What DVD was made for!
Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale in the "Ball Scene" from Visconti's film The Leopard
It’s funny how often when you’ve been looking forward to something it’s arrival is soon followed by disappointment. My mother used to remind me “ anticipation is better than realisation”. Perhaps to protect me from life’s inevitable disappointments.
In March this year, I noticed my local independent cinema, the
Tyneside Cinema was showing a restored version of Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo- usually translated as “The Leopard.”
An e-mail from the
British Film Institute, informed me that they had indeed restored the film and were in the process of transferring the original 70 mm negative material to DVD. The film’s director of photography Giuseppe Rotundo oversaw the transfer from the original “negative elements”.
Although I had an old VHS copy of the film, continual use had damaged the sound track and picture quality. Additionally, the version copied from the TV had been edited-butchered, some may say- to convert it into no more than a costume drama with a love story and couple of battle scenes bolted on. Its evisceration had been completed with a dubbed English sound track .
I have just collected a copy of the DVD. Realisation, in this case, far outstripped anticipation. For the first time I saw an almost uncut version in the original widescreen format. Thrown away was the costume drama to be replaced with most, though not all, of the political and social elements in the Lampedusa novel. In addition there’s a commentary by David Forgacs, Head of the Italian Department at UCL, who puts the film in its Risorgimento context, and Rossana Capitano, from the Visual Arts Department, Goldsmiths University who comments on the film’s production.
A time line of the Risorgimento can be found at
http://www.roangelo.net/valente/garibald.html
An interesting piece “Visconti's Cinema of Twilight” by Maximilian Le Cain at
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/visconti.html
And the Guardian’s Derek Malcolm’s review of the restored film’s original cinema release at
http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,398504,00.html
And for those who enjoy Roger Ebert view
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/leopard.html
Cheers
t
Wincey survives the window cleaner
Not really this size folks
I promised Helen at Chill I would post this. Now don't get too scared!!
Cheers
t
Tosca:
Tosca: Synopsis
This is especially posted for Gail who is visiting Prague next week and is fortunate to have seats for Tosca at the State Opera.
Cheers
t
Thanks Vic!
Save this for later
Wincey
This creature, I think it's a garden spider,
areneus diadematus, had taken up rent free accomodation at the top left hand side of our patio doors.
Yesterday he/she trapped a housefly in his/her web and then proceeded, with some care, to wrap the thing up with silk from the spinnerets . Presumably the spider equivalent of sticking it in the freezer.
Piedmontese Peppers
Credit to Delia Smith for this one.
Large red Peppers...NOT Green or Orange!
4 medium tomatoes
8 tinned anchovy fillets drained
2 Cloves Garlic
8 Dessertspoons Extra Virgin Olive oil
Freshly milled black pepper ( is there any other sort?)
To Serve:1 Small bunch fresh basil leaves.
Pre-heat oven to gas Mark 4 350F (180C)
The Saintly Delia adds:For this it is essential to use a good, solid, shallow roasting tray16x12 inches: if the sides are too deep, the roasted vegetables won't get those lovely nutty, toasted edges.
Begin by cutting the peppers in half and removing the seeds but leaving the stalks intact (they're not edible but they do look attractive and they help the pepper halves to keep their shape).
Lay the pepper halves in a lightly oiled roasting tray. Now put the tomatoes in a bowl and pout boiling water over them. Leave them for one minute, then drain them and slip the skins off, using a cloth to protect your hands.
Then cut the tomatoes in quarters and place two quarters in each pepper half.
After that snip one anchovy fillet per pepper half into rough pieces and add the tomatoes. Peel the garlic cloves, slice them thinly and divide the slices equally amongst the tomatoes and anchovies. Now spoon 1 dessertspoon of olive oil into each pepper, season with freshly milled pepper ( but no salt because of the anchovies) and place the tray on a high shelf in the oven for the peppers to roast for 50 mins-1 hour.Then transfer the cooked peppers to a serving-dish, with all the precious juices poured over, and garnish with a few scattered basil leaves. These do need a good bread to go with them as the juices are sublime. Focaccia would be perfect.
Tiger and Snow
Corriere.it
For those who enjoyed Roberto Benigni's "La Vita e Bella", may be happy his latest film "La Tigre e Neve" has now started shooting.
Well done!
I simply could not resist this one folks
Ok so it's a bit self indulgent but what the heck!
Ciao tutti
t
Public libraries
Before this year, my last visit to my local library was probably in the late 1960’s. And that’s no trick. I’ve lived in North Tyneside all but a dozen out of my fifty-five years.
I can just about remember the local library. And when I re-acquainted myself with it in January this year, I could swear the tables and chairs, a little older and worn, were the same I used nearly fifty years ago. The same strange heating device was in the same place on the boundary between the children’s and adult sections.
Things have changed of course. The little ticket, resembling a blue cardboard pocket, into which the card containing the book’s details were placed, had gone. Though the book insert on which the return date was stamped and the date stamp itself had hardly changed. Indeed the sound of that stamp being used at the desk almost immediately took me back nearly fifty years. Some sounds seem to have the ability to negotiate their way through brain’s chemistry to unlock long forgotten memories.
It’s a small building whose contents reflect its hinterland. Although I’ve nothing to my own observations to support this proposition, I think its members are largely retired. A quarter of the “adult fiction” section is Catherine Cookson. However a quick word with the librarian or a search on the computer, and I reckon most books, fiction on non-fiction, come within easy reach. The librarian will even telephone you when the book has arrived.
I know things always look bigger when you’re young, but I have no doubt the reference section has shrunk. In place of the twelve volumes “History of Northumberland” there are a ten or so computer terminals- work stations- with fast Broadband connections.
A good exchange?
During the summer holidays I’ve noticed kids being guided through the Internet by their parents, and even more surprising, the same parents helping them select books from the children’s section.
Videos and DVD’s can be rented, a quid for a couple of nights does not seem exorbitant. And recently a table has sprouted few jigsaws you can take away without charge. Though I’m not sure of their borrowing limits.
The newspaper selection is not great, local daily and evening together with the Mirror. But this has been easily offset today with a flier for this:
THURSDAY 21st [October]
Roses and Revolutionaries in Clousden Hill-
Discover the history of the Free Communist and Co-operative
Colony in Forest Hall at this illustrated talk by Nigel Todd.
2 pm at the Springfield Community Centre, Forest Hall.
Free.
Cheers
t
Limits to crime detection?
BBC NEWS UK Satellite tracking for criminals
Are there any limits to
what can be done to stop crime?
The Court of Appeal has given our Home Secretary the right to use evidence obtained by torture, provided, according to Lord Justice Laws torture was inflicted outside the United Kingdom. It is suggested that the United States are using the UK "colony" of Diego Garcia for this purpose.
see
Court of Appeal judgment
Bush v Churchill Round 1
Hardly a day goes by without now without we hear yet another extravagant comparison between Bush and Churchill. I don’t know if Bush really wants to return to his two bottles of spirit per day, or even a case of Havana cigars a week. But those who compare, mostly ill-educated Americans, seem to forget that the electorate chucked out Churchill, a great wartime leader, in 1945. And I wonder how many were aware of Churchill’s rather unusual racial views. Before the Peel Commission of Enquiry in 1937, the Bush template came out with this little treasure: -
“I do not agree that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
t
It’s funny how often when you’ve been looking forward to something it’s arrival is soon followed by disappointment. My mother used to remind me “ anticipation is better than realisation”. Perhaps to protect me from life’s inevitable disappointments.
In March this year, I noticed my local independent cinema, the Tyneside Cinema was showing a restored version of Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo- usually translated as “The Leopard.”
An e-mail from the British Film Institute, informed me that they had indeed restored the film and were in the process of transferring the original 70 mm negative material to DVD. The film’s director of photography Giuseppe Rotundo oversaw the transfer from the original “negative elements”.
Although I had an old VHS copy of the film, continual use had damaged the sound track and picture quality. Additionally, the version copied from the TV had been edited-butchered, some may say- to convert it into no more than a costume drama with a love story and couple of battle scenes bolted on. Its evisceration had been completed with a dubbed English sound track .
I have just collected a copy of the DVD. Realisation, in this case, far outstripped anticipation. For the first time I saw an almost uncut version in the original widescreen format. Thrown away was the costume drama to be replaced with most, though not all, of the political and social elements in the Lampedusa novel. In addition there’s a commentary by David Forgacs, Head of the Italian Department at UCL, who puts the film in its Risorgimento context, and Rossana Capitano, from the Visual Arts Department, Goldsmiths University who comments on the film’s production.
A time line of the Risorgimento can be found at http://www.roangelo.net/valente/garibald.html
An interesting piece “Visconti's Cinema of Twilight” by Maximilian Le Cain at
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/visconti.html
And the Guardian’s Derek Malcolm’s review of the restored film’s original cinema release at http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,398504,00.html
And for those who enjoy Roger Ebert view http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/leopard.html
Cheers
t
