O Estudante de Praga

I first read about the legendary German silent film THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE (1926) when I was 15 years old. Now almost 60 years later, I finally got to see it in a restored version from the Munich Film Museum and it has made quite an impression. Of all the legendary German silents, STUDENT is the last one to be released in an updated condition. This is due to the fact it was very difficult to assemble a complete print as the original negative no longer exists. As is often the case with silent movies and especially those from Germany, numerous public domain copies are available which range from poor to unwatchable. Most of the copies of STUDENT run under 90 minutes and some are only about an hour. The MFF version runs 133 minutes and is color tinted.

The plot is a combination of FAUST and Poe's WILLIAM WILSON. Conrad Veidt plays Baldwin, a poor student who falls in love with an upper class girl but doesn't have the money to woo her. He makes a deal with the Devil for wealth but at an unexpected cost. Satan takes Baldwin's mirror reflection as payment. The doppelganger does bad things that the student is blamed for. This leads to a final confrontation. The Devil is played by Veidt's CABINET OF DR CALIGARI co-star Werner Krauss. His appearances are brief, but unforgettable. Elizza La Porta portrays the flower girl whom Baldwin rejects. Director Henrik Galeen, who wrote two other German supernatural classics, NOSFERATU and THE GOLEM, shows that he was just as capable behind the camera.

Like most important films from the Weimar Era, STUDENT is divided into acts as if it were a stage play. There are 7 acts of which two, Acts 3 and 6, linger in the memory long after the movie ends. In Act 3 Baldwin makes his deal with the Devil. The endless stream of money coming from a small coin purse until it overflows the table followed by Baldwin's reflection walking out of the mirror as he stands motionless, is mesmerizing. Act 6 takes place in a tavern where Baldwin has gone after being abandoned by his his friends. He buys drinks for everyone, and they start dancing. Slowly at first, then things get wilder and more diabolical as Baldwin comes to realize that his life is no longer his own and he has no control over what will happen to him next. The tavern scene is my favorite in the movie.

This restoration was done in 1999 and, while not perfect, at least gives us the opportunity to view the complete film in a pretty good condition. The source material was derived from two prints, one from Uruguay, the other from Moscow film archives. The print has been tinted but is oversaturated in places (which can be corrected by decreasing the color on your TV) and comes with a newly composed score from Stephen Horne which was done in 2016. The scoring of the Act 6 party scene is one of the most effective I have ever heard. Although the DVD comes from Germany, it's an all-Region release which means it plays on Region One DVD players without any issues. Hopefully a fully restored Blu-ray edition, including Horne's music, will be ready for the film's 100th anniversary in 2026... For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

I have watched a lot of silent films in my life (love the genre) and I must say in a lot of ways this film blew me away more than most. I love Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis, but this film snuck up on me in a way I didn't expect that none of those films did. It was scary. Scarier than Nosferatu. I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen. It's also beautiful. Some scenes, like Werner Krauss on the Mountaintop, are riveting. It starts out almost as a joke with the tombstone, but that tombstone later becomes a slap in the face. Conrad Veidt is always good, but here he is so painfully and chillingly aware of his huge mistake every time he looks in the mirror and it shows so well. He seems to find one thing in each movie that will make him unforgettable. I wanted to rewind the student's life as the horror set in. I am sure this movie influenced many film noir directors with the cinematography. I could see the future of film here and I will definitely watch it again.

At the least, remakes should allow an opportunity to see the differences in film-making from different periods, and, hopefully, to see the advances made in the years bypast; at best, it displays something new and intelligent to a familiar story. The 1913 version of "The Student of Prague" was a film meant to bring respectability to cinema by adapting popular literature; however, the filmmakers lacked an understanding of their own medium and created a, for then, typically static motion picture. Henrik Galeen made this remake during the maturity of one of the greatest periods of national cinema in the history of the art form.

Obviously, close-ups and medium shots were common by 1926, where there were none in the aforementioned film of 1913. There's scene dissection, some inspired cinematography and editing and expressionistic sets by Hermann Warm, as well. We actually get to see the actors here, and Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss do exceptionally well. The gypsy storyline fits into this version easily.

Cinematographers Günther Krampf and Erich Nitzschmann produced a large shadow of the Devil, which interacts with mass, in one shot; superimpose a saw cutting at Balduin's head in a moment of internal narration; shake the camera for a drunk POV shot; use irises and move the camera during close-ups. The rescue from a horse scene and the haunting finale are the most impressive visually, for the chiaroscuro lighting, special effects and editing. Some shots even seem intentionally reminiscent of the 1913 version. Additionally, the filmmakers were able to punctuate the mirror motif within this film of the doppelgänger thanks to state-of-the-art effects.

Student of Prague, The (1926)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

German horror/drama is a remake of the 1914 version, which was the first German horror film. A poor college student (Conrad Veidt) falls in love with a rich girl but knows he'll never get her due to his poorness. Then enters Scapinelli (Werner Krauss), a strange man who offers the student 600,000 gold pieces in return for something from the students room. The student agrees but is shocked when the man takes his soul. Outside the good performances by Veidt and Krauss, this film really doesn't add too much that the 1914 film didn't do better. This film here runs fifty-minutes longer but the tiresome pace doesn't help matters and even the special effects were better done in the previous version.

I first saw this at Pacific Film Archive & was looking forward to it. But the projection was so slow that I became nervous & it seemed to be taking forever to get going. Finally after about 40 min. I had to leave. The film just was unwatchable at that speed. Afterwards I regretted not staying to the end. Now I have seen it on DVD I understand it a lot more and it still drags at 110 min. But the Archive print was perfect & the DVD has lots of frames missing. The best effect was Veidt walking out of the mirror. Beautifully done. There are a lot of titles removed & you can see someone tell somebody something & with the title removed there is a jump cut. HINT: the people who made the movie did so to give the audience information. when a title is removed you get the opposite effect. You become confused & cheated. The movie does not need a 2nd editor. The editor on the credits is fine. Its possible to ruin a movie by this stupidity.