User Reviews

Some days before, this German Count mentioned that melodrama was one of the most important and highly reputed characteristics in Italian film productions of the silent early years. "Cenere", directed and co-starred by Herr Febo Mari ) is an important display of that celebrated Italian genre but, fortunately only in a superficial way.

The most important aspect of "Cenere" is that it was the only film in which appeared the eminent Italian stage actress Dame Eleonora Duse. She plays a poor woman who, incapable of raising and feed him, leaves her illegitimate son with foster parents. Before she leaves her boy, the woman gives to the child an amulet in order to protect him. The amulet will be the key to put him in connection with his old mother when the boy grows up.

With such a tearful story, "Cenere" might have been another one of those many and simplistic melodramas of those early days. However, thanks to the restrained and excellent Eleonora Duse's performance (although the actress was disappointed with quality of this film) the movie is both emotive and realistic. Herr Febo Mari's direction is notable for two remarkable aspects, being "Cenere" is a kind of (if German may be permitted) "Kammerspiele in Italian style" (most part of the film passes, among mother and son only, in her humble home). Despite its primitive direction, it pays special attention to the Sardinia landscapes and the hard labours of the workmen while involving them into the story. For these reasons, "Cenere" it is for this German Count, a special and soulful Italian melodrama.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count wants to pay a visit to his octogenarian Teutonic mother to who has not seen during the last century.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

Two female giants in acting on the stage dominated the international theatre in the late 1800's and early 1900's: Italy's Eleonora Duse and France's Sarah Bernhardt. Despite retiring from acting in 1909, Duse saw the potential of beginning a movie acting career. Italian film producer Arturo Ambrosio approached the famed actress to see if she would be interested in the film adaption of the 1904 Grazia Deledda book "Cenere," which means "Ashes." Duse was intrigued by the idea, especially the role of the mother in Deledda's novel. "I have been persuaded to create the character of Rosalia Derios, because it seemed to me that in the sorrowful figure of the mother, all sacrifice for her son, a figure moving in an austere and solemn landscape, would assume the total and clear plastic and spiritual significance that the silent theater must force itself to realize."

The Deledda novel was about an unmarried woman who gave up her illegitimate son, giving him an amulet for remembrance. The son becomes successful in life, and tries to locate his mother. The film shows the results of his search-and her reaction towards meeting him.

Duse had a hand in writing the screenplay alongside director Febo Mari. When she saw the end results after four months of filming and the released 38-minute movie, she was disappointed at not only how the picture turned out but also her performance. "Something quite different is needed," she said of her acting manner. "I am too old for it. Isn't it a pity?" Indeed, she became quite embarrassed by her appearance on the big screen, saying to a close friend not to see "that stupid thing, because you'll find nothing, or almost nothing, of me in that film."

Movie critics disagreed with Duse assessment. Her subtle emotional movements were heralded as quite a contrast to the overdramatic physicality of many early movie actors. The scene where she meets her adult son for the first time conveys an understated but seemingly deep emotional feeling underneath the old woman's skin. D. W. Griffith was so impressed by her performance in "Cenere" he asked in several letter to have her appear in one of his films. But she denied every one of his requests. Duse would never appear in another movie again, making "Cenera" her only tangible performance intact for the ages.

Duse, while touring the United States in July 1923, contracted pneumonia and died at the Hotel Schenley, now the William Pitt Union building at the University of Pittsburgh. A plaque in its lobby details the life and death of the 65-year-old Italian actress, who was the first female to appear on the cover of Time Magazine, the edition published on the week her final curtain drew to a close forever.

Oh, that's a really really really precious document. The Duse in film. Nearly a miracle that it is possible today to catch a glimpse of this actress at all. It is true that in this document there are nearly no close ups at all - on the other hand exactly this is what makes this movie so exciting: The body is seen as a whole, and it seems that body and spirit in this former times were not yet so separated than it is unfortunately so common in our present times. Our modern civilization is fed up with close-ups, no imagination seems to have been left to us. The "distant" quality of Duse in this film gives her performance almost the quality of a vision. The friend which whom I saw this film for the first time pointed out that the effect created by the Italian actress is a very "aetherical" one. And at the same every movement, every gesture of her performance possesses weight: Duse seems to have been heavy and light at the same time - fascinating. What I found especially notable concerning Duse in this film is the fact that one should not believe that Duse is Italian by heritage: She looks rather Scandinavian - indeed, she could be a Norwegian. One of Duses greatest roles on stage was the Ellida in Ibsens "Woman of the Sea" - I understand perfectly why she had such a strong affinity especially to the work of Ibsen for she herself could have been stem from the same country... - One scene remains particularly unforgettable in my mind: The Duse on her knees, kneeing before her (film-) son: One feels an archaic power in this sad face, a loudness in her silence - unspoken dimensions are revealed - rarely if ever was a silent movie so loud. Than she gazes at her son - and what eyes, DIO MIO. Finally, the sad atmosphere of the scene is broken up: Suddenly a smile appears on Duses face, and the effect is so heart rendering that it makes you shiver. "Duse is the art itself", Gerhart Hauptmann one time wrote. Brava. "Cenere" is an important document, and I don't understand why this film is so unknown out of Italy. Once the most famous actress of her time - today nearly forgotten. But art has its own rights, and great art which have been forgotten, I'm sure, - it only sleeps...