Today’s post is directly connected with Thursday’s since it features two clips from films with Lyda Borelli.
The first clip is taken from Carmine Gallone’s La falena (literally, The moth, 1916, a title that also calls to mind yesterday's butterfly theme), inspired by Henri Bataille’s play La phalene (1913); the second is an extract from Gallone’s Malombra, an adaptation of Antonio Fogazzaro’s 1881 eponymous novel.
In La falena Borelli starred as Thea, a sculptress diagnosed with phthisis right before her marriage with Filippo. Abandoning him, she decides to live dissolutely until her death. Yet, as her health rapidly declines, she organises a last party, inviting also Filippo. The man doesn't turn up, though, since he got married with another woman. In a last theatrical and desperate act, Thea shows herself naked to her guests, so that they will remember the perfection of her body after her death, then she commits suicide.
In Malombra, Borelli starred next to handsome Amleto Novelli. The film told the story of Marina di Malombra obliged to live in a castle on the Lake Como until the day of her wedding. After reading letters written by an ancestor called Cecilia, she discovers the latter was driven to death by her uncle. Identifying with Cecilia, Marina decides to revenge her, murdering her uncle and also her suitor (a sort of typical femme fatale/diva behaviour...), before throwing herself from a mountain.
Though the two clips are very short they provide some good examples of early diva behaviour in action and could maybe help understanding better the grand gestures and movements the "borellismo" trend implied.
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