Schede complete nel catalogo delle Giornate 2006 (pdf, 4,2 Mb). / For complete programme notes, download the Giornate 2006 catalogue (pdf, 4,2 Mb).

 

INTRODUCTION
In October 1984, the third edition of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto presented 29 films produced or directed by the American filmmaker Thomas H. Ince in a program entitled Thomas H. Ince: Il profeta del western. At the time, I was a doctoral candidate in New York University’s Department of Cinema Studies, working on Ince’s career, and was fortunate enough to be asked to contribute to that festival. In addition to a diverse selection of articles, both contemporary and historical, on Ince’s work, the special issue of Griffithiana published in conjunction with that year’s Giornate included my contributions of a reproduction of the original shooting script for Sundered Ties (released 18 September 1912), which is still in my personal collection, as well as the first complete filmography, based on archival sources, of the nearly 800 films directed and/or produced by Thomas H. Ince over his 14-year career. Not only was I lucky enough to be a published contributor to the festival, but I was also an invited guest, and had the privilege of presenting my Ince research on a panel that included Jean Mitry, a giant of film culture and a pioneer in the study of silent American cinema. In many ways, I look back on that week as a turning point in my professional life. I am forever grateful to the organizers of that Giornate, most of whom are still hard at work making the festival the international success it has become, for the opportunity they gave me; 22 years later, I am proud to say that they all remain my colleagues and, just as importantly, my friends.Two decades is a long time, and many regular attendees of the festival were not present in 1984. Thus, it seemed to me that the time had finally come to re-visit Thomas Ince. The organizers of the Giornate heartily agreed, but Pordenone/Sacile is a very different kind of event than it was back then. So, rather than present nearly 30 films, the decision was made to carefully curate a selection of 6 feature films, each paired with a one or two-reeler. The entire length of Ince’s career is represented, from his early months at Imp to his independent work of the 1920s. Unlike in 1984, when all of the prints screened were in 16mm, this year all are in 35mm, and are either newly restored or not previously presented to Giornate audiences. Much important work has been done in recent years, especially among FIAF archives, preserving Ince’s legacy, and I believe the 1984 Giornate had some part to play in the reawakening of interest in the work of Ince and his many colleagues. I hope this year’s edition will do the same. – STEVEN HIGGINS

BIOGRAPHY
Thomas Harper Ince came to motion pictures after a solid, if unexceptional, career in the theatre.  He was born in the Washington Square neighborhood of Newport, Rhode Island, on 16 November 1880 (not 1882, as has so often been noted), the second of three sons. His parents, John “Buzzfuzz” Ince and Emma Brennan Ince, were well-regarded character actors and light comics, and for a time young Tom and his brothers lived the backstage existence of a trouper’s family, punctuated by vacations in the New England countryside during the off-season.
It is possible that Ince appeared onstage as early as 1889, but a small part in Charley’s Uncle in May of 1894 is the first professional role that may be credited to him with certainty. Soon thereafter, he took on the part of Young Nat Berry in James A. Herne’s Shore Acres, a landmark of American theatrical realism, touring the eastern United States and Canada for two seasons, with the famous playwright himself in the lead. Working so intimately with Herne – a writer and actor little remembered today, but who was a widely respected and beloved figure in his own lifetime – had a profound impact on Ince, both by his own written testimony, and by the testimony of his subsequent contributions to the development of a cinematic realism.
From this auspicious beginning Ince moved on to a busy schedule of vaudeville stock company tours, interrupted by an occasional New York or Boston production. He appeared for two seasons (1899-1901) in the touring company of David Belasco’s Zaza, worked briefly again with Herne in Reverend Griffith Davenport, and scored his most substantial success as the juvenile in William H. Thompson’s stock company. He married Elinor Kershaw, sister of musical star Willette Kershaw, in 1907, and, with the birth of their first son the need for a reliable income became acute. His abilities as a writer, stage manager, and performer led Ince to believe that his recent succession of light comic turns in vaudeville was a potential dead-end, and a certain squandering of his talents. He was ready for a change, and in the autumn of 1910 he turned to the movies.
Ince’s decision was not without precedent in his own family. His younger brother Ralph had been working as an actor for Vitagraph since 1906, and Elinor had appeared in at least four Biograph films, under the direction of D. W. Griffith and Frank Powell, during the winter of 1909-1910. Thomas Ince did work briefly as an actor at Biograph and for Carl Laemmle’s Imp Company, but he quickly saw that the only way to make a success of this new profession was to exercise control behind the camera. Thus, as soon as the opportunity arose, he became a director for Imp, taking charge of the Mary Pickford unit. Within a year he moved to Adam Kessel and Charles O. Baumann’s New York Motion Picture Company, assigned to revive its ailing Bison releases. He set up shop in the Santa Ynez Canyon of California, and by 1913 had made “Inceville” a thriving studio.
In 1914 alone, New York Motion Picture employed over 10 directors to turn out three two-reel films each week, as well as several feature-length releases – all under the strict personal control of Thomas H. Ince. He moved slowly but certainly into feature production, releasing one long film per month in addition to his regular schedule of two-reelers throughout 1915, until his studio was prepared to supply the newly-formed Triangle with a five-reeler each week. Although he was by no means the first to insist upon a highly structured approach to film production, one in which technical and creative personnel acted as parts of a well-oiled machine, Ince became the most visibly successful practitioner of “scientific management” in the early film industry. At the same time, Ince films retained their crisp, uncluttered visual style, as well as their lean narratives.
His steady, unbroken rise from actor to director to production manager to independent head of his own studio demonstrates clearly that, as Ince’s career progressed through the 1910s, he managed to consolidate his power with ever-increasing confidence, until by 1917 he could emerge from the debacle of Triangle unscathed and in complete control of a lucrative corporate entity – Thomas H. Ince Studios. If a filmmaker’s success can be measured by his or her ability to meet and sustain artistic goals within the constraints of an uncertain marketplace, then by any reasonable account Ince was a conspicuous success.
With success came reliance upon formula. The irony of Ince’s career is that, with the achievement of complete independence, his bold and innovative style showed signs of strain. He always prided himself on his ability to serve the public and its whims; thus, the late 1910s saw a succession of routine Ince pictures starring Charles Ray, Dorothy Dalton, and Enid Bennett. He assured himself of further revenue by maintaining control over William S. Hart’s releases, though in name only. Paramount/Artcraft, which distributed his productions, did little to prod Ince into more imaginative fare, for the ledger books showed clear profit on virtually every release. For the first time in his career, Ince allowed himself to be lulled into complacency, taking his audience and the bottom line for granted.
In the 1920s, as even the time-tested formulas failed him, Thomas Ince sought new solutions. Financial backing, though forthcoming, was harder to get, and the number of films bearing the Ince name dwindled: in 1922, only three films came from the Ince studio, and one of them – Lorna Doone – was a Maurice Tourneur production. Having left Paramount, and with the demise of Associated Producers (a short-lived attempt at self-distribution with such other filmmakers as Tourneur, Allan Dwan, King Vidor, and Mack Sennett), Ince used several independent outlets to market his films.
He took more chances in production, varying his featured players and seeking out more interesting dramatic properties for filming (e.g., Anna Christie and Human Wreckage). Studio operations were scaled down to more realistically reflect a less ambitious production schedule, and space was leased to independent producers during idle times. Finally, John Griffith Wray was appointed production manager of the studio, as Ince reorganized his staff and at last gave up the absolute control for which he had become notorious among his contemporaries (e.g., Buster Keaton’s The Playhouse). At his death, Thomas Ince was in the midst of filming The Last Frontier, a return to the epic Western themes of his 101 Bison films, and was rumored to be in negotiations with William Randolph Hearst for management of, or a merger with, Cosmopolitan Pictures.
When Thomas H. Ince died in November of 1924, after a party aboard Hearst’s yacht, a pall of innuendo was cast over his entire career. Rumors of foul play immediately began to circulate around what was to have been a birthday celebration for the 44-year-old producer, and questions about the “mysterious” nature of his death – which was tragically premature, but natural nonetheless – haunt his memory to this day. – STEVEN HIGGINS