Review - Tartuffe

March 20, 2020

Tartuffe – Germany, 1925

Seldom do I question a director’s decision to make a movie. During the studio system, directors had very little choice in the matter, and I prefer to give directors who made films after its collapse the benefit of the doubt since what we see on the screen does not always match what a director envisioned or intended. However, while I was watching F.W. Murnau’s 1925 film Tartuffe, that question kept resurfacing.

The film is based on the play Tartuffe, first performed in 1664, 65 years after the first staging of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and written by 17^th century playwright, actor and poet Moliere. I mention Hamlet because even if you’ve never heard of Tartuffe, you’re likely familiar with Shakespeare’s drama, and therefore, very little that happens throughout the film’s 63-minute running time is likely to come as a surprise. True, the same can be said of other films adapted from novels, but the plots of these films are not so well known that even people who haven’t read them know their beginning, middle, and end.

To test this notion, let me explain the set-up of Murnau’s Tartuffe: A manipulative housekeeper (well-played by Rosa Valetti) has convinced her elderly employer (Hermann Picha) that his grandson (Andre Mattoni), an actor and supposed playboy, leads such a sinful life that he should be punished for his wickedness. Soon, we watch him write a legal note making her the sole heir to his fortune. The grandson gets wise to the plot, dons a clever disguise, and shows a film to both the schemer and the schemed. Any guess what the point of the film will be?

I should mention here that what I have just described is not in Moliere’s Tartuffe. His play focuses on the impact that a supposedly pious man named Tartuffe has on the family of a man named Orgon, and it has a number of fascinating twists and turns. Unfortunately, most of them have been removed in an attempt to produce a concise and uncomplicated cautionary tale. Gone is Orgon’s mother, who also falls under Tartuffe’s spell; also removed are Orgon’s children, an odd choice given that his daughter’s forced engagement to Tartuffe provides Orgon’s wife with a powerful motivation for wanting to expose him for the fraud he is. In Murnau’s version, there’s just Tartuffe, Orgon, his wife, Elmire, and Dorin, one of their housekeepers.

The result of this is that Tartuffe becomes a brief, overly simplified cautionary tale told not to detail the tragedy that can befall people who trust far too easily, but to send the message I know what you’re up to, a message that Murnau apparently doesn’t think has adequately been delivered, given how quickly the grandson reveals himself and announces his suspicions to his grandfather. This robs Moliere’s tale of much of its power, and while I’m not a fan of making changes to films when the director is no longer around to approve them, I could understand if someone decided to remove the film’s bookends and re-release it as a short.

The film was released a year after Murnau’s groundbreaking The Last Laugh. That was the film in which Murnau freed the camera from its stationary tripod, enabling him to use it in new, innovative ways, one of which was to put in on an elevator and film while it moved. As a result, the camera came alive. Murnau’s work here is equally impressive. Watch the way the camera follows Tartuffe as he leaves his room and descends the stairs, his eyes fixed on the Bible in front of them. It is hypnotic. In another scene, he focuses his lens on a picture of Orgon, as his wife struggles to accept the passive, dutiful subject that her husband has become. Suddenly, a tear falls on it, then another. We soon see the woman press her lips against the picture and weep. It is an incredible moment, and Murnau’s camera makes it immensely personal.

I’m not sure Emil Jannings ever gets Tartuffe, playing him more like a depraved Igor-figure rather than someone who could believably attract followers with his religious messages. Only when he reveals his true nature does Jannings begin to play him as a flesh-and-blood character. Werner Krauss fairs better as Orgon, as does Lil Dagover as Elmire, and I admire the way Murnau’s camera enables us to see the world through Tartuffe’s lecherous eyes. We see exactly what he is lusting for, and it made me a bit worried about Elmire’s safety.    

Still, I could never shake the awareness that none of what I was watching really mattered. It was a play performed by an actor, a story told to shake a character of her sense of invulnerability. Eventually Tartuffe would again become something that Tartuffe the play was never intended to be, and I dreaded that. Now I can’t help lamenting what could have been. Murnau was a master storyteller; he fashioned images so powerful that they have become a permanent part of our cinematic memories. Tartuffe has its fair share of such scenes, yet they are diminished by the narrative they are used to support. Tartuffe could easily have been a masterpiece. In its present form, however, it is just a minor beauty - watchable, yet entirely forgettable, an example of what happens when a director and screenwriter don’t trust their source material. It’s a pity, really. Just read Tartuffe. It didn’t need any changes. (on DVD; on Blu-ray in April 28, 2020)

2 and a half stars

*Tartuffe is a silent film.

Review - The Last Laugh

March 12, 2020

The Last Laugh – Germany, 1924

I am roughly halfway through Stephen Michael Shearer’s fascinating biography Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star, and one thing that keeps coming up is the legendary actress’s wardrobe. Swanson apparently believed that moviegoers expected their stars to look the part, and therefore, she spent lavishly on clothing, for both her films and private use. She was a star at a time when the general public, according to Mr. Shearer, was obsessed with wealth and how the wealthy lived. Reviews of Swanson’s films usually included descriptive, laudatory comments on her attire, which could change fourteen times in one film, and she was seen – by herself above all - as a fashion trendsetter. I have reviewed five of her films, and I have yet to comment on what she wears in any of my reviews; it just doesn’t register.

What exactly does Mrs. Swanson’s wardrobe have to do with F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, a film made in 1924 on the other side of the world? Well, knowing how important it was to dress as if you were a success may help you better empathize with the characters at the heart of Murnau’s tale. In the film, German superstar Emil Jannings, the recipient of the inaugural award for Best Actor in 1927, plays an aging doorman at a high-class hotel called The Atlantic, and he loves his uniform, so much so that he walks to and from work in it. He receives looks of admiration, and his neighbors have a habit of giving him the kind of send-off usually reserved for a military general or Hollywood celebrity. His wife adores him, in the evening, his daughter scans the entrance to their neighborhood for hints of his arrival, and the children in his neighborhood look at him with a mix of pride and envy. They all wish they could wear swanky apparel.

Early in the film, we watch him hold court on a rainy, blustery day at work. At one point, he has to carry a large suitcase into the hotel, and the task takes a physical toll of him. Heavily winded, he sits down in the lobby, has a glass of water, and attempts to get his breathing back under control. Soon however he pops back up and resumes his duties with real vim and vigor. Alas, it is too late for him to escape the judgmental eyes of the hotel manager, who sees the doorman’s temporary respite as a sign that is time to put him out to pasture. The next day he arrives at work to find that he’s been replaced.

It is here that The Last Laugh becomes divisive, veering off in a narrative direction that modern audience may not be able – or willing – to follow, and it all has to do with the doorman’s clothes. If it is true that the clothes make the man, then it can reasonably be said that clothes can emasculate a man, and this is what happens to the unfortunate doorman. However, his reaction is not the problem, for while Jannings overdoes it by making depression look too much like dementia, we get why he would struggle accepting the winds of change and his sudden lower stature – it’s the reactions of his friends and family that confound and infuriate. Suffice to say, they don’t take his demotion very well.

Yes, you read that right - demotion, not termination. You could understand a family’s sudden onset of anxieties as they ponder the reality of unemployment in a section of the world still reeling from the aftermath of World War I. You can understand neighbors seeing the downfall of one of their own as a worrying sign, especially as many of the one’s we see are the same age as the doorman. We can also empathize with a young daughter whose new life with her husband begins just as her ageing parents experience financial insecurity. What I don’t think we can understand is mocking someone who has lost his position in a company or of being so ashamed of a family member in such circumstances that they seek refuge in someone else’s home. In one scene, the doorman’s daughter’s head collapses onto her husband’s shoulder, while his wife looks at him with a look of shame and disdain. Why?

I suspect that audiences in the 1920’s didn’t ask this question. They understood the times and sentiments reflected in the film, and they likely sympathized with the doorman’s family. However, just as current sentiments make Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman hard for modern moviegoers to relate to, they also make the reaction to the doorman’s plight simply indefensible. As a result, the film becomes an unintended indictment on the pettiness of the lower class. They are presented as vile, opportunistic, and absolutely eager to kick a man when he is down. It isn’t enough to have a job and provide for your family; you have to have the position and clothes to match. Nothing else matters.

Yet it does. Millions of people have jobs that do not offer the same level of prestige as being a lawyer or doctor. Their jobs are a means of survival, not the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and there’s nothing wrong with having them. So, when the doorman looks lost and physically defeated, I wasn’t struck by the tragedy of the moment; instead, it seemed like a bit of an overreaction, of an unexpected jolt that he’d get over in time. And when his family reacted to him as if he’d suddenly come down with the plague or disgraced them irredeemably, my thought was how petty, not how awful for them. In fact, by the end of the film, the only character I truly admired was the hotel’s night watchman, for he’s the only one to show true sympathy to his down-and-out co-worker. And then there’s the film’s disastrous ending, a happy ending that dilutes the film of its power and which the film’s intertitles apologize for in advance. It’s as if Murnau is saying, “Sorry about this. The studio heads made me do it.”

The Last Laugh has a strong set-up, and it is always watchable. Also, like all of Murnau’s films, it is incredibly well directed. I particularly admired how Murnau films scenes from outside windows and how he lingers on the quietness of a neighborhood at the end of a long evening. I was also moved by his depiction of the doorman’s two neighborhoods – the bustling, well-lit, buoyant atmosphere of the hotel and the darker, less chiseled look of the apartment complex where he lives. In one scene, Murnau films the doorman as he notices his wife working hard in the mirror as he is shaving, and in another Murnau fixes the camera on the doorman’s removed jacket as if hangs in a closet, presumably never to be worn by him again. The man was truly a visionary. It isn’t his fault that the film may not resonate like it once did. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. It shows we’ve progressed. Sure, clothes still make the man, but not having the clothes is no longer an indignity. It’s just part of life. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 stars

*The Last Laugh is a silent film.

**Since writing this, I've learned of the importance of uniforms in Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War. This makes sense, and what happens in the film certainly bears this out. It doesn't, however, erase my dubiousness concerning the extreme reactions that the family and the neighbors have.

Review - The Last Command (1928)

January 31, 2020

The Last Command – U.S., 1928

The first Academy Awards in 1928 were pretty good to Josef Von Sternberg. His film Underworld won Ben Hecht the first statue for Original Story, a category that was discontinued in 1956. Interestingly, the only other film in contention was The Last Command, also directed by Von Sternberg. Emil Jannings took home the first Best Actor award for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of the Flesh, from which sadly only about three and a half minutes of footage survive. (1928 was the only year in which nominees could win for multiple films.) And to top all that off, The Last Command, according to John Harkness’s The Academy Award Handbook at least, was nominated for Best Picture, so all in all, a rather successful year.

Underworld is a film about a gangster and his relationship with his girlfriend, Feathers, which starts him on a downward spiral involving jealousy and distrust. In The Last Command, Von Sternberg turned his lens toward the Soviet Union and told a story of post-revolution tragedy. It is not a film that looks at Czarist Russia with regret or longing for what had been lost, nor does it present the revolutionaries as complete saints or innocent victims of state repression. Instead, it looks at these times with an objective view. There were decent people on all sides; there were unscrupulous people on all sides. For every army general we see partying as soldiers are sent off to their deaths, there’s a revolutionary whose only motivation for revolution seems to be to be able to physically abuse and verbally mock those who benefited during the Czar’s rule. In fact, the only person truly depicted as thoroughly imbecilic is the Czar himself.

The film begins in 1928 Hollywood, but most of it takes place in 1917 and the waning days of Russia’s involvement in the First World War. In 1928, we learn that a Russian director has come to Hollywood to shoot a film for which droves of extras will be needed. In a stack of head shots, he comes across one of an older gentleman who claims he used to be a Grand Duke in the Russian Army. He is of course chosen to be in the film, but the look on the director’s face is not one of mere satisfaction at having cast the part; there’s something else in his eyes – a look of recognition, perhaps? Later, the old man will add a medal to his costume, a gift, he explains to his mocking co-workers, from the Czar himself. The remark is met with derision, yet soon the film flashes back to 1917, and we see the veracity of his story and the events that led to his fall from grace.

The flashbacks can be said to comprise of two parts. In the first, the Grand Duke meets and decides to woo a woman named Natalie, who may be a revolutionary. The Grand Duke seems to be judging her with his libido, making the assessment that a woman who is that attractive couldn’t possibly be an enemy. In his defense, Natalie is suspect is being part of the Resistance, not a spy for whom seduction and murder would be a requirement of the job. Still, she doesn’t give the Grand Duke much in the way of encouragement, which renders the Grand Duke a little foolish. Exactly which signs is he misreading?

In the second part of the film, the resistance makes their move, and the Grand Duke’s fate is decided. He will leave that part of the film the broken man we see in the opening scenes of the film. These scenes are emotional, frighteningly violent, and extremely well filmed. Their closest equivalents are the climaxes of Eisenstein’s Strike and The Battleship Potempkin. Von Sternberg captures the madness of the moment, the crowds thirst for blood, and the army’s lack of concern for civilian casualties. Von Sternberg shows the Grand Duke being practically stripped of his honor and manhood, while simultaneously giving us views into the revenge-crazy eyes of the crowd shouting for the death of anyone they view as sending their countrymen into a war that is not theirs. Von Sternberg shows both sides committing what would today be viewed as war crimes. I was blown away by these scenes.

If I have a complaint about the film, it is its unsatisfying portrayal of Natalie. This is a character who begins the film vowing that the days are numbered for those who are “dragging Russia down.” Clearly, this includes the Grand Duke, but after a few dinners, gifts, and a heartfelt patriotic comment, she’s portrayed as suddenly losing her resolve. Why? I thought it was just a pick-up line, one a woman like Natalie would clearly have seen right through, yet there she is a few scenes later looking starry-eyed and melting into the Grand Duke’s big arms as he utters one of the corniest and most problematic lines I’ve heard in some time: “From now on, you are my prisoner-of-war…and my prisoner-of-love.”

The Last Command features a stunning performance by Emil Jannings. In fact, I can’t think of a movie that Jannings is not astonishing in. Here, he starts the film out physically and emotionally broken, and he fully embodies this, from his slow pace, and shaking head to the loss apparent in his eyes. And yet watch him as he takes out a medal he was given by the Czar. Jannings doesn’t smile or stand upright in pride; doing so would put him at odds with the audience. Instead, the way he does it reveals its significance to him: It is his way of signaling that despite the toll his experiences have had on him, he has not been broken, and he is not ashamed. Also stellar in the film is Evelyn Brent as Natalie. While there are problems with the arc of the character, those are not reflected in her confident, emotional performance. In a way, she has the harder role of the two leads. She has to go from embracing violence to expressing appreciation and even love for the man who she formerly viewed as her enemy. And then there’s her turn toward the end. Look at her eyes. They pierce your soul and send you on a roller coaster of emotions. That she wasn’t nominated for Best Actress is a travesty.

The Last Command remains an unforgettable film. It contains commentary on Hollywood that is both humorous and enormously telling. Parts of it are filmed in a way that fully convey the luxury afforded to the ruling class (The Grand Duke is the Czar’s cousin.), while others bring to mind the chaos of war and revolution and remind us that often what defines heroes and villains is simply the viewpoint of the victor. Is the ending a bit too conventional? Perhaps, but it may not have been in 1928. Even now, it has the power to bring a tear to even the most hardened of moviegoers, and that says something. The Last Command is truly one for the ages. (on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Criterion’s 3 Silent Classics By Josef Von Sternberg)

4 and a half stars

*The Last Command is a silent film.

Review - Variete

 August 29, 2019

Variete – Germany, 1925

I want to like E.A. Dupont’s Variete – I really do. I want to praise it for its masterful use of close-ups and for the way Dupont lets his camera linger of the faces of his actors, enabling views to see them either run a gambit of emotions or stick with one sentiment for such a long time that we understand exactly what the character is thinking. I want to extol the impressive camerawork during the film’s acrobatic scenes, scenes in which we get a combination of long shots, which stress the complexity and hazard of what the lead characters are attempting, and close ups, which, when compares to earlier scenes, provide more evidence of the changes that have taken place. I want to sing the praises of the cast, and their extraordinary ability to be in the moment and to project their character’s inner monologue. In other words, I want to be able to say ignore the disjointed plot and just embrace the spectacle, but something won’t let me.

There are, of course, movies that have been praised more for their atmosphere, photography, and cinematography than for their narrative cohesion, films such as Dark City, Donnie Darko, and L’age D’or, which were great to look at and narratively a bit of a head-scratcher. Some of these films have even wound up on end-of-year lists and nominated for awards. In fact, the description of the back of Kino Classics Blu-ray edition of Variete proclaims the film to be “a rediscovered masterpiece,” and I have no doubt that there are many who would agree with this classification. I’m just not one of them. Plot matters, and it is there that my conflict can be found.

Variete is about a carnival performer, referred to as the Boss (extraordinarily well played by Emil Jannings), who becomes entranced with a young dancer (Lya De Putti) whom fate just happens to place at his mercy. He is at first indifferent to her, but as the days goes by, he gradually becomes enthralled - peaking at her during her performances and, in one particular scene, mentally comparing her wondrously youthful  physical features to those of his far less-toned wife. (To be fair, she has recently had a baby.) The young lady, referred to as “The Strange Girl” in the opening credits, as well as “Berta-Marie,” which is the name of boat she sailed in on, is put off at first, but soon she develops a habit of stowing away in his trailer and stealing furtive glances, each of which reveal a more interested state. Soon the two are embracing, and the Boss is giving in to his baser, much more lustful instincts. This is the only context in which a scene in which he strikes her and she begs him not to be mad at her is remotely justifiable, and even then it is still deeply disturbing.

For the most part, the beginning is fascinating, and it sets up expectations of a raw, captivating film about the results of throwing caution to the wind and giving in to lust. Yet this impression actually doesn’t gel with the film’s opening scene, one that is set in a prison in an unspecific future and one that references the Boss’s’s extraordinarily devoted wife and child. In other words, this is not a story of sin, but redemption, for no film references a wife and child’s undying devotion so early on unless their loyalty is rewarded in the end.

What follows, though, is a recalibration of the relationship we thought had its genesis and bond in animal attraction. Soon, we see the Boss and Berta-Marie walking arm in arm, laughing, as if they were soul mates who had a much longer and more fulfilling courtship than they did. She is even referred to as his wife, which is odd considering what we learn in the film’s opening scene. The two are performing a trapeze act in a traveling carnival (Just how she became such an expert at it in such a short time is never explained.) when they are approached about joining the act of a much more established trapeze artist named Artinelli. Berta-Marie embraces the idea; the Boss has his reservations, though just what they are is never explained. Eventually, he acquiesces, making the pair a threesome, and these things rarely turn out well. Just ask the characters in Wings.

The film is replete with thrilling scenes of daring acrobatic feats, and it is quite bold in its depiction of a coupe as physically drawn to each other as they are. I was consistently impressed with both of the lead performances and completely enthralled by long shots of the Boss as he ruminates on his predicament. There are times when he is actively trying to quell his inner demons and prevent the carnage that their release would create. It’s only reasonable that they’ll eventually be unleashed, yet I must say that the where, when, and how were unexpected.  

So, what is my problem with the film? Well, for starters, the film embraces a sickening myth that romance can begin with an assault, as long as the man doing the assaulting is also an amazing kisser. Second, the film’s first twenty minutes are practically devoted to creating the impression that Berta-Marie is a temptress who possesses a hypnotic-like power and uses it to her advantage. However, that characterization is never fully bought into. For one, her dancing is the opposite of sexy, this despite the rather revealing attire she adorns. It doesn’t help that de Putti never seems at ease during these scenes, which is peculiar, since they’re much tamer than some of her scenes with the Jannings. In fact, other than a customer who climbs on stage while she’s performing, there’s no evidence that anyone other than the Boss is emotionally undone by her. Later, after she has absconded with her man, the references cease entirely.

Finally, the film’s bookends made the Boss out to be the real victim without providing any evidence that he is no longer the brutally violent man we saw several scenes earlier. Instead, we’re just reminded that somewhere is a wife that has endured infidelity, alienation, and years of hardship and loneliness just so that she can be reunited with the violent, two-timer that abandoned her and their infant son so many years earlier. I’m sure the notion of such a filial wife filled many audience members’ hearts with sympathy and admiration in 1925, yet I found it sad. The cad simply didn’t deserve it, and the film doesn’t really work because of that. One day, someone will give us a film about a seductress who remains a seductress throughout (even if she thinks it’s time to settle down and her power becomes a nuisance) and a ruffian who remains a ruffian to the very end; 1925 Germany just wasn’t such a time. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Classics)

3 stars

*Variete is a silent film.