La terra che brucia

Any film directed by F.W. Murnau merits attention, but "The Burning Field" is one of his more turgid efforts. This film reminds me of "God's Little Acre", "Giant", "Duel in the Sun" and "Dallas" ... and the comparisons are not to this movie's advantage. Several scriptwriters are credited, but I suspect that the soap-opera excesses of this film's plot can safely be credited to Thea von Harbou, whose heavy hand is all over the storyline.

Most of the action takes place on a farm owned by the Rog family, who give fealty to Count Rudenburg. In the role of the Rog patriarch, the great actor Werner Krauss is nearly wasted. Krauss does a bog-standard death scene ... but then, unexpectedly, just before he dies he makes an "ach, forget it" gesture with one hand, neatly defining his character just as he expires.

Old Rog has two sons, who come dangerously close to the hoary cliché of "good brother, bad brother". Modest Peter merely wants to work the farm. Johannes wants something more out of life. The most impressive thing about this film is how the character of Johannes is written (and performed by actor Vladimir Gaidarov). It would have been easy to make Johannes a clear-cut villain. Instead, he's an opportunist and a manipulator, and somewhat unethical, but he never quite descends to outright criminality.

Early in the film, there's a brief flashback to an earlier period, apparently the 17th century. When this movie was made in 1922, the fade-out and the dissolve were already established in film language as the transitional devices for flashbacks. Murnau doesn't use them here. Instead, a shadow passes across the screen image, almost like a primitive example of an optical wipe.

Lya De Putti gives an excellent performance as the Count's daughter. De Putti has a reputation as an exotic screen vamp, but she really wasn't very beautiful. Here, her mouth is lipsticked into a grotesque cupid's bow, and her eyebrows are plucked into a shape that's both too elaborate and asymmetrical with it. A close-up reveals her fingers to be short, thick and ungainly. Yet, when she strides across the screen in full riding habit and spurs, haughtily pulling a pair of riding-gloves onto her hands while spurning Alfred Abel's advances -- "Excuse me. My horse is waiting." -- she is very sexy indeed.

The photography is excellent throughout. Several times, we see the Rog family's house in long shot, in the midst of an absolutely flat plain. This shot reminded me of a very similar shot in George Stevens's "Giant". Later, an oil derrick appears near the Rog house. Again, this also happened in "Giant". George Stevens was a brilliant director who didn't have to borrow from anyone else, yet the similarities in these two films are so strong that I can't help wondering if Stevens was influenced by this film.

Murnau's sure hand wavers just occasionally. At several points during this drama, small objects (coins, the fragments of a torn document) are dropped or flung to the floor. With one exception, all of these moments are shown in full shot. They would have been far more effective if Murnau had inserted a closer shot of the coins rolling, the fragments fluttering. During one exterior sequence, while De Putti and Gaidarov are emoting in the foreground, nobody seems to notice a little black dog running through the snowdrifts behind them. The dog isn't in the script, but he's there anyway.

Stella Arbenina gives a beautifully subtle and poignant performance in a sympathetic role, except for one ludicrous moment when her character goes out into deep snow wearing high-heeled shoes. The modest farmer Peter is played by Eugen Klöpfer, an actor I've never seen before. In close-ups of Klöpfer, I was amused to discover that he had two small moles on his left cheek ... in exactly the same places where Lon Chaney also had facial moles. Klöpfer wears heavy makeup in this role, yet the blemishes appear to be genuine. Is it possible that Eugen Klöpfer was actually Lon Chaney, moonlighting under another name? Probably not. I'll rate this movie 7 points out of 10. The plot has many flaws, but the photography and the performances (and Murnau's direction) go a considerable distance to compensate.

FW Murnau was a fantastic and influential director/film maker, with interesting themes and full of stunning and unlike anything seen before for the time imagery. Evident in 'Faust', 'The Last Laugh', 'Nosferatu', 'City Girl' and especially 'Sunrise'. When it comes to silent film, he, Fritz Lang and Georges Melies were particularly important in its development, DW Griffith also but his output wasn't as consistent, and even lesser films are worth a look for curiosity sake.

'The Burning Soil' is definitely worth seeing, if more for curiosity to see more of Murnau's films (that are available) than anything else. It isn't Murnau's worst, it is better than 'The Haunted Castle' for instance, but 'The Burning Soil' is to me a lesser effort of his and it is better seeing the films mentioned in the first paragraph. There is a sense of Murnau having not yet found his comfort zone, but it is watchable and in many places pretty good. Its good things even being great.

Especially good about 'The Burning Soil' is the way it looks. Especially in the very atmospheric and often exquisite, by his early period standards, cinematography. The sets show ambition and skill. Murnau directs with an assured hand generally. Also really liked the hauntingly dark atmosphere and melancholic edge, when it comes to atmosphere, 'The Burning Soil' is a triumph.

While there aren't any performances that are iconic as such, most of the acting is actually fine and a lot more subtle than that in 'The Haunted Castle'. Would go as far as calling Lye De Patti and affecting Stella Arbenina excellent.

Did feel that there was an exception when it came to the acting, for my tastes Vladimir Gajidarov came over as too theatrical and like he was over-compensating. Werner Krauss is severely underused but does what he can with what he has. Really didn't like how Johannes was written, very one-dimensional and with few redeeming qualities which made it hard to understand what the other characters saw in him.

Moreover, 'The Burning Soil' is very flawed in story. Which came over as too melodramatic and over-stretched from being too thin and pace wise some of it really plods. Murnau's direction had moments where it seemed like he wasn't in complete control of the material, and the music is a pretty ill match.

In conclusion, interesting film but not one of the Murnau essentials. 6/10.

Der Brennende Acker (1922) aka Burning Soil was made just before Nosferatu. I bought my copy at ebay (from bill2001). The picture quality was like something from a bad, old VHS tape, and it really made it difficult to watch the film (it is also only 78 min. long so it looks like some of the scenes are missing).

I loved the film, even in this bad condition. It is really the story of the prodigal son, mostly with out the father. The interpretation is actually quite interesting, but I can't explain why with out giving away the end. So you just have to trust me on that one.

The film is quite dramatic and dark, even surprisingly dark at times. An superb film from one of the best directors of all time (might even get a higher score with better transfer and in full length). Here's hoping that this film will get the treatment it deserves.

If Ingmar Bergman had been an adult in 1922, directing silent dramas in Germany, Der Brennende Acker (known as "The Burning Soil" in the U.S.) is likely the sort of thing he would have produced. The themes of family rivalry and filial guilt are similar to the motifs Bergman would explore decades later, while the somber atmosphere and bleak landscapes are so Bergman-like I wonder if the young Ingmar might have seen it while still at a young and impressionable age. As it happens, the director of this film was the legendary F.W. Murnau, whose own cinematic apprenticeship was reaching its conclusion; he worked on this project virtually back-to-back with Nosferatu, the first of a handful of works that would earn him a reputation as one of the great filmmakers of his era. Some may find it difficult to appreciate this comparatively conventional effort in light of Murnau's later achievements, but patient viewers with a taste for sophisticated silent drama will likely find this film interesting and rewarding.

Der Brennende Acker depicts two households: that of the wealthy Count Josef Emmanuel of Rudenberg, his daughter Gerda, and his much-younger second wife, Helga; and the Rogs, a fairly prosperous farm family who live nearby. As the story begins the elderly Rog patriarch is dying, attended by his hard-working son Peter. Meanwhile, the younger and more worldly son Johannes rushes home but arrives too late to bid his father goodbye. At the Count's castle we hear the story of the strange- looking structure on his property which stands on barren land known as the Devil's Field. It seems that an ancestor of the Count's believed the land held a treasure and sent his serfs down a shaft to investigate, but one of their torches set off an explosion. The Chapel of Atonement was built on the spot where the men were killed. The present Count Rudenberg, who, like the Rog patriarch, is also dying, is obsessed with the subject and learns that the land sits on an untapped oil field worth a fortune. As so often happens, this wealth bears a curse and brings only misery to all who come into contact with it.

Tension mounts between Peter and Johannes; the older brother bitterly remarks that his sibling has acquired "worldly tastes" and has no interest in farming. Through the influence of the Count's attractive daughter Gerda he becomes her father's secretary. Johannes and Gerda seem to be on the verge of an affair, but when he learns that the Devil's Field is worth millions and that it will be inherited by the Count's wife Helga, he turns his attention to her. When she is widowed, he marries her.

More melodramatic twists in the plot lead to harsh family conflict, jealousy, and, ultimately, to an oil well fire at the Devil's Field (thus "Burning Soil"). Based on the plot synopsis it probably goes without saying that this borders on soap opera, but it's not the story or the histrionics that make it intriguing. Actually, where the acting is concerned the film is quite low-key for its time (aside from an unfortunate moment when Stella Arbenina, who plays Helga, indicates a state of high emotion by flinging herself to the ground). No, it's something harder to define that kept me watching with keen interest: a sustained mood of wintry melancholy, perked by a number of understated but impressive directorial touches. There's business involving a document torn into little pieces that is poetic. When Murnau was at his peak, in such films as Faust and Sunrise, he would stage his effects on a much grander scale, but here he manages to create a beautiful moment with a few torn pieces of paper. And while some viewers may be disappointed to find no supernatural element in a work produced almost concurrently with Nosferatu, several scenes in the Count's gloomy castle have a uniquely eerie quality. When an old servant tells the tale of the Devil's Field to the younger maids the lighting gives the scene a ghostly aura, nicely augmented when we see the Count in his study, reading about the tragedy at that same moment. The conflict between the Rog brothers is more prosaic and, yes, somewhat "soapy," but the actors are good and their scenes are never boring. The ending feels a bit pat but dramatically necessary after all the high emotion of the fiery climax.

In short, Der Brennende Acker is a lesser but decidedly worthwhile drama by one of the silent screen's greatest directors. In this early work Murnau shows deftness in laying out a fairly complicated story with several key characters, skill in drawing subtle performances from his actors, and real artistry in creating and maintaining an atmosphere of foreboding that builds to a satisfying resolution.

A print of this movie was found a few years ago in an Italian monastery, apparently. It is particularly interesting because it is the film Murnau shot right before his seminal "Nosferatu". It contains some incredible exterior shots, but is not as amazing as "sunrise" or "the last laugh". Still, Murnau's reputation as one of the TRUE film geniuses remains intact.