Eternal Love

Ikuinen rakkaus / Edelweiss. US (c) 1929 Feature Productions. Originally released by United Artists. EX: Joseph M. Schenck. P+D: Ernst Lubitsch. SC: Hans Kraly - based on the novel Der König der Bernina (1928) by J.C. Heer. DP: Oliver Marsh. AD+COST: Walter Reimann. ED: Andrew Marton. LOC: the Californian Rockies. Starring: John Barrymore (Marcus), Camilla Horn (Ciglia), Mona Rico (Pia), Victor Varconi (Lorenz). 1981 m / 72 min, released as a silent and as a Movietone version. Print from UCLA, silent version, 73 min (from the only available source, a dupe at the Mary Pickford collection). (The Movietone version is available on the Milestone / Image Entertainment dvd.) Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 20 March 2008. This rare Lubitsch film I saw for the first time (but Herman G. Weinberg never got to see it!). Lubitsch himself considered it a failure. Jacqueline Nacache criticizes the crudity of desire and the lack of grace in the film. But there is more than that. Lubitsch is clearly inspired and elevated by the location in this last of his mountain films. John Barrymore hams it up somewhat in the leading role as the Alpine hunter in Switzerland during Napoleon's wars. Drew Barrymore's grandfather was the most famous American actor of his age, but he was hardly ever very good in a movie, his projected intensity perfect for a big live audience but not for the intimacy of the movie camera. Yes, Marcus is a crude and elemental guy, but Ciglia, the priest's niece, sees in him a diamond in the rough, and Marcus loves her for that. Marcus loves the sublime in Ciglia, and Ciglia is excited by the virility of Marcus. But Marcus gets drunk in the carneval and insults Ciglia with his carnal passes. Pia (the Bergkatze!) sees her chance and sets a trap for Marcus. The film's famous ellipse takes place there: the drunken Marcus looks for Pia. His searching look is conveyed via a long pan. The pan stops at the hanger with Pia's carneval mask. From then on it's the story of two wrong marriages. A Lubitsch touch at Marcus and Pia's wedding: the wedding's bell-ringers turn into a funeral tempo. It ends in tragedy, misunderstanding, persecution, and avalanche. The final images are of the mountains, the snow, the clouds, and the sun. It's a typical Bergfilm, a genre in which Lubitsch had real talent and which he never pursued again. The repeated sound motifs, such as gun shots and ringing bells, inspire a variety of significant reactions in a silent film. An example of the complete assurance of purely visual storytelling of late silent cinema.