in those days.

At some point in the early rushes, legendary fussbudget that he was, Selznick fired the remake’s first cinematographer. (The man shouldn’t have felt so bad—as I discussed in a prior post, Selznick meted out the same punishment to poor George Cukor on the set of Gone With the Wind.)

He soon expressed his frustration to Toland: Why had Bergman appeared so luminously beautiful in the Scandinavian film and not this one?

Simple, Toland replied: In the American remake, Bergman’s face was being caked with far more makeup. Immediately sensing this was the case, Selznick asked for reshoots without all that makeup, and it turned out to be the case.

As I mentioned, the script – written, if you really must know, by Gosta Stevens and Gustaf Molander—was nothing much to speak of. But Bergman’s natural, makeup-free beauty conveys more than any script could about why Howard’s character could fall so hopelessly in love with her.

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