The Racket (2016 restoration Academy Film Archive)

Lewis Milestone: The Racket (US 1928). Gentlemen of the press eager to expose the racket: Pratt (Lee Moran), and Miller (Skeets Gallagher) meet Captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan).

US © 1928 The Caddo Company. Prod.: Howard Hughes per The Caddo Company.

    Director: Lewis Milestone. Sog.: from the pièce of the same name (1927) by Bartlett Cormack. Scen.: Bartlett Cormack, Tom Miranda. F.: Tony Gaudio – b&w. M.: Eddie Adams. Scgf.: Julian Fleming. Int.: Thomas Meighan (captain McQuigg), Louis Wolheim (Nick Scarsi), Marie Prevost (Helen Hayes), G. Pat Collins (agent Johnson), Henry Sedley (Spike Corcoran), George Stone (Joe Scarsi), Sam DeGrasse (district attorney Welch), Skeets Gallagher (reporter Miller), Lee Moran (reporter Pratt).

    84 min

    Not released in Finland.

    Restored in 2016 by Academy Film Archive, from elements provided by The Howard Hughes Corporation and by University of Nevada College of Fine Arts’ Department of Film.

    DCP from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

    By courtesy of Flicker Alley.

    Silent. Digital piano: Neil Brand 

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Lewis Milestone: of Wars and Men.

    Introduced by Jeffrey Masino (Flicker Alley).

    Viewed with e-subtitles in Italian by SubTi Londra at Cinema Jolly, 23 June 2025.    

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025): "This “most important gangster picture of the silent era” (Kevin Brownlow) and a precursor to the gangster cycle of the 1930s, The Racket, masterfully shot by Italian-American cinematographer Tony Gaudio, establishes one of the most precise visual styles imaginable for crime film."

"The eventful and busy plot involves Captain McQuigg, a tough cop and an early, roaring twenties incarnation of Dirty Harry, trying to bring peace to an unnamed but clearly Chicago-inspired city that has become a stage for violent gang wars. Despite obstacles posed by corrupt city officials, McQuigg makes it his mission to go after the bootlegger baron, Nick Scarsi."

"The film was adapted from a play by Bart Cormack, one of the first underworld stories to emerge from Chicago. The actor Thomas Meighan saw a performance of it in Los Angeles (starring Edward G. Robinson!) and pitched it to Milestone, who liked the idea and, in return, gave Meighan the leading role."

"Kevin Brownlow writes that the film’s significance was not due to it being unusually well-directed, but because “at long last a film dealt head-on with the link between gangsters, police, and politicians – a link, incidentally, which was so thoroughly American it went back to Colonial times.” Modelled on William Hale Thompson, a corrupt Chicago mayor who received a quarter of a million dollars in campaign funds from Al Capone, the character of Nick Scarsi – played by Louis Wolheim – also channels Capone himself. Wolheim, who looks as though he has come straight from the skids, was, in fact, a mathematics teacher whose passion for sports gave him his signature broken nose."

"Foreseeably, the film was banned in Chicago but was extremely well-received elsewhere and consolidated the reputation of its producer, Howard Hughes, who, in 1951, ordered a remake directed by John Cromwell. However, Milestone’s original version, with its gritty, uncompromising vision of corruption and crime, remains untouchable." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025)

IMDb capsule: "An honest police captain vows to bring down a powerful bootlegger who is protected by corrupt politicians and judges."

AA: The restoration of Lewis Milestone's The Racket, a labour of love by Jeffrey Masino / Flicker Alley, is a major event. The movie was long highlighted by Carlos Clarens (Crime Movies) and Kevin Brownlow (Beyond the Mask of Innocence), but neither had seen it. A previous Flicker Alley restoration was screened in Bologna in 2005, but only as a video projection which I preferred to pass. Good things are worth waiting for.

D. W. Griffith in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) had launched the gangster film, and following the success of Underworld (1927) it became a major genre. The play and the movie Chicago (1927), although not telling a gangster story, contributed to the perception of Chicago as the capital of crime.

Milestone had a way in turning popular plays into compelling movies, and of this talent The Racket is an early specimen. The cinematographer was maestro Tony Gaudio whose next assignment was She Goes to War and who went on to shoot Little Caesar. Views of streets glistening in the rain at night grew into key film noir imagery, with metaphysical gravity added.

The Racket is a well-made thriller and action film (gangland war with showdowns, gunfights, roadblocks, etc.) and more. Corruption is ubiquitous and oppressive on an ominously new level. Gangsters have taken over the city.

The theme of corruption had been inherent in the crime film since the beginning. Already in The Musketeers of Pig Alley we can observe a policeman on the take. The prostitution drama Traffic in Souls (US 1913) exposed white slavery behind a respectable facade (resembling The Godfather's wedding party). Pre-Code film-makers like Rowland Brown (Quick Millions, Blood Money) pursued the theme which then returned only in film noir (All the King's Men, Force of Evil). The Racket itself was remade with Robert Mitchum in the role of the untouchable captain, but the closest point of comparison to Milestone's movie is The Big Heat.

It was daring to call the gangster boss "Scarsi" because everyone understood the reference to Al "Scarface" Capone. It was also playing with fire to introduce the character of the Mayor called "the Old Man" (never seen but in charge of all), because he was understood to be Chicago's corrupt mayor Big Bill Thompson. Milestone pursued such authenticity that he employed as advisors a team of eight genuine Chicago racketeers, including bootleggers, a safecracker, a drug peddler and a forger. The result was deemed so realistic by the underworld that people involved in the movie received death threats.

The granite-faced Thomas Meighan had risen to stardom in The Miracle Man, and Milestone guided him to new heights in The Racket. Meigham had debuted in the gangster genre the year before in The City Gone Wild co-starring with Louise Brooks (the last print of the movie was destroyed by Paramount in 1971). The character of Captain McQuigg now appears as a blueprint for Eliot Ness (incarnated on tv and in the cinema by Robert Stack and Kevin Costner).

Louis Wolhelm with his anti-glamorous looks belongs to the screen's beloved monsters in a way similar to Harry Baur, Michel Simon, Charles Laughton – and Edward G. Robinson, who created the role of Nick Scarsi on Broadway with such force that it relaunched his Hollywood career. But Wolheim is equally fascinating. "The better the villain, the better the movie" was a credo of Alfred Hitchcock, and Milestone understood it, too. Wolheim entered Milestone's world already in Two Arabian Knights and achieved immortality in All Quiet on the Western Front. Here he creates a truly scary gangster boss for the first time in the cinema. Probably Robinson had achieved that already in his stage incarnation.

"Women are poison to me", declares Nick Scarsi and insults the singer Helen Hayes (Marie Prevost) so that she, drawing on female intuition and aware of Nick's weakest spot, launches a chain of events that finally leads to the gangster boss's demise. Prevost had been a lovely model for Edwin Bower Hesser and Alfred Cheney Johnston and then a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty until she burned her bathing suit on Coney Island and upgraded to feature films (such as A Small Town Idol). Her golden moment came with Ernst Lubitsch who adored her and launched a new period for both in three movies.

It's a great cast and an impressive gallery of faces in crowd scenes. Milestone is the kind of director who never projects a faceless crowd. Everyone seems to have a story to tell.

In The Racket a disturbing topic was introduced into the American cinema arguably for the first time: the rogue cop. In a sinister turning-point, McQuigg the lawman, seeing both the Mayor and the District Attorney corrupted by the mob, takes justice into his own hands, deliberately breaking the law (including habeas corpus). Fighting the Devil with a demon.

The rogue cop became a major subject in film noir, in movies like Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950), The Prowler (Joseph Losey, 1951), Detective Story (William Wyler, 1951), On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952) and Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). William P. McGivern was a specialist of the trend, covering corruption in big cities in novels that were filmed as The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953), Shield for Murder (Howard W. Koch, Edmond O'Brien, 1953), Rogue Cop (Roy Rowland, 1954) and Hell on Frisco Bay (Frank Tuttle, 1955).

Milestone filmed the last American film of another "fascinating monster" (to speak with Mae West), Emil Jannings: Betrayal (missing believed lost according to the National Film Preservation Board, 2021). After All Quiet on the Western Front, he directed the first film adaptation of The Front Page, returning to Chicago's world of crime and journalists who are wise about corruption.

Based on the novel by Richard Dougherty and a screenplay by Henri Simoun and Abraham Polonsky, Donald Siegel directed a rogue cop masterpiece, Madigan (an American counterpart to Kurosawa's Stray Dog, starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura), and then the now best-remembered rogue cop film, Dirty Harry, which spawned not only four sequels but an entire subgenre, complete with a parody (Sledge Hammer! "Shoot first, ask questions never").

All this launched by Milestone.

...

AFI CATALOG ONLINE SYNOPSIS

During Prohibition, the job of metropolitan policeman Capt. James “Mac” McQuigg is to keep the peace, even while rival mobs fight for territory, and politicians make alliances with organized crime in exchange for election support. 

During a street gunfight, Mac encounters one of the major mob bosses, bootlegger Nick Scarsi, with whom he is on superficially cordial terms. Watching bullets fly, Nick suggests that Mac should change his “racket,” but Mac replies that he likes what he is doing. 

Later, Nick has his men deliver liquor to the territory of his rival, Spike Corcoran, prompting another shootout, but the alert Mac has police there and arrests Chick, one of Nick’s henchmen. 

Soon after, Mac is forced to free Chick, because “The Old Man,” the city’s most influential and corrupt politician, arranges for all charges to be dropped. 

The unmarried Nick considers women “poison” but dotes on his younger brother, Joe. For his birthday, Nick gives Joe an expensive ring and a party at a local speakeasy. During the party, Joe becomes enamored of street-smart singer Helen Hayes, and when Nick calls her a “gold digger,” the insult prompts her to encourage the younger man’s interest. 

Although Nick has invited Mac to the party, other uninvited guests, Spike and his associates, also arrive. Foreseeing trouble, Mac summons his men to the site in time to arrest Nick after he kills Spike in a brief exchange of gunshots. The police are unable, however, to find the gun Nick used, as he passed it to a cohort immediately after the killing, and by the time Nick is taken to the station, Nick’s lawyer, Sam Meyer, is waiting with a signed writ of habeas corpus to effect his release. 

Angered by the miscarriage of justice, Mac vows to drive Nick out of the area, but instead Nick uses his influence to get Mac transferred to the 28th precinct, known as “the sticks.” Two reporters, Pratt and Miller, are sent to cover Mac's demotion and wait in the lobby for the story. When Dave Ames, a young cub reporter from a small town press, arrives and naïvely expects to interview Mac, the captain takes pity when he sees the seasoned reporters mock Dave and allows him to interview imprisoned prostitutes. 

Mac then uses Pratt and Miller to relay a challenge to Nick. As prompted by Mac, the reporters track Nick to Spike's funeral and circulate rumors that Nick is afraid of the captain. Denying it, Nick claims that he is waiting to cause trouble until after the upcoming Tuesday election. The newsmen later warn Mac that if he is unable to stop Nick before the election, which the Organization will likely win, the mobster will remain in power. 

Meanwhile, Helen and Joe are driving in the area when a quarrel between them escalates, prompting Helen to leave the car and flag down a passing car. When the occupant, Johnson, who is a police patrolman, begins to harass Joe, he drives off recklessly and inadvertently kills an innocent pedestrian in a hit-and-run accident. Johnson arrests Joe and, unaware of his identity, beats him, hoping for a confession. 

Helen is brought to the station as a witness, but refuses to cooperate and is placed in the women’s prison. She confides to Dave, who is immediately attracted to her, her concern that Nick will avenge Joe’s treatment. Soon after, District Attorney Welch, who is under the control of the mob, visits Mac, warning him to release Joe before Nick brings pressure to have him thrown off the force. 

Mac taunts Helen for protecting Joe until she agrees to testify against him, then releases her. Although Mac tries to protect Johnson, who can testify to Joe’s killing of the pedestrian, Nick enters the station and shoots Johnson at close range. Although Nick flees, Johnson’s murder is witnessed by Dave, and Nick is soon apprehended. 

When Meyer arrives with a writ of habeas corpus to free Nick, Mac rips it up, then locks up the attorney. Meanwhile, Helen’s hardened heart is softening toward Dave, whom she fears will be killed before he can testify, and she tricks Nick into confessing to the killing while the police are listening. 

Mac suggests to Welch that the Organization cannot win the election if it protects Nick, given the solid evidence against him, then allows him use of one of the station rooms to meet with his client. Before Nick is brought to the room, Welch has a phone conversation with The Old Man, then he and his assistant, Sergeant Turck, set up a trap in the room. 

When Nick is brought in, Welch tells him that The Old Man will not jeopardize the election on his behalf, causing Nick to threaten to go to the press with all that he knows about the Organization. In response, Welch says they have arranged an escape for him and refers him to a gun and an open window. 

However, as Nick starts to flee through the window, Mac enters the room. Nick attempts to shoot him with the gun, but discovers the gun unloaded just as Turck shoots and kills him. Although Mac tells the reporters that Nick was shot while attempting to escape, they shrewdly wonder why the police did not simply capture the mobster. 

Surmising the answer, Pratt becomes philosophical and says, “So that government of the professionals, by the professionals and for the professionals shall not perish from the earth.” Content that the news is a “break” for the paper’s Sunday edition, they leave. 

Although Dave invites Helen to stay with him, she realizes the match is unsuitable, and they part after shaking hands. Admiring the exhausted Mac, who barely registers her presence, Helen tells him they have a lot in common, for neither of them can change, and then she, too, departs. 

When a policeman asks Mac what next must be done, the captain admits he would like some sleep, but says he must deal with the coroner and other public servants, then it will be time for Mass.

The Brighton Strangler + extended intro by curator Ehsan Khoshbakht

 

Max Nosseck: The Brighton Strangler (US 1945) with John Loder (Reginald Parker / Edward Grey) and June Duprez (April Manby Carson).

Brightonin kuristaja (Yle Teema: Kino Kyöpeli 17 Aug 2007).

    US 1945. PC: RKO Radio Pictures. EX: Sid Rogell. P: Herman Schlom.

    D: Max Nosseck. Ass D: Lloyd Richards. SC: Arnold Phillips, Max Nosseck. Add dialogue: Hugh Gray. DP: J. Roy Hunt. AD: Albert S. D'Agostino, Ralph Berger. Set dec: Darrell Silvera, Harley Miller. Gowns: Renié. SFX: Vernon L. Walker. M: Leigh Harline. Music D: C. Bakaleinikoff. Recorder: Roy Meadows. Re-recorder: James G. Stewart. ED: Les Millbrook. Montage: Harold Palmer.

    C: John Loder (Reginald Parker/"Edward Gray"), June Duprez (April Manby), Michael St Angel (Bob Carson), Miles Mander (Chief Inspector W. R. Allison), Rose Hobart (Dorothy Kent), Gilbert Emery (Dr. Manby), Rex Evans (Shelton), Matthew Boulton (Inspector Graham), Olaf Hytten (Banks), Lydia Bilbrook (Mrs Manby), Ian Wolfe (Brandon R. Clive, the mayor). Uncredited: Gavin Muir (officer).

    68 min

    Certificate 12A

    A  35 mm print from BFI National Archive.

    BFI Southbank: Projecting the Archive.

    Extended intro by curator Ehsan Khoshbakht.

    Viewed at NFT2, London, 16 Dec 2024

BFI Southbank capsule intro: "A Christmas thriller with a murderous twist in which a theatre star with amnesia believes himself to be a serial killer."

"When a theatre is bombed in wartime London, a famous actor loses his memory and assumes the personality of the character he’s been playing on stage: The Brighton Strangler."

"British expat stars John Loder and June Duprez bring authenticity to their roles – much needed to counterbalance the Hollywood depiction of Britain’s south coast. Director Max Nosseck was a colourful character, best-known for making low-budget crime dramas across different countries, of which this is a deliciously melodramatic example. Taking place over the theatre’s Christmas closure, this RKO B-movie makes a perfect alternative seasonal offering." BFI Southbank

...

AA: This screening of Max Nosseck's The Brighton Strangler (US 1945) was special thanks to an inspired introduction by Ehsan Khoshbakht, which amounted to no less than a rehabilitation and claim of auteur status for Max Nosseck. 

In a witty resume and an illuminating clipreel Khosbakht tracked continuities and disparities on the Nosseck oeuvre from Weimar Germany through 1930s Portugal, France, Spain and the Netherlands, 1940s USA from the East Coast (Astoria studios) to the West Coast (Hollywood), and back to post-war Germany and Austria.

Nosseck filmed in many languages and pursued a wide array of genres, from comedy to crime and "from Judaism to nudism" (E.K.). The Yiddish-language Overture to Glory (US 1940) was a distinguished achievement in the lineage of Das alte Gesetz and The Jazz Singer. The Garden of Eden (US 1954), produced with the approval of the American Sunbathing Association, was, contrary to expectations, not a piece of sensationalist exploitation. 

Nosseck directed masters of comedy such as Curt Bois (Der Schlemihl, DE 1931) and Buster Keaton (Le Roi des Champs-Élysées, FR 1935). He was even happy to film horses (Black Beauty, US 1946) and dogs (The Return of Rin Tin Tin, US 1947). 

The year 1945 was a high point. Nosseck directed two strong films noir, besides The Brighton Strangler also Dillinger, in which Lawrence Tierney received his breakthrough as an actor and Philip Yordan got an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay. 

All through his hectic career Nosseck usually worked in B-movie circumstances, but he always pursued creative control and often co-wrote his films. He was interested in the interplay of performance and life itself. He was fascinated by shattered minds and psychic disorders. A continuing feature regardless of genre are psychedelic inserts, nightmares and dream scenes with ominous superimpositions. (End of my freely edited notes from Ehsan Khoshbakht's introduction).

...

Like the director Max Nosseck, his movie The Brighton Strangler, co-written by him, is eminently worthy of rehabilitation. Nosseck takes full advantage of a brilliant team of RKO professionals, familiar from other RKO films noir, but also Citizen Kane, Hitchcock and Lewton. J. Roy Hunt, Albert S. D'Agostino, Vernon L. Walker and Leigh Harline know what they are doing.

What Nosseck brings to the mix most of all is an urgent sense of psychic turmoil. The storyline with its affinities with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Weimar classics including Der Andere, Der Student von Prag and Orlacs Hände, is familiar, but in the year 1945 it gained fresh and acute power.

Film noir is hard to define, but The Brighton Strangler in my opinion belongs to its hard core. It could even represent the entire phenomenon.

Rudolf Kurtz said to Lotte H. Eisner: "For me, Expressionism is not an artistic genre, but the expression of a world crisis". My reception of film noir is similar. Anton Kaes interpreted Weimar cinema as shell shock cinema. The same can be said about film noir - to a second degree. Adorno wrote that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric". For me, film noir is poetry after Auschwitz.

Shell shock is the premise of The Brighton Strangler. The actor Reginald Parker becomes a victim of a Luftwaffe Blitz in London. He loses his memory and identity. Imagination becomes reality, and Parker turns into the character of his play - Edward Gray, the Brighton Strangler. He starts to commit murders following the script. Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari is also evoked in Parker's somnambulistic agenda. The allegory is the same: ordinary people turn into spellbound serial killers.

From a familiar starting-point Nosseck keeps creating something unusual until the very end which offers us a final big surprise.

It was particularly moving to watch this film in London. The cinema was packed, and I could feel that many in the audience had family histories relevant to this strange tale from the days of the Battle of Britain.

Great visual quality in BFI's 35 mm print.

D. W. Griffith: The Man and the Woman (1908) (2017/2024 digital scan 4K)

US © 1908 American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. 

    Dir: D. W. Griffith. Story: ?. Photog: Arthur Marvin, Billy Bitzer. Cast: Linda Arvidson, Harry Solter, Charles Inslee, George Gebhardt. 

    Filmed: 17-18.7.1908 (NY Studio; Fort Lee, New Jersey). Rel: 14.8.1908.

    Copy: DCP (4K), 13'48" (from paper print, 776 ft, 15 fps); titles: ENG. 

    Source: Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA.

    Film Preservation Society / Tracey Goessel / digital scan 2017. Given the absence of original intertitles, new ones have been written by the Film Preservation Society. 2024 edition.

    43rd Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), Pordenone: Early Cinema - The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Stephen Horne.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi with e-subtitles in Italian, 7 Oct 2024.

Tracey Goessel (GCM, The Biograph Project 2024): "The Man and the Woman is the first of several melodramas Griffith would produce in which the heroine is tricked into a false marriage by a scoundrel. As such, this film serves primarily as a basis by which we can observe how Griffith grew in his storytelling skills, culminating, of course, with Lillian Gish’s abandoned mother in Way Down East (1920)."

"Still, there is already evidence that, while not yet running, Griffith is at least contemplating a crawl. As Cooper Graham (The Griffith Project, Vol. 1, p. 79) points out, Griffith’s exterior shots are closer to the actors than in his single interior."

"And in the marriage scene he has his characters leave the scene by approaching the camera instead of exiting stage left or right. His work is leaving us hints of what will come."

AA: A Sunday school play, a temperance drama, a tale of sin, betrayal and redemption.

Linda Arvidson, one of the first American film stars, and the wife (during 1906-1936) of D. W. Griffith, had already played in The Adventures of Dollie, The Bandit's Waterloo, The Helping Hand, Balked at the Altar, After Many Years, The Taming of the Shrew and A Calamitous Elopement. Quoted in The Griffith Project Volume 1: Films Produced in 1907-1908, she states: "In the beginning Marion Leonard and I alternated in playing 'leads.' She played the worldly woman, the adventuress, and the melodramatic parts, while I did the sympathetic, the wronged wife, the too-trusting maid, waiting, always waiting, for the lover to come back. But mostly I died".

I pause at this notion and the absoluteness of the film title The Man and the Woman. Expressed also in the recognizable Griffith style in intertitles: "His mother blind to everything, including his nature". And the blunt, direct way of the melodrama: right after the fake wedding ceremony, Tom starts to drink, and the first domestic quarrel begins. Father shows the door to Gladys who appears with a baby. 

Whatever we think about the artistic merits of the movie, its compactness is impressive, though far from the parables of Jesus.

A decent visual quality on the DCP, with good black levels.

...

I saw The Man and the Woman for the first time. I missed it in GCM's The Griffith Project (DWG 36), pomeriggio 13 October 1997 at Ridotto del Verdi on 16 mm at 281 ft /15 fps/ 12 min without intertitles and Edward von Past at the piano. 

Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 161, August 14 1908: "BIOGRAPH STORY OF A MINISTER AND HIS WAYWARD BROTHER. "Lead us not into temptation". What a sermon there is in this appeal, and this subject shows the awful result of not heeding the warning voice of Divine Providence."

"John and Tom Wilkins are brothers and most divergent in natures. John is a clergyman and a noble, upright fellow, while Tom is a scapegrace, wild, reckless and unscrupulous. Not having the parental guidance so essential in youth, his father being dead and his mother blind, he drifted into bad company, the contaminating influence deeply affecting his susceptible nature."

"Despite the earnest pleading of his brother John he sank lower in morass of transgression, spending most of his time at the ale house drinking and at cards. All this John has succeeded in keeping from his dear mother, whose blindness is almost a blessing, for a mother would rather her eyes be sightless than to view the indiscretions of her loved ones."

"So she possessed the blissful impression that her boys were both paragons of righteousness. God's mercy is unfailing; you will admit this Divine Charity. In the village there dwelt, as neighbors to Wilkins, Farmer Tobias and his wife, and their daughter, Gladys. Tom and Gladys grew up together, and were child sweethearts, which grew stronger with Gladys as time went on. So deeply did she love the handsome Tom that she put her entire trust in him, feeling sure that he would reciprocate her sacrificial devotion with the honorable obligation it merited."

"But, oh, how mistaken she was, and only after prayers and tearful entreaties does he agree to marry her, and then only upon condition that she elope. To this she consents most reluctantly, for which act she is disowned by her parents. The villainy that is wrapped up in the black heart of Tom. Truly a marriage ceremony is performed, but it is by a rowdy friend of Tom's, disguised as a clergyman, in fact, a mock marriage."

"For a time Gladys lived in ignorance of the truth, but it at last came out when Tom deserts her. Back to her home she trudged carrying her infant, and at the door she is met by her mother with open arms but when the father appears, he, still obdurate, drives her away."

"She then goes to John Wilkins, and tells her sad story. He calls Tom and demands he make immediate reparation. Tom treats the matter lightly and the brothers are on the verge of blows when the blind mother, like a ministering angel, appears, and Tom's heart is at last softened. He takes Gladys and their child to his bosom, while they receive the benediction bestowed by their priestly brother." —Moving Picture World synopsis

Van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise : Les derniers mois / The Last Months (exposition au Musée d'Orsay)

Vincent Van Gogh: Champ de blé aux corbeaux / Wheatfield with Crows. FR 1890. Plaine d'Auvers-sur-Oise. Mardi 8 juillet 1890. Huile sur toile, 50,5 x 103 cm. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent Van Gogh Stichting). Cat. rais.: F779; JH2117. Please do click on the image to enlarge it to the full screen. Photo: Google Art Project.

Vincent Van Gogh: Champ de blé sous des nuages d'orage / Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds. FR 1890. Plaine d'Auvers-sur-Oise. Mercredi 9 juillet 1890. Huile sur toile, 50,4 x 101,3 cm. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Stichting). Cat. rais.: F778; JH2097. Please do click on the image to enlarge it to the full screen. Photo: Musée d'Orsay.

Exposition au Musée d'Orsay

Van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise : Les derniers mois
Du 3 octobre 2023 au 4 février 2024

Visited on Friday, 2 February 2024.

AA: There is a discouraging warning on the museum website: "l'exposition Van Gogh est complète jusqu'à sa fermeture le dimanche 4 février". Determined to make every effort, I come early, equip myself with morning papers from the Invalides newsstand and get ready to wait all day. The queue is very long, but I do get in in an hour.

The exhibition is crowded. The experience is epic and reverential. Patience is needed.

Artists have no use for labels. They only exist to be challenged. But critics and historians need them. Van Gogh started in the inspiration of the realism and naturalism of Courbet and Millet. He was passionate about the earth, the sky, the water and the people whose life was all hard work. When Van Gogh moved to France, impressionists and pointillists revealed new dimensions of colour and form. Beyond realism: a faithful rendition of external reality was heightened with an awareness of its perception. The creation transformed into a simultaneous quest of reflection and self-reflection.

This unique exhibition is devoted solely to the last two months in Van Gogh's life. It evokes many thoughts and feelings, and it is a showcase of versatility in many of the artist's favourite subjects including portraits, self-portraits, peasants, flowers, gardens, orchards, wheat fields, stacks of grain, trees, night skies and thunderclouds.

A change takes place towards the end of the chronology. Van Gogh elongates his paintings horizontally, starting to prefer the double square (double carré) format. Cineastes call this format CinemaScope. (See illustrations above).

But a change even more profound takes place. If I would have to choose one word to describe the meaning of this show for me, it would be expressionism. Having started in realism and having upgraded his approach with impressionism, Van Gogh finally moves towards expressionism.

He sees the world increasingly as an inner vision. His passion, his fury, his love, his agony. Portraits turn into self-portraits. Even landscapes become self-portraits. Van Gogh paints his inner world in the mirror of the outer world.

His images are never purely subjective. Van Gogh keeps developing a double narrative. A passionate dialogue between the self and the world.

Even from the realistic viewpoint he gets deeper. Beyond the appearances he sees more. In the age of nuclear physics and quantum physics we sense in Van Gogh's art an awareness of infinities both in the macrocosmos and the microcosmos. There is nothing solid in his vibrant brushstrokes. They express a universe full of life, electricity, particles and cosmic charges. Even in Van Gogh's flowers and still lives everything is in motion. Panta rhei.

PS. 11 March 2026. Van Gogh created about one hundred paintings during the last two months of his life, a culmination and an achievement which alone would suffice as an immortal life's work. And this in an oeuvre of over 2000 works which emerged in only ten years.

...

MUSÉE D'ORSAY INTRODUCTION

" Présentée au musée d’Orsay à l’automne 2023, cette exposition est la première consacrée aux œuvres produites par Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) durant les deux derniers mois de sa vie, à Auvers-sur-Oise, près de Paris. L’exposition constitue l’aboutissement d’années de recherches sur cette phase cruciale de la vie de l’artiste, et permettra au public de l’apprécier enfin à sa juste dimension. "

" Arrivé à Auvers-sur-Oise le 20 mai 1890, Vincent van Gogh y décède le 29 juillet à la suite d’une tentative de suicide. Bien que le peintre n’ait passé qu’un peu plus de deux mois à Auvers, cette période voit un renouveau artistique, avec un style et un développement propres, marqués par la tension psychique née de la nouvelle situation mais aussi par la création de quelques-uns de ses plus grands chefs-d’œuvre. "

" Durement éprouvé par les différentes crises subies à Arles puis dans l’asile de Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh se rapproche de Paris et de son frère Theo pour trouver un nouvel élan créatif. Le choix d’Auvers tient à la présence du Dr Gachet, médecin spécialisé dans le traitement de la mélancolie, et par ailleurs ami des impressionnistes, collectionneur et peintre amateur. Van Gogh s’installe au centre du village, dans l’auberge Ravoux, et explore tous les aspects du nouveau monde qui s’offre à lui, tout en luttant contre des inquiétudes multiples liées à ses crises, sa santé, ses relations avec son frère, sa place dans le monde de l’art. "

" Aucune exposition n’a encore été consacrée exclusivement à ce stade final, pourtant crucial, de sa carrière. En deux mois, le peintre a produit 74 tableaux et 33 dessins, parmi lesquels des œuvres iconiques : Le Docteur Paul Gachet, L’église d’Auvers-sur-Oise, ou encore Champ de blé aux corbeaux. Riche d’une quarantaine de tableaux et d’une vingtaine de dessins, l’exposition mettra en lumière cette période dans un propos thématique : premiers paysages figurant le village, portraits, natures mortes, paysages de la campagne environnante. Elle présentera aussi une série, unique dans l’œuvre de Van Gogh, de tableaux d’un format allongé en double carré. "

" Cette exposition est organisée par l’Établissement public des musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie de Paris et le musée Van Gogh d’Amsterdam qui la présentera du 12 mai au 3 septembre 2023, pour marquer son 50e anniversaire. "

Film concert Poker Faces (composed and conducted by Juri Dal Dan, performed by Zerorchestra)

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore) and Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore). From: IMDb. Please do click on the poster to enlarge it.

 

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore) and Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore). From: IMDb.

Harry A. Pollard: Poker Faces (US 1926) starring Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore), George Siegmann (George Dixon) and Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore). From: IMDb.

Friday Pre-apertura / Pre-Opening selection and Thursday evening show

La moglie di mio marito / Lainattu vaimo (US 1926) regia/dir, adapt: Harry A. Pollard. cont: Melville W. Brown. sogg/story: Edgar Fanklin. did/titles: Walter Anthony. photog: Charles Stumar. mont/ed: Daniel Mandell. mont/ed supv: Maurice Pivar. scg/des: Charles D. Hall, Edgar Ulmer.
    cast: Edward Everett Horton (Jimmy Whitmore, “Poker Face”), Laura La Plante (Betty Whitmore), George Siegmann (George Dixon), Tom Ricketts (Henry Curlew), Tom O’Brien (Packey O’Neill, boxer), Dorothy Revier (Mrs. O’Neill), Leon Holmes (fattorino/office boy), Merta Sterling. prod: Carl Laemmle (“presented by”), Universal Pictures (Universal-Jewel). uscita/rel: 5.9.1926. 

    Finnish premiere: 26 Feb 1928 Arkadia, released by Adams-Filmi Oy.

    copia/copy: DCP (4K), 83'; did./titles: ENG. fonte/source: Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard

Campus, Culpeper, VA.

Partitura composta e diretta da/Score composed and conducted by: Juri Dal Dan; esecuzione dal vivo/performed live by: Zerorchestra.

Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Rediscoveries, 12 Oct 2023

Steve Massa (GCM 2023): " Edward Everett Horton was a master of befuddlement and the double-take, who’s still remembered for his sound film appearances in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, as well as comedies such as Trouble in Paradise (1932), Holiday (1938), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). What’s overlooked today is Horton’s substantial career in silent films. After touring all over the country as an actor in stock companies, he settled in as the leading man at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles. His cinema debut came in 1922, as the star of the feature Too Much Business. Since he was already 36 years old and approaching middle age, Horton’s screen persona wasn’t that of a young go-getter on the rise; instead he played henpecked husbands, staid businessmen, or English valets that get mixed up in farcical situations. "

" Through most of the 1920s Universal Pictures had a successful run of light comedy features that starred Reginald Denny. Poker Faces (1926) is in that mold, but with Horton substituting for Denny. Jimmy Whitmore (Horton) is an office “working stiff ” who gets a promotion – provided he helps his boss win the business of a difficult wealthy client. Since his wife has her heart set on him getting a raise, Jimmy accepts the offer against his better judgment, which leads to plenty of comedy complications. Director Harry A. Pollard had started his career as an actor at the American and Imp companies, usually teamed with his wife Margarita Fischer, and by the 1920s was turning out light comedy features for Universal that included the Reginald Denny features Oh, Doctor! and California Straight Ahead (both 1925), as well as dramas like Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) and the first screen version of Show Boat (1929). "

" Horton is surrounded by a solid supporting cast, made up of Tom Ricketts, George Siegmann, Leon Holmes, Merta Sterling, and most importantly, Reginald Denny’s frequent leading lady Laura La Plante as his wife. La Plante was one of Universal’s biggest attractions in the 1920s. Although a great beauty, her popularity was based on her immense charm and a feeling of familiarity – even though she was a knockout she didn’t know it, and could conceivably be someone you knew living next door. She got started in pictures at age 14, thanks to a cousin who lived around the corner from the Al Christie Studio. Applying at the studio for work she got five dollars a day, and moved from doing bits in shorts like Wild and Western (1919) to being leading lady for Bobby Vernon and Neal Burns. "

" After getting much attention as Charles Ray’s love interest in The Old Swimmin’ Hole (1921), La Plante soon ended up at Universal, which would be her home for the next nine years. Supporting Horton and Reginald Denny in features like The Fast Worker (1924) and Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926) led to a string of her own starring films, which included Silk Stockings, The Cat and the Canary (both 1927), and Thanks for the Buggy Ride (1928). She made a solid transition to sound films, but retired early in 1935. She later worked when she felt like it, doing an occasional film or television show, and as she had become a close friend of Horton’s she would appear with him in stage productions, such as The White Sheep of the Family and Springtime for Henry. "

" Horton followed up Poker Faces with more comedy features, such as The Whole Town’s Talking (1926) and Taxi! Taxi! (1927), and his silent film career culminated in an excellent series of eight two-reel comedies produced by no less than Harold Lloyd. When sound took over the film industry, Horton was well set due to his stage background, and dove right in – appearing in talking features like The Terror (1928), and a series of sound shorts for Educational Pictures. Making a solid hit, with verbal timing that matched his double- and triple-takes, he was in demand for the next 40 years, busy in films and on stage and radio. He remained a popular figure in the television era, narrating “Fractured Fairy Tales” for the animation series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959-1962), and playing the medicine man “Roaring Chicken” on the Western spoof F Troop (1965). Horton worked right up to his passing in 1970. " – Steve Massa

The music 

" Poker Faces is a hidden gem that captures from afar the carefree life of a historical period. Inspired by the music of the 1920s, the score portrays – or better, blends – the qualities of the characters with the dynamics of the plot. Marked by a Rossini-style crescendo that transforms the film from a play into a comedy, the score closely follows its rhythm as it tries to keep pace with its madcap finale. " – Juri Dal Dan

AA: Edward Everett Horton is familiar to me as a member of the Ernst Lubitsch "stock company" and a ubiquitous presence in the greatest comedies and musicals of the 1930s and the 1940s.

Laura La Plante I mostly know as the queen of Paul Leni horror films at Universal Pictures (The Cat and the Canary and The Last Warning) and as a lovely Alta Studios model.

In Poker Faces, I see Edward Everett Horton for the first time in a leading role and Laura La Plante in a comedy role.

Both are revelations to me. They stand out both individually and as a duo with humoristic chemistry.

Poker Faces is great entertainment, a comedy of misunderstandings with witty dialogue and marvellous pacing, and fundamentally it is a character comedy based on the appealing presences of Edward Everett Horton and Laura La Plante.

Juri Dal Dan's score is perfect for the sense of humour in this Universal-Jewel situation comedy directed by Harry A. Pollard con brio.

A fine 4K transfer from a 16 mm source.

Cheng mo de zheng reu / Bodies at Rest

Renny Harlin: 沉默的證人 / Cheng mo de zheng reu / Bodies at Rest (CN/HK 2019) starring Richie Jen (Santa) and Nick Cheung (Dr. Chen Jia Hao).

Renny Harlin: 沉默的證人 / Cheng mo de zheng reu / Bodies at Rest (CN/HK 2019). The trio in the middle: Zi Yang (Qiao Lin), Nick Cheung (Dr. Chen Jia Hao), Richie Jen (Santa).

沉默的證人 (traditional) / 沉默的证人 (simplified).
    CN/HK © 2019 Wanda Media Co. Ltc. / Media Asia Film. P: Cheng Kim-fung, Lei Qiao, Fei Xiao.
    D: Renny Harlin. SC: David Lesser. DP: Anthony Pun – colour – 2.39:1 – Red Weapon Monstro – Redcode RAW – master format: digital intermediate 2K – released on 35 mm and D-Cinema. M: Anthony Chue. Theme song: Xueran Chen. ED: Ka-Fai Cheung. Stunt coordinator: Ming-sing Wong.
    Companies involved include: Phantom Clip Studio, MBS Studios, Physical FX, China Film Studio. Title design: Wandasunmon.
    C: Nick Cheung (Dr. Chen Jia Hao), Richie Jen (Santa), Zi Yang (Qiao Lin), Carlos Chan (Elf), Shu-liang Ma (Security guard Uncle Jin).
    With: Jin Au-Yeung (Wei Zai), Jiayi Feng (Rudolph), Roger Kwok (Ah Jie), Sonija Kwok (Chen's deceased wife), Clara Lee (Zheng Anqi), Peng Ming (Police officer Wu), Ron Ng (Police officer Li).
    Loc: Hong Kong, Beijing.
    Languages: Mandarin, Cantonese.
    94 min
    Festival premiere: 18 March 2019 Hong Kong International Film Festival.
    Chinese premiere: 16 Aug 2019.
    Hong Kong premiere: 22 Aug 2019.
    Finnish premiere (selected cities): 5 Feb 2021 – released by Night Visions Distribution – with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Sami Siitojoki / Angel Hammer.
    Lappeenranta corona emergency security: max 20 capacity, face masks, distancing, hand hygiene.
    Viewed at Finnkino Strand 1, Lappeenranta, 8 Feb 2021.

AA: Since 2016, Renny Harlin has directed three films in China, two of them belonging to the lineage of Hong Kong action cinema. The first one, Skiptrace, starring Jackie Chan, was the biggest box office hit of both Harlin and Chan.

In his new Triad saga Bodies at Rest Harlin pursues an agenda of his own within the constraints of genre cinema. He does not focus on martial arts like Bruce Lee. He does not emphasize comedy like Jackie Chan. He does not indulge in operatic bloodshed like John Woo. His cinema is not filled with magic like that of Tsui Hark. And he is not interested in the undercover cop narrative like Ringo Lam.

There is in the core of Harlin's cinema an innate kinetic urge, an instinct for the electrifying mise-en-scène and a natural talent for action cinema, a primal vitality that belongs to the mainstream of the great current of action adventure fantasy that started with Victorin Jasset's serials at the Éclair company.

It was as evident in Harlin's debut feature film Jäätävä polte / Born American as it is in Bodies at Rest, which does not belong to his most magnificent achievements. Despite its modest scope its pulsing dynamism is unmistakable.

Harlin was in the right place at the right time during the golden age of Hollywood's turbo-charged action extravaganzas produced by Joel Silver, Jerry Bruckheimer et al.

They were an over-the-top vision of the age of the bonfire of the vanities, displaying an appetite for destruction. They were post-modern manifestations of the Nero complex that has been in the heart of the cinema since Méliès. We create a world and sit back in an easy chair to watch it burn.

Bodies at Rest takes place at Christmas time at a huge Hong Kong morgue. Harlin brings his Hollywood expertise to the movie, but rainstorms, chases in halls of reflecting surfaces, races to the rescue, car crashes, battles in the freezing works, torrents of broken glass, countdowns, explosions and firestorms are not all there is. Even more engaging is Harlin's command of space and movement.

Jumps to conclusions and leaps of logic are perhaps also stunts expected in this brand of cinema.

What dates Harlin's cinema is his penchant for sadism, but more is not more.

The blitz montages in fight sequences are so rapid that it is hard to make sense of them. Ultra-rapid cutting weakens the impact of action scenes, because it breaks down the suspension of disbelief. We cease to feel viscerally that the actors are really going through all the mayhem.

But perhaps the ADHD mentality is a manifestation of the epoch of "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains". We surf quickly ahead without stopping to reflect or feel. No matter how great the overload of attractions, everything remains indifferent.

The movie is well cast. Nick Cheung conveys quiet authority and a silent dignity as Dr. Chen Jia Hao, perhaps in tribute to Harlin's own father who was a doctor and chief physician in his city. Zi Yang as Qiao Lin is a resourceful fighter in the female leading role. Shu-liang Ma brings a jovial presence as the donut-loving security guard Uncle Jin.

The three villains, dressed in Christmas masks, are modelled after familiar archetypes. Richie Jen (Santa) is a poker-faced, callous leader. Carlos Chan (Elf) is an erratic sadist. Jiayi Feng (Rudolph) is an old-timer who faints at the sight of blood.

The relations between the villains are based on a healthy mutual distrust. Bodies at Rest is not a story-driven film, and the relevant backgrounds of the wars between the Hong Kong and Thai triads, the policemen doubling as gangsters, and the underworld connections of Dr. Chen Jia Hao remain underexposed.

Renny Harlin's first film Born American was a violent anticommunist action fantasy. Bodies at Rest has been made in a country ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. It's the last Christmas in Hong Kong for the doctor and his assistant. In the finale, the rainstorm warning is cancelled. We may pause to think about the meaning of the multiple disguises of gangsters as policemen as merry Christmas figures.

The film has been efficiently shot by Anthony Pun, and the score by Anthony Chue is engaging. I like the design of the final credit sequence based on the concept of X-ray photos and silhouettes of hands holding them.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PROMOTIONAL COPY FROM NIGHT VISIONS DISTRIBUTION:

Palm Springs (2020)

Max Barbakow: Palm Springs (US 2020), starring Cristin Milioti (Sarah) and Andy Samberg (Nyles).

Palm Springs / Palm Springs.
    US 2020 © PS Film Production. Hulu presents a Hulu original. PC: Limelight Productions and Sun Entertainment present – A Party Over Here production – a Limelight Production. P: Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Becky Sloviter, Jorma Taccone. P: Dylan Sellers, Chris Parker. EX: Alex Dong, Gabriel Revilla Lugo.
    D: Max Barbakow. SC: Andy Siara. DP: Quyen "Q" Tran – camera: Arri Alexa Mini – source format: CFast 2.0 ProRes 4:4:4 (3.2K) – colour – 2.39:1 – release format: D-Cinema. PD: Jason Kisvarday. AD: Tim Ford. Set dec: Kelsi Ephraim. Cost: Colin Wilkes. Makeup: Galaxy San Juan. Hair: Kimberly Spiteri. SFX: Tom Ceglia. VFX: Crafty Apes. M: Matthew Compton. Music supervisor: Robin Urdang. Soundtrack listing: see beyond the jump break. S: Jon Wakeham, Sean McCormack. ED: Matthew Friedman, Andrew Dickler. Casting: Allison Jones.
    C: Andy Samberg (Nyles), Cristin Milioti (Sarah), J. K. Simmons (Roy), Peter Gallagher (Howard), Meredith Hagner (Misty), Camila Mendes (Tala), Tyler Hoechlin (Abe), Chris Pang (Trevor), Jacqueline Obradors (Pia), Tongayi Chirisa (Jerry), Dale Dickey (Darla), Conner O'Malley (Randy), Jena Friedman (Daisy the Bartender).
    Loc: California (Santa Clarita, Palmdale).
    87 min
    Festival premiere: 26 Jan 2020 Sundance Film Festival
    Hulu online premiere: 10 July 2020
    Finnish premiere: 27 Nov 2020 – released by Cinema Mondo with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Iira Tuominen / Sophia Beckman.
    NB. After the premiere weekend, Helsinki cinemas closed on 30 Nov due to the corona emergency, but screenings continued in selected cities.
    Corona emergency security: max 20 capacity, face masks, distancing, hand hygiene.
    Viewed at Finnkino Strand 2, Lappeenranta, 27 Dec 2020.

AA: With Tenet, Palm Springs belongs to the high profile "time plays" of the year 2020. The film-makers, director Max Barbakow and screenwriter Andy Siara, are aware of their concept's affinity with Groundhog Day, but distance from it in significant ways.

"Live Like There's No Tomorrow" is the advertizing tagline, and it sums up saga's duality. The eternal wedding in Palm Springs is a vision of paradise, marred by endless repetition and ever-changing deceptions and disappointments during the celebration weekend.

Unlike Groundhog Day, this is not a tale of a comeuppance of a cynical and obnoxious protagonist. It's about being stuck into an endless present from which even death offers no escape. It may evoke reflections about an age where the ideal is to live an eternal youth, and where mankind is, indeed, living like there is no tomorrow.

Palm Springs has been studied as belonging to the category of time loop movies, but it resonates also with philosophical or surrealist tales of "no escape". In Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis clos (No Exit) the place in which we find ourselves is not Paradise but Hell. In Luis Buñuel's El ángel exterminador there is no end to a lavish dinner party.

Cinema itself is an art of the time play, where a real-time event can be endlessly repeated, where different time periods can be mixed in parallel montage, and where time can be manipulated via slow motion, time lapse, or blitz cutting.

The evolution of the cinema coincided with the revelations of the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. In art, writers like Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time) and James Joyce displayed parallel insight. Affinities were obvious to Henri Bergson's concepts of durée and the clock time, Bergson himself reacting to Zeno, and inspiring Deleuze.

Einstein also inspired J. W. Dunne's influential work An Experiment with Time, a work more valid as poetry than science. Dunne in turn inspired J. B. Priestley's time plays, but also H. G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and James Hilton, whose Random Harvest is also relevant to the WWI shell shock experience. "The end of an era" experience was a key reason to the newly topical Shakespearean feeling of "a time out of joint" (Hamlet's original utterance can be understood as a definition of Renaissance).

The time loop theme also connects to the ancient tradition of the eternal return, the cyclical vision of existence, familiar from Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Pythagoreanism, Stoicism and the philosophy of Nietzsche. The infinite loop, the wheel of time, the endless knot and the mandala are expressions of this. Of 20th century writers, Hesse and Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus) were fascinated by the theme.

I seem to have evaded discussing Max Barbakow and Andy Siara's movie, but perhaps it has succeeded in tempting me to an infinite loop in a wheel of time, discussing an eternal return. The protagonists are unusual. As interpreted by Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, they are irritating and hard to relate to. Perhaps this is an act of Entfremdung. We are not meant to identify with them, but we are welcomed to witty dialogue and chains of associations that are both topical and eternal.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:

Nimby

 

Teemu Nikki: Nimby (2020). In the center: Susanna Pukkila (Mervi Hirvi). Left to right: Ona Kamu (Minttu Jalonen), Elias Westerberg (Mika Jalonen), Leila Abdullah (Farrah Mohsen), Matti Onnismaa (Artsi), Stephan Schad (Hermann Haettenschweiler), Antti Reini (Topi Hirvi), Jouko Puolanto (Osmo Jalonen), Almila Bagriacik (Kata Mohsen) and Mari Rantasila (Kaisa Hirvi).

NIMBY
    FI © 2020 It's Alive Films Oy. P: Jani Pösö. EX: Mikko Leino, Ari Tolppanen, Nunnu Karppinen (Friday Capital Oy).
    D: Teemu Nikki. SC: Teemu Nikki, Jani Pösö. Cin: Sari Aaltonen. AD: Santtu Toivola. Cost: Riitta Röpelinen. Makeup: Mari Vaalasranta. Visual post-production: Post Control Helsinki Oy. M: Janne Huttunen. S: Tuomas Seppänen. ED: Matti Näränen.
    C: Susanna Pukkila (Mervi Hirvi), Almila Bagriacik (Kata Mohsen), Elias Westerberg (Mika Jalonen), Matti Onnismaa (Artsi), Mari Rantasila (Kaisa Hirvi), Antti Reini (Topi Hirvi), Ona Kamu (Minttu Jalonen), Jouko Puolanto (Osmo Jalonen), Leila Abdullah (Farrah Mohsen), Stephan Schad (Hermann Haettenschweiler), Hannamaija Nikander (Janika), Hannes Suominen (Teuvo), Youssef Asad Alkhatib (Amir), Jalal Haj Ali (Ahmed), Hassan Alsaleh (Jamal), Rami Rusinen (postman), Markus Karekallas (chief constable Salonen), Matti Rönkä (news anchor), Cerstin Cassidy (news anchor), Kersti Ahlgren (journalist at the press conference), Frank Wiedmann (journalist at the press conference).
    Loc: Forssa.
    Languages: Finnish, English, German.
    95 min
    English and Finnish subtitles by Liina Härkönen.
    Premiere: 9 Oct 2020, distributed by Scanbox Entertainment A/S, theaterical distribution in Finland by Finnkino Oy.
    Viewed with Finnish subtitles for the hard of hearing by BTI Studios at Kinopalatsi 8, Helsinki, 9 Oct 2020.
    Nimby = Not in my backyard.
    Tagline: A comedy about the difficulty of tolerance.

Official synopsis: "Meet Iranian-Finnish lesbian couple, Mervi and Kata, a model of tolerance. Take them in a Finnish small town to visit Mervi’s parents, where you’ll find a gay pastor and his racist wife, a pro-refugee Iranian activist, a German overprotective bodyguard, and a pacifist, who refuses any talks about politics or religion in his house – and you’ll get an extraordinary melting pot. Surround the house with the local far-right activists and refugees and the mix will be explosive!"

AA: Intolerance, the title of D. W. Griffith's 1916 masterpiece, would also suit Teemu Nikki's new movie. It's about the difficulty of loving one's neighbour. As the official synopsis states, it's about a melting pot turning into an explosive mix.

Everybody has something to hide, and because everybody has been waiting too long, a string of inconvenient truths and awful confessions is unleashed. Such is the private sphere of the movie, the story of three families.

The setting is a fictional small town called Lämsä. The main employer, a paint factory, has been closed, and resentment is brewing among the unemployed. The empty factory has been turned into a refugee shelter. Nationalistic populists incite the unemployed to hate refugees, an even more marginalized group.

Mervi Hirvi (Susanna Pukkila), the small town girl, has turned into a suvakkilesbo (untranslatable: "suvakki" = "a tolerant one" in a pejorative sense), and her ex-boyfriend Mika (Elias Westerberg) is now an incel neo-Nazi. Mervi is romantically involved with Kata Mohsen (Almila Bagriacik), whose mother, the Iranian Farrah Mohsen (Leila Abdullah), a world-famous champion of refugees' rights, arrives among the hicks to find her. Upon learning about this the populists immediately besiege the house and demand the extradition of the Mohsens.

Teemu Nikki and Jani Pösö create an audacious cocktail of incompatible genres. Nimby is a "meet the parents" style comedy where everyone is each other's worst nightmare. It is a political thriller that can be compared for instance with Stuart Heisler's Storm Warning that I saw six weeks ago in Bologna. It has touches of the horror film in the nocturnal siege during which the citizens of Lämsä turn into an arsenous lynch mob. And there are, indeed, Griffith connections in the "last minute rescue" concept whose earliest master Griffith was – in use also in the atrocious Ku Klux Klan finale of The Birth of a Nation. In the climax Nimby even turns into a gang war film.

Nikki and Pösö relish the clichés and stereotypes that they twist and turn. Mika the neo-Nazi both ignites the persecution and launches the rescue. The pastor and his wife (Jouko Puolanto, Ona Kamu) are the first to suggest the surrender of the Iranians to the Nazis. Nikki and Pösö's dense screenplay moves briskly ahead, always flirting with disaster, but the offbeat approach is not an end in itself.

In his "word from the director" Teemu Nikki confesses that he lives in a complacent bubble of the like-minded like everybody else, but his mission in this movie was to have a big laugh at his own prejudices.

Masters of comedy, starting with Molière, often start with gross stereotypes, and imbue them with wit and humour, enabling laughter at many layers.

Nimby laughs at intolerance, even of the "tolerant ones". The film climaxes with a rousing speech by Mervi. Farrah is so impressed that she quotes it in her own great address broadcast globally.

The visual quality in the screening was strangely drab.

...

There are funny details. The dysfunctional Walther PPK of the local Führer (Matti Onnismaa). Ona Kamu singing the hymn "Oi kuningasten kuningas" ["O King of Kings"]. I always find it appealing when a film director appears as the songwriter. Nikki has written the lyrics to the gloomy punk songs.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OFFICIAL DATA FROM THE PRESSBOOK AND SOUNDTRACK LISTING FROM ELONET:

After the Festival: Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, 25–31 August 2020

 

Film concert Sylvester (1924) at Il Cinema Ritrovato, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, 29 Aug 2020. Photo: Lorenzo Burlando, Margherita Caprilli.

When the news was announced that Il Cinema Ritrovato is going to take place in real life and not only online, friends asked me if I'm going, and I replied: "I must go, but I hope they will cancel".

The catalogue was released online three weeks ahead. I spent two days reading, connecting my computer to a big tv screen with an HDMI cable. Normally, the paradox of the catalogue is that there is no time to read it until afterwards.

Everybody warned me not to go, but having read the catalogue I had no choice.

I returned from my forest retreat for a week to a Helsinki that was neglecting safe distances, face masks and hand hygiene. It was the opposite in Bologna where I felt relaxed all the time. If I'm not relaxed I cannot focus, but at Il Cinema Ritrovato I felt safe.

Everything was different. Numbered tickets had to be booked in advance. It was not permitted to change seats. It was still sweltering hot (around 32 degrees Centigrade or more) in the end of August. Wearing face masks from morning till night, also during screenings, did not make it easier.

I can watch movies without glasses, but for an accurate assessment of the visual finesses I wear glasses, and the combination of a face mask and glasses can be paradoxical because glasses tend to get foggy. I learned to manage all that. Safety first.

When I returned to unsafe Helsinki, I took the corona test at the airport and got the negative diagnosis (no virus) the day after. More than usually I had stayed in a bubble. Wearing that mask reduces the desire to meet people and engage in conversations. Such live exchanges are essential to the festival experience.

But I'm happy and grateful that they did not cancel the festival. Seeing the films in actual projections and visiting the events in person cannot be compensated by online access.

There were more venues than ever, and the catalogue was bulging with films of which only a small selection it was possible to see. As usual, I skipped the well-known and focused on films that can be hard to see on screen. I wanted to follow the retrospective of Gösta Werner, the great cineaste who I had the great pleasure to know personally, and considered indulging in the Henry Fonda retrospective, with some of my greatest favourite films, starting with Young Mr. Lincoln, but something's got to give.

The Frank Tuttle / Stuart Heisler double retrospective was a novel and illuminating concept, of two directors both richly deserving further study. Frank Tuttle's background in Paramount's elegant comedies and musicals provided a special background to films that are essential in the genesis of film noir. This Gun for Hire launched the hitman anti-hero of the screen in a way that resonates to this day, and catapulted Alan Ladd as a star.

Stuart Heisler was for decades a top editor in Hollywood before his career as a director started. Many films of his are topical for today's Black Lives Matter movement, including The Negro Soldier and Storm Warning. Heisler had also an original and passionate approach to women's films, such as Smash-Up (launching Susan Hayward as a grand melodrama diva) and The Star (metacinema with Bette Davis).

FRANK TUTTLE
Ladies Should Listen (1934).
The Glass Key (1935).
This Gun for Hire (1942).
Hostages (1943).
Suspense (1946).
Hell on Frisco Bay (1956).

STUART HEISLER
Among the Living (1941) .
The Negro Soldier (1944) .
Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) .
Storm Warning (1951) .
The Star (US 1952).

The Annales approach has been distinctive and indispensable in Bologna. The Cento anni fà series started in 2003 with "The First Great Year of the Cinema: 1903", and that series still continues. In 2015, a parallel Annales series started with Anno Zero, of the first films released in 1895. This year the series went on with a changed title, "Century of Cinema: 1900", but for my own memory organization, I still call the series also "Anno Cinque". In the beginning, the Annales series were global and representative, but soon they turned Eurocentric and quite selective even at that. They are indispensable all the same. This year's highlights included a Méliès magic show: a delightful attempt to recreate the full Méliès experience. I saw the complete Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre show when it was reconstructed eight years ago in Pordenone, but this year's Bologna selection was exquisite; a smaller sample does more justice to individual films, all extraordinary records of the greatest performers of the age. Unique and outstanding was the Giancarlo Stucky collection made on the first cinema format specifically designed for home movie use: Gaumont-Demenÿ's Chrono de Poche.

1900 ANNO CINQUE (Century of Cinema: 1900 / Il secolo del cinema: 1900)
Lumière: Cinématographe Géant at the 1900 Paris Exposition .
Lumière: Indocina occupata .
Méliès .
Gaumont: Sieurin's French Collection (in Stockholm) .
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre .
Nice Moves – British Film in 1900 .
Gaumont Chrono de Poche: Giancarlo Stucky .

Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström continued their epic project of programming Japanese cinema for heritage festivals. Yuzo Kawashima was revealed as the "missing link" between traditional and modern Japanese cinema, active from the mid-1940s until the early 1960s. I liked best his films conveying a strong community spirit (Tonkatsu taisho, Ai no onimotsu), but another prominent theme of his is the dissolution of that spirit in a new age of anomie. Kawashima was most highly regarded as a director of broad comedy (Bakumatsu taiyoden), which I need to revisit to learn to relate to.

YUZO KAWASHIMA
Tonkatsu taisho / Our Chief, Our Doctor (1952).
Ai no onimotsu / Burden of Love (1955).
Ginza 24 chou / Tales of Ginza (1955) .
Suzaki paradaisu: aka shingo / Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (1956) .
Bakumatsu taiyoden / The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (1957) .

Just when we thought that we already know Soviet cinema, Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz introduce to us many Soviet women directors in a rich collection of films that have been difficult or impossible to see. All talented and worthy in a "Women Make Film" age of rediscoveries. We saw the first film adaptation of Anton Chekhov's beloved dog tale Kashtanka (by Olga Preobrazhenskaya), highly personal and visually compelling films by Aleksandra Khokhlova, bold and engrossing Georgian visions by Nutsa Gogoberidze (the Ur-mother of a prominent film family in three generations), defiant and surprising works by Margarita Barskaya, a persecuted director who committed suicide during the Great Terror, a heroic Bildungsroman about the revolutionary generation by Vera Stroeva (simultaneously perhaps a Troyan Horse with a double-coded message), and Nadezhda Kosheverova's evergreen Cinderella, one of the most popular Russian films of all times.

EARLY WOMEN DIRECTORS IN THE SOVIET UNION
Olga Preobrazhenskaya: Kashtanka (1926)
Aleksandra Khokhlova: Delo s zastyozhkami / An Affair of the Clasps (1929)
Aleksandra Khokhlova: Sasha (1930)
Nutsa Gogoberidze: Buba (1930)
Nutsa Gogoberidze: Uzhmuri (1934)
Margarita Barskaya: Rvanye bashmaki / Torn Boots (1933).
Margarita Barskaya: Otets i syn (1936) / Father and Son (1936)
Vera Stroeva: Pokolenie pobeditelei / A Generation of Victors (1936).
Nadezhda Kosheverova: Zolushka (1947) / Cinderella (1947).

Among the single highlights in the classics series a special discovery was Mohammed Reza Aslani's Chess of the Wind, a refined and poetic Iranian detective story, a true revelation of a film believed lost and never properly launched. Pietro Germi's Seduced and Abandoned, starring an already formidable young Stefania Sandrelli, remains a startling satire of patriarchy. Two Weimar classics from the golden year 1924 were seen in restorations. Paul Leni's Waxworks is his masterpiece. Lupu Pick's Sylvester is a work of purely visual poetry, and a new exquisite restoration does justice to it. Klaus Pringsheim's original score, one of the best original scores of the silent period, was heard at Piazza Maggiore for the first time in 96 years. My greatest favourite at the festival was Hiroshi Inagaki's The Rickshaw Man. It was cut in two instances of censorship by 20 minutes, and the cuts are still believed lost, but even in this unintentionally elliptic form the movie radiates timeless wisdom and mystery.

THE FILM FOUNDATION 30 YEARS
Mohammed Reza Aslani: Shatranj-e baad / Chess of the Wind (1976).

VENICE CLASSICS / THE FILM FOUNDATION 30 YEARS
Hiroshi Inagaki: Muhomatsu no issho (1943) / The Rickshaw Man (1943) .

VENICE CLASSICS
Pietro Germi: Sedotta e abbandonata / Seduced and Abandoned (1964).

RECOVERED AND RESTORED
Paul Leni: Das Wachsfigurenkabinett / Waxworks (1924).
Film concert: Lupu Pick: Sylvester (1924), with the original score by Klaus Pringsheim.

My immediate reactions on the last evening of the Festival: 31 August 2020 .

Il Cinema Ritrovato selections about which I have also blogged recently:
Esfir Shub: К.Ш.Э. Комсомол – шеф электрификации / K.S.E. Komsomol – Leader of Electrification (1932).
Marco Ferreri: La donna scimmia / The Ape Woman (1964).

On the last evening: Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, 25–31 August 2020

 

The poster boy and the poster girl: Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg filming À bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).

 

The silent films of Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2020 were screened at the Bologna Opera House, the legendary Teatro Comunale di Bologna, built in 1763 and designed by the architect Antonio Galli Bibiena. The musicians have never been happier. The acoustics was perfect, and the Steinway Concert Grand Piano was top of the game.

Il Cinema Ritrovato made a strong statement by realizing a full scale festival in the pandemic year 2020. Against all odds, and during a period when other high profile festivals, including Telluride and Pordenone, were cancelled.

It was a much needed statement. My previous film festival visit was to Tampere, 4-8 March, five and a half months ago. Meanwhile I have been watching films online and even had my first online film festival experience: Midnight Sun Film Festival 2020.

All this has been great, but it's not the same. We need the living simultaneous connection. There is a unique electricity in the cinema experience. Big films need the big space. Intimate films need the charged intimacy. Suspense is more thrilling when felt together. Comedy is funnier when there are escalating, successive waves of laughter. Even silliness is funnier when shared. Audiences with children are the greatest elixir.

Bologna 2020 was like arriving at an oasis after a half-year wandering in the wilderness. Thank you directors Gian Luca Farinelli, Cecilia Cenciarelli, Ehsan Khoshbakht and Mariann Lewinsky. Thank you festival coordinator Guy Borlée and all of the dedicated staff. 

We obeyed safe distances and hand hygiene, and in our masks we were like a cast of characters from a Louis Feuillade serial.

We are terrified by the recent news from Hollywood where careers of the most experienced professionals, our beloved colleagues, are on the line. For the current studio heads, streaming is king. But the cinema experience is indispensable.

My three highlights of Il Cinema Ritrovato Anno 2020:

Storm Warning (Stuart Heisler, 1951). One of the greatest political thrillers of all times. Theme: the Ku Klux Klan. In a casting coup, Ginger Rogers and Ronald Reagan play the heroes who defy mob rule.

Sylvester / New Year's Eve (Lupu Pick, 1924). The well-known Weimar classic was reborn in the film concert on Piazza Maggiore. The 2020 Deutsche Kinemathek restoration is based on the brilliant Komiya Collection nitrate print, and the subtle théâtre intime experience is greatly enhanced by the visual refinement. For the first time since the premiere the original music by Klaus Pringsheim was heard, played by the orchestra of Teatro Comunale, conducted by Timothy Brock. It is one of the greatest original silent film scores.

The Rickshaw Man / Muhomatsu no issho (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1943). This engrossing masterpiece of Japanese cinema was shown in a brand new 2020 restoration in the Venice Classics strand of the festival. I have been wanting to see this movie since Nagisa Oshima praised it in his Century of the Cinema tribute to the history of Japanese cinema in 1995. Seeing the film at last, it greatly exceeded my expectations.

Film concert Sylvester / New Year's Eve (world premiere: 2020 restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek based on the Komiya Collection print) (original Klaus Pringsheim score arranged by Frank Strobel, conducted by Timothy Brock)

Lupu Pick: Sylvester (DE 1924). Cinematographer (outdoors): Guido Seeber.

Lupu Pick: Sylvester (DE 1924). Cinematographer (indoors): Karl Hasselmann. Eugen Klöpfer (Man), Frida Richard (Mother), Edith Posca (Woman).

World premiere: Film Concert Sylvester, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, 29 Aug 2020. Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretta da Timothy Brock. Photo: Lorenzo Burlando / Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Sylvester. Tragödie einer Nacht / La notte di San Silvestro
    DE 1924. Director: Lupu Pick. 57 min
    Scen.: Carl Mayer. F.: Karl Hasselmann (Innen), Guido Seeber (Strassen). M.: Luise Heilborn-Körbitz. Scgf.: Klaus Richter. Mus.: Klaus Pringsheim.
    Int.: Edith Posca (la donna), Eugen Klöpfer (l’uomo), Frida Richard (madre), Karl Harbacher, Julius E. Herrmann, Rudolf Blümner.
    Prod.: Lupu Pick per Rex-Film AG. DCP.
    1529 m
    There are no intertitles in the film.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Recovered and Restored.
    Restored in 2020 by Deutsche Kinemathek in collaboration with the National Film Archive of Japan and La Cinémathèque française at laboratories ARRI and Imagica Lab with the support of German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
    DCP from Deutsche Kinemathek.
    Video greeting by Hisashi Okajima (National Film Archive of Japan).
    Introduced by Martin Koerber, hosted by Mariann Lewinsky.
    Partitura originale composta per la prima del film nel 1924 da Klaus Pringsheim, ricostruita ed arrangiata da Frank Strobel.
    Accompagnamento dal vivo dell'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretta da Timothy Brock. 32 players.
    Viewed at Piazza Maggiore, 29 Aug 2020.

Hiroshi Komatsu (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Sylvester – Tragödie einer Nacht is the fourth collaborative work of Lupu Pick and Carl Mayer following Der Dummkopf (The Blockhead, 1920), Scherben (Shattered, 1921) and Grausige Nächte (Nights of Terror, 1921). And for Mayer, it is the third Kammerspielfilm after Scherben and Hintertreppe. Mayer also wrote the original idea for the script of Die Straße (The Street, 1923), which was directed by Karl Grune around the same time. Sylvester is, in a sense, a work developed from Die Straße; here the street becomes a landscape on which the protagonist’s inner feelings are projected. The expression of the street seen in these two films would further link to the importance of the street in the films of Neue Sachlichkeit. In the Kammerspielfilm, the tiny things in daily life that most films do not depict are observed as seen through a microscope, and the psychological movements of the people become important, represented not through the intertitles but through the subtle changes and movements of the actors’ expressions. A strong, intensive and quite different drama is born via these experiments. The camera not only witnesses the tragedy of a family over the course of one night in Sylvester, but also finally shows the world itself as a living environment – Lotte Eisner called it “Umwelt”. The objects and the landscape are shown almost as living objects. This is the animism that runs throughout this work. The protagonist dies but in this living world a new life is born." Hiroshi Komatsu (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Sylvester is based on a script by Carl Mayer that is a work of art in itself and was published to coincide with the film’s premiere. Sylvester shows us the tragic story of a woman, a man and his mother on New Year’s Eve, featuring the street as supporting actor, so to speak: cinematographer Guido Seeber shot the street scenes with a moving camera. Sylvester premiered in Berlin in January 1924 with music by Klaus Pringsheim. The original negative of the film is lost. The only surviving German element is a heavily abridged nitrate print in the collection of Deutsche Kinemathek. A vintage print of the English version archived in the Komiya-Nitrate Collection of the National Film Archive of Japan is the most complete preserved film element. This print was presented in Bologna in 2019, while the restoration was still under way. In a collaborative project between Deutsche Kinemathek and the National Film Archive of Japan, Sylvester has been digitised and restored. The German nitrate print and film elements from La Cinémathèque française were used to substitute fragmented or badly damaged parts of the Japanese print. Furthermore, Deutsche Kinemathek aimed at correcting the numerous editing mistakes inherent in this element. Important preliminary work had already been done by Filmmuseum München, but many obviously displaced shots still remained without any indication of their correct position. During the reconstruction phase, the original manuscript of Klaus Pringsheim’s score was located in the archives at the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. It contained references to the content of the film that served as important indications for reconstructing the cut as presumably seen in 1924. In an intensive collaboration, Deutsche Kinemathek and conductor Frank Strobel, who was brought in to reconstruct and arrange the music for the restored version, managed to reunite the images and music of the dramatic Kammerspiel that Lupu Pick shot as warning to society." Julia Wallmüller (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: The Komiya Collection print of Sylvester was a revelation when it was rediscovered at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in 1992 in Pordenone.

Tonight the well-known (yet perhaps still unknown?) Weimar classic was reborn in the film concert on the Piazza Maggiore. The 2020 Deutsche Kinemathek restoration is based on the Komiya Collection nitrate print, and the subtle théâtre intime experience is greatly enhanced by the visual refinement. For the first time since the premiere the original music by Klaus Pringsheim was heard, played by the orchestra of Teatro Comunale, conducted by Timothy Brock. It is now on my shortlist of ten greatest original silent film scores.

For generations the film was known only in truncated versions. When I saw the Pordenone screening (1357 m / 66 min), I had fresh in memory the then best available European print, the Munich restoration that we had screened at Cinema Orion in Helsinki in 1987 (1031 m). The short Munich version was good, but the superior quality of the Komiya Collection print and its subtle toning brought out nuances and balances in a much more effective way.

Hiroshi Komatsu, who introduced Sylvester in Pordenone in 1992, sums up the film very well in his Bologna program note above. Almost all attempts to give a resume or synopsis of Sylvester fail to convey what the film is about, but Komatsu catches the essence of this unique film that takes place beyond verbal discourse.

God has scattered the people who are building the Tower of Babel and confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other. Outside, there is great joy: on New Year's Eve people are partying on the streets like there is no tomorrow. Inside, there is deep sorrow: a man, crushed between mother and wife, regresses to a baby and ends his life. Brief insert shots portray the indifferent nature: the Moon over the sea at night.

This is just the external course of the film whose deepest currents are profoundly moving yet impossible to verbalize. Sylvester is an example of film art that moves in the wavelengths of pantomime, ballet, Beethoven's string quartets and the great poets of the age.

The screenwriter Carl Mayer famously emerged as a founder of this kind of cinematic monologue intérieur, in films including Scherben (27 May 1921, D: Lupu Pick), Hintertreppe (19 Dec 1921, D: Leopold Jessner & Paul Leni), Die Strasse (29 Nov 1923, D: Karl Grune), Sylvester (3 Jan 1924, D: Lupu Pick) and Der letzte Mann (23 Dec 1924, D: F. W. Murnau).

With the exception of Der letzte Mann / The Last Laugh, these were not hit films, but both Carl Mayer and Lupu Pick were also skilled at entertainment. Creating a film based on pure visuals, without intertitles, and employing an "unchained camera" ("die entfesselte Kamera") were reasons for Der letzte Mann to achieve world fame and for Fox Film Corporation to hire Murnau as their house director. But these qualities were already present in Sylvester.

Regarding its emphasis on pure visuals, it was a great loss that there were no worthy prints of Sylvester for a long time. Now this loss has been rectified by this great film restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek and the resurrection of the original score by Frank Strobel.

God is in the detail.