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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE GOLEM (1920) / GOLEM (1979)

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When Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and a host of other horror icons were lining up at the doors of Universal Studios in search of eternal fame, somehow the humble golem failed to get the invite. An immensely powerful beast molded out of clay, brought to life by a mystic Hebrew incantation, it may have had too much in common with Mary Shelley’s invention; or more likely, Hollywood’s Jewish studio chiefs prudently sidestepped anything that would offend sensitive and vociferous gentile audiences. Still, even without the spotlight, the legend of the golem has quietly endured, so much so that Golems appear in the vaunted Reader Suggestion Queue twice. Today we examine these two tales, one a literal origin story, the other something more abstract.

THE GOLEM: HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (1920)

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam

DIRECTED BY: Paul Wegener,

FEATURING: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lothar Müthel, Lyda Salmonova,

PLOT: When the Emperor decrees that all Jews must leave the city of Prague, Rabbi Loew invokes the help of the demon Astaroth to construct a defender for his people out of clay.

COMMENTS: An early classic of German expressionist cinema, you will find quite a few reviews of this silent rendering of the original folk tale about the avenger of clay. They tend to focus on three main topics: the source material that came to inform the film, the peculiar history of how it came to be made, and a detailed recap of the plot. It feels like someone’s got my number, because that’s where my instincts would normally lead me, as well. So let’s try and cover those basesin one fell swoop, and then we can turn in a different direction: the ancient folktale was codified in a 1915 novel, which writer/director/star Wegener spun into a trilogy. The first two, set in contemporary times, are now lost to history, but the third, a prequel delivering the backstory in which a rabbi summons the warrior to defend the Jewish people but soon loses control of his creation, has survived the years, and that leads us here.

That background established, it’s important to note how neatly The Golem serves to meet the moment while paving the way for the horror legends of the future. While the story is set in medieval Prague, the fanciful decoration owes more to Méliès than the Middle Ages: impossible peaks tower over the city, while buildings are adorned with twisty staircases and walls never Continue reading THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE GOLEM (1920) / GOLEM (1979) →

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FROM MORN TO MIDNIGHT (1920)

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Von morgens bis mitternachts

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DIRECTED BY: Karlheinz Martin

FEATURING: Ernst Deutsch, Roma Bahn, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Lotte Stein, Frida Richard

PLOT: A bank cashier is so enchanted by a customer that he steals an enormous amount of money in hopes of persuading her to run away with him, but when he rejects him, he abandons his family, skips town, and reinvents himself, using the money in pursuit of earthly pleasures to diminishing returns.

Still from From Morn to Midnight (1920)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: One of the pre-eminent early examples of German expressionist filmmaking (no discussion of it is complete without mentioning its fellow 1920 release The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), From Morn to Midnight delivers a healthy dose of abstract imagery and proto-surrealism, taking advantage of both the newness of the medium and its silence to tell its cautionary tale.

COMMENTS: The Cashier, the protagonist of From Morn to Midnight, doesn’t walk on to the screen, nor do we cut to him. No, director Karlheinz Martin dissolves in on our central character, summoning him to life in the middle of a bank vault as though he were being added to a holodeck program. We will later learn that this wretched figure has a home and an adoring family waiting for him there, but this first scene provides us with the real scoop: The Cashier exists purely for the purposes of this allegorical tale, and no pesky background or deeper characterization will be needed.

So begins a surprisingly didactic and moralistic story. Once the Cashier decides to break bad, he goes whole hog: ditching his family as callously as he can; making himself over from a bent and wrinkled old man into a spry, slick dandy; and spending all his ill-gotten gains on wine, women, and song. At every turn, he meets with disappointment. The money doesn’t bring him respect or pleasure. Intriguingly, his road-to-Damascus moment doesn’t work out, either; having forsaken his past sins, he is sold out by a gentle Salvation Army worker who turns him in the moment he mentions the reward for his capture. The final image—the Cashier dying in a crucifixion pose with the words “ECCE HOMO” flickering above him like a neon bar sign—is not exactly subtle.

Then again, absolutely nothing in From Morn to Midnight is subtle, because director Martin is  here to sell an art form more than a story. He piles on all the Expressionist touches in his arsenal. He places every scene in a black void, with only the most abstract simplistic props and scenic elements providing hints of location. What little set decoration there is takes the form of mismatched flats lined in hastily applied white paint, turning every setting into a chalk drawing. Even The Cashier’s trudge through a blizzard is charmingly minimalist, as he walks down a tightly curved pathway while confetti is thrown at him. The actors themselves become two-dimensional elements through heavy makeup and wildly outsized emotional displays. Dogville almost a century before Lars von Trier could get around to making it, From Morn to Midnight is fiercely presentational, and makes sure you know it.

Like any self-respecting morality play, The Cashier’s sad fate can be predicted from the outset. For one thing, throughout the course of the film, on-set clocks are counting down the inevitable march to midnight (a touch that might have inspired Peter Greenaway). Even more telling is an image so indelible that it not only repeats, but the same actress is called upon to fill multiple roles just so it can be summoned anew. For each character Roma Bahn portrays, whether it be a homeless waif on the steps of the bank, a floozy in a hotel bar, or that young Salvation Army officer, there comes a moment when her pretty face is transformed into a death skull. Her every appearance is a red flag that The Cashier fails to heed.

The story behind the film is refreshingly optimistic by comparison. Many of the cast, including lead actor Deutsch, were Jews who later escaped Germany to live and work in the United States. Meanwhile, the movie itself had a limited release in Germany and was thought lost for decades until copies were unearthed in Japan, where Expressionism’s similarities to Noh theater made From Morn to Midnight relatable. And today, through the wonders of public domain and the internet, it’s available for all to enjoy, in the original German or translated into English. In this morality play, at least, the love of film is a virtue.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Not a frame of From Morn to Midnight is wasted in creating a surreal atmosphere…  Its sets are so bizarre, so deliberately over the top that it overwhelms its own message. The audience can only take so much. No wonder theater owners balked at it.” – Lea Stans, Silent-ology

ADDITIONAL LINK OF INTEREST: A Cinema History provides a comprehensive review of the film, with extensive visuals and thoughtful analysis.

(This movie was nominated for review by Shane. [But not, you know, this Shane. Some other Shane.] Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)  

Canonically Weird (The List)

366. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920)

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Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

“Isn’t it true—it’s the Director who’s insane!”–The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Friedrich Feher, , Lil Dagover

PLOT: A young man, Francis, sits on a bench in the garden of an insane asylum; when a woman walks by in a trance, he explains to a bystander that she is his fiancée, and launches into the strange story of how she ended up here. He tells the tale of how a mesmerist, Dr. Caligari, came to his town with a sideshow, exhibiting a “somnambulist” who predicted the deaths of citizens who were later found murdered. After his best friend and romantic rival turns up among the victims, Francis launches his own investigation into Caligari, tracking him to the insane asylum where he discovers that the doctor, under a different name, is actually the director of the facility…

Still from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

BACKGROUND:

  •  The script was co-written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, two pacifists. Mayer had feigned madness to escape military service during World War I. Despite signing a contract allowing the producer to make whatever changes he deemed necessary, they strenuously objected to the addition (or the alteration; accounts differ) of the framing story.
  • discovered the script and was originally supposed to direct, until scheduling conflicts prevented his participation.
  • The early days of cinema were highly nationalistic. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was initially banned in France; not because of its content, but because it was German, and French distributors did not think they should have to face competition from a country they had just defeated in a war. But Caligari made such a sensation when film critic Louis Delluc arranged for it to be screened for charity that the French removed their ban on German pictures. The French even took to calling Expressionism “Caligarisme.” Caligari‘s release was also protested in the U.S. solely on the basis that it was a German production.
  • In screenings in the United States, Caligari was sometimes presented with a live theatrical epilogue explaining that the characters had fully recovered from their madness.
  • Among its many honors: ranked 235 in Sight & Sound’s critics’ poll of the greatest movies of all time; listed in Steven Schneider’s 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: There’s no really a single frame of Caligari that stands out; it’s the cumulative effect of its Cubist settings, the spiky windows and dark alleys winding at weird angles, that gets under your skin.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Slanted city; greasepaint somnambulist; you must become Caligari

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: It’s arguably: the first classic horror movie. The first classic Expressionist movie. Cinema’s first twist ending. The first movie shot from a perspective of radical subjectivity. The godfather of Surrealist film. And it still creeps you out today. It’s the first weird movie. Caligari‘s blood still flows through everything we love.


Blu-ray trailer for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

COMMENTS: The entire plot of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari could be thoroughly summarized in one medium-sized paragraph. There is little Continue reading 366. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE GOLEM (1920) AND FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

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Paul Wegener’s The Golem (1920) is not as broadly known today as its German Expressionist peers, Nosferatu (1922) and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), despite having been a considerable influence on ‘s Frankenstein (1931). The reasons are apparent. Wegener’s later propaganda films for the Nazis certainly hurt the reputation of both director and film. And the Golem itself, with his oversized fright wig, looks more comically surreal than horrific; it was undeniably surpassed by Frankenstein.

Still, The Golem deserves to be better known. It was Wegener’s third “Golem” film[efn_note]The previous two films, The Golem (1915) and The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917),  are lost, although fragments of the 1915 version survive.[/efn_note] based on the story by Gustav Meyrink, itself based on Jewish folklore. Wegener stars, co-wrote (with Henrik Galeen), and co-directed (here with Carl Boese) each of them. The cinematography by and set design by Hans Poelzig[efn_note]Yes, that’s where Ulmer later got the name for his Satanist antagonist in 1934’s The Black Cat[/efn_note] and his assistant considerably enhance its stunning visuals.

Still from The Golem (1920)The Golem opens in a 16th century Jewish ghetto in Prague with Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) foretelling disaster for the Jewish community. Shortly after that bit of soothsaying, the Kaiser (Otto Gebuhr) orders the Jews banned. Loew creates a stone figure, the Golem, to protect his people, investing life into it through the demon Astaroth. The scene is impressively shot, with the rabbi encircling the Golem with fire (influenced by the “Magic Fire” of Richard Wagner’s “Die Walkure”), climaxing with a smoky demonic face issuing forth a scroll. Taking the now-animated Golem to the court of the Kaiser, Loew impresses when his creation saves the assembly from a falling roof in a epically staged scene that must have made quite an impression to 1920 audiences. It certainly impresses (or, rather frightens) the Kaiser enough to get the deportation order reversed. Astaroth possesses the Golem shortly afterwards, however, and like  the monster in Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” the Golem runs amok, destroying all in its path. It even turns on his creator, setting fire to Loew’s home and carting off his daughter, Miriam (played by Wegener’s wife, Lyda Salmanova). The scenes of the monster rampaging through the city, with its angular sets and idiosyncratic cinematography, is a testament to the work of both Poelzig and Freund. Anyone who has seen Frankenstein will immediately recognize much of its source. As accomplished as Wegener is as a writer and director, he is even better as an actor, giving an expressive, animated performance and eliciting empathy with his eyes.

The film ends with a group of blonde Aryan girls saving the day, which may be one of the reasons the film wasn’t destroyed by the Continue reading THE GOLEM (1920) AND FRANKENSTEIN (1931) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

GO WEST (1925) AND ONE WEEK (1920)

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 further explored his fascination with the west in his feature Go West (1925). Keaton had previously parodied the westerns of  in Frozen North (1922) and Go West is a further development of that exploration. Go West, however, is more influenced by  than by Hart; it has qualities which have to come to be termed as “Chaplinesque”, albeit filtered through “Keatonesque” sensibilities. It is said to have been Keaton’s personal favorite among his features, enough that he took solo directorial credit, which was rare for him.

Go West is the romantic (and odd) story of a cowhand drifter and his cow, with a girl in the very distant background. Keaton plays a lonely fish-out-of-water named Friendless (cue symbolism). The unemployed Friendless finally gets a job at a cattle ranch, but he is ill-equipped for the duties of a cowboy. Out of his element in this blue-collar, macho labor, Friendless is an object of ridicule to his peers. He never can bond with the other ranchers and gets so behind in his work that he always misses the company meal. Some gags are in order now, including Friendless’ clever technique for overcoming his discomfort with a six-shooter. Paralleling Friendless is an equally anti-social cow named Brown Eyes, who also does not bond with her peers. Rather, Brown Eyes gets attached to Friendless and becomes a shadow to the misfit herder, whom she loves.

Naturally, our misfit among misfits will have to overt the slaughter of Brown Eyes. Kathleen Myers, the ranch owners’ daughter, develops a soft spot for the bohemian pair and pleads with Papa to show mercy, which is about all the lackluster Myers gets to do. (With few exceptions, Keaton’s leading ladies are pretty much wallpaper and Myers’ character is true to that rule. Keaton never developed or nurtured a consistent female foil of the type or played for Chaplin).

Still from Go West (1925)Although Keaton pulls audience heartstrings here, he never milks it with obviousness, but rather imbues it with inherent strangeness. Keaton, per the norm, builds the film to an epic climax which involves a stampede in town. Havoc ensues, although it is pretty much an extended single joke of cattle wandering into places and circumstances in which they do not belong.

The most inventive gag is Friendless donning a devil’s outfit and literally becoming a waving red flag to round-up the wayward herd. Keaton pulls out all the stops and the finale is grandly executed—although much to Keaton’s dismay, the cattle was not as cooperative as he had hoped for, and compromises had to be made in the shooting script. Naturally, the eccentric duo will save the day and Friendless will choose his longhorn over the real live girl as a reward.

One Week (1920) is co-directed by  and was Keaton’s first real solo short after a lucrative three-year apprenticeship with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Keaton clearly had learned his trade and developed a vision; One Week is a masterpiece, co-starring, for the first time, Sybil Seely, who was the closest Keaton would come to a regular leading lady.

Keaton establishes a decidedly more progressive and idiosyncratic stylization here: inventive and intelligent slapstick through elaborate set demolition and madcap, highly choreographed stunt work.

Uncle Mike gifts newlyweds Keaton and Seely a house and a lot. Seely’s old suitor, Handy Hank, is incensed. Much to the newlyweds’ dismay, they discover their house comes in a box, which they have to assemble. There are directions, which simply instruct to “follow the numbers.” A vengeful Hank jumbles the numbers. Carpentry is simply not Keaton’s trade, ND the result is a surreal house which makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look stable.

The house on sand will come a tumbling down, a gag Keaton will perfect in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). Perhaps the most surprising element here is Selly’s bath scene in which she drops her soap and the cameraman spares her modesty by covering the lens with his hand. Seely is understandably grateful. It’s easy to see why Keaton preferred Seely. He may not have given her  a lot to do on-screen, but her sexy and sweet personality shows through in every frame she occupies. One Week rounds up with an extended storm sequence.

Next Week: Seven Chances (1925).