Живой труп / Elävä ruumis / Det levande liket / Le Cadavre vivant / Il cadavere vivante.
DE / SU 1929. PC: Mezhrabpom-Film (Moscow) / Prometheus Film-Verleih und Vertrieb GmbH (Berlin) / Länderfilm (Berlin). P: Willi Münzenberg. P manager: Conny Carstennsen.
D: Fedor Ozep. SC: Boris Gusman, Anatoli Marienhof – based on the play by Leo Tolstoy, written around 1900 and premiered posthumously in 1911 (Moscow Art Theatre) – also in Finland in 1911 (Tampereen Teatteri). Cin: Anatoli Golovnya, Phil Jutzi. AD: Sergei Kozlovski, Viktor Simov. M (for a cinema orchestra): Werner Schmidt-Boelcke (1929). ED: Fedor Ozep, Vsevolod Pudovkin. Ass D: Georg Friedland.
C: Vsevolod Pudovkin (Fedya Protasov), Maria Jacobini (Liza = Yelizaveta Protasova), Viola Garden (Sasha, Liza's sister), Julia Serda (Anna Pavlovna), Nato Vachnadze (Masha, a gypsy), Gustav Diessl (Viktor Karenin), Vera Maretskaya (the "dame"), Daniil Vvedenski (Artemev, the good spirit), Vladimir Uralski (Petushkov), Boris Barnet (pickpocket / sailor in tavern), Mikhail Zharov, Carola Höhn, Sylvia Torf.
2968 m.
Berlin premiere: 14 Feb 1929.
Russian premiere: 26 March 1929.
Finnish premiere: 2 Sep 1929.
1988 ZDF reconstruction: Gerd Luft and Frank Strobel based on a cue sheet conserved at the MoMA. Conductor: Kurt Graunke (1988). Orchestra: Orchester des WDR (Cologne) (1988). Pordenone GCM 1989: 120 min, in the presence of Georg Friedland and Martin Koerber (curator of the restoration), music in playback courtesy ZDF.
2012 restoration, based on six different versions: Österreichisches Filmmuseum / Deutsche Kinematek, premiere: Berlinale 2012 (Die rote Traumfabrik), 121 min.
A Russian RVision YouTube link of a 3sat telecast of the 1988 version with live orchestra performance inserts – viewed at a ski cottage, Äkäslompolo, 17 March 2020.
I saw for the first time Fedor Ozep's The Living Corpse, the famous film having somehow always eluded me until now. Together with The Yellow Ticket (1928, starring Anna Sten), it was Ozep's breakthrough into an international career. For Vsevolod Pudovkin as an actor, it was his only leading role in a film, and his sober and intensive performance carries it memorably. The Living Corpse was a highlight in the illustrious collaboration between the Russian Mezhrabpomfilm and the German Prometheus-Film. It was based on Leo Tolstoy's popular play which has been filmed dozens of times, but the two major film adaptations are this one and the 1969 Lenfilm production directed by Vladimir Vengerov and starring Aleksei Batalov.
Granted that the protagonist is a passive character getting slowly detached from life it is surprising that the subject has been so popular in films. There is an affinity in the play with Pirandello's The Late Mattia Pascal, who has been interpreted in films by Ivan Mosjoukine, Pierre Blanchar and Marcello Mastroianni. Another connection might be Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger in which Jack Nicholson plays a similar role. Here the ennui derives from the all-Russian tradition of the лишний человек – "the superfluous man".
Fedor Ozep and Vsevolod Pudovkin dare to be slow in sequences of contemplation and resignation. Pudovkin's acting is dignified as Fedya, as are the performances of the other members of the trio, Maria Jacobini as Liza and Gustav Diessl as Viktor. Likewise with Viola Garden as Liza's sister. Jarringly many of the other performances are in a grotesque register which might be a daring and interesting choice, but clearly Ozep is not at home in this mode.
Also the visual approach is based on two contrasting modes: a sober one for the human drama, and a Soviet montage school approach for quite a number of other occasions. The Blitz montage sequences feel like musical production numbers (not least the inevitable gypsy orchestra scenes) or special effects. They are elaborate and well made but feel like pastiches of Eisenstein and Pudovkin (and perhaps even Gance). Interestingly, Pudovkin himself is the co-editor, but an organic quality is missing. The montage in this film does not stem from the soul, from the heart, from the balls; it is meant for the show. The film feels like a calling card for Ozep in introducing him to an international career. In this he succeeded.
The cinematography by Anatoli Golovnya and Phil Jutzi is first rate, and the art intertitles with their expressionistic, exaggerated and elongated letters add to the polish – and the anguish.
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