Here’s Connie! Der Gang in Die Nacht (1920) with Richard Siedhoff, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Day 6

"Where does the art of the writer end, and the art of the director and the actors start? One doesn’t know. Everything is intertwined. Everything is – there’s no better word for it – complete…

Willy Haas, Film-Kurier (no. 277, 14 December 1920)

If Der Gang In Die Nacht (Love’s Mockery) was Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s only film we’d probably rate it a bit higher than we are able to in the context of his later work. All the same I was surprised at its controlled composition and feel although it varies in tone from comedy to weird.

For me this is a better film than say The Haunted Castle from the following year but that could also be down to the uncanny presence of Conrad Veidt who’s eyes, hands and, indeed forehead… are transfixing throughout. Murnau makes the most of his gaunt asset from the get-go when he arrives by boat, standing tall with sightless eyes, seeing more than we know… a foretaste of Count Orlac on the ship.

Doctor Eigil Börne (Olaf Fønss) is engaged to doe-eyed Helene (Erna Morena, her out of Von morgens bis mitternachts), until he gets distracted by the charms of music-hall performer Lilly (Gudrun Bruun-Stefenssen) who, by combining charm with a faked ankle injury manages to get her man. The Doctor quits his promising city work and becomes a GP in a remote costal area far away from the tattling tongues of the metropolitan elite…

At first all is well and the two love-birds enjoy healthy walks and jokes about feet until, that is, the dramatic appearance of Conrad as Der Maler – an artist who has gone blind and is seeking a cure from the remarkable country doctor.

As usual the promotions team got carried away... give him two years and he'll scare you alright!

 The sequences showing the return of Maler’s sight are very effective and once the artist can see again he’s drawn to natural beauty all around including Lilly who, to be fair, has also more than noticed him. Now… this can’t go well for the three of them and we shouldn’t really forget poor Helene wasting away back in Berlin.

The narrative lets the film down but the atmospherics eventually win through as passions are stirred, the doctor performs miracles and love does indeed make fools of them all. Veidt stands out, natürlich, but this is still a well-shot film if not a “complete” single-vision… yet it’s now one that has been stunningly well-restored. And I mean stunning!

Richard Siedhoff  accompanied with elegance and edge and also enjoyed himself with Der Golem (detailed below).

We also watched: a third collection of Nasty Women including the gloriously kick-ass Texas Guignan.

Harry Solter’s The Taming of Jane (1910) featured an odd courting ritual involving a cowboy trying to lasso his intended into forced matrimony… maybe they’d been inspired by Asta Nielsen’s dance in Afgrunden or maybe this was indeed the norm in the land of the free? Then again, as with all the films in this delightful strand, the women are smarter than the men. Which is not difficult someone said...

George Le Soir’s An Up-to-date Squaw (1911) was another victory for les girls this time with a fashion-conscious squaw who can’t resist westernising her wardrobe…

The Taming of Jane (1910)

Texas Guignan brought the house down in Jay Hunt’s The Night Rider (1920) when, deciding she needs to take a husband to help prevent cattle rustlers, she lassoes one chap only to then find a much better option: “wish I’d seen you first!” she exclaimed and half the audience laughed!

I like Texas a lot and she is so assured in her characterisation and whip smart in delivery; this was a delight with a plot that served its sense of humour well.

The Circus Imps (1920) was surely an inspiration for Todd Browning as two cheeky girls run away to the circus and hang out with the freak show. The Dog-Faced Boy is shocking but no more so than when the two kids – Katherine and Jane Lee - share a bath and a pot of jam!? Not in our house they didn’t!

Neil Brand was our compositional cowboy and he corralled this feisty herd with the practiced poise of William S Hart himself.

The Duel After the Masquerade by Jean-Léon Gérôme

Tableaux Vivants was a fascinating experiment and one of the most delightfully immersive experiences of the week so far. Valentine Robert has spent years collating film sequences that are based on artworks from the religious work of Gustav Dore (natch!) and James Tissot to recreations of historical scenes such as Archibald Willard’s The Spirit of ’76 (c. 1875) and the Assassinat de Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday (engraved in 1793).

The paintings inspired films which then inspired other films and the visual language became passed down morphing from its illustrative origins to more cinematic copying: Alphonse de Neuville’s Franco-Prussian War painting, Les Dernières Cartouches (1873), was the basis for scenes in films by Lumière (1897), Méliès (1897), Pathé (1899), Gaumont (1898 and 1907).

Of course, “art” always provided and excuse for showing a nudity and the film of the 1900s embraced that as new media always does.

Stephen Horne improvised with great subtlety and variety through these various scenarios. This was no gentle picture show, there’s an impact and edge to some of this art which still challenges.

Duel after the Ball (1908)

One of the treats of the week was also a restoration of Heinrich Galeen’s Der Golem (1915) or at least what remains of a film thought lost until the recent discovery of the second reel. It is very similar to the 1920 version and Paul Wegener’s costume and menace are tantalisingly in place but there are differences in setting – this is the modern world and an altogether different “origin”.

The film is not complete – just 24 precious minutes but, as with the Murnau and Now We’re in the Air we have something!

Der Golem brings something new to the party.

Filmspotting… Carmen (1918) with Gabriel Thibadeau and Cristina Nadal, Pordenone Giorno Cinque

Choose life, choose a Russian documentary, choose an Italian serial, travelogues, documentaries… choose The Right to Happiness!? I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got Pola Negri?

In other words, this is the point in the Giornate del Cinema Muto race when you just hang on and hope there’s a sprint finish left in the tank: film-watching here is like long-distance running but this race in Pordenone is far from lonely, the locals are friendly and a lovelier bunch of cineastes you couldn’t wish for!

Today was surely peak Pordenone in terms of content-volume a 14-hour dash filled with variety: chose food, chose sleep, chose espresso, chose to eat, chose to get a life. I chose film. Although it started off in confusion…

Alberto Capozzi, Il fiacre n. 13 (1917)

Il Fiacre N. 13 (1917) directed by Alberto A. Capozzi and Gero Zambuto is a rare example of a surviving Italian adventure serial – like Fillibus – and this one is also heavily indebted to the French and, indeed adapted from a novel by Xavier Henri Aymon Perrin, Count of Montépin. Unlike Fillibus, what we have remaining does not necessarily make sense… the first section having been heavily censored. There’s a huge amount of exposition and it’s highly-likely that this very handsome artefact has all of the right elements, just not necessarily in the right order… Who done it? Possibly all of them, apart from, maybe, the kid!

It does look very fine especially with Elena Makowska – Diva of the week! – and has some lovely composition, locations and cinematography. The first episode is a reconstruction and things gradually made more sense as we eventually resolved all of the twenty-years’ worth of plot lines.

Donald Sosin and Mauro Colombis took two each of the four episodes and coped with every unexpected twist and turn with melodic assurance.

It was now time to travel both in time and space with two documentaries. The first was the most naturalistic - Viaggio in Caucaso e Persia (1910) – a fascinating voyage of discovery captured by 26-year old Mario Piacenza in the most difficult of circumstances and yet which captures natural reactions from people who may never have seen a film let alone a movie camera. That takes an honest film-maker… the camera is always a two-way lens.

Soviet Union 1932...

Next was Aleksei Lebedev’s Daleko Na Sever (Far in the North) (1932) which showed some astonishing landscapes of soviet oil fields which looked more alien than Aelita’s Mars… huge towers crowding the landscape to fuel Stalin’s first five-year plan. This took seven in the end, despite the film’s trumpeting of soviet superiority over other European countries…

Stephen Horne accompanied both films with the eerie elegance they required, it must be strange to have to respond and react to the less defined narrative of travelogues even allowing for the director’s messaging.

A presentation was then made to the recipient of the 2017 Haghefilm Digitaal Fellowship, Samuel B. Lane, from New Mexico. Sam had been involved in restoring a collection of twenty 35mm rolls of Lumière films dated around 1896-1903 that was recently found (in their original containers) and acquired by the George Eastman Museum. A selection of the films was projected and needless to say they are beautiful slices of history. More details and the films can be found on the festival website.

Propaganda wasn’t simply limited to the Russians and we saw The Right to Happiness (1919) an American film as part of a strand celebrating the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution…  The Red Peril: The Russian Revolution and American Anti-Bolshevism. All I can say is if this was the best USA could come up with during eth “Red Scare” then I’m really surprised they weren’t over-run by 1920. Still it is fascinating history and primary documentation if not necessarily interesting cinema.

 

Now for that sprint: Pola’s back and she’s got Ernst with her and they’re Carmen to get you!

Carmen (1918) directed by Lubitsch and starring Negri ended my day on a high mostly because of the latter’s incredible swagger! The story may not pay huge respect to the original – it feels like Lubitsch is straining to escape the bounds of the narrative and Pola… well Pola is in force of nature mode. It’s such a contrast to her performance in The Yellow Ticket and reveals her almost unrivalled sense of mischief: she’s so easily distracted, eyes flicking around looking for action, exasperated with the lack of male spirit around her… Harry Liedtke’s hapless Juan refuses her offer of escape from prison and she just rolls her eyes and starts to look for something more hi-energy, a bull-fighter perhaps.

There’s little evidence of the Lubitsch Touch at this stage but there’s invention and a classy pull-away in the crowd of a party that is almost the reverse of the Parisian nightclub scene from Wings shown on the festival site and from a decade later.

The musical accompaniment of Gabriel Thibadeau (piano) and Cristina Nadal (cello) brought out the playfulness and the melodrama. Cristina's playing showed how soulful and flexible the cello can be: mournful one minite and jazz-bouncy the next!

“You are a fierce man and I like it..."

Stefan Droessler’s programme notes quote Pola Negi’s memoires in which she said, “...even though the world around us was falling to pieces, Lubitsch and I shared many antic moments on the set. Perhaps we could only have flowered so successfully in the Berlin of that period…”

How many artistic movements of note come from fleeting opportunity and a relatively small group of key players? The folk at Pordenone may have a better idea than most – you feel connected to the wider silent world here and there are so many youngsters coming through, playing, programming and otherwise promoting silent film.

Brooksie lands... Now We're in the Air (1927) Pordenone parte terza

If the segment of Now We're in the Air didn't exist we'd still fantasise about the rediscovery of a beautiful moment of Louise Brooks that was lost. Now it's found we have just over twenty minutes - less than most rest breaks at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto - to make sense of what look very much like a so-so movie. And yet... restored Brooks shines brightly out in those glimpses we have, a twenty-one-year-old neophyte committing to another part of her build to stardom. Now We're in the Air was never going to be great film but the fate of its star makes it very special indeed.

Which is why I have no hesitation in picking it as my highlight of the day especially as the programmers had inserted the high-class clunker that is The Reckless Age (1924). This is not a good film; the premise is wafer thin and utterly risible... a young woman is willing to, of her own free will, marry a London Lord she has never met who has insured himself against the marriage actually happening... I really can't go on, especially as she meets the man we know will be her eventual partner in the first reel. But, there is method here: The Reckless Age shows what can happen to attractive young female stars in Hollywood, in this case Ruth Dwyer, who was presented with a stepping stone that just wasn't very good.

Just you wait, two more years of this and I'm burning bridges!

I find it hard to believe that ...in the Air could be as bad but it doesn't look promising. Still, it exists, it's history and it has the supernatural presence of the biggest comeback kid in movie history, not in terms of success but in her enduring influence and actual star power. Louise Brooks is the cover star of the festival and all for just this twenty three minutes.

John Sweeney accompanied by royal command and even made Wallace Beery look funny!

History isn't about quality and Now We're in the Air proves that all too well. We are grateful for this sunshine glimpse of Brooks' extraordinary presence and yes, that probably is "code" but, you know what I and Henri Langlois mean...

Now, if you're here for quality then, probably Warning Shadows (Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination) (1923) might be your thing especially with Daan van den Hurk and Frank Bockius accompanying - I saw this at the BFI with John Sweeney and did enjoy it perhaps not the best expressionist film, but fun.

La diva di commedia!

If it's laughter you're after then you can't look beyond Trappola (1922) a bonkers tale of an orphan who makes it as a movie star featuring the cheeky girl stylings of one Leda Gys. The cutting is mad-fast - this is Eisenstein on opiates although some segments are clearly missing but it does reflect the quicksilver charms of diva di commedia Miss Gys. The story makes far more sense than the Reckless Age and the film compensates with committed performances within the framework of its own illogic.

All this said, there's not much Leda Gys does in an hour that Léontine, known in the U.S. as Betty, doesn't manage in minutes. She's ferociously funny and there's literally a gag every other beat as mayhem is created in the shorts Betty Tries to Learn a Business (1910) and Betty Is Still at Her Old Tricks (1910). These were screened as part of the Nasty Women strand but really, she's Naughty more than anything else. the actress is still unknown and deserves to be "found".

We also watched: Italian drama Fiore Selvaggio (1921) directed by Gustavo Serena and featuring the lesser-known diva Anna Fougez in a series of stunning outfits. Costumery far outweighs screenwriting in this plodder about a muse who throws herself away on a promise only to regret all in the lingering denouement.

The other Aasta Nielsen (Swedish, extra "a")

Far better was the Swedish rustic drama Fante-Anne which featured stunning backdrops of valley and field much in the way of yesterday's A Norway Lass (1919). The stars lack the charisma of that film but it's a compelling story well performed especially by Aasta Nielsen (no, not that one).  The payoff was an end title when our heroes head off to America where "a man can be himself and not subject to prejudice..." how times have changed USA?

Günter A. Buchwald and Frank Bockius provided expert accompaniment and were also excellent on the mesmerising Maasai in Maasai Men and Women (1920?) a tribe who seemingly invented the Pogo dance.

Most affecting of all though was a strand of films showing the effects of the Great War. This was moving and quite distressing the decades melting away as you witness the human cost of war, especially children suffering in the thousands. Stephen Horne accompanied with skilled respect.

And that was my Monday. Tomorrow is apparently Tuesday and I'm calling it Jenny Hasselqvist Day! Vem Domer? (1922)... our judgement awaits!

No, it's not.