23rd Psalm Branch: Parts I & II (1967 & 1978)

Experimental cinema is a niche not many of us venture into. Some more or less narrative films have been experimental in their handling of story sequence or the audacity of their imagery. We have numerous examples of this type of experimental film, but the genre as it has been parodied by and large finds its roots in filmmakers like Maya Deren and of course Stan Brakhage. His 23^rd Psalm Branch is, as cinema, anti-cinematic, and as experimental work, a perfect example. Perhaps my difficulty in trying to understand 23^rd Psalm Branch comes from my tradition with narrative films. I was looking for a story, and in fact was trying to create one in the images I saw, but this film works against convention, and this is refreshing and paradoxically makes the film difficult.

The film is in two parts, made at different times (1967 and 1978), and is completely silent. The director’s approach to his craft, wildly original and chemically and physically complicated, was partly created by distorting the actual film stock he used, in this case 8mm, by scratching, burning, or painting on it, creating visuals without photographic light. This is a style that, for many, will have its limits, and indeed I find it to be self-indulgent and defiantly confusing, but in the case of 23^rd Psalm Branch, Brakhage takes old war footage and fuses it with his technique. The first part is an artistic rendering of WWII, and psychological terrain that leads to the horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. In some cases it seemed I was looking in on the membrane of society; some shots look like microscopic footage of blood flowing through veins, some looked like the surface of the brain, and the ever flickering, ever changing kaleidoscopic vision was a perfect manifestation of a world using destruction to solve its problems. The second part tires in Brakhage’s mind to recreate Vienna, Austria, the birth country of Adolf Hitler, but I found this shorted part of the film more erratic and less representative of any motivation. It seemed to me, in both parts, Brakhage might have been comparing the horror and violence of war outside the United States to the relative tranquility that, up until September 2001, defined American civilian living. Both parts have moments of peace, of quiet, and seem to represent the American dream, but we are given allusions to the Nazis, their great architecture, the philosopher Nietzsche, who Hitler admired. The films, apparently part of a 31 piece project spanning several years, were made during and after the Vietnam War, and I think Brakhage is arguing for humility and common sense over the nature of war, and warning his audience, those who are manipulated and indifferent to it, that we support war by being silent.

The film’s title is taken from Psalm 23 of the King James Bible, and is quoted here:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

In this passage, quoted exactly but not in the poem-structure it is generally seen in, God is said to be our shepherd, leading us down a path of goodness and mercy where we will dwell in heaven along with our enemies, who will be seated beside us. Is the film a search by its director to find God or at least meaning in war? Or is it a warning against using religion as an excuse to execute war?

It is obvious Brakhage borrows the title from the Bible, but the film’s full title, 23^rd Psalm Branch, recalls in equal measure a typical war movie from Hollywood’s silver age. 23^rd Psalm Branch could have been a B-grade Ronald Regan picture or a Sam Fuller effort, and indeed the film shows us images of war; some startling, some familiar, including the familiar and often revisited visage of Adolf Hitler. But Brakhage crafts less a history of WWII but lays down visually the mentality of war on human beings. In quoting this Bible passage, is Brakhage forgiving his enemies, putting his faith in God that the life we lead is merely His will, or is he being less direct with his spiritual curiosity and asking why in war we go so far? Or is he saying nothing, offering us a jolt to our senses in an effort to get us asking these questions ourselves? I’m not familiar with Brakhage having only seen a handful of his work, but if I would to danger a guess, I’d say the latter. Truth be told, I found very little meaning in the film. It worked as an experiment but it did not engage me. But I think I am being too traditional and cannot fault the film for what it is.

In my self-conscious attempt to view the movie, one that went off relatively well (I was wide awake for the whole picture despite silent one hour running time), I was trying hard to link images together with ideas, trying always to stay ahead of the picture. I stayed with it, and often was impressed by the beauty of Brakhage’s colors and rhythms, but I am a very literal person. I find my patience for extremely non-narrative films to be low, but again this is my fault and not the film’s. I need to better acquaint myself with the director’s work, and thanks to Criterion’s 56-film primer, I can get but a taste of the director’s vast 350 picture career. I will say I am eager to see more, and have, but a vast project like 23^rd Psalm Branch is a more difficult challenge than a 2 minute piece on Chinese characters, the director’s last work, made in 2003. I guess in a way my problem with these kinds of films is that they require less effort from the viewer; we only need to sit back and look, let the images pass over our retinas, and then afterwards, when the lights come up, should we think about what we’ve seen. This is why I think the film is anti-cinematic. The images come so fast and contorted that they’re more like sensations, and their impressions, if felt at all, are realized when every single image has been received. But maybe in saying anti-cinematic I really mean defiantly non-linear, devoid of plot or character, basically going against everything I’ve ever thought a film could be.

In a sense Brakhage continually tried to redefine what cinema is. His enthusiasm is overwhelming but I can’t say he succeeded in making excellent movies. He made experiments, fascinating, original experiments, but average viewers will not care. I consider myself well cultured in film but I cannot rank any of Brakhage’s work among the great works of documentary and fiction film. That is not to say he wasn’t a great artist, or that my opinion will not change over time, but to be completely honest a great deal of his work feels like an endurance test. To pass the test doesn’t make you a greater cineophile, but someone who enjoys experimental films.

Two recommendations about Brakhage’s movies: most are silent, and I know most people when watching silent movies often add their own soundtracks via iPods or MP3s. I am begging people to view his work without any sounds. All I had playing was the hum of my Blu-ray player and that was enough. Music tends to dictate the pace of the images, and while I can’t promise myself this, I hope to view every silent movie from now on without a score, unless the score was devised or approved by the director. My second, and maybe more important recommendation, is to view his films on the biggest screen you can find. IMAX might be perfect. Because they are so visual and impressionable nothing else should invade our eyes, including the vast black of the dark theater, or the black bars on widescreen televisions.

Brakhage does not need to be recommended or warned against. Chances are if you’ve heard the name, buried somewhere under film history, you know what you’re looking for.

23rd Psalm Branch: Parts I & II (1967 & 1978)

Director: Stan Brakhage

USA

Silent

Part I runtime: 48 minutes (18 fps)

Part II runtime: 30 minutes (18 fps)

The total running time for both parts, on Criterion's Blu-ray and DVD, is 63 minutes.

IMDB links:

Part I:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278885/

Part II:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278886/

Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928, Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La)

Depending on the day I might name another film, but I always return to The Passion of Joan of Arc as probably the most powerful film I have ever seen.  Its images are unbearable to watch and its story horrifying and breathtaking.  It is that rare film that I would label an art film.  But let that not dissuade potential first-time viewers.  Passion is an experience unlike any other.  It jolts complacent viewers out of their haze and forces us to actively witness the persecution of Joan of Arc by the men of her own faith, men of the same institution that would canonize her in 1920.

Joan’s trial and imprisonment lasted nearly a month, immediately followed by a regular trial which lasted 2 months.  Joan constantly faced her accusers and must have spent hundreds of hours alone in her cell, a hell I am not strong enough to handle.  Dreyer has condensed the trial, or at least the dramatic and cinematic structure of his film creates a vacuum where it feels as if Joan’s suffering lasted mere hours.  Dreyer was right to do this.  In changing what we know of reality, he creates a most palpable experience of Joan’s ordeal, and we feel more readily her enormous suffering.

This is not a religious film.  It is not propaganda.  The story might be significant to Christianity but it is also important to history.  It is a document of a woman who believed and of the institution threatened by her power, heretics and hypocrites all.  Dreyer does not argue that God exists.  His characters all have their faith, but it is the will and nearsightedness of man that interests the director.  Joan is never beyond human means, the clerics who judge her the same.  The notion of holiness is non-existent.  Prayers are never answered and religious symbolism is absent.  Even a shadow of a cross is meant only to ease Joan’s nerves.  The film does not infuse its images with a higher meaning.  This creates an authenticity missing in traditionally religious films.  The film is always about convictions.  Even when Joan is paraded outdoors and we see her many compatriots clamoring for her release, these people believe in the abilities of this woman, not directly in a higher power.  This gives the film a wider appeal and enhances the experience because a true work of art must be objective, otherwise its appreciation will always be marred by its bias.  Dreyer is less preoccupied in converting his audience and more interested in documenting for himself an important personal point.

Why do her judges cry when she recants her forced confession, sealing her death?  Have they found someone with true faith?  Do they despair at ending a life?  Are they ashamed?  Of themselves or of their actions?  Joan is in a state of grace.  I cannot recognize someone in this position but Joan’s serine expressions in the face of torture make me believe she is.  A monk asks her, when trying to recant her recantation, of her great victory, implying it will die with her.  Joan knows her martyrdom will bring about the victory God spoke to her of.  Her death will prove to her wrongdoers the truth of her convictions.

The film feels as if it were somehow never intended to be viewed by a movie audience.  The way it is put together neglects, for example, clarity in visual storytelling—continuity, establishing shots, establishing for the audience where characters are in relation to each other and the room—Dreyer is not interested in such concerns.

Dreyer originally intended the film open without credits.  Imagine what that would be like in a theater, where we sit down and the film begins for us.  When the lights darken, history opens up on the screen.  The experience wouldn’t work on home video.  It must have a jarring effect, and I must side with the director when he argued that audiences must be stripped of all clues of artifice.  Credits tell us we are seeing a play.  Dreyer’s original intentions, ignored throughout the years, would begin the film exactly as it should and as it continues throughout: jolting the viewers.  There is only one point-of-view shot, only one moment when the film functions as traditional cinema.  Joan looks on the floor and we see that she sees the shadow of a cross created by the window panes.  The rest of the film is filled with images that lack continuity.  Characters constantly look at each other and each new shot shows something different from the view point of who-knows-where.  Every shot creates a disorienting effect.  There’s an almost abstract shot as Joan is burning.  The soldiers guarding the judges are preparing for retaliation.  Maces are dropped to them from the windows of the towers, and this shot swings back and forth like a pendulum, ticking down to Joan’s ultimate victory.  Often times the images suggest characters are literally on top of each other: Joan looks at the top edge of the frame and we then see a shot of a judge who is facing Joan.  We know they are looking at each other but the images defy our understanding of cinematic language.

There is a shot close to the end of the film that reminds me a lot of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.  It’s of a man without legs wheeling himself around on a cart.  A similar image exists in Potemkin on the Odessa steps.  I am struck by the documentary-like qualities such images of human deformation have in our times.  We in the civilized world cannot imagine anybody disabled to such a degree.  We are away from wars, and in our society we’ve become so jaded that we turn the other way at the suffering of the homeless or, more surprising, strangers on the streets.  These images, we’d like to believe, are fake, but Dreyer uses grim reality to recreate a grim tale.  There’s an equally disturbing shot of Joan’s arm being bled.  Apparently it is a real arm being pricked and real blood pulsing out.  Because films today are all artificial, truth belongs to another time.  While the film itself is an artifact these images make the film feel like war footage shot during Joan’s time.  Another image I link with these is the horrifying shots of Joan’s burning body.  The flames are so thick, but there looks as if a real face is in the fire.  I swear I can see a nose with flames shooting off it.  I know, at least I have to believe, that Dreyer did not burn a human being, not even a corpse, but the authenticity of the whole experience made me question what was actually burnt during the making of the film.

Why make a film like this?  It feels reactionary, like a battle cry from the director against the religious persecution of the innocent and against the banality of artistic convention.  Passion defies it, giving its audience the visceral experience of its subject matter.  It does something no other film is capable of.  It demands attention and holds us spellbound until the final, bleak images of Joan’s death.

At the center of The Passion of Joan of Arc is a remarkable performance by Renee Falconetti.  I hope I can express myself better than others who simply state that it is the greatest performance ever recorded on film.  I don’t deny this, only find that the phrase itself is not enough to describe Falconetti as Joan and it shortchanges her brilliant accomplishments.  First I must say that she never appeared in another film.  Roger Ebert correctly argues that because history is not saturated with her face that in this role she has become eternal.  Ingrid Bergman in the same role is Ingrid Bergman.  Falconetti’s haggard appearance, her masculine or rather unglamorously feminine face, has become the image of Joan of Arc for all time.  On her face is written the real account of the ordeal as if we’ve been given a photograph, from a time before such alchemy, of Joan.  Falconetti delivers what seems contradictory to the medium of silent film—a naturalistic performance.

Look at the very best of silent cinema.  To compensate for a lack of booming voice, actors usually chewed the scenery to make their points.  They became larger than life.  Falconetti at first is very expressive with her eyes.  When she is first questioned, her eyes are wide, almost as if entranced by God.  As I saw this recently for maybe then 8^th time, I noted that in her first scene she is slightly artificial.  I can think of two reasons why: perhaps in Falconetti’s reading of the events, she believes that Joan would be proud and vital, that she would stand up boldly to her accusers.  It’s an appropriate tactic.  I think the reality might be a bit different, and it is my second assumption: the film was shot in chronological order, and I think the strain by the strident Dreyer forced Falconetti to give the performance she gives, but this also undermines her efforts, but I think it’s practical to consider this.

Very quickly any notion of artifice is gone.  There are some shots where only the slight turn of Falconetti’s head is enough to convey Joan’s plight.  Her performance is truly unique.

I saw the film recently at Harvard, an archival print taken from the Cinematheque Francaise’s 1980s restoration.  It featured no musical accompaniment.  I viewed the film exactly as Dreyer would have wanted.  The Criterion DVD features the silent soundtrack, but also offers Richard Einhorn’s fantastic musical piece “Voices of Light”, a project inspired by the film.  I love Einhorn’s score.  I’ve seen the film several times with it.  I even listen to it on my iPod, but my viewing at Harvard was the first time I saw the movie silent.  It has a special quality without music.  Einhorn’s music dictates a certain pace to the images, and often drives the film.  Without music I was able to focus on the images.  I found myself involved in the movie in ways I never was before.  Without my secondary sense at play, my eyes studied the screen, and everything I needed to know was shown to me to great effect.  The film does not need music, let alone dialogue or sound effects.  Words don’t matter.  Faces tell all.  The sounds of the cracking fire during the burning exist in the frame.  Hearing them actually will not help at all.  Silence is the perfect accompaniment to the film.  It is most powerful.

Most movies don’t seem to matter anymore after seeing The Passion of Joan of Arc.  Perhaps this is because few films of its kind have actually been made.  It is proof that elegant cinematography and precise editing do not qualify a film as art.  This way of thinking links cinema closer to painting.  The cinema is more rugged, less formal than that.  What makes The Passion of Joan of Arc a work of art rivaling the works of da Vinci is the absolute visceral experience the film is to sit through—the passion with which the story is told.  We are disoriented by Dreyer’s imagery and cannot escape it.  It is such a powerful experience that the image of Renee Falconetti as Saint Joan will be with me until the end of my life.

Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928)

(a.k.a. Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La)

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writers: Carl Theodore Dreyer, Joseph Delteil

Stars: Renee Falconetti, Eugene Silvain and Andre Berley

France

Silent with French intertitles

Runtime: 82 minutes (at 24 fps)

Purchase Criterion's excellent DVD of The Passion of Joan of Arc at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Joan-Criterion-Collection-Spine/dp/0780022343/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1303831607&sr=1-1

(be sure to listen to the audio commentary for a comprehensive audio essay on the film by scholar Casper Tybjerg)

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/

Fall of the House of Usher, The (1928, Chute de la maison Usher, La)

Both times I’ve seen The Fall of the House of Usher, once on DVD and recently at Harvard University, a strange phenomenon overtook me: I grew sleepy.  I’m not being cheeky.  I defy any serious film buff to not find the film mesmerizing.  Both times in fact the story and the images held me spellbound but the same sleepiness came.  I’m trying to understand because I refuse to believe I find the film boring.

Its beginning takes a cue from Dracula.  A visitor arrives at a backwards country and asks directions to a damned place, The House of Usher.  This stranger is Allan, an old friend of Roderick Usher’s, summoned by him to bring some cheer into a dire situation.  Roderick’s beloved wife Madeline is dying.  Roderick is feverish with the fear of her death and the desire to capture the life of his wife in a portrait.  Allan arrives and witnesses an otherworldly bond.  Madeline less seems to live than to live for Roderick.  He captures on the canvas a creature whose vivid qualities borrow the life blood of the real woman.  This is her malady.  That the man she loves cannot save himself from ruining her is their tragedy.

These images are sublime.  A permanent fog has overtaken the film; every shot is in a haze, the way we like to imagine our dreams look.  The film is perfect in this regard.  The painting of Madeline is rarely seen head-on in close up.  We see it at a distance, surrounded, as much of the film is, with black darkness.  The wood frame is at an angle, and within it sits the portrait of Madeline.  She blinks.  She is quite simply alive.  Shots of curtains blowing in a corridor, books falling from a cupboard, clichéd images with 80 years advantage, have here a spontaneous and lamentable quality, the sadness of The House of Usher with its imprisoned spirits is expressed with imagery fit to haunt.  A unique image is that of the dead Madeline, laid to rest in her wedding gown, with her veil so long that it escapes from the coffin.  As the coffin is taken by boat to the Usher family crypt the veil trails behind in the water, as if death alone was not enough to tame their passions.

I forget that the film is a product of surrealism.  Perhaps in our need to categorize the past we have, by association with director Jean Epstein, marked it as surrealist but it is much more accessible.  These images are haunting and beautiful and can be followed from scene to scene.  There isn’t any trick editing to link psycho-sexual symbolism with repression, for example, or Catholicism.  Maybe I don’t have a grasp of surrealist cinema, but I’ve seen Un chien andalou over a half dozen times and it’s enough to make me feel like an expert.  It’s all subjectively empty.  The Fall of the House of Usher feels more like, if one prefers categories, a cross between expressionism and poetic realist cinema.  There is logic to the story development with passionate human characters.  None of it would I deem surrealistic.  It’s macabre but infused with poignancy and meaning, and the look is gloomy and baroque.

The film is adapted from one of Edgar Allen Poe’s most famous works.  The story differs in that Madeline and Roderick are husband and wife.  In Poe’s version they’re siblings.  I have a feeling that, as a surrealist work, a film about an erotic obsession between siblings would have been terrific material.  I don’t think censorship held the film back either as it was French and surrealistic and overall an underground film—that is, a movie made outside the established industry that most would not have been expected to see.  This change is most unusual considering the contribution of director Luis Buñuel.  He acted as Assistant Director to Jean Epstein, and his first film, the aforementioned Un chien andalou used all sorts of weird sexual fetishes in its imagery, and in one of his last films we meet an aunt and nephew who ran away together to become lovers.  This whole thing is all the more fascinating because apparently Buñuel quit Usher after an argument with Epstein for changing Poe’s text.  Epstein was right for what I think he was trying to do, a traditional “ghost” story.  The sexual dynamic between brother and sister would add a cache of ugliness to the story where in Epstein’s film the experience is beautiful and all consuming.  This is an erotic and euphoric love story.  That both man and woman are trapped by a mutual obsession, each unwilling to derail the danger so obvious to the man, is absolutely heartbreaking.

Why is it then that the film makes me sleepy?  The most widely circulated print of Usher is from the Raymond Rohauer Collection.  It is the source of the All Day Entertainment DVD available in America.  I think the issue is this: the print runs at a curious frame rate.  With silent films one can never be certain of the speed at which the film should run, and I know the images of Usher are slower than they should be but I firmly believe the film needs to look this way.  To see these images run just that much faster will destroy the poetry of the film.  Everything is slow and methodical, and looking at the screen is hypnotizing.  The frame rate may be the reason the film has a somnific quality; it may also be that the experience of watching the film is like stepping into a warm bath.  It’s soothing and inviting, but dangerous if it overwhelms you.

I think the medium of silent films was limited.  Storytelling relied on symbolism that was easy to show.  The lack of subtly prevented it from being art, in my opinion.  But when silent films do work, they have a documentary-like quality.  Let me explain: these are artifacts of the past.  Some films, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Nosferatu, and Epstein’s Usher—all period films—feel as if we’ve been given access into the world of photographs of the past.  The characters live and move and cannot speak.  There is a curious quality to these experiences that sound film can never achieve.  Nor can silent films be made today.  They would be gimmicks.

It is this reason why The Fall of the House of Usher works so well.  The characters are living beings trapped in moving images, and their world is separate from our own.  In theirs, the laws of nature can be bent if their passions will it.  That they cannot cry out, their expression exists in the torment in their eyes, makes the material more profound.

Fall of the House of Usher, The (1928)

(a.k.a. Chute de la maison Usher, La)

Director: Jean Epstein

Writer: Edgar Allen Poe (short story), Luis Buñuel (adaptation)

Stars: Jean Debucort, Marguerite Gance and Charles Lamy

France

Silent with French intertitles (English translation spoken on soundtrack)

Runtime: 66 minutes

To purchase The Fall of the House of Usher on DVD, I recommend going to All Day Entertainment's website.  I ordered my copy there for only $5.00 and had an easy shopping experience:

http://www.alldayentertainment.com/dvd_usher.html

(though the price listed is $24.99, when you add it to cart it becomes its sale price, $5)

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018770/

Phantom (1922)

Silent cinema seems to be remembered only for its iconic horror films, whether it be American films like The Phantom of the Opera, Viktor Sjostrom’s The Phantom Carriage, or the many examples of the contorted world of German expressionism.  F.W. Murnau followed his masterpiece Nosferatu with Phantom, a film that promises all the trappings of expressionism but delivers very little.  Murnau is undoubtedly one of the most important artists in the medium and would indeed push its very limits with The Last Laugh four years later by presenting it as a complete silent film (almost) without inter-titles.

Phantom is melodrama, the void where many silent movies find themselves in.  The blame seems to fall on Thea von Harbou, the prolific screenwriter of many films of the Weimar era.  Her storytelling is primitive with thin motivations and simplistic dialogue that often cuts awkwardly to the point.  Her story concerns a would-be poet who falls in love with a woman he sees for an instant, becomes obsessed by her, and when he cannot have her he finds another girl who looks like her.  As a work of expressionism the film could have been a masterpiece, but scene after scene relies too heavily on dialogue and the image is mostly flat.  Murnau lets loose about ¾ of the way into the film with some fantastic trick shots to dramatize the poet’s inner struggle, but the machinations of the plot bog the film down for Phantom is not only about the obsessive love of the mysterious woman, it concerns the poet’s sister who leaves home to become a loose woman, and about the poet’s poor mother who suffers a long martyrdom at the turmoil of social shame; a financial swindle, and characters that seem to pop in and out to disrupt a scene just to extend the running time.

The theme of the double is ever present in expressionism and it occurs here when the poet Lorenz finds a destitute young lady who so closely resembles the woman he really loves.  In order to keep this woman as he wants her, Lorenz, whose poems unbeknownst to him have been rejected for publication, makes a deal with his aunt and promise her the poems’ profits for money upfront.  He splits 60,000 marks with the man who thought up the swindle who also happens to be Lorenz’s sister’s lover.  This character first appears with the aunt in an earlier scene, and without explanation he decides to turn on her.  But never mind about this.  All this comes about one hour into the film, and the first hour begins pleasantly enough with Lorenz going to a literary scholar, and the man’s daughter who is secretly in love with him, and shares with them his poems.  Time is also taken with the sister defying her mother and partying while the mother suffers so.  These scenes are so thick I cannot help but think von Harbou is trying to give some sort of social message, heavy handed just like in all her collaborations with husband Fritz Lang.  When Lorenz’s aunt does some investigating and discovers Lorenz has been missing work and is indeed not being published, she gives her nephew three days to returns the money he’s already spent on his lover.  What’s interesting is that none of these characters are interesting.  We never get to know any of them, and Lorenz’s lover appears in maybe six short scenes and we only know that she has no money.  I think it’s obvious she doesn’t love Lorenz for she tells him if she has to give up everything he’s bought for her she would no longer love him, but that is the problem with the film.

Everything is so blatantly stated in the title cards.  There is no mystery to the plot, only confusion which can often mask itself as such, and the characters are confined to these problems.  The only character I remotely cared about was the literary scholar’s daughter because she is the virginal, sweet-faced waif who pines for Lorenz in the background of his disastrous affairs.  The film begins with she and Lorenz married and she encourages him to write down this story.  Knowing this I was interested in how they would get together but in the end they’re just thrown together in the highly symbolic, overly politically ending with the title card—atonement; we see Lorenz being lead to prison.  Title card—redemption; he has served his sentence and now returns to the outside world.  I wasn’t at all impressed.

The photography stood out for me in moments, but as I already said this is a flat film with no depth and flat lighting.  The simple truths of German expressionism (high contrast, bold shadows) are not on display here.  But Murnau was the most curious of expressionism’s directors.  Nosferatu is the most well-known example of the movement but even still, much of the beginning of that film is taken up with striking naturalistic photography shot on location.  I responded to the same naturalism in Phantom, and indeed recognized, I think, many of the same locations used in Nosferatu.  There’s a fabulous shot when Lorenz begins to realize the dizzying spell he’s caught in where one side of the street begins closing in and chasing him.  We see the shadows of the building tops following Lorenz as he tries to get away.  There’s some other imagery accompanying the same theme that is fun to watch but the conceit is lost in this film.  It lacks style and substance and goes for quick heavy-handed messages.

The film has been beautifully restored by the F.W. Murnau Foundation which has restored many of Germany’s most important silent films.  The original color tints have been added to scenes stemming from the original negative, but a dupe positive was also used in the restoration and these brief scenes remain in black and white.

Phantom (1922)

Director: F.W. Murnau

Writer: Thea von Harbou

Stars: Alfred Abel, Grete Berger, and Lil Dagover

Germany

Silent with German Intertitles

Runtime: 145 minutes

To purchase Phantom on DVD in the US from Flicker Alley, visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Heinrich-Witte/dp/B000HC2LOY/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1300563541&sr=1-1

I viewed the Eureka Masters of Cinema double feature DVD found here on Amazon (UK):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phantom-Finanzen-Grossherzogs-Masters-Cinema/dp/B002MPLR3A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1300563592&sr=8-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013496/

Metropolis: The Morodor Version (1927 / 1984)

The “Moroder” version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, created in 1984, has become something of an affectionate curiosity.  Debates over its existence have apparently raged among film buffs, many of whom find the alterations in this version something akin to blasphemy, though the film has had its champions.  Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, insisting he simply ignored the soundtrack and focused in on Lang’s overpowering imagery. An online push for its DVD and Blu-ray release, and the ignorance against these voices, has lead one enterprising individual to “recreate” the Moroder version by colorizing the best available material (probably using the 2002 restoration released on DVD by Kino International in the US and Eureka in the UK) and restoring and adding Moroder’s 80s pop soundtrack.

The version I viewed was either a VHS or Laserdisc port to DVD with overblown contrast and surprisingly vibrant sound (probably taken from Laserdisc) which I had to download…illegally.  This was my sixth overall viewing of Metropolis, having seen the 2002 restoration twice, the complete 2010 restoration, the 2002 with audio commentary, and then again the 2010, followed now by the Moroder version.  Giorgio Moroder, a popular producer of pop / rock movie soundtracks, really owns this version.  The music aside, which actually works very well with the film, this 82 minute version excises most of the title cards, opts for subtitles (an interesting decision), alters Lang’s editing far beyond the missing footage did and recreates shots and adds special effects.  Oh yeah, and the film is now in color.  Not really, though that proclamation opens the film.  Moroder uses color tints, popular in Weimar-era German films.  Based on all the definitive restorations of silent Fritz Lang films done by the F.W. Murnau Foundation (which restores the color tints when applicable) none of Lang’s films had tinting because in his lifetime Lang voiced his opinion against them.

The story in the Moroder version is basically the same.  In a futuristic city (dated in only this film version as 2026) the workers live underground and provide power for the rich who live in Joh Frederson’s Metropolis.  Ferder, his privileged son, falls in love with Maria, a champion of workers’ rights, and in his pursuit of her discovers the deplorable conditions the workers face.  So he sets about leveling the balance among the rich and poor.  Meanwhile, the genius inventor Rotwang has invented the Machine Man as a substitute for his dead love, and Joh Frederson makes Rotwang give the robot Maria’s likeness so that she may mislead the workers and cause their destruction.  Often with silent movies symbolism and metaphor count much more than subtly which I guess is harder to obtain with pure images.  The 2002 restoration of Metropolis, which was missing 25 minutes of footage, had title cards explaining the plot development of the missing scenes, and thus the primitive narrative could have before been blamed on the film’s lack of completeness.  A lot of the story is pure pulp, something out of a hackneyed detective novel.  This kind of material seems to always be present in Lang’s silent films, and many put the blame on Thea von Harbou, Lang’s wife and prolific writer in the pre-National Socialist era and later a devoted Nazi.  While von Harbou’s tastes may have been more closely related to the crime story or newspaper novel, this simplicity in storytelling is the narrative tradition of German Expressionism, arguably the most influential movement in film history.  Ceaser, the somnambulist villain in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is controlled by the title character for purely superficial reasons.  That is to say, everything Caligari had Ceaser do the Doctor could have done himself, only Ceaser’s black leotard figure was more intriguing.  In Nosferatu, the complexity of structure found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is replaced with more symbolic imagery which could refine in mere seconds a single idea, even if by today’s standards these are dated.  But Lang and von Harbou revel in melodrama, science fiction, machinery, noir, and spy elements, and rip-roaring adventure, and they make Metropolis work.  Balance is achieved in this genre defying epic.

The widely held belief is that the Moroder version is filled with wall to wall 80s rock songs by artists like Bonnie Tyler and Adam Ant.  That is only partly true.  Moroder uses excerpts of these songs to accent his original score which is quite terrific and even aids in the storytelling.  I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Moroder for being one of the first to attempt to recreate Lang’s original cut of the film and for filling in the missing footage with title cards explaining the important story developments in the missing scenes.  The restoration here is fantastic.  The image quality is just about as good as the 2002 digital restoration, though I cannot say for certain if Moroder’s version was the first to try and preserve this magnificent film.  The color tints annoyed me a little because Lang did not approve them.  Color is a dominating visual factor and highly moving in its own right.  To a certain extent, the tints manipulated the story telling of Metropolis.  But in viewing this version this is something we must come to terms with.  The color tints are unique, and the recreation of the missing sections of film goes so far as rebuilding and photographing an original statue of Hel which Rotwang keeps in his laboratory.

Some of the story is also excised.  The character of 11811 goes unused altogether; there is no mention of his run-ins with the Thin Man who retains only his opening and closing scenes.  Until the 2010 restoration these scenes were all that existed of that performance, but at least the 2002 restoration did mention these episodes in title cards.  But Moroder’s version does tell a complete story, even if Rotwang’s motivations are completely changed.  He becomes even more like Dr. Frankenstein: having created the monster, he can no longer control it.  The Machine Man, disguised as Maria, is no longer following orders, and as a consolation Rotwang chooses to keep the real Maria to himself.  Using this story or Lang and Thea von Harbou’s version provides the same simple storytelling, so this didn’t bother me.

Another addition to the soundtrack is sound effects, used similarly to today’s folly effects; large crowd scenes are given cheers, footsteps and other incidental sounds, and many of the “bangs” or percussive movements have accompanying effects.  This irked me.

I had the privilege of being one of the first New Englanders to see the most complete version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  The Alloy Orchestra, specializing in silent film scores, did a live performance of an original score first written as an alternate soundtrack to the Moroder version.  I didn’t like The Alloy Orchestra score because they built sound effects into their music.  We are watching a silent movie.  Let the music take over.  Gottfried Huppertz’s original 1927 score, created for the Berlin premiere, is one of the best movie scores ever written.  He did not suggest sounds but provided an emotional and epic soundscape for Lang’s opus.  But upon reflection, one viewing of a silent movie can differ from another.  Different musical scores add their own, and now, months after hearing The Alloy Orchestra score, I miss their music and regret that Kino did not include it in their Blu-ray release of the 2010 restoration.  I can say the same about the Moroder version.  I felt a fondness for this film as I watched it.  Maybe the knowledge of the complete version of the film existing softened my reaction to this film.

There are many Metropolises and each one adds something to the experience, lengthening its reputation for the next generation, and since the 1980s, we have been making our way to the complete version of the film.  If you can, see the Moroder version.  Moroder was not ruining a classic film, simply presenting another version of Fritz Lang’s dizzying dystopia.

Metropolis (1927)

(Metropolis: The Morodor Version (1984) )

Director: Fritz Lang

Writer: Thea von Harbou

Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, and Gustav Frohlich

Germany

Silent with English subtitles and intertitles

Runtime: 82 minutes

Unfortunately Giorgio Moroder's version of Metropolis has not been released on any digital format.  Used VHS copies might be available via Ebay or Amazon's marketplace.  Online sites may be the best way to view Morodor's version.

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/