7. Fragment and Failure Hedda Gabler (Giovanni Pastrone, Itala Film, 1920) Angela Dalle Vacche
In times of economic crisis and historical transformation, cinematic versions of prestigious literary texts may produce disappointing results. This feeling of disappointment or lost opportunity may loom even larger when radically different cultural sensibilities meet on-screen. In the case of Italian film director and producer Giovanni Pastrone’s (1883–1959)1 encounter with Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906), the result is all the more awkward and difficult to evaluate since only a fragmentary version of his film adaptation of Hedda Gabler (1920) has survived. Hedda Gabler was developed for the production company Itala Film in Turin. This meant a regional set-up without any adequate vertical integration of production, distribution, or exhibition on a national level. Despite the failure of this project, something historically valuable can be learnt from Pastrone’s production. In 1920, Italian film cameras could move within a closed frame, but Friedrich W. Murnau’s mobile framing with permeable borders had not yet appeared as a component of film style. Overall, Pastrone’s use of the point-of-view shot, intertitles, and the close-up, as well as his approach to costumes and reliance on objects, struggles to compensate
1
iovanni Pastrone directed Hedda Gabler under the pseudonym Piero Fosco, which he G used during the years 1915–1919 (Encyclopedia Britannica).
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