Il Cinema Ritrovato is a film festival that returns to Bologna each summer, bringing with it each time hundreds of classic movies ready to be rediscovered and re-enjoyed. It was founded in 1986 and has enjoyed widespread popularity and celebration since then, with thousands of locals, tourists, and film-fanastics flocking to the festival each year.
You may be wondering why we’re choosing to feature this film festival in our ‘Music Events on Earth’ segment… and it would be a fair question to ask! But one that has an equally fair (and very special) answer!
Every now and then the festival screens a silent film, accompanied by a live Orchestra performance of the soundtrack. This year, Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Gold Rush’ was projected in an open-air cinema in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore and the winds, strings, brass, and percussion musicians of the Orchestra Del Teatro Comunale di Bologna made sure the square was filled with anything but silence!
I sadly can’t share any recordings from the screening, but I can show you a few photos from the Piazza to help give you an idea of the bubbling atmosphere the movie, and its live music, created.
The soundtrack seamlessly shifted from sweeping romantic melodies to playful motifs intended to mirror scenes within the film; gunshots were evoked with well-timed snare hits; birdsong mimicked with chirps from flutes and oboes; the live music generally brought the film wonderfully to life and the whole experience ‘under the stars’ was nothing short of magical.
And it’s for this reason that this film festival works its way into our music themed newsletter. Nowadays, dialogue is considered a fundamental part of a film - the vehicle through which plots are established, relationships are crafted, and audiences are entertained. But in a time where technological restrictions prevented the recording and syncing of sound, live music stepped up to the plate to create a genre of film that remains as charming today as it was revolutionary then.
Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival reminds us of the gems of the past and how precious they remain in our present. Music, of course, continues to have a hugely important role in films of the modern day, where it works together with speech and a myriad of other factors to create the finished, polished product. But the screening of ‘The Gold Rush’ in Piazza Maggiore stripped the experience back to its bones and left the sheer emotional power of the music for everyone to marvel at.
It’s a reminder to pay careful attention to the soundtracks behind the films we watch; they’re working hard to enrich your viewing experience and it’s important that those efforts land on mindful ears!
