It was a surprisingly hot day, but slowly I am getting used to seeing so many films on one day. All in all, the quality of films is still surprisingly high, today was another day with films I didn’t expect to be that good.
Die Bergkatze
Germany 1921, Ernst Lubitsch, 79’
Since this is a Lubitsch, and the only one they showed at the whole festival, I could not possibly have seen anything else at this time slot (they only showed some possibly bad film with Marlene Dietrich anyways, ugh).
I am a huge fan of “The Shop Around the Corner” and especially “To Be or Not To Be”, whereas I didn’t like “The Marriage Circle” as much in comparison to Lubitsch’s sound films. Even “Ninotchka”, a film that I personally don’t like as much as the two other aforementioned titles, was on a much higher level for me than “The Marriage Circle”. I thought that I might generally prefer Lubitsch’s sound films because his humor becomes even greater when dialogue is involved.
However, with “Die Bergkatze” I was proven wrong. The film might not have the gripping wit of some of his other films, but both the enjoyment and the funniness are at least comparable. Lubitsch seems to be a great master of situational comedy that is just outright funny, even if it means to exaggerate in a mixture of Hollywood slapstick à la Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton and the dynamic, comical relationships of the main characters, which is so very typical for Lubitsch.
Pola Negri is quite a lovely “wild girl”. It’s my first time seeing her, and she really makes me think of Helena Bonham Carter! Hahahaha. In comparison to Gloria Swanson, I must say that I prefer the latter, but in this role, Pola Negri was absolutely perfect. I absolutely loved her in the scene where she is comforting her rival in love – all the while stealing her jewelry. XD
Perhaps the unique laughter of the audience is what makes Lubitsch films so incredibly precious when shown in a movie theater. I might have become a Stroheim and a Pabst fan, and no matter how much I also like Billy Wilder or Fritz Lang’s “M”, Lubitsch will always hold a special place as my favorite German director.
Battleship Potemkin
USSR 1925, Sergej Eisenstein, 75’
First of all, I must mention that I was stuck with 70 other people in a tiny theater with no airconditioning (they forgot to turn the fans on) and with three musicians among which one was playing the trumpet. Now, while the trumpet is not my favorite music instrument, I was looking forward to it because I thought that it would provide great accents to this very dramatic and somewhat martialistic film. Again, I was absolutely wrong. The trumpet was way too loud for the small theater, making the music absolutely impossible to listen to, and thus being more detrimental to the film than contributing to it.
Oh well. Apart from these inconveniences, I am happy to know that I liked the film. I was so looking forward to the children’s cart scene and now I can say that I finally saw it after encountering so many of its parodies. Of course it’s a bunch of propaganda, but it’s such obvious propaganda that we wouldn’t take it for serious anymore anyways. On top of that, it’s more like “Hey let’s kick these aristocrats’ asses” rather than “Hey let’s all happily cultivate our fields together”, and I much prefer that for obvious reasons. (There is something beautiful in revolutions, even though I personally don’t believe in them.)
Now that we got the dreadful propaganda part out of the way, I find “Battleship Potemkin” to be an amazingly well-made film. The flow of the story, the actors, the monumental cinematography! Even for myself who hates propaganda more than anything in the world and always believed that political messages destroys art, I think that “Battleship Potemkin” is valuable on a level that goes beyond aesthetics. For me, there is no doubt that a well-told story with great visuals can be a piece of art, so this film definitely must be one.
The Lodger
USA 1927, Alfred Hitchcock, 74’
What a typical Hitchcock! What a typical thriller! Indeed, what a typical thriller by Hitchcock: There are all the elements you would expect, and I am just completely in awe at how Hitchcock’s films had the same characteristics throughout his whole film career: Silent films, black and white sound films and color films. (Speaking of film types, why doesn’t anybody have come to the idea to make color silent films? I suppose it’s because that would be music videos.)
“The Lodger” is some sort of Jack the Ripper story where it’s all about unveiling the murderer of blonde haired girls. We are following the lodger, a guy who rents a room with a family whose daughter is blonde (how Hitchcockian too!). Of course the lodger is a rather creepy person, thus everybody suspects him to be the murderer. Of course the whole thing has many plot twists and suspenseful scenes (Will the young girl die? Aaahhh~), before finally coming to a dramatic show-down. The whole film was decorated with stylish (and very dynamic looking) intertitles and geometrical elements etc. etc. The whole film looks incredibly modern, of course partially because Hitchcock conversed his style when directing his thrillers.
I think I have a certain weakness for first films when it comes to great directors. I have loved Jim Jarmusch’s first movie and I was a fan of “Blind Husbands”. For Hitchcock, in this film his blondes are not as blond yet, his main characters less crazy and obsessed. The thriller itself is just as suspenseful as his newer ones, proving how incredible he was.