Dark Souls
About Dark Souls
Emilio Ghione wrote and directed this fourth Za la Mort film and plays the apache, just out of prison in Paris, with Za la Vie and Casque d'Or both after him. Casque d'Or kills Za la Vie in a fight. Years later in America she performs as the diva Hesperia, and he is the banker Gil Negro, whose wealth the Museo Nazionale del Cinema attributes to forgeries rather than to the bank. They meet again at a Tabarin. He is arrested, she joins a circus, a fire starts in the tent, and he gets her out. They leave to live as farmers.
Cast & crew
More about Dark Souls
Italian title Anime buie. Also called Triptico de dos almas. Tiber Film, Rome, produced it. Ghione is the writer and director on the CineMaterial credit. Kally Sambucini plays Za la Vie. Hesperia plays Casque d'Or. Amilcare Taglienti is billed, with no role attached. Released in 1916. CineMaterial and the museum copy both put the running time at 55 minutes. The Museo Nazionale del Cinema print is 35mm, 1,142 metres, 55 minutes at 18 frames per second, black and white, with Spanish intertitles.
Themes
Making
Ghione plays the apache he had been using since 1914, and he stages the story as his own writer-director vehicle opposite Sambucini and Hesperia.
Preservation
The Museo Nazionale del Cinema holds a 35mm acetate print, 1,142 metres, with Spanish intertitles. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- A 2015 account of a viewing adds a two-year sentence, a switchblade Casque d'Or draws from a garter, a confession the police set aside, and a drug in prison that makes him appear dead. The museum text says he escapes and reaches the fire.
- The museum synopsis has them meet at a Tabarin, a Paris-style night hall, after she is already the stage name Hesperia.
- Ghione's character uses the name Gil Negro in America.
- Taglienti is on the cast list and is not given a part.
Scenes
- Casque d'Or kills Za la Vie in the fight.
- Gil Negro recognizes her at the Tabarin, where she is billed as Hesperia.
- He pulls her out of the burning circus tent.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Anime buie (1916).webm)
