{"id":31804,"date":"2015-07-28T17:24:49","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T22:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=31804"},"modified":"2019-06-29T05:29:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T10:29:36","slug":"homunculus-and-his-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2015\/07\/28\/homunculus-and-his-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Homunculus and his friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Opera<\/a><\/p>\n

Sappho<\/strong> (1921).<\/em><\/p>\n

DB here:<\/p>\n

Of\u00a0the big-ass explosion movies, only two items in this summer\u2019s spate of them have intrigued me. I liked Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em> well enough, but not as much as MM2<\/em> and 3<\/em>. I look forward to Mission: Impossible\u2014Rogue Nation<\/em>, in a series for which I have much affection<\/a>. As for the arthouse releases, the ones I\u2019ve already seen are A Pigeon Sat\u2026<\/em> (good but not as sardonically bizarre\u00a0as earlier Andersson, methinks) and About Elly<\/em>. That one is a masterpiece.<\/p>\n

I have stronger reasons than indifference for missing so much, and for tardy blogging besides. I\u2019ve been on my annual trip to Belgium for research and lecturing in the Summer Film College<\/a>. As a result, your recent\u00a0movie experiences and mine have been divergent, perhaps even\u00a0insurgent.<\/p>\n

Apart from two screenings in the Brussels Cinematek’s Hou series<\/a> (their restoration of Green, Green Grass of Home<\/em>, gorgeous vintage print of City of Sadness<\/em>), I spent the last four weeks watching 35mm prints of movies by Godard, movies starring Burt Lancaster, and assorted silent films from the 1910s and 1920s. I also re-met one of the most charming \u00a0directors I know of, and in general\u00a0had a hell of a time.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s entry focuses on my archive work. Next up, a report on the Summer Film College.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conrad’s many moods, mostly unhappy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Violin<\/a><\/p>\n

Landstrasse und Grosstadt.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The archive stuff was recherch\u00e9. I’ve been trying to see as many 1910s and early 1920s features as I could, but this time around I didn\u2019t catch anything as mind-bending as Jasset\u2019s Au pays de t\u00e9n\u00e9bres<\/em><\/a> (1911) or Doktor Satansohn<\/em><\/a> (1916) or\u00a0Fabiola<\/em> <\/a>(1919) or I.N.R.I<\/em> <\/a>(1920), encountered on earlier visits to the Cinematek. I did get further confirmation that in Germany the \u201ctableau style\u201d exploited so vigorously in Europe and somewhat in America in the 1910s, was pretty much replaced by Hollywood-style editing by 1920. And I got some welcome doses of Conrad Veidt, another favorite in this vicinity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Die Liebschaften des Hektor Dalmore<\/em> (“The Liaisons of Hektor Dalmore,” 1921), Veidt plays a callous playboy who keeps on retainer a man who looks very much like him. It\u2019s a lifestyle choice. When a compromised woman\u2019s father demands that Hektor do the right thing, he sends out his double to marry her. Surprisingly, the double isn\u2019t rendered through\u00a0trick photography. Richard Oswald, always a fast man with a gimmick, found a pretty good Veidt lookalike, which can\u2019t be easy to do.<\/p>\n

The hero’s\u00a0Casanova complex carries him from dalliance to dalliance, and as you\u2019d expect in a twins situation, there are confusions between the real and the fake Hektor. Fights and abductions liven things up. The climax is a duel in which the real Hektor, overconfident, learns to his grief that an outraged husband is a better marksman. The scene is handled through brisk\u00a0shot and reverse-shot, garnished with an over-the-shoulder shot\u00a0as Hektor\u00a0aims his pistol. And there are dashes of mildly Expressionist set design (furnished by Hans Dreier). Veidt in a phone booth does the d\u00e9cor proud. But he doesn’t need fancy\u00a0sets\u00a0to project a feeling: on his deathbed, his expression and his clutching fingers show a man bereft of erotic illusions.<\/p>\n

\"Phone<\/a> \"deathbed<\/a><\/p>\n

The other Veidt vehicle lacked doubles but not ambition. Landstrasse und Grosstadt<\/em> (“Village and City,” 1921) casts him as Raphael, a wandering violinist who teams up with Migal, an organ grinder. They become a popular act in the big city, and as Raphael’s playing improves, Migal becomes his manager. Nadia, a woman who joins them, falls for\u00a0Raphael and shares his success. But in an accident he suffers a hand wound and his career slumps. Migal sees his chance to move in on Nadia. Perhaps this shot gives you a hint of his designs.<\/p>\n

\"spiderweb<\/p>\n

Actually, most of Landstrasse and Grosstadt<\/em> isn\u2019t as hammy as\u00a0this. A very nice shot shows Raphael in silhouette approaching a mansion to hear his rival Cerlutti give a salon concert. And of course Conrad gives the blind violinist a delicate, spectral pathos, as shown above.<\/p>\n

\"Silhouette<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Artificial man\u00a0lurks in the shadows, destroys humanity<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Reflection<\/a><\/p>\n

Sappho.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All the films I saw broke down scenes into many close shots, reminding us that Caligari<\/em> (released 1920) probably wasn\u2019t typical of German staging or cutting of that moment. It now seems to me almost consciously anachronistic, rejecting the reverse angles and precise scene breakdown that were becoming common. In Die Ehe der F\u00fcrstin Demidoff<\/em> (“The Marriage of F\u00fcrstin Demidoff,” 1921), when a governess drags a recalcitrant girl back to her bedroom, the action is split up into four shots, all of different scales from close-up to long-shot.<\/p>\n

Although I saw a fragmentary\u00a0print\u00a0of\u00a0Sappho<\/em> (1921), it’s clear that in parts it has\u00a0the audacious monumentality of a Joe May production. The most staggering shot is that of\u00a0the Opera surmounting today’s entry, but there’s no shortage of striking images. Above I include a shot of a madman that, thanks to window reflections, suggests his split-up psyche.<\/p>\n

Sappho<\/em> also doesn\u2019t shirk editing effects either. During\u00a0a frantic automobile ride, there are glimpses of hands on a steering wheel, a foot on brakes, panicked passengers, and POV shots through the windshield. Forty-nine shots rush by in a flurry, anticipating similar sequences in French Impressionist films like L\u2019Inhumaine<\/em> (1924). Feuillade was experimenting with rapid cutting of action<\/a> at about the same time.<\/p>\n

The most impressive, and nutty, film in this batch came from\u00a0Homunculus<\/em>, the\u00a0largely lost\u00a0German serial released through 1916 and into early 1917. The script was written by one of the blog’s favorite peculiar directors, Robert Reinert<\/a>. The plot involves an artifical man created in the lab, \u00e0 la Frankenstein’s monster. He’s a superman, in both strength and ambitions. The only surviving episode of the serial is\u00a0Die Rache des Homunculus<\/em> (“The Revenge of Homunculus,” 1916). (But see the codicil.) In this installment, posing as Professor Ortmann, Homunculus\u00a0decides to drive humanity to destroy itself. He assumes a disguise to rouse the rabble, even inducing them to turn against himself in his Ortmann guise.<\/p>\n

As in Expressionist drama, this overachiever\u00a0is pitted against a crowd that, in the end, pursues him maniacally.<\/p>\n

\"Homunc<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Homunc<\/p>\n

Director Otto Rippert gives us splendid mass effects in a quarry and along a beach, but there are also deep tableau images and\u00a0sustained chiaroscuro, particularly in a showing\u00a0the heroine Margot shrinking from Homunculus as he locks his rival\u00a0in a dungeon.<\/p>\n

\"Tableau<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Prison<\/a><\/p>\n

Fans of Metropolis<\/em> will notice that Rippert anticipates Lang’s\u00a0unison choreography of crowds, as well suggesting that mob frenzy can create a sort of ecstasy in the woman who’s swept along.<\/p>\n

\"Crowd<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Margot<\/a><\/p>\n

In her book The Haunted Screen<\/em><\/a> Lotte Eisner traces the\u00a0films’\u00a0mass spectacle back to the stage work of Max Reinhardt and other theatre directors of the era. On the basis of this episode alone, Homunculus<\/em>\u00a0ranks with Algol<\/a><\/em> and May’s Herrin der Welt<\/em>\u00a0as an example of big-scale\u00a0fantasy in\u00a0German silent cinema. Who needs Ant-Man\u00a0when we have Homunculus?<\/p>\n

Next time: Burt and Jean-Luc, together again for almost the first time.<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks to Nicola Mazzanti, Francis Malfliet, Bruno Mestdagh, and Vico de Vocht for their assistance during my visit to the Cinematek.<\/p>\n

Kristin analyzes stylistic conventions of German \u00a0cinema of this period in her Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood<\/em> (available for download here<\/a>). She’s written on Caligari<\/em> here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A so-so copy\u00a0of Sappho<\/em> is on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Homunculus,<\/em> Leonardo Querisima\u00a0offers a wide-ranging\u00a0discussion in “Homunculus<\/em>: A Project for a Modern Cinema,” in A Second Life: German Cinema’s First Decades<\/a><\/em>, ed. Thomas Elsaesser and Michael Weidel, pp. 160-167. Substantial excerpts can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Munich archivist Stefan Dr\u00f6ssler has recovered a mass of Homunculus<\/em> footage and has assembled a version of the serial, which premiered last year<\/a> in Bonn. Nitrateville<\/a> has the story.<\/p>\n

The Brussels Cinematek will release its Hou restorations on DVD early next year: Cute Girl<\/em>, The\u00a0Boys from Fengkui<\/em>, and Green, Green Grass of Home<\/em>. As a reminder, my video lecture on Hou is here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The still below, taken\u00a0as the prints were readied for the Summer Film College, points ahead to our next entry–number 701, as it turns out.<\/p>\n

\"Cans<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sappho (1921). DB here: Of\u00a0the big-ass explosion movies, only two items in this summer\u2019s spate of them have intrigued me. I liked Mad Max: Fury Road well enough, but not as much as MM2 and 3. I look forward to Mission: Impossible\u2014Rogue Nation, in a series for which I have much affection. As for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,12,137,68,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1910s-cinema","category-film-history","category-national-cinemas-germany","category-silent-film","category-tableau-staging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31804"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42231,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31804\/revisions\/42231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}