{"id":6790,"date":"2010-01-25T17:33:32","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T22:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=6790"},"modified":"2019-06-29T05:47:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T10:47:01","slug":"paris-berlin-brussels-express","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2010\/01\/25\/paris-berlin-brussels-express\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris-Berlin-Brussels express"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Doktor Satansohn<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our trip to Europe has come to an end, and so we finish with a post scanning some highlights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The magic lantern learns new tricks<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

DB here:<\/p>\n

What am I seeing?<\/em> Many avant-garde films pose this question. Mainstream fiction film and documentary cinema have mostly relied on the idea that the image should be recognizable as \u201cwhat it is.\u201d\u00a0 But one strain of experimental film has worked to delay or even prevent us from making out what\u2019s in front of the camera.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we lose our bearings only briefly, as when we eventually identify pot lids in Ballet M\u00e9canique<\/em> or bits of sunlit linoleum in Brakhage films. Sometimes language points out what\u2019s really there. The titles of Joris Ivens\u2019 Rain<\/em> and the Eames\u2019 Blacktop: The Washing of a School Play Yard<\/em> allow us to enjoy the ways that ordinary sights can yield unexpected abstraction.\u00a0 Sometimes we toggle back and forth, as when in Ken Jacobs\u2019 Tom, Tom, the Piper\u2019s Son<\/em> recognizable human figures, however grainy, jump into sheer blotchiness and then back into something like legibility. But other times we can\u2019t ever tell what we\u2019re seeing.\u00a0 Brakhage\u2019s Fire of Waters<\/em> offers one of the best examples I know, with its jagged bursts of light in a smoky void.<\/p>\n

What am I seeing? The uncertainty was doubled during my visit to Ken Jacobs\u2019 Nervous Magic Lantern<\/a><\/strong> performance at the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Fran\u00e7aise. I say \u201cdoubled\u201d because at least with Fire of Waters<\/em> and Tom, Tom<\/em> I knew I was watching a film. With this display, What am I seeing?<\/em> started as a question about the format itself. Was it a film, a video, or something else?<\/p>\n

Then the question became the customary one. Off-white textures\u2014pebbly, dribbly, stalagmite-like\u2014swim in and out of focus. Some are viscous and globular, some are like tangled foliage. They seem to spiral, but actually (I put up a finger to measure) they barely move. The effect of movement is given by pulsations of pure black, breaking the lyrical effect of the surfaces with a harshness that becomes aggressive. Aggressive as well is the soundtrack, blocks of sound from subway platforms and traffic and kitsch Latin percussion, all played at high volume. The surfaces just keep shifting and not shifting, sort of rotating while jabbing out at us, lovely and anxiety-inducing at the same time.<\/p>\n

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

At the end of the performance, people crowded around the cardboard booth in the middle of the theatre. As Ken and Flo Jacobs packed up, they showed how they had generated the effects. What<\/em> had I been seeing? Neither a film nor a video but a true magic-lantern display, assembled on the spot. But what had I been seeing<\/em>? Something created with home-made equipment of a startling simplicity. (Strapping tape was involved.) Our magicians explained their tricks, like magic-lantern operators of earlier centuries explaining the science behind their shows. But I think it\u2019s best that you not know until after you have a chance to see what they create.<\/p>\n

In earlier entries (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) Kristin and I have praised Jacobs\u2019 films for showing how very slight adjustments in technique or technology can create disturbing cinematic illusions. In this vein, the first item on the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que program, a video called Gift of Fire<\/em>, turned Louis Le Prince\u2019s brief 1888 street scene into a 3D movie. (The homage was appropriate because Le Prince experimented with multiple-lens cameras.) The Nervous Magic Lantern performance generated a different sort of illusion, one conjuring up micro-landscapes and otherworldly vortices. In all, Jacobs makes us realize how many evocative effects are still to be discovered by tinkering with images thrown on a screen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Detour to Berlin<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

KT here:<\/p>\n

As David mentioned in last week’s entry, I took a week in the middle of our visit to Europe for research at the \u00c4gyptisches Museum in Berlin. The staff there welcomed me into their storerooms, and I spent the days looking at fragments and the records of their discovery and the nights downloading and backing up my photos. No time for filmgoing. The most I managed was a trip to the well-stocked arts bookshop B\u00fccherbogen, which has one of the best selections of film books to be found in Germany. Our old friend, experimental filmmaker Carlos Bustamente, met me there, and we had a quick cup of tea–most welcome on a cold morning when the results of the biggest snowfall in decades were still blanketing many sidewalks and roads.<\/p>\n

I did note one film-related phenomenon, however. Every day I took the S-Bahn from Savignyplatz to Friedrichstrasse. The tracks pass directly across the street from the Theater des Westens (that is, the western part of Berlin). It was playing Der Schuh des Manitu<\/em>, a musical version of the \"\"<\/a>highly successful 2001 German film of the same name. (I hope the publicity photo at the left was taken in warmer weather than I experienced.) I mentioned the film here<\/a>, in reference to the fact that every major producing country, and some minor ones as well, turn out their own local comedies, films that don’t travel well but are very popular locally.<\/p>\n

By now it’s a familiar phenomenon in the U.S. for successful Hollywood films to be turned into stage musicals. It wasn’t always so. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, films were made of popular musicals, sometimes successfully, as with My Fair Lady<\/em>, and sometimes not, as with Mame<\/em>. But now the trend is the other way, with everything from Shrek<\/em> to Hairspray<\/em> getting the Broadway treatment.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting to know that the same thing goes on abroad, though I’m not sure how prevalent such adaptations are. Der Schuh des Manitu<\/em>, directed by Michael “Bully” Herbig, remains the highest grossing German film. Herbig doesn’t act in the stage play, as he did in the film, but he served as a creative advisor. The musical is a hit, having premiered on December 7, 2008 and it is expected to continue until at least the autumn of this year. There are several clips from both the film and the musical on YouTube. This one<\/a>, at 8 minutes, gives a generous dose of the show. There are no subtitles.<\/p>\n

I had only a couple of days back in Paris before we headed for Brussels for the final week of our trip. The German theme continued, since a few of the 1910s films David needed to see at the Cinematek here were German. The one I most wanted to see was Edmund Edel’s 1916 feature, Doktor Satansohn<\/em><\/a>. Its main claim to fame is probably the fact that Ernst Lubitsch plays the title role. My book with Lubitsch started with his 1918 move to features, when he began to concentrate more on directing and less on acting. By 1920, with Sumurun<\/em>, he appeared onscreen for the last time; being discontented with his performance as the tragic clown, he decided it was time to move behind the camera for good.<\/p>\n

In the short films he starred in before 1918, Lubitsch often played a brash, ambitious Jewish youth, as in Der Stoltz der Firma<\/em> (“The Pride of the Firm,” 1914). In Doktor Satansohn<\/em> he’s a physician with a magical machine that transforms older women into beautiful young ones. We’re first introduced to a couple and the wife’s mother. When the latter makes a pass at her son-in-law and is rejected, she seeks the doctor’s help. His machine works by capturing the wife’s essence in a statuette and making the mother look like her daughter. Problem is, every time she’s about to kiss the husband, the doctor pops up with his devilish leer, visible only to the “wife.” David and I decided that the film is a comedy, though perhaps one only Germans of the day would find truly amusing. For one thing, the title character is clearly a Jewish caricature, one played to the hilt by Lubitsch. He\u00a0decorates his machine with the Star of David and a Hebrew inscription (not to mention vipers and an image of Saturn).<\/p>\n

Stylistically it’s a fairly conventional film for its day, though the black background of the doctor’s office, with its stylized youth machine and satyr-like bust, gives a hint of Expressionism to come. (See our topmost image.)\u00a0Inevitably near the end there comes the moment beloved of historians of pre-World War II German cinema. The real daughter, released from her imprisonment in the statuette, confronts her double in the doctor’s waiting room. The Doppelg\u00e4nger<\/em> motif strikes again.<\/p>\n

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

I wonder if German films actually have more Doppelg\u00e4ngers<\/em> in them than appear in other national cinemas. Do they really reflect the disturbed soul of the nation? Or did the possibilities of filmic special effects draw moviemakers to try and multiply single figures? Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s and Buster Keaton used in-camera techniques to multiple their own figures in virtuoso displays. I recall being impressed by The Parent Trap<\/em>‘s duplication of Hayley Mills when I saw it as a kid, and the whole notion of a single actor playing twins and other lookalike relations is a common enough convention. In Doktor Satanssohn<\/em>, the doubled figure appears only in this one shot, and it’s the leering Lubitsch, delighted with his own nastiness, who walks off with the picture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 1910s, again, and still<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

DB again:<\/p>\n

We saw Doktor Satansohn<\/em> while I was studying staging and cutting strategies of the 1910s, thanks to the remarkable holdings of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, also known as the Cinematek<\/a>. My comments on last summer’s visit are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another German film, in a choppy Russian print, vouchsafed a new glimpse of Asta Nielsen.\u00a0In Totentanz<\/em> (Urban Gad, 1912), she plays a guitarist-dancer who must take to the stage to support her infirm husband. She attracts the devotion of a composer, and soon she feels attracted to him. Torn between desire and duty, she snaps during a rehearsal of his latest piece, “Totentanz.” In a chilling gesture, she uses his dagger to slice her lute strings.<\/p>\n

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

Soon the two are locked in a violent erotic struggle, and a stabbing ensues. In all, melodrama as ripe as one could want.<\/p>\n

As ever, I was happy to have my hypotheses about tableau staging confirmed by several of the titles I saw. A minor French bedroom farce, Le Paradis<\/em> (M. G. Leprieur, 1914 or 1915), had a brief passage of the sort of blocking and revealing we find in many films of the period. The painter Raphael Delacroix (no kidding) is pretending to be the lover of Claire Taupin to deflect the advances of randy M. Pontbichot. But Claire is actually the mistress of M. Gr\u00e9sillon. . . .<\/p>\n

First, very frontal staging strings out Pontbichot, Raphael, and Claire. The older man relents in his pursuit of her.<\/p>\n

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

In the vivid depth characteristic of the tableau tradition, Pontbichot withdraws. But his position accentuates that central door, which starts to open.<\/p>\n

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

Most remarkably, Pontbichot ducks almost entirely behind the couple, giving pride of place to M. Gr\u00e9sillon’s arrival in the center of the shot.<\/p>\n

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

Pontbichot slides out in time to register Gr\u00e9sillon’s outraged reaction to finding his mistress in another man’s arms.<\/p>\n

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

Gr\u00e9sillon rushes to the frontal plane, furious. As ever, a thrust to the foreground creates a major spatial\/ dramatic event.<\/p>\n

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

Although the Le Paradis<\/em> passage is ABC compared to the emotionally powerful patterns of staging we find in Ingeborg Holm<\/em><\/a> (1913), it illustrates how even average films could resort to the blocking\/ revealing tactic within the deep-space geometry of the tableau.<\/p>\n

More flamboyant was\u00a0Il Jockey della Morte<\/em> (1915), an Italian circus film made by the Dane Alfred Lind. Its bold lighting and varied angles on the Big Top recalled the Danish films of a few years before. Halfway through, Lind launches a dazzling chase that features leaps from a tall bridge and bicycling stunts on a cable stretched across a river.<\/p>\n

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

Another Italian film, this time a diva vehicle, suggests that by 1917<\/del>\u00a01923 (see below) the tableau style was already giving way<\/del>\u00a0had given way to scenes organized around close shots. (See below.) \u00a0L’Ombra<\/em> (Mario Almirante) starred Italia Almirante Manzini\u00a0as a lively, trusting wife who becomes paralyzed. While her husband betrays her with her younger prot\u00e9g\u00e9e, she gradually recovers bodily movement. Yes, a paralyzed diva seems a contradiction in terms, but one small-scale scene shows a remarkable range of emotions. Berta’s hands start twitching, one lifts up, and she stares wildly, as if it were an alien being.<\/p>\n

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

In an earlier scene, Berta had asked that a mirror facing her be tipped upward so that she would never see herself \u00a0sitting immobile. This shot pays off now, when the hand ascends almost magically into the bit of reflection she can see.<\/p>\n

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

When the hand descends, her astonishment turns into joy. She experimentally shoves the hands together, as if asserting her control.<\/p>\n

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

In the end, she kisses her hands as if they were pampered children.<\/p>\n

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

Manzini runs through many more micro-emotions than I’ve indicated here, but this sample is typical of the ways in which L’Ombra<\/em> avoides the long-shot choreography of only a few years before and builds a performance out of face, body, and arms in a close framing. The mirror-shot motif shows that fairly careful filmic construction was emerging at this point too.<\/p>\n

During my stay, I learned more about tinting and toning from the ever-helpful No\u00ebl Desmet<\/a>. On the seldom-seen World War I drama L’Empreinte de la patrie<\/em> (M. Dumeny, 1915), some images had curious oscillating patches of rusty brown. No\u00ebl explained that when Prussian Blue toning was combined with rose tinting, the chemicals eventually reacted to alter the pink cast. An example is shown at the top of this section, though the blue is more saturated in the original.<\/p>\n

Once we get back to Madison, I’ll have to sort out all that I’ve learned from these movies. Onward and upward with the 1910s!<\/p>\n

\n

For more on Jacobs’ Nervous Magic Lantern, see Scott Foundas’ interview here<\/a>. The Youtube clip<\/a> doesn’t do the spectacle justice. If you must know something of Jacobs’ tools, the Dailymotion video<\/a> from the performance I saw offers some clues. My notions about 1910s staging are laid out in On the History of Film Style<\/em> and Figures Traced in Light. <\/em>You can also find several discussions in earlier entries on this site. Just execute a search on tableau.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now is a good time to thank No\u00ebl Desmet and Marianne Winderickx<\/a>, both of whom are retiring from the archive in March. The research that Kristin and I have done over the years owes an enormous lot to them, and of course to the Director of the Cinematek Gabrielle Claes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

P.S. 15 November 2013:<\/strong> Ivo Blom<\/strong> has pointed out that the version of L’Ombra<\/em> I saw wasn’t from 1917 but rather from 1923. Hence the corrections above. Thanks very much to Ivo! Go here<\/a> for his blog and information about his newest publication on silent Italian cinema.<\/p>\n

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

A tinting and toning sample card from the early 1920s. Courtesy No\u00ebl Desmet.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doktor Satansohn. Our trip to Europe has come to an end, and so we finish with a post scanning some highlights.   The magic lantern learns new tricks DB here: What am I seeing? Many avant-garde films pose this question. Mainstream fiction film and documentary cinema have mostly relied on the idea that the image […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,133,88,10,7,1,12,5,59,53,33,137,99,48,68,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1910s-cinema","category-directors-jacobs","category-directors-lubitsch","category-experimental-film","category-film-and-other-media","category-film-comments","category-film-history","category-film-technique","category-technique-staging","category-global-film-industry","category-national-cinemas-france","category-national-cinemas-germany","category-national-cinemas-italy","category-new-media-technology","category-silent-film","category-tableau-staging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790","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=6790"}],"version-history":[{"count":73,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42249,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790\/revisions\/42249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}