STONE WEDDING (1973) – drama film online

Directed by: Dan Pița, Mircea Veroiu
Script: Ion Agîrbiceanu, Dan Pița, Mircea Veroiu
Cast: Leopoldina Bălănuță, Eliza Petrăchescu, Nina Doniga, Adrian Georgescu, Mircea Diaconu, Radu Boruzescu, Petrică Gheorghiu, Ursula Nussbacher, George Calboreanu Jr.
Producer: Dumitru Solomon, Roxana Pană (executive producer)
Cinematography by: Iosif Demian
Edited by: Dan Naum
Sound: Gheorghe Marai, Cornel Pop
Music: Dan Andrei Aldea, Dorin Liviu Zaharia
Year: 1973
Category: Feature film
Genre: Drama
Duration: 80 minutes

15,099 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

The title brings together two medium-length films inspired by short stories by Ion Agârbiceanu, set in the gold-bearing area of the Mountains at the beginning of the 20th century. “Fefeleaga”, directed by Mircea Veroiu, centers on a poor widow who struggles in the stone quarry to support her sick daughter. In “At a wedding”, by Dan Pița, an army deserter tries to escape his pursuers by joining a musician hired to play at a wedding.

AWARDS:

• 1972 – ACIN – “Opera Prima” Award
• 1972 – ACIN – Award for Best Actress (Leopoldina Bălănuță)
• 1972 – Cannes – “Diploma of Honor”
• 1974 – Film Festival for Cinema Art, Ciudad de Panama – Oscar ex aequo for “Best Picture” (Iosif Demian)
• 1974 – Ciudad de Panama Art Film Festival – “Best Supporting Actress” (Leopoldina Bălănuță)

TRIVIA:

• “The medium-length film “Fefeleaga” surprises by its sobriety, by its essentialization. Although it contains elements of surrealism, Mircea Veroiu proposes here a symbolic, poetic realism with mythical dimensions and biblical suggestions.A sober, expressive film, demonstrating the capacity of essentialization and openness to universality with respect for local color. The woman, daily going up and down the steep and rocky mountain, seemingly making together with the little wolf a single being of suffering, walks a tragic existential path, a path of Calvary, of Golgotha. She seems like an ancient tragedian, silently following her implacable destiny, a supplicant, a feminine Sisyphus condemned to daily torment, to continual torment, a Joan of Arc. The philosophical and religious meaning of this movie is that, by assuming his guilt, by confession, man atones and redeems himself, the sacrifice here being his own daughter. With an exemplary local color (our peasant, traditional universe), the film generously opens itself to universality through its expression and its aesthetic value. No wonder both medium-length films were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the purity of its cinematographic language, this film reminds us of Luchino Visconti and Louis Malle.After this brilliant debut, his most valuable film, Mircea Veroiu’s filmography progressively saw a break between the “substance of the film” and the “form of the film”. The exaggerated concern for form impoverishes the substance of his films.” – Mircea Dumitrescu
• “In terms of style, “At a Wedding”, together with Mircea Veroiu’s medium-length film, “Fefeleaga”, constitute a slightly contrasting unit. While the human universe is identical, that of a traditional rurality, Dan Pița brings the action more to our times and expresses the tragedy with humor and irony. The pretext of the movie is a wedding, and the mystery of the wedding is treated in a grotesque tone, through the incompatibility of the bride and groom – Florina Dobos, romanialibera.ro
• “One could not have conceived anything more cinematic than the sordid journey of the woman on horsebackbetween home and mine, between the porch and the cemetery, between the torment of life and the heartbreak of death. Nor could one imagine anything more cinematic than the spectacle of the wedding, the association of the violinist with the dowager, the bride’s flight from the old and unwanted groom. Nor could one imagine anything more plastic and more tempting imagistically than the views of the Apuseni Mountains, the pub and the bumpy streets of Rosia Montana.” – Romulus Rusan, “Filmar”
• “It is first and foremost an image movie. Sober to the point of austerity, conceived in black and white, gray – all shades of white, black and gray – Iosif Demian’s image is a plea for a ‘cinema of the eye’. The hieratic language of the filmic discourse (in “Fefeleaga”) and the deep and serious frenzy (in “At a Wedding”) give stylistic unity to this first work and at the same time announce two complementary creative sensibilities.” – Marian Rădulescu, agenda.liternet.ro
• “Fefeleaga, statuesque, frozen, like a monument of grief, is accompanied by characters-presimories, characters-signs (also they), embodied by Eliza Petrăchescu, Nina Doniga, Adrian Georgescu.” – Călin Căliman, istoriafilmuluiromanesc.ro
• “Both stories focus on the price one has to pay for breaking the rules and maintaining a form of individuality in a conformist society. Very rarely has such an essential theme been treated with such sensitivity and discretion.” – Derek Elly, “Films and Filming”
• The points in common between the two fragments (spaces, characters, atmosphere) invite fantasy: the fantasy of the existence of other chapters realized in the same spirit, which could have formed a kind of “Decalogue” like the one realized by Krzysztof Kieslowski: let’s say, ten stories from a Transylvanian village. There are attempts at serialization in socialist cinema, the best known being the “comic strips”, the films with outlaws and so on, but it is rare for a production of high cinematographic value to be serialized before 1989 in our country, an aspect that would be worth investigating. – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro
• Almost as a joke aimed at today’s artists who fear that AI will replace them, the moment after the first dance, a man comes through the gate and brings with him a gramophone which he places on stage under everyone’s curious and skeptical eyes; he cranks the crank a little and lets the music play. At which point all the mesenes gather around the device to worship him. The joke being that this allows Radu Boruzescu’s character to get closer to the bride who was making eyes at him. Win some, lose some. – Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• “Stone Wedding” is the successor to the short films made by Dan Pița and Mircea Veroiu in their student days, as well as to the documentary “Water like a black buffalo“, which became famous due to the catastrophic floods of 1970.
• The redoubtable Dumitru Popescu left the theater during the screening, and all the other censors assumed that he didn’t like the movie, even though “God” had left to make a phone call, having been previously wanted by “Cabinet One”. For a year, the movie sat in the drawer. “We had planned to make a single, three-hour movie, only that at some point during the screening, Dumitru Popescu – ‘God’ got up and walked out of the theater. No one had the courage to ask him why. After that, everyone jumped on us: “Cut!”, but no one wanted to take responsibility for what was to be cut. And so almost a year went by, during which time we were cornered: either why Dumitru Popescu had left, or that the movie was no good. Just confusion and fear. Fear of the chair, as they used to say at the time, alluding to the “cadre rotation” that the Party practiced. In the end Popescu, who had nothing against the movie, asked why it wasn’t shown. Later I found out from a projectionist, Nichita, that “God” had left the theater without saying anything to his collaborators, because he was in a hurry to make a phone call. He had been wanted from ‘Cabinet One’ and someone had come into the room to tell him that.” (Dan Pița)
• The film premiered on January 29, 1973, at the Capitol Cinema. “The premiere was long and incomprehensibly postponed. After only a week, again incomprehensible, the film by the directors Pița and Veroiu was programmed in a peripheral theater, with performances only in the afternoon.” (Constantin Stoiciu in “Scânteia Tineretului”)
• Mircea Veroiu said about the cinematographic process in the magazine “Cinema” no. 9/ 1971: “We fell in love with some of the characters from the very beginning. Dan Pița fell in love with the bride, her father, the drummer. I fell in love with the innkeeper and I haven’t yet managed to hold on to Clemente. Based on these relationships and feelings, I developed the characters, gave them weight.”
• The film was acquired by the New York Museum of Art in 1974.

LINES:

“The gentleman said to come for the money. He.” – Maria Fefeleaga.
“I’d like a dress, a veil and a bridal crown.” – Maria Fefeleaga.
“To the wedding? Wait, I’m going! I was a drummer in the army. I’m coming to play the drums!” – The Deserter (Mircea Diaconu)
“No money today. Go outside and play.” – The whore (Eliza Petrăchescu)
“Come on. Why don’t you want to play?” – Groom (George Calboreanu)
“The bride is looking at you.” – The deserter (Mircea Diaconu)
“You mind your own business.” – The Groom (George Calboreanu)

ARTICLES:

• “Behind the Scenes. The movie “The Stone Wedding” banned because of a banal phone call from “God” – adevarul.ro
• “Stone Wedding”, a movie that writes history – romanialibera.ro
• The Poetry of a Tragic World – “The Stone Wedding” – agenda.liternet.ro
• The Stone Wedding” – agenda.liternet.co.uk
• The movie ‘The Stone Wedding’ – agenda.liternet.co.uk
• The Wedding of the Stone and the Golden Spirit – historyofromanicfilm.co.uk

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