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Scroll down for commentaries on:
Nosferatu
The Last Laugh
City Girl
Tabu
Faust
Tartuffe
"Nosferatu" (1922)
17 September 2004
Max Schreck's Count Orlock shares a distinction with Lon Chaney's Phantom, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Rudolph
Valentino -- he's an icon from the silent era that's still alive in the popular imagination. Kids who couldn't tell you the
difference between John Barrymore and Lillian Gish know Nosferatu.
Partly this is because Orlock is such a powerful icon, visually, and partly it's because anyone who has ever seen even
the shortest clip of the vampire in "Nosferatu" simply cannot forget it, so powerfully is Orlock presented cinematically
in the film. Orlock is the heart and soul of the film -- the part of it that inspired Murnau's genius. Scenes without him
can be visually conventional, and the storytelling in general can be clunky. (Murnau was still feeling his way as a storyteller
in 1922.)
The acting is very exaggerated, which suits the tale, but runs the usual risk of highly stylized performance -- if it
isn't executed brilliantly it can seem silly. (But that's the thrill of it, too -- it's the thespian equivalent of trapeze
flying without a net.) The young protagonists of the tale are not terribly skillful here, and don't seem to have interested
Murnau very much, so their expressions of marital bliss, and later angst, can seem unconvincing, even icky. The actor who
plays Knock, however, a borderline nut-case who travels a long way across that border in the course of the film, is sublime
-- he's like a genuinely insane person imitating a silent film actor and the result is thrilling, funny and ghastly all at
once.
The only featured player who doesn't go over the top in the film is Max Schreck. He moves in an exaggerated (sometimes
supernatural) way, of course, but it all seems organic -- this is just Nosferatu, an admittedly strange creature, being natural,
being himself. He never leers or threatens or grimaces -- he just kills, like the Venus flytrap or the carnivorous polyp he's
compared to visually in the film. And there is a softness in his eyes suggesting loneliness, even shame -- qualities which
Klaus Kinski exaggerated pointedly and too crudely in Herzog's remake of the film, to engage our sympathy. But Schreck's inhuman
humanness wouldn't be affecting, wouldn't be terrifying, if he used it to appeal to us. He'd just be a character, an actor
in some great make-up. It's no wonder people have imagined that Schreck was a real vampire -- that's how great and subtle
his performance is.
Nosferatu incarnates the poetry of death, its cool, elegant efficiency and power, which has a kind of awesome beauty.
His face is the face we most fear -- an image of anyone, of ourselves, as a corpse -- yet can't resist looking at. It is Murnau's
genius, and Schreck's instinct or craft, which let us experience the deep fascination of that face and remind us of its familiarity.
It's one we will all have someday -- and perhaps that is why a little part of the human heart goes out to Nosferatu.
It's very hard to write about "The Last Laugh", and probably useless. It's one of those few films which take
us so far beyond words that words can't really help us process the experience.
Perhaps it's enough to say that in this film, stylized as it is, Murnau moves utterly beyond mannerism. There is no camera
move, no effect of light, which is not motivated by the deepest human sympathy for the character at the film's center, which
does not appeal to the deepest human sympathy of the viewer for that character. The passages of ordinary life, the joy and
anguish of ordinary people, are noted, celebrated, grieved over without the slightest whiff of condescension, of aestheticizing.
All of the aesthetic strategies of the film are dedicated to Murnau's rigorous humane vision.
One can, perhaps, say more about the tacked-on happy ending, apparently created at the insistence of the studio. As usual
with Murnau, when given some simple-minded convention like this to execute, he takes it to an absurd extreme -- his form of
subverting it. In "The Last Laugh" one is at first consoled by this bit of whimsy -- it's kind of like an extended
curtain call or after-show party with the actors in the green room, which lets us decompress from the tragedy we've just watched.
And because every frame of the film that's gone before is instinct with love for the Jannings character, but expressed only
in the desire to know and understand him, there is something satisfying, and almost right, about the film giving him a big
bear hug at the end.
But the tag goes on so long, and is so frenetically elaborated, that one grows uneasy. As charming as it is, as funny
as some of the gags are, I had a hard time laughing at it. I think I was remembering the doltish swells in the hotel lobby
who open the sequence, laughing at newspaper reports of the doorman's sudden good fortune. I fear that they represent Murnau's
view of us, of the audience, or of the studio executives who presume to speak for us -- and I think they're meant to suggest
that Murnau despises us just a little bit, for wanting drama without consequences. At the Film Forum tonight people in the
audience started laughing, really hard, as soon as they saw the faces of the laughing swells -- even before they knew what
the swells were laughing at. It's almost as though they were desperate to stop FEELING so much. Murnau was too good-hearted
and classy to ever get ugly about, or angry about, a thing like that -- but all the same I suspect he'd always find a way
of letting us know how he felt . . . and in this case I think maybe he did.
It occurs to me upon reflection that Emil Jannings's doorman in "The Last Laugh" resembles the conventional
representations of Shakespeare's Falstaff and reminds one of him in other ways -- both are bluff, hearty characters in love
with life but later reduced to despair by demotion, Falstaff banished from Hal's charmed inner circle, the doorman kicked
downstairs into the lavatory.
It also occurs to me that they received a similar kind of fate artistically. Falstaff, of course, was killed off in "Henry
V" but brought back to the stage (supposedly at the express request of Queen Elizabeth I) in a purely comic role in "The
Merry Wives Of Windsor" -- just as the doorman appears in a self-contained comic vignette at the end of "The Last
Laugh". Artistically, both reappearances represented demotions in their own right -- Falstaff and the doorman becoming
mere echoes of the great comic-tragic creations they started off as.
Finally, it's very hard to imagine that Orson Welles was not thinking of Jannings's persona and performance in "The
Last Laugh" when he crafted his Falstaff in "Chimes At Midnight".
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19 September 2004
"City Girl", Murnau's last Hollywood film, doesn't have nearly the reputation of "Sunrise", his first
one, but it is in some respects a greater work and a more exciting one -- if only because one can see in it Murnau's road
to the future as a Hollywood director, should he have chosen to remain one.
It has many themes in common with "Sunrise", though here they are sometimes inverted. A beleaguered city girl
dreams of a more decent and hopeful life in the country, meets a decent country guy who takes her off there -- and discovers
the same oppression, in a different form, among the wheatfields.
What the films have in common is a concern with good, simple people who fall in love and whose love is tested by the meanness
of the world around them. In "Sunrise" the characters are iconic, almost symbolic of the virtues they possess --
they rise above stereotypes only through the charm of the players. But the characterizations of "City Girl" are
naturalistic, particularized, sharply observed -- greatly aided by excellent dialogue in the intertitles.
Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan are brilliant in their roles. Farrell has the same combination of sweetness and virility
that makes George O'Brien such an appealing hero, and Duncan's carefully calculated balance of hardboiled city dame and innocent
dreamer is masterful. She is the heart of the film and her experience drives it. It's an oddly feminist vision -- the meanness
of the world on exhibit here is mainly reflected in an abuse of and disrespect for women -- and Duncan's heroic resistance
to this is thrilling, and startling. We would not see this kind of female response to male abuse on screen in Hollywood again
until the Sixties, when it appeared in a brittle, dogmatic form far removed from the heartfelt indignation of "City Girl".
Along with the naturalism of the characterizations, more in line with American style than the grave symbolism of "Sunrise",
is a less fevered visual method -- one that doesn't announce its aesthetic ambitions quite so loudly but that still often
soars to heights of brilliance. The long tracking shot through the wheatfield when Farrell and Duncan first arrive at the
farm, filled with hope and joy, is perhaps not as complex technically as the moody track through the moonlit swamp in "Sunrise",
but it's just as exhilarating as a piece of plastic invention and serves its dramatic moment with the same stunning efficiency
and elan.
The shots of the wheat harvest with the mule-drawn machinery are equally exhilarating, lyrical, powerful. They offer an
image of timeless, ennobling labor which contrasts profoundly with the individual pettiness of the human characters who are
operating the machines.
I think it's fair to see "City Girl" as Murnau's first experimental step in creating a genuinely American style
-- one that might pass muster among the conventional but canny minds who directed the studios, among audiences of everyday
moviegoers not especially enamored of the European art-house style . . . and yet one that could still use his unique plastic
imagination and convey his deeply humane concerns.
It's one of Murnau's great films, one of the great silent films, one of the great films -- its place in history, in the
shadow of "Sunrise", is wholly undeserved.
"Tabu" is something else again -- a return to Murnau's mature European style, frankly poetic and lush. It proceeds
in an almost musical way -- and the leitmotiv here is dappled light, in all its varieties, in all its lyrical mystery. The
world of "Tabu" seems liquefied, in harmony with the images of water that open the film, fishing in the surf, bathing
in a waterfall and rippling stream.
It's a world of pure sensuality but not fevered, not overripe -- like some Western visions of South Seas life. In this
paradise, the senses enchant and nourish -- they never inflame.
The worm in the papaya is a religious custom in which a maiden is removed from the realm of the senses -- forced to embody
in her chastity the honor of the tribe. Reri, the maiden chosen in this tale, is thereby separated from her intended -- who
proceeds to steal her from the chief's messenger. They escape to civilization, fleeing the death decreed for those who violate
tribal tabu. There they are exploited and eventually tracked down. To save her lover, Reri turns herself in to the tribal
messenger . . . her lover swims after the boat that takes her away -- in an extraordinary sequence that has the quality of
a chase dream . . . improbable progress alternating with maddening failure to close with the quarry.
"Tabu", fate, triumphs in the end -- though it's suggested that the lovers's own inability to escape their inner
guilt is what really destroys them.
It would be interesting to know what "Tabu" represented to Murnau. After his frustrations in Hollywood, with
both of his last films there taken from him and reworked by others into part-talkie reductions of his originals, he must have
found the freedom of this independent production in Polynesia intoxicating. Perhaps he had no faith that the exciting experiment
of "City Girl" would be enough to carve out the working space he needed in corporate Hollywood.
One also can't help but imagine that the sensual repression symbolized by tabu in this story echoed the social repression
of Murnau's homosexuality -- and that "Tabu" is a wistful, tragic dream of an unattainable paradise.
The dreadful recorded score, from the film's original release in 1931, violates Murnau's work in almost every way possible.
Cute, rinky-dink, relentlessly of its time, far too busy -- it seems to be trying to annihilate the dreamy, sensuous, timeless
images. It can't of course -- nothing could -- but it doesn't serve the film in any way. This film desperately needs an appropriate
modern score in harmony with the film's special genius.
"Tabu" opened a few days after Murnau's untimely death -- and was very successful. That success might have bought
him at least one more shot at a Hollywood feature with some measure of control. Perhaps he was beyond all that by the time
he finished the lyrical masterpiece that is "Tabu". It was in any case a fine swan song, by the man Alexandre Astruc
called "the greatest poet the cinema has ever known . . . the most magical director in the history of cinema . . ."
20 September 2004
The Murnau Festival at the Film Forum came to an end tonight -- like Murnau's life and career -- all too soon. Over the
course of eleven days all of Murnau's surviving features were screened in excellent 35mm prints, with skillful and sensitive
piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner. In addition, a three minute fragment of an otherwise lost film, "Satanas"
from 1919, was shown, along with a documentary about another lost film, "Four Devils".
I caught all the films in the program with the exception of "Sunrise", which I've seen many times before. It
was, all in all, a stunning experience.
I've written about "Faust" before --the commentary can be found here:
Murnau's Shadows
. . . but it was still instructive to see it on a big screen for the first time. The first thirty minutes or so, with its
montage-like torrent of images, did not play as well the second time around. Many of the images are strikingly beautiful,
unforgettable, but this section of the film is largely expository -- like a pageant. It's only when the rejuvenated Faust
returns home from his dissolute wanderings and sets eyes on the innocent Gretchen that the film kicks into gear and becomes
a bona fide drama. Murnau takes a breath and begins his ingenious investigation the spaces of the crazy Gothic village built
for the film -- and Jannings's Mephisto begins his ascent to ever loonier realms of epicene and malevolent shenanigans.
The film is filled with pointedly religious images and themes, though they're not in a vein of any orthodox dogma. There
is a sharp and bitter irony, for example, in the Christmas Eve sequence, which contrasts the faithful inside their warm church
celebrating the Virgin and Child, while another outcast mother freezes in the snow outside.
The logic of the ending would suggest that Faust is redeemed by Gretchen's forgiveness, though the angelic commentator
tells us that Faust is saved by LOVE -- perhaps a case of Murnau distancing himself from a specifically Christian reference.
"Tartuffe" is, along with "The Fortunes Of the Grand Duke", one of Murnau's only two surviving comedies.
Not nearly as buoyant and frothy as the earlier film, "Tartuffe" has its own whimsical charm, and features yet another
brilliant, utterly unique performance by Emil Jannings.
The staging of Moliere's classic tale of hypocrisy exposed is done in a style that harks back to Murnau's craftsmanlike
"studio" style of the early Twenties. There is little cinematic bravura on display -- just impeccably lit and elegantly
choreographed scenes, almost all of them interiors. Fortunately this is one of the best-preserved of all Murnau films -- the
print shown at the Film Forum was taken from an original tinted nitrate print from the negative shot for the American release,
stored at the Library Of Congress. It's gorgeous, and allows us to appreciate the magical glow of the subtle, enchanting lighting.
Jannings creates a character which, like the doorman in "The Last Laugh" or "Mephisto" in "Faust",
is instantly mythical and wholly unlike any of the other roles he did for Murnau. It is stylized, exaggerated, expressionist
-- yet infinitely complicated and nuanced. When Madame Orgon declares her "love" for him, he has a look of quiet
bewilderment which is almost heartbreaking -- "She loves ME?" he seems to be asking himself, amazed. Yet when he's
convinced of her love he whips off his saintly mask with breathtaking abandon -- and we see the swine within. But we've been
prepared for this -- in the grotesque way he gulps down food while expounding his fraudulent pieties.
The most delightful thing about "Tartuffe", and what made it such a fitting and even moving end to this festival,
was the framing device. Here, in images of grim power, we see an old man being defrauded by a wicked housekeeper. The situation
and mood are ones of great degradation and meanness -- actually disturbing. But then the old man's nephew, about to be cut
out of the will for his frivolous ways -- he's an actor -- pops onto the scene, figures out what's happening and smiles cheerfully
into the camera . . . telling us he'll be back to set things right.
I couldn't help but think of this character as Murnau himself, with his good-natured optimism, his faith in the power
of joy and the saving grace of love, even in the face of the worst the world can be. This impression was confirmed when the
young man returned in disguise as the proprietor of a traveling moving picture show -- which he installs in the old man's
parlor for the purpose of showing him a film of "Tartuffe", which becomes the film we watch, too.
Moliere's story reflects yet again Murnau's ambiguous relationship to religion -- because Tartuffe is a religious fanatic
who preaches a retreat from the senses and from sexual love. And yet when Orgon's wife has set things right by exposing Tartuffe's
masquerade, she thanks God for allowing her to save her husband from this man -- in effect to bring him back into her arms,
into her bed.
This is Murnau's own brand of religion, which must be connected with his grief over society's, and organized religion's,
repression of his personal sexuality. But that grief never overwhelmed or embittered him -- it never stifled his joy. As long
as his films are seen, he will be that cheerful young man with the traveling picture show -- purveying pleasure but also pure
love for the bedeviled and downtrodden among us. He was in some ways the greatest of all directors -- he certainly at times
took cinema to heights no one else has attained since . . . and having seeing all his work for the first time now, I've come
to believe that he was, at least in his art, one of the best of men.
Early Murnau
Murnau Early and Late
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Original Contents Of This Page ©2006 Lloyd Fonvielle
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