Le bolle di sapone - 1911
ABOUT THE FILM : Le bolle di sapone
Cineteca del FriuliSoap Bubbles
Year: 1911
While making fun of the frailty of an old lady in the street, a little devil is immediately taken home by the offended policeman who catches him carrying out his nasty prank. Arriving at the child’s home, the keeper of order vehemently lists the facts. However the scallywag doesn’t bow to authority and stands up to the policeman, even mocking his mother who he leaves in despair. But soap bubbles with a strange divinatory power help him to make amends. A film from the catalogues of the company founded by Arturo Ambrosio in Turin in 1904.
Nationality: Italian
Actors: Ernesto Vaser, Maria Bay
Length: 5' 33"
Genre: fiction,trick film
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: tinted
Producer: S.A. Ambrosio
Composer: Rémi Boubal
Original language: English
A BRIEF HISTORY : Le bolle di sapone
Arturo Ambrosio (1869–1960), considered to be the father of the Italian film industry, set up in Turin one of the first three production studios of the peninsula in 1904. It was with backer Alfredo Gandolfi and cameraman Roberto Omegna (1876–1948) that this former optician, a camera wholesaler, created the company that would become the biggest representative of silent Italian film from 1910 onwards. To start with documentaries made up the bulk of the catalogue but from 1910 the Ambrosia Film Company started producing stage adaptations and epic works like Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1908) and fiction films.
Ambrosio chose comedy to rival one of the other two biggest companies, Itala Film that had hired famous French comedian André Deed (1879-1931) to play Tontolini, a hero of Turin burlesque. Ambrosio thus hired Spanish comedian Marcel Fabre (1885-1927) to don the costume of Robinet (Tweedledum) who became a comic reference. In Le bolle di sapone you can also spot Ernesto Vaser (1876–1934) appearing as the policeman. A performer from the outset, this Piedmontese comedian was behind Fricot, another successful comic character launched by the company.
In the New York weekly The Moving Picture World of the 21st May 1911, Le bolle di sapone is hailed as a work of art for its universal character. Giovanni Vitrotti (1874-1966), one of Ambrosio’s main contributors, worked on the image. He was the photographer of Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei and Teodora (1919) among others.
After producing approximately 14,000 films Ambrosio retired from cinema in 1943.
The original music for this film was composed by Rémi Boubal in 2010 in the context of the call for proposals launched in partnership with the Sacem (Société des auteurs compositeurs et éditeurs de musique – Society of authors, composers and music editors).
