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Ermanno Olmi (1931-2018) is not often discussed on the same
plane as Orson Welles or Andrei Tarkovsky. Yet they have certain similarities
in their body of film output. Olmi made
20 feature films and bagged over 50 international awards. His best work The
Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) is as awesome as Welles’ masterpiece Citizen
Kane (1941). Olmi’s film was based on his own original script, which he
directed, cinematographed, edited and for which he personally picked an array
of non-professional actors. For Citizen Kane, Welles had co-written an
original script with Herman Mankiewicz, directed, produced, acted in the main
role, and chosen his own cast of professional actors (most of them making their
film debuts) and crew. Olmi’s film won
the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival for the best feature film; Welles
won a solitary Oscar for the co-written original screenplay. Olmi and Tarkovsky
have common streaks, too; both are evidently theistic, Olmi a fervent Roman
Catholic, Tarkovsky a resolute adherent of the Russian Orthodox Church. Both
Olmi and Tarkovsky chose their music for their works with considerable
deliberation, a fact missed out by many of their respective fans.
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| The scruffy vagrant Andreas (Rutger Hauer), living under a bridge |
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| A stranger and benefactor (Anthony Quale) offers Andreas a "loan" |
Olmi’s 12th feature film The Legend of the
Holy Drinker,made 10 years after The Tree of Wooden Clogs, won the
Golden Lion award for the best feature film and another minor award at the
Venice film festival. In this film, Olmi
made a couple of departures from his usual trademark style—he chose to mix
professional actors (Dutch actor Rutger Hauer of Blade Runner fame, British
actor Anthony Quayle of Anne of the Thousand Days fame, Dominique Pinon
of Delicatessen fame) with non-professional actors (the enigmatic Sophie
Segalen who plays the Polish woman Karoline, and Jean-Maurice Chanet, who plays
the Polish boxer) who never returned to the world of film. Olmi made another significant
departure in this film: he chose to adapt a novel written by Austrian writer Joseph
Roth, instead of writing his own original script as in most of his other films.
Olmi co-wrote the adapted script based on Roth’s book with Tullio Kezich (who
had earlier played the role of the psychologist in Olmi’s earlier film Il
Posto).
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| Andreas can look somewhat distinguished when he can afford a shave (and has a roving eye for women) |
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| Sophie Segalen, who plays Karoline, a nonprofessional actress picked by Olmi, who never returned to the world of film |
The tale is deceptively simple. Andreas is an alcoholic, unemployed tramp
with a Polish passport, living homeless under bridges along the river Seine in
a rainy Paris. His passport bears a stamp stating that he has been expelled
from France. For a vagrant, he is unusual. He wears a necktie and believes in
looking respectable when he can afford a shave. His looks and demeanor indicate
that he is a “gentleman” tramp, which is possibly why men and women trust him
and are only eager to help him. He is
reluctant to accept money (a sum of 200 French Francs) from a stranger as a
gift but agrees to take it when the generous stranger states that he could
consider it as a loan. Andreas is resolute in his intent to repay the loan,
when possible, not to the stranger but to the vicar of the church of St Therese
of Lisieux in Paris, who the stranger had indicated will know what to do with
the returned sum.
Andreas is not overtly religious—merely a gentleman tramp,
with a roving eye, but always ready to help a friend in need. As the film progresses, we learn that in
school, Andreas would let his classmates, who were not as bright as he was, copy
his answers in the examinations. The
film, if you examine it closely, is less about religion and more about being morally
upright and being good to those less fortunate. The film propounds magic
realism to underscore to the viewer that good deeds will eventually lead to
amazing blessings from unexpected sources.
The film suggests in a fabulous magical sequence of epiphany involving a
poor elderly couple who magically transform to Andreas’ recollection of his parents—a sublime
sequence indicating that Andreas is indebted to his parents for inculcating
fine traits in him that have held him in good stead. It is a sequence that has
so many similarities with Tarkovsky’s Mirror where magic realism is
employed to recall the role of parents and in his later work Stalker where
a girl observes a glass on a table moving on its own accord, aided by external
reverberations.
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| Repaying the loan of 200 French francs, finally as agreed |
Olmi and Kezich crafted the script of The Legend of the
Holy Drinker where the spoken words are minimal. The tale is communicated
with visuals (read cinematography of Dante Spinotti), editing, and musical
score (the last of which is lost on most viewers because the other two elements
dominate). While other directors and
scriptwriters would have wasted spoken lines on the inconsequential sexual
encounters of Andreas, Olmi and Kezich reduce them in one sequence to mere furtive
glances and the closing of curtains, without a word spoken. When words are spoken in The Legend of the
Holy Drinker it is to indicate the
integrity of the tramp: when a stranger
offers him a drink at a bar and a job, his acceptance is sealed with another
round of drinks that the gentleman tramp insists on paying for with the meager
possession of coins with him. That the tramp was not religious is indirectly
inferred by a cryptic statement he makes to an old friend from Poland “These
last few days I have started believing in miracles.” He should. He buys a
wallet, and finds money in it. Then a
policeman returns him his wallet, with more money in it. Andreas believes in
returning his “loaned” money several times in the film, but is distracted near
the church each time by extraneous interventions. He wishes to return the loan, but the goodness
and grace that embody every little action of his seem to prevent his fervent
desire to repay the loan. One can assume the connection between gracious
actions and unexpected rewards are from Roth’s book.
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| The reaction of Andreas on meeting "Therese" at the restaurant near the Church where he has to repay the loan |
Olmi’s distinct contributions are the visual complements of the cinematic craft at key points in the film:
the smiling “Therese” in her third appearance in the film approving the
repayment of his loan shown through a door slightly ajar edited into the film—a
private communication between the two, another epiphany.
Olmi chose three pieces of music written by Stravinsky—not
his famous Rites of Spring. The three pieces are Divertimento,
Symphony in C, and Sinfonia di Salvi per Coro—Salmo 40 or Psalm
40. The last of the three Stravinsky pieces is very significant. Psalm 40 in
the Bible is King David’s song of praise “I waited patiently for the
Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the
mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand….”
Tarkovsky’s choice of music in Solaris—Bach’s
Prelude and Fugue in F minor and The Little Organ Book: Ich ruf zu
Dir, Herr Jesu Christ—are conscious decisions, too, to complement the visuals in
specific sequences. That the film The Legend of the Holy Drinker won the
Golden Lion at Venice from a jury headed by Sergio Leone whose films used music
so eloquently is possibly a nod to Olmi’s musical selection in the film that
Leone could perceive.
Olmi’s films always deal with deprived sections of society. More so Olmi’s protagonists (e.g., Il Posto,
The Tree of Wooden Clogs) are far removed from the reflecting,
philosophizing intellectuals we encounter in Tarkovsky’s films—here they are
honest, hardworking, principled individuals, often losing out to the
machinations of the rich or unprincipled folks, akin to scenarios that we
encounter in the films of Ken Loach and his scriptwriter Paul Laverty.
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| A painting? Cinematography of Dante Spinotti, capturing light and shadows |
Olmi chose to work with Italian cinematographer Dante
Spinotti for the first time in The Legend of the Holy Drinker and later
in yet another film The Secret of the Old Woods (1993). Spinotti had a
similar effect on Hollywood director Michael Mann, who was so impressed with
his work on Manhunter that their collaboration extended to other more
impressive films: Heat, The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, and Public
Enemies.
Few cineastes might be aware that The Legend of the Holy
Drinker won several national awards in Italy for direction, cinematography and
editing while competing with Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso. The Olmi film is
a gem that can be appreciated beyond Joseph Roth’s tale. It is a rare example where tools of filmmaking—direction, appropriate casting, music, cinematography and editing--prove their subtle prowess.
P.S. The Legend of the Holy Drinker is
one of the author’s top 100 films. It won the best Golden Lion award for the
best film and the OCIC award at the 1988 Venice Film Festival. Actor Rutger
Hauer won the Best Actor award for this film at the Seattle International Film
Festival. Several films mentioned in the above review, the Olmi film The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) and Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972)
and Mirror (1975) have been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click
on the name of the film in this post-script for a quick access to those reviews
on this blog.)
