“I am an actor, and
if I don’t play this part, I’m through with films! If I can’t play parts that I
don’t look like, then I shouldn’t even be on the stage – I chose the wrong
profession!”
Thus argued noted stage actor Emil Jannings on being told
that he didn’t look regal enough to play King Louis XV in Ernst Lubitsch’s new
film; four years later he would play the dilapidated doorman in The Last Laugh and he was, of course,
eminently capable of playing the King. Lubitsch was so convinced he expanded
the role and offered Jannings more work.
Made just a year after the Great War ended, Madame Dubarry was a lavish costume
drama that was the most expensive film yet made in Germany. It led to director
Ernst Lubitsch being labelled as the German Griffith and there are certainly
parts of the film that show a debt. It's also possible that Orphans of the Storm – made three years
later - was in part a response from the master to the younger man's smooth
story-telling, controlled crowd scenes and subject matter. Lubitsch was more
interested than DWG in “humanised” history, rather than simply finding
identifiable emblems of “good or bad”… He concentrated on the impact on these events of a woman who barely
comprehended her role in change, let alone the reaction she eventually faced.
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| Emil Jannings being "typically protean..." |
There’s also not too much in common between Lillian Gish
and Pola Negri... with the latter evincing an earthy humanity that convinces
you that this humble seamstress could indeed earn the affection of aristocrats
and Kings. In the US, the film was sold as her star vehicle, with little
mention of its German origins: Polish star, “French story”.
Pola plays Jeanne Vaubernier a wild and carefree soul
almost unconscious of her effect on men but with a pragmatic ambition driven by
opportunism more than any political programme. She has a lover, Armand De Foix
(an earnest Harry Liedtke) but sets her sights on any man of social standing
who can offer her more. Thus, does she make her way in society first through
the influential Don Diego then Le Comte Jean Dubarry and finally on to King
Louis XV and the protean Emil. Jannings is measurably larger than life and
seems to nailed the art of film acting very quickly, filling the screen with
just the right amount of beaming charm along with the self-confident casual
power that inhabits all the best monarchs.
  |
| A Lubitsch touch... the curtain reveals the opportunities now opening... |
The pace of the story is so fast you wonder how things
are going to develop beyond this point but life and French politics begin to
overtake Jeanne. She gets the king to prevent Armand's execution and he becomes
a member of the royal guard. At the same time she comes into range of the
scheming Minister Choiseul (another great turn from Reinhold Schünzel) who
hopes to advance his sister's position with the king. Meanwhile, France is a
tinderbox of festering resentment at unfair taxes, food shortages and negligent
aristocracy.
Jeanne and Armand meet and he is astonished to learn that
she is the hated Dubarry; symbol of royal indifference and whimsy. "It is easy to forgive, " he
says, "...but not to forget."
Nevertheless, he gives her one last chance as he joins a band of
proto-revolutionaries led by his friend Paillet. The situation is stirred up by
both sides and Jeanne blows her chance by ordering Paillet's arrest. She is
running out of friends and increasingly dependent on the King's favour. But, as
his health begins to fade, the revolution looks ever more certain.
The action explodes in the last half an hour of the film
and, having been focused on the individuals, the view is dramatically widened
to show the revolt in the streets and the desperate battle of the citizenship
against the army. As aristos hang from the lampposts, Jeanne is betrayed and
sentenced to death: no one gets out of here alive.
Lubitsch shows much subtlety in focusing on character in
telling this epic tale. There's a superb moment when Jeanne first arrives at
Don Diego's house, her first taste of upper class living, as the curtain behind
her pulls away to reveal the opulence of his cabinet. This shows the gap
between the lives of the ordinary people and the nobles most effectively; why
shouldn't Jeanne want to be part of this?
The director used over 2000 extras, and according to Herman
G Weinberg in The Lubitsch Touch: a
critical study (1977), he succeeds by making them act like individuals
rather than a mindless mob… each one desperate for food, justice and crude
revenge!
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| Motivated mob... |
Madame Dubarry
feels less melodramatic than an American film of the same period might have
been and it’s more conflicted: you can feel sympathy for Jeanne without
necessarily condoning her actions - she's not a pure white heroine by any means
but she's true to herself even though she can't resist temptation. Try that one
on for size Lil… there’s a worldly complexity in Negri’s approach that seems to
come naturally and there’s an humour and charm working to humanise her
selfishness.
Pola simply brings great energy to the role and, whilst
there's the odd moment when she over-reaches, she's mostly naturalistic with a
smile of pure unfettered joy. It's her innocent surprise at the benefits her
looks bring that ultimately makes her likable. In the end you want her to be
given one more chance even if the revolution demands that she must be punished.
One of Lubitsch’s best early dramas and told with a
deftness that clearly got him noticed in Hollywood. As for Emil… he might had
been a King but even he didn’t quite match the naturalistic brilliance and pure
appeal of his Dubarry! His time would come later.
 |
| Harry and Pola in a tight spot |
John Sweeney accompanied with regal assurance followed by
revolutionary dynamism, pacing himself perfectly along the narrative as the
film gets bigger and bigger to that devastating conclusion: Lillian is, of
course, saved at the last from Madame Guillotine but there’s no mercy shown for
Pola is bundled, unceremoniously to her death. Germany in 1920; if not an
optimistic country then certainly a fatalistic one with, they hoped, no time
for tyrants of any kind.
Madame Dubarry
is an essential part of any Weimar “watch list”, and this is another reason to
maintain calendar discipline and make sure you don’t miss a thing in the BFI’s
Weimar Season – full details on the website.
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