Τίτλος: The student of Prague
Χρονολογία: 22 Αυγούστου, 1913
Σκηνοθεσία: Hanns Heinz Ewers και Stellan Rye.
Πρωταγωνίστησαν:
Paul Wegener, John Gottowt και Grete Berger
Είδος: Μεταφυσικό Θρίλερ
Χώρα Προέλευσης: Γερμανία
Αρχικό κείμενο: William Wilson, του Edgar Allan Poe
Πλοκή
Στην Πράγα του 1820, ο Balduin (Paul Wegener),
ένας φτωχός νεαρός, είναι ο πιο ατίθασος μαθητής και καλύτερος
ξιφομάχος στην πόλη. Η άσχημη οικονομική του κατάσταση και η δίχως
επιστροφή αγάπη του προς την Κοντέσα Magrit (Grete Berger)
τον έχουν φέρει σε βαθιά κατάθλιψη. Μια μέρα, και ενώ πνίγει το πόνο
του σε ένα ποτήρι μπύρα, τον προσεγγίζει ο γέρος Scapinelli (John Gottowt)
και του λέει πως μπορεί να έχει μια λύση στα προβλήματά του. Ο
Scapinelli προσφέρει πλούτο και οτιδήποτε άλλο επιθυμεί στο νεαρό άνδρα,
αν αυτός θα υπογράψει το όνομά του σε συμβόλαιο. Ο φοιτητής υπογράφει
χωρίς δεύτερη σκέψη, αλλά δεν γνωρίζει την παγίδα στην οποία έχει
παρασυρθεί.
Ενδιαφ
έροντα στοιχεία
Παρόλο που η Berger και ο Wegener ήταν κατά μια δεκαετία μεγαλύτεροι
για το ρόλο τους, η ταινία είναι αρκετά αποτελεσματική, αν λάβουμε υπόψη
μας τη χρονολογία προβολή της. Χρησιμοποιεί αυθεντικές τοποθεσίες της
Πράγας και, χάρη στα περίτεχνα πλάνα του οπερατέρ, η σκηνή που ο Balduin
συναντά το δαιμονικό κλώνο του είναι αναμφισβήτητα ανατριχιαστική.
Τι το αξιοσημείωτο έχει:
Παρόλο που το ‘The Student of Prague’
του 1913 από τον Stellan Rye έχει ξεχαστεί στις μέρες μας, δεν παύει να
είναι η πρώτη μεγάλου μήκους ταινία τρόμου στην ιστορία του
κινηματογράφου.[......]
Τι δεν έχει:
Ο Balduin, ως ένας νεαρός που προσπαθεί να κλέψει τη γυναίκα ενός
άλλου, είναι ίσως ένας από τους πρώτους αντιήρωες του κινηματογράφου,
και όπως πάντα ο ρόλος αυτός είναι μια χρυσή ευκαιρία για ηθοποιούς να
αναδειχτούν. Ωστόσο η έλλειψη του διαλόγου, λόγω του ότι η ταινία είναι
βωβή, δεν έδωσε την ευκαιρία στον Wegener να αξιοποιήσει αυτή την
ευκαιρία.
The Student of Prague (1913); Der Student von Prag (German title);
A Bargain with Satan; or, The Student of Prague (UK title)
Country: Germany
Production Company: Deutsche Bioscop GmbH
Director: Stellan Rye
Screenplay: Hanns Heinz Ewers
Cinematographer: Guido Seeber
Music: Josef Weiss
Production Design: Robert A Dietrich, Klaus Richter
Location: Prague, Czechoslovakia
Budget: 30,000 Marks
Cast:
Paul Wegener (Balduin) Fritz Weidemann (Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg),
John Gottowt (Scapinelli), Lyda Salmonova (Lyduschka, a country girl),
Grete Berger (Margit, Countess Waldis-Schwarzenberg), Lothar Körner
(Count Waldis-Schwarzenberg), Alexander Moissi.
Length: 57 mins/5,046 feet (41 mins on DVD at 24 frames per second), later cut to 4,817 (4,500 feet in UK)
Synopsis:
Suffering from financial problems, student Balduin signs a Faustian
pact with Scapinelli, an old man with magical powers, offering anything
in his room in exchange for 100,000 gold pieces and the woman of his
dreams. Scapinelli takes Balduin's soul in the form of his reflection
and the student finds himself increasingly plagued by the Doppelgänger,
until it kills on his behalf.
Review:
By 1913, film had taken hold of the public interest in most of the
developed world, but was largely held in contempt as being a "low" art
form. German author Hanns Heinz Ewers, an admirer of Poe and friend of
Aleister Crowley, was an early evangelist of the possibilities of film
over theater and had a contract with Berlin's Bioscop to produce 10
films and write eight screenplays.
He had previously collaborated on the script for Der Verführte (The Tempted)
with the theater actor Paul Wegener, a member of Max Reinhardt's famous
Deutsches Theater. Another strong proponent of cinema, Wegener,
beginning his screen career here, would go on the create The Golem series and appear alongside Brigitte Helm in Golem-collaborator Henrik Galeen's 1928 adaptation of Ewers' Alraune, a distaff take on Frankenstein.
Ewers
was also responsible for saving the career of Danish director Stellan
Rye, who left Denmark penniless having served three months in gaol for
homosexuality. In a brief but prolific career Rye would produce 13 films
after directing Der Verführte and The Student of Prague, before dying at the age of 34 in a French prison hospital, having fought on the side of Germany in the First Battle of Ypres.
Ewers
and his collaborators (film was seen as a writer's medium at that
time), along with cinematography pioneer Guido Seeber, created an
excellent snapshot of a developing style and a medium in transition from
primitive beginnings to a recognized art. Seeber's camerawork veers
from static, dull interiors to some stunning location work on the
streets of Prague, but two scenes – one a card game illuminated by a
single light from above, the other a lover's tryst, in which Balduin
meets his intended as Scapinelli's shadow threatens from below – show
early sign of what would become the German Expressionistic style, later
developed by Karl Freund (The Golem, Metropolis), Willy Hameister (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari), and Fritz Arno Wagner (Nosferatu, Warning Shadows), into one of the dominant influences of the first three decades of cinema.
The
acting betrays the stage origins of its protagonists, with some
hard-to-take mugging from Wegener that shows none of the subtlety he
would later bring to The Golem and Fünf Unheimliche Geschichten
(he went on to deliver a lecture on the importance of minimalism in
screen acting in 1916), and a similarly over-expressive performance from
John Gottowt as Scapinelli. But the importance of the film lies not in
the performances, but in its key place as an early example of fantasy
cinema and of that particularly German obsession with narcissism,
duality, and impending doom expressed in the doppelgänger.
Production on The Student of Prague
was completed at the beginning of July, 1913 and it premièred - with a
censor ban on showing to minors - on August 22nd in Berlin's Mozart
Halle accompanied by perhaps the first music score composed specifically
for a German film. Following the release seven months earlier of Max
Mack's Der Andere (The Other), a variant on the Jekyll and Hyde story generally regarded as the first German film to have artistic merit, The Student of Prague received considerable interest, with reviewers gushing: "A pioneering innovation in the poetry of film" (Vossischen Zeitung), "Ebers has carried it off with the finest taste and technical cunning" (Berliner Tageblatt), and "…a total success." (Deutsche Nachrichten).
Unfortunately, as is often the case with early silents, opinions
differed by the mid-1920s and it was dismissed as naive and ridiculous
when re-released in 1926.
The Student of Prague
has been remade four times, in 1926 by Wegener's friend Henrik Galeen,
starring Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss (reuniting after The Cabinet of Dr Caligari);
in a 1935 sound version, starring Anton Walbrook, directed by Arthur
Robison (Warning Shadows); in 1990 as a mini-series for Czech
television; and as a 2004 Czech/US independent short.
The
1913 version was shown in November 2008 as an art event at the Now
Museum in Glasgow, Scotland by Canadian illustrator Judd Brucke and
English artist Jack Wrigley, along with a 10-piece band.
http://amazingmovieshow.blogspot.com
Τίτλος: The student of Prague
έροντα στοιχεία
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου