Showing posts with label Erich Pommer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erich Pommer. Show all posts
Friday, September 25, 2009
Der Blaue Engel
[The title appears on screen as: Der blaue Engel. But Der Blaue Engel is the name of the bar.] Sininen Enkeli / Blå Ängeln. DE 1930. PC: Ufa. P: Erich Pommer. D: Josef von Sternberg. SC: Robert Liebmann, Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller – based on the novel Professor Unrat (1905) by Heinrich Mann. DP: Günther Rittau, Hans Schneeberger. AD: Otto Hunte, Emil Hasler. ED: Sam Winston. M: Friedrich Hollaender. CAST: Emil Jannings (Immanuel Rath), Marlene Dietrich (Lola Fröhlich), Kurt Gerron (Kiepert), Rosa Valetti (his wife Guste), Hans Albers (Mazeppa), Eduard von Winterstein (headmaster), Reinhold Bernt (clown), Rolf Müller (Angst), Gerhard Bienert (policeman), Ilse Fürstenberg (Rath's maid). 106 min. A Transit Film / FWMS print with e-subtitles by AA operated by Lena Talvio. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 24 Sep 2009. - The print has an obviously digi-mastered look. Probably there are no brilliant prints of this film. Paramount burned the negative in ca 1960. The English-language version looks better visually, but is otherwise inferior. - Sternberg's masterpiece revisited (the first 30 minutes). This is my favourite Sternberg film, an ideal combination of style and substance, Marlene Dietrich's ironic, motherly, earthy charm always fascinating. - The most profound film based on the clown themes that were among the obsessions of the cinema in the 1910s and in the 1920s.
Sunday, March 22, 1998
Der letzte Mann
013059 / G / DE / 1924 / Murnau, F.W. / / drama
Letzte Mann, Der / Viimeinen mies. PC: Ufa. EX: Erich Pommer. D: F.W. Murnau. SC: Carl Mayer. DP: Karl Freund. PD: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig. CAST: Emil Jannings (The Hotel Porter), Maly Delschaft (His Niece), Hans Unterkircher (The Hotel Manager). Music for live accompaniment composed by Giuseppe Becce. 2315 m /20 fps/ 101’. Silent b&w. There are several original versions of this film. - Yleisradio TV2 PAL transmission at midnight on 22 March 1998 of a ZDF reconstruction from 1983 by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski, with a score by Giuseppe Becce and Werner Schmidt-Boelcke, based on a print from Münchner Filmmuseum, with Finnish subtitles by Pirkko Vikkula. Caught on Easter Sunday on VHS. **** This was the first viewing of this film for the general audience in Finland since its premiere. In the meantime, it has been a part of the basic film archive programming. - The ZDF version is complete, nothing is missing. Probably the pictorial quality has been enhanced in later restorations. The music was not bad, but I was happy to quickly turn it off. - ”All the tenants, in particular the female ones, are awed by his uniform, which, through its mere presence, seems to confer a mystic glamour upon their modest existence. They revere it as a symbol of supreme authority and are happy to be allowed to revere it” to quote Kracauer. As a storyteller Murnau is crude: he hammers home every point, overstating the obvious. As a creator of visions he still reigns supreme. His sense of composition is startling, and the space is kept alive with rain, steam, smoke, and moving reflections. The mobile camera, introduced in Scherben and Sylvester, was perfected here. The roving camera creates a sense of vertigo, which fits the theme of rise and fall - downfall and resurrection.
Letzte Mann, Der / Viimeinen mies. PC: Ufa. EX: Erich Pommer. D: F.W. Murnau. SC: Carl Mayer. DP: Karl Freund. PD: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig. CAST: Emil Jannings (The Hotel Porter), Maly Delschaft (His Niece), Hans Unterkircher (The Hotel Manager). Music for live accompaniment composed by Giuseppe Becce. 2315 m /20 fps/ 101’. Silent b&w. There are several original versions of this film. - Yleisradio TV2 PAL transmission at midnight on 22 March 1998 of a ZDF reconstruction from 1983 by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski, with a score by Giuseppe Becce and Werner Schmidt-Boelcke, based on a print from Münchner Filmmuseum, with Finnish subtitles by Pirkko Vikkula. Caught on Easter Sunday on VHS. **** This was the first viewing of this film for the general audience in Finland since its premiere. In the meantime, it has been a part of the basic film archive programming. - The ZDF version is complete, nothing is missing. Probably the pictorial quality has been enhanced in later restorations. The music was not bad, but I was happy to quickly turn it off. - ”All the tenants, in particular the female ones, are awed by his uniform, which, through its mere presence, seems to confer a mystic glamour upon their modest existence. They revere it as a symbol of supreme authority and are happy to be allowed to revere it” to quote Kracauer. As a storyteller Murnau is crude: he hammers home every point, overstating the obvious. As a creator of visions he still reigns supreme. His sense of composition is startling, and the space is kept alive with rain, steam, smoke, and moving reflections. The mobile camera, introduced in Scherben and Sylvester, was perfected here. The roving camera creates a sense of vertigo, which fits the theme of rise and fall - downfall and resurrection.
Monday, January 19, 1998
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
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| Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, poster by Theo Matejko. Please click to enlarge. |
Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Das / Tohtori Caligarin kabinetti. PC: Decla-Film. EX: Erich Pommer. D: Robert Wiene. SC: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz. DP: Willy Hameister. AD: Walter Röhrig, Walter Reimann, Hermann Warm. CAST: Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari), Conrad Veidt (Cesare), Lil Dagover (Jane), Friedrich Fehér (Francis), Hans-Heinz von Twardowski (Alan). Silent b&w toned. Originally 1703 m /18 fps/ 82’. ZDF 1983 reconstruction with music, not toned by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski based on the 1923 re-release with material from the Munich and SDK Archives, ca 74’. Finnish subtitles by Riitta Piironen. Silent frame uglily cropped to Academy. With the edges cut off, the beautiful title cards turn illegible and the composition of the image is thrown off balance. Yleisradio TV2 transmission viewed in Helsinki, Sunday 18 January 1998. **** The film is one of a kind, still magnetic. One has to adjust to the twisted style to find the strange fascination and the black humour of the film. It is the first great zombie story of the cinema. This Luft / Labenski reconstruction was the best available 15 years ago, although the music and sound effects are best turned off at once. Today one should screen the 1995 Lumière Project restoration.
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