Conrad Veidt – My Life

Mark Rappaport: Conrad Veidt – My Life (2019). My screenshot from the Vimeo account of Filmmuseum München. Original photo: Becker Maass, 1922.

Conrad Veidt – My Life. A video by Mark Rappaport.
    US © 2019 Mark Rappaport. Narrator: Alexander Graeff. Technical advisor: Alexandre Dhée. Sound engineer and mixer: Tito De Pinho. Assistant editor: Mon Ross. Special thanks to: Meredith Brody, Bernard Eisenschitz, John Finlay, Eva Orbanz.
    For Werner Dütsch (1939–2018).
    Song: "When the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay" (Gray – Parsons), 1933, recorded for the film F.P. 1, unused at the time and released in the 1980s, perf. Conrad Veidt with Chorus and Orchestra. His Master's Voice POP 2021A.
    Clips: Anders als die Anderen (1919), Unheimliche Geschichten (1920), The Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), Das indische Grabmal (1921), Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1921), Lucrezia Borgia (1922), Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924), Der Student von Prag (1926), The Beloved Rogue (1927), The Man Who Laughs (1928), Der Kongress tanzt (1931), Die andere Seite (1931), Der Mann, der den Mord beging (1931), Dracula (1931), F.P. 1 (1931), Grand Hotel (1932), Shanghai Express (1932), Ich und die Kaiserin (1933), The Wandering Jew (1933), Power (1934), Mad Love (1935), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Dark Journey (1937), The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940), Jud Süss (1940), Thief of Bagdad (1940), Escape (1940), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), A Woman's Face (1941), Whistlin' in the Dark (1942), Nazi Agent (1942), All Through the Night (1942), Casablanca (1942), Immensee (1943), Watch on the Rhine (1943), Above Suspicion (1943), Opfergang (1944), Notorious (1946), Great Expectations (1947), Hanna Amon (1951), Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Paths of Glory (1957), Batman tv series (1966), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Victor Victoria (1982), Ishtar (1987), Batman (1989), Diabolique (1996), Chocolat (2000), Dan in Real Life (2007), Harlan: The Shadow of Jew Süss (2008).
    60 min
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Viewed from Filmmuseum München's Vimeo platform at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 4 July 2020.

AA: "Films beget films", the title of Jay Leyda's pioneering history of the art of the compilation film, could serve as a motto for Mark Rappaport's illustrious career including many portraits of film artists such as Rock Hudson's Home Movies.

Sometimes Rappaport's films themselves have a home movie quality. They stray from the conventional biography format, a format that proliferated during the golden age of the laserdisc / dvd / blu-ray phenomenon. The very straying, the digression, and the lengthy detour are of the essence.

I enjoy Conrad Veidt – My Life in many ways. There are the predictable landmarks from Caligari to Casablanca, but also fascinating excursions, most interestingly the passage on "the Honorary Jew", and the rest of the film can in fact be seen as a series of variations on that theme. I have never seen The Wandering Jew (the 1933 Maurice Elvey film), and I have no clear impression of Jew Süss / US: Power (1934, the Lothar Mendes film), although we screened long ago the vintage Finnish nitrate print in our collections. A lengthy digression focuses on the Nazi version directed by Veit Harlan in 1940, a version widely disseminated, special target audiences including the police, Hitler-Jugend and concentration camp staff, a big budget propaganda tool to incite to crimes against humanity.

The political subtext was prominent in Veidt's remaining productions in the British film industry and Hollywood, on display in clips from Dark Journey, The Spy in Black, Contraband, Thief of Bagdad, Escape, All Through the Night, Nazi Agent, A Woman's Face and Casablanca. All in all, a rich and nourishing menu for a sixty minute movie. All narrated in first person singular by Conrad Veidt himself, as impersonated by Alexander Graeff, but I am not convinced that the use of a thick German accent is a good idea.

Thanks to the "Honorary Jew" angle Conrad Veidt – My Life has permanent value. It is, however, far from representative. From his achievements as a film actor we don't learn about Murnau and Czinner. Veidt had a wide range of expressions on the screen, and Rappaport fails to do justice to his art of the silent and immobile presence, his unique Kammerspiel style.

We get a lot of the grotesque extremes. Even they might be worthy of closer attention, because exaggeration was a subtle and refined craft in which Veidt excelled. Montages of highlights do not do full justice to him. He was a master of the highly strung. There is always something unsettling in his presence, and perhaps even more so in the "calm before the storm" passages.

We learn little about his past. It would be essential to know about his medical condition and realize that he was a war veteran. After WWI, he became a star of the Aufklärungsfilm, not only in Anders als die Anderen, and he remained a presence in Berlin's sexually transgressive nightlife. One could mount a "Conrad Veidt's Home Movies" parallel to Rappaport's Rock Hudson montage.

The recently rediscovered epic Christian Wahnschaffe (1920) would deserve a mention. In Veidt's international career, his performance as the charismatic preacher in Selma Lagerlöf's Jerusalem series was unforgettable (in The Ingmar Heritage, Gustaf Molander, 1925). Of Veidt's early sound films, Kurt Bernhardt's role could be emphasized, including in Die letzte Kompagnie (1930), and of Veidt's British films, Berthold Viertel's The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935) might deserve a mention. Veidt's acting style changed profoundly in the transition to sound and permanently after the Gestapo arrested and tried to pressure him to turn down the role of Jew Süss. This, among other things, has been intriguingly covered in Snowgrouse's wonderful online Conrad Veidt biography.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: INTRO BY FILMMUSEUM MÜNCHEN:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: INTRO BY FILMMUSEUM MÜNCHEN:

Conrad Veidt – My Life (2019)

R+B: Mark Rappaport | 60 Minuten |

Martina Müller (Filmmuseum München): "Was bleibt von einem Filmstar mit über 100 Filmen? Bei Conrad Veidt sind es die Eckpunkte seiner Karriere: 1920 der somnambule Cesare in DAS CABINET DES DR. CALIGARI, 1942 der Nazimajor Strasser in CASABLANCA. Was hat sich davor und dazwischen abgespielt? 1933 Emigration aus Nazideutschland, Hauptdarsteller in englischen Tonfilmen, darunter JEW SÜSS von 1934 – Vorlage für Goebbels antisemitischen Hetzfilm JUD SÜSS von 1940? In Conrad Veidts Leinwandleben öffnet Mark Rappaport ein Geflecht von Verbindungen zur Filmbranche in Deutschland und zu den Exilanten in Hollywood. „Warner Bros. was a safe haven for refugees.“ Elegant, kultiviert und seinen deutschen Akzent forcierend spielt Conrad Veidt den Gentleman-Nazi in Uniform. Und er singt: "Come home, my love, come home, dear love, come home." 1943 Herzinfarkt beim Golfspiel mit seinem Hausarzt. Gewidmet ist der Film Werner Dütsch (1939–2018). Wer kann schon sagen, was in Bronze gegossen wird und was sich in Staub verwandelt?" (Martina Müller)