Das Wachsfigurenkabinett / Waxworks (2020 restoration Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna)

 

Paul Leni: Das Wachsfigurenkabinett / Waxworks (1924). Harun al Rashid (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt), Rinaldo Rinaldini (supposed to have been played by Wilhelm Dieterle, but the episode was not filmed) and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). Please click on the photo to enlarge it!

 Tre amori fantastici, Il gabinetto delle figure di cera.
    DE 1924. Director: Paul Leni. 81'
    Sogg., Scen.: Henrik Galeen. F.: Helmar Lerski. Scgf.: Paul Leni. Ass. regia: Wilhelm Dieterle.
    Int.: Emil Jannings (Harun al Raschid), Conrad Veidt (Ivan il terribile), Werner Kraus (Jack lo squartatore), Wilhelm Dieterle (il poeta / Assad il pasticciere / un principe russo), Olga Belajeff (Eva / Maimune / una boiarda), John Gottowt (proprietario del Panoptikum), Paul Biensfeld (visir), Ernst Legal, Georg John.
    Prod.: Neptun-Film AG, Berlino per Ufa. DCP.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Recovered and Restored
    DCP from Deutsche Kinemathek. Transfer at 18 fps.
    Restored in 2020 by Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Tinted and toned. Recorded score composed and performed at the piano by Richard Siedhoff
    Original release intertitles in English. Italian subtitles by Immagine Ritrovata
    Introduce Julia Wallmüller (Deutsche Kinemathek)
    Viewed at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 26 Aug 2020.

Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Ever since Rudolf Kurtz paid homage to it in Expressionismus und Film (1926), Das Wachsfigurenkabinett has been considered one of the most important Expressionist films of the Weimar Republic. Less than a year after the premiere of the film, the original negative was burned at the customs office in Paris. German prints did not survive, neither did any other trace of the German original version, such as the censor’s certificate. The most original film element is a nitrate print preserved in the archive of the BFI, which had been produced for the UK market in the mid-1920s. This print was the main source for a restoration in 1998, carried out by Cineteca di Bologna. For the recent digital restoration, a collaboration between Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna, the same print was used as main source element for restoration. The print, however, showed severe signs of mechanical wear and photochemical decay. Luckily, the BFI also holds a duplicate negative produced from that print in 1979, when some of the material degradation was not as severe. This was used to replace many of the heavily damaged sections in the BFI print. Furthermore, a nitrate print from the Cinémathèque française was used as substitution material for the numerous missing frames in the BFI print. The French print was presumably made in Germany from the British print in the late 1920s for the Canadian market. In an extensive reconstruction process, the missing frames in the BFI elements were reconstructed by creating inserts from the French material. In the absence of the original German texts, the intertitles of the BFI print have been retained in the restoration, which corresponds to the English version of the film. Also the colours of the restoration refer to the colours of the BFI print." Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Rudolf Kurtz (quoted by Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "The visual deliberateness that artists use in creating a style readily captures the emotionally expressive elements of Expressionism. Paul Leni, the creator of Waxworks, has explored this relationship with an uncommon delicacy of feeling. The Expressionist components of Waxworks do not grow out of a need to adopt this position, but are rather one means of expression among many. Leni courageously and clearly transforms natural objects into shapes that anticipate the mood of the scene by directing the space and line. He inflates forms; he lets them shrink. In an Oriental scene, he twists them in a truly delightful and amusing fashion; in a Russian he polishes them in a festive, Byzantine way. And in one sinister sequence that provides a framework and a profile for Jack the Ripper, Leni shows an instinctive feeling for the kinetic energy, the tensile strength, of the Expressionist scenery… Expressionism achieved this success by subordinating its methods to its psychological purpose. It is becoming applied art. Leni has teased this capacity from Expressionism masterfully, thereby opening up a wealth of potential for its use in film." Rudolf Kurtz, Expressionism and film, John Libbey Publishing, New Barnet 2016 (quoted by Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: Revisited Das Wachsfigurenkabinett, a Weimar masterpiece that I had only seen once, in 1983, at Arsenal's jubileum show in Berlin. Das Wachsfigurenkabinett had been the first film in Arsenal's illustrious programming history, but on display was an inferior print with Czech intertitles.

Because the negative burned at an early stage and no German elements survive, what we experienced today was the best there is, a state of the art presentation of the best surviving elements, restored with tender care and dedication by the Deutsche Kinemathek.

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett is Paul Leni's best movie, and I agree with Siegfried Kracauer for whom it was the last masterpiece of the Golden Age of Weimar cinema. It still seems to process the original, primal shocks of WWI and the post-war experience.

The structure evokes Der müde Tod, but as opposed to it, the episodes are not tied together by a strong concept. The poet (Wilhelm Dieterle) is simply assigned to write exciting stories to enhance the presence of the figures at the waxworks.

In the fantasy portfolio the visual design is inseparable from the storytelling and the performance styles. The movie is somewhat uneven. Olga Belajeff plays her triple role as Eva beautifully, while Wilhelm Dieterle hams up his. Emil Jannings is not at his best as Harun al Rashid. He should have required sterner direction from Paul Leni. But Lotte H. Eisner observed that the visual design of the Oriental episode evokes Antoní Gaudi.

Conrad Veidt creates an unforgettable macabre performance as Ivan the Terrible, as much a victim of his sadistic urges as the perpetator of one of the cruellest reigns of terror in history. He finally descends into madness, trying in vain to turn back time by flipping the hourglass, believing that as soon as the sand runs out he must die. This performance stems from the realm of nightmares. The expressionist mise-en-scène has affinities with Eisenstein.

The film culminates in the extraordinary vignette of Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss), and we are now even deeper in nightmare. For a latterday viewer the episode evokes the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The episode is conveyed in multiple superimpositions. Following dream paths, Jack follows the poet and Eva, emerging even from a Ferris wheel, impossible to defy because he moves in all dimensions and reflections, even more mysteriously than the Quantum time-reversers of Tenet.

There have been previous restorations of Das Wachsfigurenkabinett that I have missed. But certainly this one does justice to Paul Leni's chef-d’œuvre.