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Director to curate four night season at Cornish festival with Brunel viaduct providing backdrop to outdoor screenings Even legendary Hollywood director Martin Scorsese has never had a set like this to play with – a giant screen by a river under the stars, with a backdrop of trains rumbling across a towering viaduct designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Scorsese, who is curating The Director’s Cut, a unique four-night film season at the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall this June, clearly agonised over an opening film that would live up to the grandeur of the setting in 4,000 acres of Humphry Repton -designed parkland. Trains and clouds of steam were obviously essential ingredients, and he considered both Shanghai Express (1932), with the luminous Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, or Hitchcock’s thriller The Lady Vanishes (1938). His final choice may surprise devotees of Raging Bull or Gangs of New York: his opener is Murder on the Orient Express (1974), the version directed by one of his heroes, Sidney Lumet, starring Albert Finney as Agatha Christie’s cranky Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, which he regards as a classic. He has paired it with Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), which ends with one of the deathless cinema metaphors when Cary Grant, having battled the baddies on the face of Mount Rushmore, pulls his new wife to him on a train, and the scene cuts to the train itself speeding into a tunnel. It was a considerable coup for one of the summer’s most eclectic festivals to persuade Scorsese to take a break from editing his first 3D film, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, filmed at Shepperton and starring Jude Law and Sir Ben Kingsley, to programme four themed double bills. Port Eliot, at St Germans, began as a small books event in 2003 and now includes music, food, fashion, art, a flower show and comedy. This year will also include John Cooper Clarke presenting a masterclass on writing limericks. All Scorsese’s film choices are vintage. He is a passionate film historian and has worked with the British Film Institute (BFI) to secure the prints for his season. Heather Stewart, creative director of the BFI, said his season matches its mission of getting archive film out to new and broad audiences. She said: “The interaction of these forms and the mix in such an inspiring setting will be a great experience for the festivalgoers and artists alike.” On successive nights Scorsese has chosen films which appear on many lists of the greatest of all time, including Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), matched with Jean Renoir’s The River (1951) for his literary adaptations night. Michael Powell’s ravishing ballet movie, The Red Shoes (1948), starring the glorious Moira Shearer, which is apparently his favourite film, is matched with All About Eve (1950) for his musical theme. He has not chosen any of his own films, but that gap will be filled by discussions of his work chaired by the film writer Tom Shone. “Getting Scorsese to do something for this tiny corner of Cornwall is truly fantastic,” Cathy St Germans, co-founder of the festival, said. “We did it the way we got Sarah Waters to come here and many others – we wrote him a nice proper letter, and he said yes.” Scorsese has yet to visit the beautiful estate and the house which claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited in the country, the home for centuries of the St Germans family, but will be pleased to discover he can come by train. When a 19th century earl allowed the railway to cross his lands, the payback was one of the prettiest railway stations in the country, right at his gate, and unlike many quaint vintage stations, still in daily use. “He hasn’t said he’s not coming, so we very much hope he will – if he does we know he will just fall in love with the place as everyone does.” The contact with Scorsese came through his long-term colleague, the British costume designer Sandy Powell, who was nominated for an Oscar for her astounding costumes for Gangs of New York, and won one for The Aviator. She came first to the festival as a visitor, and returned last year as a performer, presenting a show-and-tell session which included her Oscar statuette – at the special request of Lord St Germans. The festival organisers are working hard to create an environment which lives up to Scorsese’s vision: the Paradiso will have a cocktail bar in an Airstream campervan, some seats in cardboard Cadillacs designed by the Ballet Rambert designer Michael Howells, and will also be serving hot chocolate and providing blankets and umbrellas just in case. “The idea of a cinema by the river came last year when I was lying on the grass one night at last year’s festival. It felt like the first time I’d lain down in days – and I thought what I’d really like now is to watch a lovely movie, right here, without having to move,” Cathy St Germans said. The Director’s Cut: Michael Scorsese’s Open Air Film Festival Trains Murder on the Orient Express/North by Northwest Books The Leopard/The River Noir The Narrow Margin/Human Desire Musicals The Red Shoes/All About Eve Martin Scorsese Film industry Sidney Lumet Festivals Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk