Monthly Archives: January 2010

Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin: From Schönhauser Allee to Hollywood (2006)

Posted on by
Reply
2010 #10
Robert Fischer | 109 mins | DVD

Ernst Lubitsch in BerlinPart biography, part making-of, part analytical retrospective, Robert Fischer’s documentary does what it says on the tin: tells the story of the life and work of actor/director Ernst Lubitsch from his formative years, living on Schönhauser Allee in Berlin, to when he made the move to America in the early 1920s.

Fischer devotes a large amount of time to Lubitsch’s early years — the life he had growing up, his years as a stage actor, and how he eventually shifted into becoming a film actor — attempting not only to tell the story of his upbringing, but to draw (or leave the viewer to draw) parallels with the films Lubitsch would go on to make. A use of ‘family history’ first- and second-hand accounts and analysis from authors, critics and admirers strikes a moderate balance here, though those primarily interested in his eventual film work may find it goes on a bit too long.

A lot is also made of (or, at least, implied about) Max Reinhardt’s influence on a young Lubitsch. The film implies Reinhardt had a greater significance generally, but lacks any context about why he was such a momentous figure. In fairness the film isn’t about him, but one feels a minute or two clarifying his importance may have been warranted.

When Lubitsch’s directing career is eventually arrived upon, Fischer uses the same mix of talking heads to cover both the behind-the-scenes story of Lubitsch’s career, spanning a half-dozen or so of his more significant German works, and provide a brief analysis of how they foreshadowed (or didn’t) his future career and what they might reveal about the man and his methods. With such a broad overview no one film is covered in particularly great depth, despite the feature-length running time, though recollections from actors Emil Jannings and Henny Porten provide some film-specific focus.

Illustrated with copious clips and photographs from Lubitsch’s work, the documentary incidentally instills a desire to see more of the director’s early work. Tantalising glimpses of and stories about films such as The Eyes of the Mummy Ma, Carmen, Madame DuBarry, Kohlhiesel’s Daughter and The Loves of Pharaoh all leave one longing they were included in the box set too — though considering the six films already allotted, it’s hardly an oversight that there aren’t even more. As IMDb/Wikipedia seem to suggest none of these are lost, perhaps there’s space for a Volume Two?

Given that I found the documentary interesting, the following score might seem a tad low. Judged in the world of DVD extras, Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin would likely fare better; bumping it up to the world of ‘Proper Films’, however, reduces that somewhat. As much as anything, while I’m sure it’s of interest to the already interested, it’s not compelling enough to warrant viewing by anyone else.

3 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Die Bergkatze (1921)

Posted on by
Reply
aka The Mountain-Lion / The Wildcat

2010 #9
Ernst Lubitsch | 82 mins | DVD | PG

Die BergkatzeDie Bergkatze apparently rounds off Masters of Cinema’s Lubitsch in Berlin box set with appropriate heft: as the blurb asserts, this was “Lubitsch’s personal favourite work of all his German films, [it] represents a peak in both Lubitsch’s silent oeuvre and the silent cinema as a whole.” I wasn’t quite so enamoured with it.

Which, again, isn’t to say it’s bad. The setup takes some time to build up speed, but when it does the gags begin to flow more readily, even if it degenerates to a more stop-start pattern later on. But scenes like the Lieutenant leaving town to an army of toddlers crying “Adios, daddy!” are on the one hand simple but on the other inspired; the first battle sequence is full of marvellously surreal touches, like the robber-leader making coffee to be drunk mid-shoot-out; and the satire on the military (always welcome) is pleasantly thorough, taking pot-shots at numerous elements rather than picking one trait and exhausting it.

Lubitsch once again flips the roles of the sexes: the Lieutenant preens and prunes, spending ages tweaking his hair and clothes in the mirror, and one of the gang of robbers lies on a bed literally crying a river over his lost love; the titular robber’s daughter, however, leads a gang of men in thieving and fighting, living wild, free, and rather dirty, among them. A desired-by-all woman (Pola Negri, successfully branching out into comedy) and at least one mass of man-desiring women help round out a succession of familiar Lubitsch elements. Familiarity may be said to breed contempt, but Lubitsch’s reworking of similar sequences is more a recognisable touchstone than irritating repetition.

Location filming in snow-covered Alps adds a scale and breadth to the film’s imagined-kingdom setting that would be inimitable in a studio. Perhaps art director Ernst Stern was right that the realism of using genuine locations doesn’t quite sit with the highly stylised fort; on the other hand, a studio set simply wouldn’t have the same effect: this isn’t the card-and-wood world of Die Puppe, where clearly-fake trees and horses were all part of the illusion. Instead of seeming fake, then, the contrast of a hyper-real fort and genuine-but-exotic locations creates the sense of a proper fantastical realm rather than some fictional stage set. Stern’s design for the fort is beautiful, from the overall look to specific features in each room. It’s scale is quite astonishing, particularly considering it was built on location in the Alps.

Lubitsch’s love of camera mattes, seen with increasing frequency throughout Die Puppe, Die Austernprinzessin and, particularly, Anna Boleyn, is finally allowed free reign here, with shots that conform to the standard 4:3 frame seeming to be the irregularity amongst an unimaginable array of shapes and angles. At times it’s distracting, particularly at the start, but that’s more because it’s a technique we’re now almost entirely unused to rather than any flaw in Lubitsch’s application of it. That said, though he often uses the mattes to enhance or emphasise composition, or suggest something about a character or location, it’s not always clear why he’s choosing to vary the frame so much — other than the sheer fun of it, which, particularly in a comedy, may be reason enough.

Die Bergkatze was a flop on its release in Germany and consequently never distributed elsewhere. Maybe it was, as Lubitsch thought, an unwillingness on the part of German people to have the military satirised; maybe it was the extreme use of unusual framing techniques that left them cold; maybe they just didn’t like it. Though it’s far from my favourite film in the set, it didn’t and doesn’t deserve to be dismissed.

4 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Anna Boleyn (1920)

Posted on by
Reply
aka Deception

2010 #8
Ernst Lubitsch | 118 mins | DVD | PG

Anna BoleynIn an age where Henry VIII is young, slim and sometimes irritatingly called “Henry 8”, not to mention more interested in shagging every young girl he can find than in, well, anything else, it’s somewhat refreshing to return to a time when he was always older, fatter and more interested in polishing off a huge slab of meat than seeing his wife. OK, so they call him “Heinrich VIII”, but at least that’s because this production team spoke a different language.

The Tudors may be more interested in political intrigue and sex than slavish historical accuracy, but, in fairness, Anna Boleyn isn’t actually much different. The sex isn’t even explicit in dialogue, never mind explicitly shown, but it’s still the cause of Anne’s downfall; and the political intrigue may handle in 10 seconds what The Tudors spent 10 hours (or more) dragging its way through; but it’s this speediness, not to mention Henry’s girth, that are the very things that also leave historical accuracy by the wayside. But, again like The Tudors, that’s not really the point. Some things never change.

Anna Boleyn is, once again for Lubitsch, a romance; though rather than a “happily ever after” ending it has more of a message. Sweet little Anne Boleyn believes King Henry’s eyes are wandering from his wife because he genuinely loves Anne, so she (eventually) goes along with it. He gets a divorce — if proof were needed that historical accuracy is immaterial, it takes about as long as it would today, skipping over a hugely significant part of British history in a heartbeat — and they get married. Anne fails to provide him with a son, and suddenly his lustful eye is roaming again. All it takes is the (false) accusation of a dalliance in the woods with her ex love and it’s off with her head. Poor Anne.

It’s odd to see Anne Boleyn depicted as such an innocent; a tragic figure caught up in the machinations of Henry — and, indeed, History — rather than the plotting, ultimately deserving temptress we’re used to from British (co-)productions. She’s every inch the victim, falling foul of Henry’s appetites — both when he captures her and when he goes after other women in exactly the same we he went for her — and, at the climax, there’s no question she’s being framed. The historical veracity of such a portrayal is, again, suspect. Whether Anne was truly as scheming as she’s commonly depicted, or whether this is the legacy of the nation’s love for Catherine and acceptance of the charges later levelled (or fabricated) against her, I don’t know — my historiography isn’t quite good enough for that I’m afraid — but one suspects she can’t have been as entrapped as suggested here.

On the other hand, Emil Jannings’ Henry is every inch the stereotype, a fat old man gorging himself on food and women, liable to explode with anger at any second. Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it’s wrong, of course, and Jannings’ performance is a strong one. Henry rages from joyous to furious in a heartbeat, swings from entertained to bored, loving to lustful, and every which way in between. Some of this is conveyed with grand theatrical gestures, but Jannings also pulls much of it off with just his eyes.

Among the rest of the cast, Aud Egede Nissen’s Jane Seymour takes on the typical Anne role as a seductive power-hungry mistress, which is an especially striking comparison to the near-saint recently seen in The Tudors. Ferdinand von Alten’s duplicitous Smeaton, meanwhile, looks and behaves like his surname should be Blackadder.

It’s been asserted that silent films should aspire to use as few intertitles as possible, with none therefore being the ultimate goal. This is clearly a theory Lubitsch never subscribed too. Normally that’s perfectly fine — his intertitles are mostly witty, loaded and never omnipresent. Here, however, there’s an abundance of wordy messages, and while I’m sure they could be worse, they rarely convey anything but plot. Indeed, bar the very occasional instance, the film is devoid of humour.

Lubitsch seems to feel the need to keep himself entertained in other ways, constantly playing with aspect ratio and framing, using dozens of shapes to encircle characters in close up, or isolate a group within a crowd, or just vary his composition with widescreen, tilted widescreen, or a kind of vertical widescreen. And he still knows how to stage a big sequence — the wedding and accompanying riots, packed with hundreds of extras, are quite spectacular. The following dinner scene recalls Die Austernprinzessin with its plethora of guests, waiters and dishes, although it makes for an unfortunate comparison as nothing in Anna Boleyn feels even half as inspired.

Sumurun took a more serious approach than any film thus far in this set, but still had plenty of touches that let you know Lubitsch was behind the camera (not least that he was also in front of it). Aside from some of the choice visual framing devices, or one or two familiar set-ups (the large banquet, four servants helping Henry get dressed), there’s no significant evidence here of Lubitsch’s touch. It’s not a bad film, it’s just not a particularly distinctive one.

3 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Sumurun (1920)

Posted on by
Reply
aka One Arabian Night

2010 #7
Ernst Lubitsch | 104 mins | DVD | PG

SumurunSumurun seems completely different to any film yet seen in the Berlin box set, yet this is more in line with the style of film that would ultimately lead Lubitsch to Hollywood.

As the alternate title would suggest, this is primarily an Arabian Nights-style drama… but, while on the surface this looks entirely at odds with Lubitsch’s previous comedy work, it actually concerns itself with the same topic: romance, and the various entanglements and complications that lead to it. What’s different here is that instead of being wholly comic it’s often deadly serious (literally, as it turns out), and instead of one simple girl-meets-boy trajectory (as in the preceding three films) there’s two girls and four boys between them, in various combinations. It’s a many-stranded, relatively complex narrative: there’s a group of travelling minstrels, an old sheikh, a young sheikh, a cloth merchant, a bevy of harem girls — all of whom are connected and interact in varying ways with varying objectives, though most are related to love — or lust.

The change in style is no bad thing. Lubitsch was clearly versatile, turning his hand well to this type of storytelling. His comedies are all based around romance, one way or another, and so treating the subject with a little more seriousness seems no great leap. He keeps control of the plot, despite the numerous strands and complexities, and his comedy background allows the tropes of farce to be employed in furthering the story. His previous use of fantastical realms, like the dolls’ world of Die Puppe, aids a succinct establishment of Lubitsch’s version of Arabia and its specific rules. Indeed, with its fantastical setting and shortage of character names (only Sumurun, Nur al Din and his two slaves — Muffti and Puffti — are known by more than their title, job description or physical impairment), Sumurun may be as much of a parable as some of the comedies.

And still, comedy creeps in round the edges. Lubitsch is arguably showing restraint by not letting every sequence descend into it, but there is a fair amount of wit and humour lurking throughout. It’s mostly applied wisely though, furthering character, story or both: the ugly hunchback who smiles at a child only to make him cry; the harem girls giving their eunuch guardians the runaround (multiple times); the two wannabe-thieves accidentally stealing a pretend-dead body and desperately trying to hide or dispose of it — the last a subplot which ultimately plays a key part in the climax.

What’s a little unclear is why it should be called Sumurun. Perhaps it’s no more than a vestige from the source, because while the titular harem girl is quite significant, she’s no more so than several other characters. Pola Negri’s namless dancer in particular seems more central to the narrative — indeed, she connects most of the disparate groups and plot strands; certainly more of them (and more significantly) than anyone else. But then, Sumurun survives to the end, and — along with her man, Nur al Din the cloth merchant — is the purest, most righteous, most deserving of all the main characters. Conversely, all the ‘bad’ (and, as noted, nameless) characters meet their end: the sheikhs are both fickle, and the old sheikh clearly a nasty piece of work; the dancer is flirty and adulterous; the hunchback, however, is devoted to her, and his tragedy effectively balances the “and they all lived happily ever after” of the freed harem girls and Sumurun and Nur al Din finally getting each other. If this is a parable, there’s quite a clear message about fidelity.

Sumurun may lack the straightforward fun of Lubitsch’s comedies, but by creating a complex and engrossing Arabian epic he entertainingly demonstrates that there was more to him than just the talented comedian.

4 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Die Austernprinzessin (1919)

Posted on by
Reply
aka The Oyster Princess / My Lady Margarine

2010 #6
Ernst Lubitsch | 61 mins | DVD | PG

Die AusternprinzessinDie Austernprinzessin seems to be one of, if not the, most respected and/or beloved of Lubitsch’s early films. It makes They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s Doubling the Canon list, something no other film in this box set has managed (nor, I should clarify, are any on the main list); it’s the only one to make IMDb’s top films of the 1910s; and it has some Proper critical backing too (more on that later). But personally, it’s my least favourite Lubitsch so far.

Which isn’t to say it’s bad — far from it. Set in America, it’s packed with displays of ostentatious wealth: the titular ‘princess’ (played by Lubitsch muse Ossi Oswalda), actually the daughter of an oyster-selling businessman, lives in a huge palace of a home; the family has hundreds of servants to do everything, to a ridiculous degree; and there’s a pervasive “must have more” culture splashed across it. This isn’t praised though, as you might expect from a contemporaneous US film (or most US films, really), but is instead a satire/pisstake. It must have been particularly effective/galling in a Germany heading into severe post-war Depression.

To support his theme, Lubitsch stages numerous epic set pieces on gigantic sets: Ossi’s bath, where a stream of maids carry her to and fro, wash and dry her; a huge cast of choreographed waiters, kitchen staff and guests at the wedding dinner; a mad foxtrot sequence that follows it; or the ladies’ boxing match, where for the third time in as many films Lubitsch shows a gaggle of women fighting over a man. The foxtrot sequence seems the most praised of these, though I wasn’t sold — other sequences here are better staged with greater comic impact. The supple, enthusiastic band leader was quite entertaining though.

Occasionally, however, one feels the size of these sequences may have distracted the director from the task of making his film funny. Not that it isn’t or that these aren’t — Lubitsch still exploits almost every chance for a gag — but there’s sometimes the suspicion that the logistics of staging such big sequences, and so many of them, have derailed him from the primary goal. By extension, the story often feels like a series of sketches (even more so than the previous two films), with several — Ossi’s instruction in how to bathe a baby, for example — seeming wholly extraneous and not always hitting home as well as one might’ve liked.

Similarly (though, it may just be my imagination), Oswalda’s skill gets a little lost among all the hullabaloo. She rarely has a chance to display the comedic and romantic charm she showed so beautifully in Ich möchte kein Mann sein and Die Puppe, although a couple of scenes allow her to let loose. She’s part of the ensemble much of the time, little more than a prop at others (the bath sequence, for example). Obviously, the film doesn’t have to focus on her, and the rest of the cast entertain — in particular a heavily made-up Victor Janson as the consistently bored oyster entrepreneur — but having seen her abilities so well displayed in the preceding films, they feel slightly underused here.

But, as I say, maybe I imagined it; and perhaps I’m holding Die Austernprinzessin to unfeasibly high standards, buoyed by the success of the previous films and the aforementioned critical standing? I haven’t even mentioned all the plus-points, like some excellent individual gags — a drive-in wedding! — and a great score on this edition (sadly uncredited, as far as I can see).

Speaking of this particular release, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky again pens the essay that accompanies the film, ending it with quite a nice analogy about food and restaurants and stuff — I won’t spoil it for those yet to read it. In fact, the main reason I even mention it is to cite that Sight & Sound review I mentioned, which asserts that Vishnevetsky’s essays “seem designed merely to show off his range — very pseud’s corner”. Not a point I’d necessarily disagree with, but it does feel a little rich coming from Sight & Sound, the magazine that (for one handy example culled from the same issue) can produce a list of the 30 “most significant” films of the last decade in which I’ve not even heard of half the selections.

And the reviewer also calls Die Austernprinzessin Lubitsch’s “earliest masterpiece”, which obviously I’m going to disagree with. I’ll stick to playing with dolls, thanks.

4 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Silent Week – #1: Lubitsch in Berlin

Posted on by
Reply

The idea behind Silent Week is simple: the films are silent, the blog is anything but.

Oh, that sounds like a cheesy marketing line that ITV would use (not that ITV would ever go anywhere near a silent film). Sorry. But still, the idea runs more or less thusly: I watch a silent film one day, I post a review of it the next (well, that was the idea…) That doesn’t necessarily mean seven films, but enough to justify it being a Week rather than, I dunno, a Weekend. However, as it’s turned out (at least for this inaugural entry), I watched (almost) all the films last week and intend to post all the reviews this week.

Why silent films? Because I’ve noticed I own quite a few that I haven’t seen. I could probably do the same thing with anime, or film noir, or Asian action movies, or any number of other such genres/categories, but silents attracted my attention for now.

The initial idea (that again…) had been to start with a random selection of the silents I own, but then I got the new Masters of Cinema Lubitsch in Berlin set a week in advance of its release (which, incidentally, is tomorrow) — I always love it when that happens, especially as it inspires me to actually watch stuff right away. And this set has seven films — what could be more perfect for a Silent Week? (OK, one film immediately breaks the rules by not being silent, but as it’s a documentary about silents I rule it eligible.)

As if to cement this more themed approach, as I listed the silents I own they began to fall into categories — Hitchcock, Chaplin, Murnau & Lang, plus the Feuillade serials Fantômas and Les Vampires. I could muddle these up into more random weeks, or go chronologically across them all, but why bother? As I’ve got through Lubitsch in Berlin OK (well, almost) I’ll try again sometime soon with another of these themes, and continue that way… until I run out and have a grab bag of remaining titles (currently: 4½).

I hasten to point out (he says, in paragraph six) that I’m no expert on silent cinema — these are all first-views, as per the rest of the blog, and informed by little more than that (the exception being DVDs with booklets, where there may be a bit more info at my disposal). Despite the lack of any specialism, it’s thanks primarily to a series of era-spanning degree modules with a filmic bent that I’ve found myself with enough of an interest in the silent era to accumulate a variety of films over the past few years… I just haven’t watched most of them, clearly.

But let’s bring things back on point: six films directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and one documentary about them. I begin today with reviews of the first two featured in the set:

2010 #4
Ich möchte kein Mann sein
aka I Wouldn’t Like to Be a Man
1918 | Ernst Lubitsch | 45 mins | DVD | PG

“Ossi Oswalda is obviously a skilled comedic actress, convincing as both a petulant tomboy and a boyish gent, capable of both drunken stumbling and coy giggling, by turns delightfully rebellious, sweetly put-upon and succinctly joyous. She’s even believable as a man (albeit a boyish one).”

4 out of 5

2010 #5
Die Puppe
aka The Doll
1919 | Ernst Lubitsch | 64 mins | DVD | PG

“It’s a constant array of delights, and nothing outstays its welcome; every sequence is mined for its full comic potential, but Lubitsch wisely moves on before it can become repetitive or stale.”

5 out of 5


Coming up: Die Austernprinzessin (aka The Oyster Princess), Sumurun (aka One Arabian Night), Anna Boleyn (aka Deception), Die Bergkatze (aka The Wildcat), and Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin: From Schönhauser Allee to Hollywood.

Die Puppe (1919)

Posted on by
1
aka The Doll

2010 #5
Ernst Lubitsch | 64 mins | DVD | PG

Die PuppeFrom the very start, Die Puppe sets out its stall (literally) as being something a bit special. The first sequence sees director Ernst Lubitsch himself unpack and assemble a doll’s house set and two dolls, which then become life-size and the dolls — now humans — the first characters we meet. It’s a neat framing device, a joke in itself, and some kind of early commentary on the role of a director.

From this point on, Die Puppe is a riot. Yes, some of it is distinctly old fashioned — an early chase scene, for example, sees Lancelot pursued by 40 desperate women, his mother, his uncle and the latter’s servant, back and forth and round in circles in a cartoonish fashion — and yet, even leaving aside allowances for it being 91 years old, there’s something wholly amiable about even these now-familiar proceedings.

And that’s just some of it, because Lubitsch doesn’t pass up any chance for a gag. Take the scene where Hilarius, the doll’s inventor, returns to his workshop to fetch the doll, who at that moment is actually his daughter in disguise. The point of the scene is conveyed — Hilarius accepts the deception. Except he also decides she needs more paint on her lips, which he dutifully applies. Or the pantomime horses that pull a carriage… but rather than ignore them, Lubitsch has the driver have to re-apply one’s tail. And so on. This constant expression of humour, working at every level from intellectual wit down to slapstick tomfoolery, means that even if one element has been done to death in the past near-century, there’ll be several other moments or scenes to compensate.

Even more so than in Ich möchte kein Mann sein, one could easily fill a whole review listing the great bits. Like when Lancelot is initially presented with an array of dolls, like a bizarre early-20th-century brothel with Autons for whores. Or the vulturous relatives, dividing up items while the Baron lies on his deathbed, and having the gall to accuse him of bad planning when they can’t decide who should have a vase that’s promptly broken. Or the broadly satirical monks with their ‘meagre’ meals, unwillingness to share, and incessant greed. And, in the vein of things-you-might-not-expect-from-this-era, there’s a great gag about an instruction manual. It’s a constant array of delights, and, also as in Ich möchte…, nothing outstays its welcome — every sequence is mined for its full comic potential, but Lubitsch wisely moves on before it can become repetitive or stale.

Lubitsch’s playfulness extends to the medium itself. He uses camera masks and wipes to focus on specific areas, breaking free of the 4:3 box to create different compositions, revealing parts of the frame on a delay, illustrating dream sequences, and more. There are ‘special effects’ that one could only achieve with a camera, like Hilarius’ hair changing colour, the balloon-flying sequence, a ghostly dream, and so on. And the irrepressibly cheeky young apprentice, played brilliantly by Gerhard Ritterband, routinely breaks the fourth wall to air his grievances to the audience.

And I haven’t even mentioned Ossi Oswalda, who gives another good comic turn as both the titular doll and her real-life inspiration. In his essay accompanying the Masters of Cinema edition, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky summarises her appeal (some of it, at any rate) so well that I may as well just quote from it: “Her comedy isn’t just funny to watch — it’s inviting, like a friend who cracks a joke and then asks you to tell one too. She begs a like-minded idiocy from the audience.” It is, I think, a point that’s even more applicable to Ich möchte kein Mann sein, but it stands well enough here.

Talking of this specific edition, I understand that Bernard Wrigley’s new score has come under fire from some sources (namely, Sight & Sound, though I’ve yet to read that review myself). Maybe their reviewer has a genuine complaint, but I thought that Wrigley’s score was for the most part perfectly lovely. It’s only flaw is that it often falls silent for a few uncomfortable seconds, reminding the viewer that ‘silent films’ should be anything but. Still, this is as minor a complaint as it sounds.

The Lubitsch in Berlin box set was a complete blind buy for me (as this series of reviews will attest), but these first two films alone easily justify it. Die Puppe, in particular, is simply outstanding.

5 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918)

Posted on by
Reply
aka I Wouldn’t Like to Be a Man

2010 #4
Ernst Lubitsch | 45 mins | DVD | PG

Die PuppeIch möchte kein Mann sein is the kind of silent film that might surprise some among a wider film-viewing audience, both in terms of the attitudes prevalent in what is occasionally assumed to be a highly prim era, and, even accepting that it really wasn’t, the things people were prepared to put on film then — the latter due to, I think, the perception of older films as wilfully innocent (a view no doubt influenced by the effect the Hays Code would later have on American movies).

But it’s anything but innocent: young ladies drinking, gambling and smoking, thinly veiled sex references, and multiple passionate — albeit drunken — kisses between two chaps. OK, so one of them’s a women in disguise, but when the truth is revealed at the end and the boy and girl (or, rather, man and girl) get together, one wonders if it’s such a perfect match after all… That it’s all played for laughs may be the key to making it permissible, and it is relentlessly comic. In a brisk 45-minute running time, Lubitsch allows nothing to outstay its welcome. Each little sketch within the narrative moves by as fast as it might today — in all likelihood faster, as the modern penchant seems to be to drag sketches out as long as possible, or at least until it’s stopped being funny. Twice over. This brevity may also be surprising to the uninitiated, refuting the assumption that overacting and labouring the point for an audience less accustomed to the shorthand of film were the order of the day.

Many memorable moments are produced throughout: the hypocritical early criticisms by Ossi’s uncle and governess; the men outside her window, rubbing their stomachs with ‘hunger’ in a shot framed from the waist down, not to mention the way they wave their canes around; similarly, the tailors stretching their tape measures as long as possible to impress our heroine; being squished on the train; the marauding horde of single women; the ‘gay’ kisses… Rarer is the sequence that doesn’t impress or linger in the memory.

Much of this is thanks to the film’s star, Ossi Oswalda. She’s obviously a skilled comedic actress, convincing as both a petulant tomboy and a boyish gent, capable of both drunken stumbling and coy giggling, by turns delightfully rebellious, sweetly put-upon and succinctly joyous. She’s even believable as a man (albeit a boyish one). It’s the kind of performance that’s infectious and makes you want to seek out more of her films (luckily, Lubitsch in Berlin contains two further examples). The rest of the cast fare well around her, particularly Margarete Kupfer as Ossi’s alternately stern and swooning governess.

Unfortunately, I can’t even attempt to put this in the context of the rest of Lubitsch’s work — shamefully, I’d barely heard of him prior to Masters of Cinema’s new set, never mind seen any of his films. MoC’s brand-new essays prove invaluable for me in this respect — immediately, this film’s, provided by Criterion’s Anna Thorngate, provides context of what the perception of Lubitsch’s Berlin work (vs his Hollywood work) is, and how Ich möchte kein Mann sein (amongst others) show this perception to be false — there is, in fact, a direct stylistic line between this and his better-known American films. Maybe when I see them I’ll spot it.

But, really, such knowledge and comparisons are entirely ancillary to one’s enjoyment of Ich möchte kein Mann sein. It’s all round a lot of fun, as well as no doubt offering some points of satire/debate about the differences between the sexes for those interested. Perhaps more pertinently, I can also see it serving as a good introduction to silent film: short, fast and funny, it has the potential to create converts.

4 out of 5

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Posted on by
Reply
2010 #1
Danny Boyle | 120 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

Slumdog MillionaireAs we head in to this year’s awards season, I’ve finally got round to seeing last year’s big winner. It’s the Little British Film That Could, and I do feel like I’m the last person in the country to see it.

With its brightly coloured posters and home ent covers, cute child actors wheeled out at awards dos, and widespread popularity, it’s not hard to believe the pullquote someone at Fox’s marketing chose for the DVD cover: “the feel-good film of the decade”. An uplifting tale of a young no-hoper appearing on the world’s biggest game show and winning millions of rupees thanks to a generous helping of luck that means his multifarious life experiences have provided him with the exact answers to all 15 of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s genius-stumping questions, surely?

No.

Everything that claims it’s a “feel-good film” is being slightly disingenuous. It has a happy ending (I don’t think that counts as a spoiler for something that’s billed as “feel-good”), but until those closing moments it’s unrelentingly grim. Realistic, I’m certain, and depressingly so, but it seems designed for anything but making you feel good. The author of that chosen quotation, News of the World’s Robbie Collin, claims that he means the film is cathartic (not that I got that from his review, to be honest) — the happy and justice-bringing endings unleash goodness in the wake of the dire events that lead to them. It’s a sound theory, one that has often worked elsewhere, but not for me with Slumdog.

The problem is the ending. Director Danny Boyle’s recent films have all made a relatively poor show of their conclusion and Slumdog is no exception. True, it’s not close to the mess of Sunshine, but it doesn’t hold up in the way it ought to either. I don’t have a problem with it being reliant on guesswork — coincidence and luck form the backbone of the plot, making it permissible that our hero should win by chance rather than knowledge — but that some of its resolutions are too little too late to make one feel good about what’s already occurred, and the way it seems to bend the concept of Millionaire to fit its story somehow grates for me. I mean, is the name of the third Musketeer really a £1 million question?

But I don’t want to berate it too much because, in spite of the unconvincing finale, Slumdog Millionaire is a rather brilliant film. It’s peppered with convenience and flaws that go beyond the extent allowed in a plot based on coincidence (how come the questions come in the order the answers happened in his life? What about answers to all the questions we don’t see asked?), but these can be allowed to slide as a structural gimmick that facilitates something of an exposé of life for slum kids in India. Whether it has a documentary level of realism or not, and whether it under-sells or over-states the influence of gangsters and ease of mutilation and murder, the film’s unabashed grimness is surely closer to reality than most would dare. No wonder it nearly went straight to DVD.

The real revelation — once you get over the shock of it being, well, shocking — are the child actors. Here is where Boyle earns his Best Director awards, coaxing flawless lead performances out of a very young cast. Dev Patel may have been the focus point for plaudits, and while this isn’t undeserved, it’s the younger kids who play the same characters that arguably give the most memorable turns. They’re put through the ringer in almost every way imaginable and are never less than convincing, a feat for such young actors — so young that, as mentioned, the skill of Boyle (and, one imagines, “Indian co-director” Loveleen Tandan) is what’s really on display.

If there’s one good thing about Slumdog being billed as feel-good it’s that more people will have seen it, whereas promotion based on it being a gritty account of poverty, misery and abuse would surely have turned audiences away. And perhaps for most viewers the catharsis of a happy ending works, though the only person I’ve spoken to who felt that way is the aforementioned Mr Collin (and by “spoken to” in this instance I mean “tweeted”). The journey there certainly works though, and if by the end Slumdog is trying to both have its cake and eat it… well, I like cake.

Now there’s a quote for the DVD cover.

5 out of 5

Channel 4 and 4HD kick off their Indian Winter season with the TV premiere of Slumdog Millionaire tonight at 9pm.

Another year over, or: Third time unlucky

Posted on by
Reply

“Another year over,” sang John Lennon, “and what have you done?” (Well, if you re-arrange the lyrics he did.) Failed to reach 100 films, that’s what.

Well… There’s a first time for everything. It had to happen sooner or later. There are many more fish in the sea– wait, what? Anyone got more accurate clichés to add?

As at least one person kindly pointed out on Twitter, reaching 94 films isn’t a poor effort really. And there’s still plenty of reviews from 2009 left to write and post — just look at that lengthy coming soon page! And I shall, as ever, be posting my highs and lows of my viewing year, plus the complete list and a bunch of largely pointless statistics, just as soon as I get a chance to put all that together.

So, a new decade begins. Fingers crossed for at least 1,000 new films…

2009’s summary posts will be republished in November.