The film “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1913) by E.Rodolfi, will be screened with the electroacoustic soundtrack in 5.1 surround sound by Edison Studio and the visual elaborations by VJ Lapsus (alias Andrea Pennisi). This movie is among the last of the great tableaux films. In this rendition of Bulwer’s classic novel, set in 79 A.D., the lives of a prominent statesman, a beautiful woman, a pagan priest, a spiteful witch, and a blind beggar are carefully interwoven and brought to a climax at the moment the sleeping volcano unleashes its fury. Edison Studio (Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, and Alessandro Cipriani) has composed a computer soundtrack on several layers: symbolic sonic backgrounds and foregrounds, dialogs in “improbable” languages, (un)naturalistic references.

This Edison Studio’s work has been selected for performance at ICMC2002 (Goteborg, Sweden). The plot – the Egyptian priest Arbaces falls in love with Jone, promised to Glaucus, and so as to have her for himself uses a magic brew to drive insane his rival who is then sentenced to die in the arena. The eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 A.D. destroyed Pompeii, allowing the two young lovers to meet and survive the disaster. “The Last Days of Pompeii” was the first Italian colossal, produced by Ambrosio Film in 1913 and directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi. The film is still today a masterpiece of black and white cinematography; great scenes with the masses, quotations from classical art, impressive final sequences (the circus and the volcano’s eruption) experimenting with in-depth filming techniques.