Some silent German cinema:

The Student of Prague (1913), directed by Stellan Rye and Hanns Heinz Ewers. This one stars Paul Wegener who later plays the famous Golem in three films (two lost). Here he is the student Balduin who suffers depression because he has no money. He wants to join the hoity toity and when a Caligari-type fellow named Scapinelli (John Gottowt) visits him with a proposition Badluin cannot refuse to accept it. Scapinelli will give Balduin a ton of money and in return asks to take whatever he wants from Balduin’s room. Since Balduin has nothing of importance in his room, he accepts. Scapinelli proceeds to take Balduin’s reflection from his full-length mirror. This scene provides the high point of the film. From here we go on to have a doppelganger story in which Balduin, now wealthy, woos a local countess, kills her fiancé in a duel, and generally finds himself embroiled in terrible goings on thanks to his other self. Made in 1913, The Student of Prague is remarkable. It does not, however, have the brilliance of later German silent cinema, including the ones below. It runs on rather too long and drags with scenes of a swooning countess and unremarkable encounters between Balduin and his alter-ego. As an example of early narrative film, The Student of Prague is interesting, if ponderous.

 

The Indian Tomb (1921) directed by Joe May. The film is an adaptation of Thea von Harbou’s novel, Tomb, and the script is by von Harbou and Fritz Lang. What they produce is orientalism print large. The film is rather slow and ponderous at nearly four hours, but it is also lavish to a degree. May pulls out all the stops with this presentation of an India filled with lepers, tiger pits, snake charmers, magical yogis, and massive architecture. Indeed, the large sets rival those in Griffith’s magnum opus, Intolerance (1916). Conrad Veidt appears as Ayan III, an Indian prince who revives an ancient yogi and sends the yogi to England to fetch the architect Herbert Rowland (Olaf Fonss). Ayan wants Rowland to create a tomb for his wife. Rowland goes, leaving his fiancé Irene Amundsen (Mia May) behind. Rowland soon discovers that Ayan’s wife is not dead. She is very much alive and has had an affair with the Englishman, Mac Allen (Paul Richter), putting both their lives in danger from the vengeful Ayan. Meanwhile Irene has followed her fiancé to India. Both Herbert and Irene find themselves prisoners of Ayan, and Herbert becomes leprous after knocking into the head of a buried leper. Yes, you read that correctly, a buried leper. Then we have Mac Allen finding himself inside the tiger den. Ouch, this does not end well. The production has huge sets, and much exotica. As far as silent films go, this one is not the most engaging, and it does run on for far too long (4 hours, remember). However, as an exercise in colonialist thinking, it has its interest.

 

The Hands of Orlac (1924), directed by Robert Wiene. Compared to Wiene’s most famous film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Hands of Orlac is minimalist, using few tricks of the camera to underline the psychological state of the protagonist. The minimalist sets sometimes move to complete emptiness and blackness, a telling mark of Orlac’s inner darkness. This is a Freudian film with images of castration, desire, and even a bit of the family romance tossed in to stir things up nicely. The emphasis on Orlac’s psychological torment is impressive. His doctor tells him that the mind controls the body, the spirit controls the hands, but Orlac does not heed this advice/warning. Instead, he allows his repugnance to take over. Orlac is a successful concert pianist who suffers irreparable damage to his hands in a train wreck. The damage to his hands is so severe that his doctor replaces his hands with the hands of a murderer. Once Orlac learns this alarming news, he goes wildly bonkers, reviling his new hands and going so far as to plead with his doctor to remove them. He fears the murderer’s hands have the power to control his will, even to the point of turning him into a murderer. Indeed, a murder takes place and from all appearances, the murderer is Orlac. But is he the murderer? We have a mystery, not too complicated a mystery, but a mystery nonetheless. This version of the story finds a happy ending that is, perhaps, less satisfying than the ending might have been, but the focus on Orlac’s ordeal is impressive and convincing. One reason for the success of the action is Conrad Veidt’s acting. His Orlac is lean, gaunt, distraught, agonized, demonic, terrified, conflicted, and engaging. Things move along at a glacial pace (that’s glacial in contemporary terms – they are melting quite rapidly), and the acting is histrionic in a good way. 

 

Variete (1925), directed by Ewald Andre Dupont. This is a remarkable film, not least for the camera work of Karl Freund. The camera swings, slides, follows, and at one important moment remains still. This moment of stillness allows the characters (3 of them here) who are drunk to stagger in and out of the frame, accentuating their drunkenness. We also have skillful use of double exposure, and even deep focus. The story is familiar and looks forward to films such as Murnau’s Sunrise (1927) and von Sternburg’s The Blue Angel (1930). As in the latter film, Emil Jannings stars here as the man whose obsession for a woman leads to tragedy. Jannings is Boss, a carnival trapeze catcher who has a wife and child. Then an orphaned refugee, Bertha-Marie (named for the ship on which she arrived in Germany) comes into his life, and he falls for her flirtatious ways, leaving wife and child and finding a new life with the Artinelli group (actually just one Artinelli played by Warwick Ward) performing at the Berlin Wintergarten. Scenes of the trapeze artists in action are impressive, especially for 1925. Anyway, trouble ensues when the oily Artinelli has eyes for Bertha-Marie. For her part, young Bertha-Marie (Lya De Putti) tries to have both Boss and Artinelli. Can this end well? Not a chance. Boss learns of Bertha-Marie’s fling with Artinelli, and he flies into a jealous rage. Actually, he does not fly. He simmers until his rage boils over and he ends Artinelli’s life. He goes to jail, and his jail time bookends the film, most of which is told in flashback. This is an impressive film that has touches of expressionism to compliment the realism of events.