tom.hamilton

Michael Powell made movies in Germany?

Yes, and here's the proof.

Herzog Blaubeard's Burg or Bluebeard's Castle is a real oddity in Michael Powell's filmography. Shot in West Germany in 1963 and produced privately by singer Norman Foster, Powell became involved through the intervention of the film's production designer Hein Heckroth, who had designed some of the best Powell & Pressburger productions. For Powell it was a late chance to return to the kind of `total cinema' he and Pressburger dreamt of in their glory days at Rank, but which was impossible to create in the changed climate of the 60's. Powell's career had been derailed by a series of failed projects and the controversy of Peeping Tom. Moreover a new generation of `social realist' directors were the key players on the scene - and incredible as it might seem - Powell was now seen as an almost embarrassing throwback to outmoded values. But he wasn't about to give up and was already organising productions in Australia and directing for TV.

Still, this was the only really distinctive project he got to complete and thus it's all the more unfortunate that due to legal entanglements the film has rarely been screened outside of West Germany and is one of the most elusive titles for the hard core Powell fan.

I finally saw the film yesterday and I can report that it's a real treat. Although Heckroth and his students were responsible for the highly stylized and creative look to the piece, all materials used are synthetic, the camera work and intensity of this is pure Powell. In fact it's a total return to form.

Such a small scale piece requires great performers and both are well up to the task. Norman Foster makes a striking Bluebeard (although strangely his beard is actually auburn) and Anna Raquel Satre is a very effective Judith. Both give fine intelligent performances although Powell always thought Foster's performance was lacking in passion.

In it's darkness and other worldly beauty the film is a logical extension to The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffman. Working in Technicolor for the first time in some years Powell creates some truly startling images, using transparent sets and back projection to give the film a magical multi layered feel.

It's all sung (in German), although apparently an English dubbed version exists, and although I'm not an opera fan, the Bartok score is quite powerful and brooding.

Just as an additional; comment to one of the earlier reviews - Channel 4 in England did show the original 1929 version of this film in the late 1980's. The print was in excellent shape and the lack of music did not greatly harm the film. Unfortunately although I taped it at the time I've since erased it and the public domain copy I bought later is the 1966 re-dubbed and cut version - which is not as good.

History paints Erich Von Stroheim as the great misunderstood genius, the `footage fetishist' whose grandiose films were too ahead of their time & too ambitious for producers with their `nickel and dime' mentalities. Irving Thalberg emerges as a major villain in this saga, sacking him first from Universal in the midst of shooting Merry Go Round, then hacking apart his masterpiece Greed over at MGM before sacking him again from The Merry Widow. By 26/7 Von Stroheim was running out of major studios to work for. Fortunately Merry Widow was a hit and he won backing from Pat Powers at Paramount for a two part epic critique of royalty. Only the first part survives, an executive changeover at Paramount occurred and new boss, B.P. Schulberg, took fright at the expense and failure of Part 1 and quickly dumped Part 2 on the European market where it vanished permanently. Von Stroheim was ostracized by the major studios and after two further abortive projects (Queen Kelly and Walking Down Broadway) he never directed again.

Whilst it's impossible not to feel sympathy with a man whose vision was too much for the industry of his time, the films themselves are often overloaded with details and appear stiff and pedantic when compared with the contemporary work of Vidor, Murnau, Lubitsch, Von Sternberg or DeMille. A good example of this is the scene where Fay Wray first sees Von Stroheim's prince. Partly filmed in 2-color Technicolor, this is a pleasure on the eyes, but an incident which should play out in 3 or 4 minutes is here stretched out to about 15. That would be fine if it was an isolated incidence or a dramatic high point, but this is the pacing Von Stroheim employs throughout. Whilst the result is impressive and strangely hypnotic, `Von Stroheim' time feels much slower than real time and the two hours of this film felt closer to three. Mannered as this is in a silent film, this style would've been painful indeed if attempted in sound.

Von Stroheim's direction reminds me of the theatrical producer Gordon Craig who in the early 20th century attempted to reproduce realism on stage with fully plumbed and working interior sets, real trees, gravel and soil for outside settings etc, even utilising giant tanks of water in which to stage shipboard scenes. Real objects are on stage, yes. but doesn't this miss the point of an audience engaging with players and text to create their own realism? Another result of this is an oddly dehumanizing one, as our attention is distracted from the interplay of characters by the piling on of detail. That for me is the basic problem with Von Stroheim Not to say Von Stroheim wasn't a great film maker, as Greed definitely proves. But I can't help feeling the cutting helped Greed more than hurt it. The recent TCM restoration, while fascinating and something to be grateful for, only serves to illustrate this, and in Wedding March we see just how indulgent the Von could become.

Choosing himself as leading man didn't help either. In The Merry Widow, John Gilbert was able to engage the audience through his charm and charisma. However here, Von Stroheim's impoverished Prince looks rather villainous and appears both cold hearted and kinky - not an endearing combination. He mostly gives a statue-like performance and only Fay Wray, vibrantly fresh and beautiful, engages us emotionally.

Admittedly the story becomes more gripping in the last half hour or so, and the ending (a surprisingly bitter one) made me wish the 2nd Part had survived.

It's definitely worth seeing, both as cinema and for what it tells us of this fascinating figure, but once is enough.