Originally posted to Facebook on 1/8/2019
Asphalt was our second film from 1929, and our second starring Gustav Fröhlich, after 1927's Metropolis. It is the first film we've seen directed by Joe May, and also the first time we've seen Betty Amann, the female lead.
Fröhlich plays a policeman, who helps to apprehend Amann attempting to rob a jewelry store. He is sympathetic, and ends up having to cover his tracks as he gets involved in a relationship with her. This is complicated by the fact that his father, played by Albert Steinrück (whom we saw as the chief Rabbi in 1920's The Golem), is also a policeman. The movie is efficiently paced, with relatively few title cards, and a running time of just about 90 minutes. The only sequence that seemed a bit extraneous was a five minute scene set in France, depicting a surprisingly detailed bank heist -- which seemed to have no other purpose than to establish that Amann's significant other was a criminal -- a fact which surely could have been communicated more quickly and without breaking up the flow of the main plot.
A lot has been written about the connection between noir and expressionism, and although that transition mostly occurred in Hollywood, I think this could be classified as an early proto-noir -- in the sense that the protagonist finds himself being pulled deeper into trouble, with Amann filling the femme fatale role (and incidentally looking quite similar to Louise Brooks.) It's stylishly shot, but more grounded in reality and not as flamboyantly expressionistic as the films we've seen by Lang or Murnau.
Speaking of Louise Brooks, next week we'll move on to one of her most famous roles in Pandora's Box, our third film from 1929. This will be the second time we've seen her, after 1928's Beggars of Life a few weeks ago. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Showing posts with label Gustav Fröhlich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gustav Fröhlich. Show all posts
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Metropolis (1927)
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/12/2017
We skipped ahead with this film, seeing 1927's Metropolis a week after seeing our first film from 1925, because it happened to be showing on the big screen at the Alamo. Unlike the only previous silent film we'd seen in a theater (1928's Speedy), there was no live band, only a pre-recorded score.
Like last week's Battleship Potemkin, this film had been on my radar to see for half-a-lifetime -- and in this case it appears that it was actually a lucky thing that I held off, because, due to successive discoveries of old prints, only in the last decade has it been available in anything near its originally released length of two and a half hours.
I should say at the outset that it is immediately obvious why this is considered a classic. All four of the previous Lang / Harbou films we've seen have been innovative and imaginative in some fashion, but this one most strongly combines ambition and focus.
The plot pits those who dwell above ground against a working class living below ground. It seems as though some aspects of this might have been inspired by Wells' Time Machine, though the analogy is not exact. The protagonist, played by Gustav Fröhlich, is the city leader's son, and during the movie he gradually comes to understand the foundation of his and his father's position. Without giving away too much, he encounters a saintly spiritual leader of the underground workers, played by Brigitte Helm, an insane scientist played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and an evil robot that Klein-Rogge creates, which is given Helm's appearance.
I think I've used the phrase feverish to describe a number of silent films -- and I think that is indeed one of the few advantages the best silent films have over their sound counterparts -- the focused emotional intensity that can sometimes be invoked by music and images uninterrupted by dialog. In Metropolis that is played out in a literal fever dream that Fröhlich has midway through the film, which mixes a montage of actual plot events with fantastical images, including statues of the seven deadly sins coming to life. After this sequence, I whispered to Alli, "Now the crazy part begins." She laughed (or pretended to), but it is a testament to the film that there were indeed impressive and iconic set pieces yet to come.
One could nitpick individual scenes and choices, but there are only two things that I think are worth singling out. First, the tentative and muddled politics. The main thematic driver of the film is the separation between the working and managerial classes, which would, one would think, tilt it towards a Marxist viewpoint. But, if so, it lacks the courage of its convictions, and is as unlikely to please Marxists as capitalists, because, while it singles out class struggle as the city's key flaw, it suggests no need for any great structural changes -- but instead that there be -- somehow -- a bond of affection between the two classes. I would have preferred either less overt politics or politics I oppose rather than this kind of weak tea. The second flaw, is, I think, in the male lead. Fröhlich is not actively bad, but is a little muted and not quite charismatic enough to carry the film, and suffers by comparison to Helm and Klein-Rogge. We have of course seen Klein-Rogge's charisma in several films now, and Helm -- while she occasionally overplays the counterpoint between her dual roles -- is at least always interesting.
Next week we return to 1925, our second film from that year being The Big Parade, the WWI drama starring John Gilbert. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
We skipped ahead with this film, seeing 1927's Metropolis a week after seeing our first film from 1925, because it happened to be showing on the big screen at the Alamo. Unlike the only previous silent film we'd seen in a theater (1928's Speedy), there was no live band, only a pre-recorded score.
Like last week's Battleship Potemkin, this film had been on my radar to see for half-a-lifetime -- and in this case it appears that it was actually a lucky thing that I held off, because, due to successive discoveries of old prints, only in the last decade has it been available in anything near its originally released length of two and a half hours.
I should say at the outset that it is immediately obvious why this is considered a classic. All four of the previous Lang / Harbou films we've seen have been innovative and imaginative in some fashion, but this one most strongly combines ambition and focus.
The plot pits those who dwell above ground against a working class living below ground. It seems as though some aspects of this might have been inspired by Wells' Time Machine, though the analogy is not exact. The protagonist, played by Gustav Fröhlich, is the city leader's son, and during the movie he gradually comes to understand the foundation of his and his father's position. Without giving away too much, he encounters a saintly spiritual leader of the underground workers, played by Brigitte Helm, an insane scientist played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and an evil robot that Klein-Rogge creates, which is given Helm's appearance.
I think I've used the phrase feverish to describe a number of silent films -- and I think that is indeed one of the few advantages the best silent films have over their sound counterparts -- the focused emotional intensity that can sometimes be invoked by music and images uninterrupted by dialog. In Metropolis that is played out in a literal fever dream that Fröhlich has midway through the film, which mixes a montage of actual plot events with fantastical images, including statues of the seven deadly sins coming to life. After this sequence, I whispered to Alli, "Now the crazy part begins." She laughed (or pretended to), but it is a testament to the film that there were indeed impressive and iconic set pieces yet to come.
One could nitpick individual scenes and choices, but there are only two things that I think are worth singling out. First, the tentative and muddled politics. The main thematic driver of the film is the separation between the working and managerial classes, which would, one would think, tilt it towards a Marxist viewpoint. But, if so, it lacks the courage of its convictions, and is as unlikely to please Marxists as capitalists, because, while it singles out class struggle as the city's key flaw, it suggests no need for any great structural changes -- but instead that there be -- somehow -- a bond of affection between the two classes. I would have preferred either less overt politics or politics I oppose rather than this kind of weak tea. The second flaw, is, I think, in the male lead. Fröhlich is not actively bad, but is a little muted and not quite charismatic enough to carry the film, and suffers by comparison to Helm and Klein-Rogge. We have of course seen Klein-Rogge's charisma in several films now, and Helm -- while she occasionally overplays the counterpoint between her dual roles -- is at least always interesting.
Next week we return to 1925, our second film from that year being The Big Parade, the WWI drama starring John Gilbert. The link, as always is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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