The Veidt Stuff… The Student of Prague (1926), BFI with Stephen Horne, Weimar Cinema

“In many respects, the second film is much superior to the first… a powerful work (that) … proves for the second time that in film, pure art can have great success.” Hans Heinz Ewer, 1930

In her insightful and entertaining introduction, Weimar expert, Miranda Gower-Qian, described this film as essentially a “doppelgänger” of itself, it being a broad “remake” of the 1913 version with Paul Wegener. The film re-doubles the force of Hans Heinz Ewer’s 1913 story with this re-telling and uses that as a launching point for a dramatic enhancement of the ideas drawn principally from Edgar Allen Poe’s William Wilson with a smattering of Faust; as Miranda said, pulling in German Romanticism along with contemporary ideas of individuality and ambition.

For Conrad Veidt’s Balduin to succeed, it’s not just that his friends must fail but that he also must be sacrificed. Balduin’s doppelgänger represents the darker side of his ambition and desires… he ends up ignoring the pure love of a flower-girl, Lyduschka (Elizza La Porta), casting away her pauper’s posy, in his frustrated pursuit of rich girl, Margit von Schwarzenberg (Agnes Esterhazy) and he’ll cheat at all costs to get what he wants.

Veidt, Krauss and Veidt

In this way the film tapped into the Weimar zeitgeist and what Siegfried Kracauer later called “a deep and fearful concern with the foundations of the self. So, forget expressionist cinema this could rightly be termed existential cinema which incorporated elements of the former and added much else besides.

Henrik Galeen directed and co-scripted with Ewer and he was, as Miranda said, chiefly known as one of Weimar’s best scripters, with work on both Golems, Nosferatu and Waxworks amongst others. The result is a sumptuous mix of stunning framing, lighting and fluid camerawork from Günther Krampf and an uncredited Erich Nitzschmann, that capture magnificent rural settings as characters ponder by lakes, dramatic action as Balduin tries to save Margit on her horse and add haunting atmospherics to the tale. Selling your soul to the Devil is one thing but selling it to yourself is altogether more unsettling.

Conrad and Krauss

There’s a far more bucolic set up for Balduin’s fateful deal than in 1913, not surprisingly perhaps, although that version does have some excellent exterior shots. Veidt gives Balduin far more mystery and depth than Wegener and manages to unsettle the audience through changes in physicality and expression. Make no mistake, Der Student is “concentrated Connie” and it established him at a higher level internationally with what Pat Wilks Battle described as his greatest starring role of the silent era.

His student maybe the finest swordsman in Prague but he is also one of the most impoverished. He broods while the others mess about, drunkenly pawing at Lyduschka in the tavern and challenging each other to duals. Many of the students carry duelling scars and whether this was down to casting or make-up, there’s no denying that duelling and the scars that went with it were very popular among the military schools of this period. Balduin carries no scars and shows just why as he runs rings around an objectionable colleague he challenges to protect Lyduschka’s honour.

But Balduin is broke and susceptible to the enticements of soul-loan-shark Scapinelli (Werner Krauss, without whom, no supernatural Weimar film is complete) who offers him 600,000 gold coins in exchange for just one thing from Balduin’s bare lodgings. Laughing, the student signs off on the deal only for Scapinelli to take his reflection from the mirror… who needs a reflection, you ask yourself? Well, it’s more than a shadow…

Scapinelli also helps set up Balduin with Margit as he rescues her from her bolting horse following a stampede engineered by the old man with a wave of his arms and an evil grin: our hero is playing with fire and doesn’t know it yet; ambition and material success come first.

Agnes Esterhazy

Naturally there’ll be a reckoning but the film is so well paced and engaging we almost forget its coming. I wasn’t disappointed with Der Student and it is indeed one of Weimar’s finest.

Accompaniment was provided by Stephen Horne who made light of the two-hour running time and maintained atmospherics and tension throughout with emotionally literate improvisations that lent so much weight to the uncanny drama on screen. Perhaps the soul of Balduin/Connie was on hand to guide him… he sees and he hears dead people and is our musical medium connecting the modern day to the mood and mystique on 1926 film.

We saw a projection of the excellent reconstruction by Filmuseum München and it was a fine copy with clarity and excellent tinted detail... enough to see right into the Veidt!