Pallme Family
|
Pallme Family
|
|
The Roberto Pallme Collection Das Weib des Pharao (Ernst Lubitsch-Film GmbH, per/for Europäischen Film-Allianz GmbH, DE 1922)
DAS
WEIB DES PHARAO (Theonis, la donna dei faraoni / The Loves of
Pharaoh) The ban on foreign film imports during World War I helped German
film production to flourish, and, thanks to inflation, the immediate
postwar period saw a flood of lavish super-productions. But producers
had to face a major problem: anti-German sentiment abroad meant that
many of the most important foreign markets were closed to them. In the
attempt to improve possibilities of foreign sales, German films
avoided German themes, preferring historical and exotic subjects.
Ernst Lubitsch’s Madame Dubarry, which was announced as a “European
production” on account of its French story and Polish star, Pola
Negri, was the breakthrough for German films in America. Bought by the
broker David P. Howell for $40,000 and released by First National in
December 1920 at the Criterion Theatre, New York, under the title
Passion, the film broke all records, and within a few weeks made
profits several times higher than the price paid for the film. Despite
the protests of many film workers in America, who saw such cheaply
imported German films as a threat to domestic production, other
American entrepreneurs sought to make fortunes by buying German films
for America. The biggest coup was achieved in November 1920 by Ben
Blumenthal and Samuel Rachmann – respectively a theatre impresario
and a promoter of boxing and wrestling matches in New York – on
behalf of Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players-Lasky company and Paramount
distribution. Pola Negri was put under contract with the promise of a
huge salary. Ernst Lubitsch and his producer Paul Davidson did not
renew their UFA contracts, and followed Negri in December 1920.
Lubitsch described his new prospects in the journal Der Film (February
1921): “Now I can do bigger productions than ever before. But
despite my contract with America my film style will not change. I will
always retain the typical German qualities, which I see in the
carefully developed and logically constructed screenplay and the
German style of acting.” In April 1921, Blumenthal, Rachmann, and
Zukor officially established the Europäische Film-Allianz (EFA). They
put under contract the best German film artists: besides Lubitsch and
Negri, they signed directors Joe May and Max Reinhardt; actors Emil Jannings, Harry
Liedtke, and Mia May; screenwriter Hanns Kräly;
cinematographers Werner Brandes and Theodor Sparkuhl; and set
designers Ernst Stern, Kurt Richter, and Martin Jacoby-Boy. Through
spectacular investments EFA sought to establish a major company on the
scale of UFA, with branches for production and studios (EFA
Studio-Film GmbH), distribution and sales (EFA Vertriebs GmbH), and
exhibition (EFA Theatre GmbH). Lubitsch, May, and Reinhardt formed
their own companies, which were integrated in and financially
dependent on EFA. Money was no problem, as Samuel Rachmann explained
in the journal Film-Kurier on 1 January 1922: “I have always
explained to Lubitsch and May that they need not care how much their
films will cost. Their concern is simply to produce the best films
ever. My belief is that you cannot go bankrupt because of your
expenses, but only because you have not enough income. So you simply
have to look for more income!” Immediately after the foundation of
EFA, and following the premiere of his film Die Bergkatze (The
Mountain Cat) on 12 April 1921, Lubitsch started preparations for his
first EFA production (Film-Kurier, 18 May 1921): “Since Pola Negri
still had some commitments to fulfil, a subject had to be selected
which would be principally a challenge for Emil Jannings.” Lubitsch
allowed an unusually long time for production of Das Weib des Pharao.
From the film’s initial conception to its premiere took seven months
– a period in which the prolific Lubitsch previously would have shot
at least three or four movies. His company, Ernst Lubitsch-Film,
rented a 120,000-square-metre plot in the outskirts of Berlin, where
full-size sets were erected – an Egyptian village with 50 houses,
several great palaces, and a high town-wall. A whole infrastructure
was established to accommodate the large crowds of extras, with
streets, a water supply, telephone lines, dressing rooms for 8,000
people, even a medical centre. In Emil Jannings, Paul Wegener, and
Harry Liedtke, Lubitsch engaged the three most famous male film actors
in Germany at that time, though he also engaged the little-known
newcomer Dagny Servaes – who was given a long-term contract with EFA
– to take Pola Negri’s place as the film’s female lead. The
shooting was accompanied by a unique promotional campaign: journalists
were transported on boats with brass bands to the location, where they
were able to watch the staging of the big battle scenes between the
Egyptians and Ethiopians, with thousands of extras under the command
of Lubitsch. In the Berlin Zoo a big night-time procession was staged
for charity, with all the actors in costume. Der Kinematograph
reported in December 1921 that some 250,000 Berlin schoolchildren and
their teachers were invited to visit the set after the filming was
finished, to study Egyptian culture. The film was the talk of the town
long before it was released. The most important innovations for
Lubitsch were the new American lamps, which made possible completely
new lighting effects in EFA’s “dark” studio and for the exterior
night scenes. He was able to film the crowd scenes with several
cameras at the same time; the battle sequence was even filmed from a
balloon. The shooting was completed by the end of November 1921.
Lubitsch needed nearly a whole week for the editing – normally he
accomplished it personally in only three days. Following a reception
on 1 December given by President Ebert, who was eager to support
foreign sales of German films, on 8 December there was a private
screening for the EFA staff and selected journalists, and on 10
December a farewell party. On 13 December Lubitsch and Davidson sailed
for America, with the first print of Das Weib des Pharao in their
luggage. In New York Ben Blumenthal arranged lavish receptions and
banquets to introduce Lubitsch to the American press and to promote
his new film. Lubitsch proudly explained to journalists that he had
worked with 112,065 extras in the film’s production. Davidson
confirmed this with bills from the costume suppliers – though
obviously the extras were counted according to the days of their
engagement. In his eagerness to study American films, Lubitsch
attended premieres of new films by Stroheim, Griffith, and Chaplin,
which greatly impressed him. Lubitsch had already returned to Germany
before the film’s spectacular premiere at the Criterion Theatre, New
York, on 21 February 1922. The film was “edited and titled by
Rudolph Bartlett” – which involved cutting the film by about 700
metres. Among the scenes that were excised was the stoning of Ramphis
and Theonis at the end of the film, to give the American version the
necessary happy ending. The film’s American release title was The
Loves of Pharaoh, which The Exhibitor’s Herald rightly called “a
misnomer”. Otherwise, the film was highly praised: “It is one of
the truly exceptional works of the screen,” said The New York Times
(22 February 1921). Only the acting was criticized (The Exhibitor’s
Herald, 11 March 1921): “The work of the individual actors fails to
stand out as expected from stars of such magnitude and at times some
of the parts are woefully overacted.” The film ran for 300
screenings at the Criterion, but was less successful in other towns.
The German premiere on 14 March 1922 at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo was a
major social event: “Even in the best times of Reinhardt no premiere
was ever as crowded as Das Weib des Pharao,” wrote Kurt Pinthus (Das
Tage-Buch, 18 March 1922). The screenings were sold out for six weeks,
and trade papers reported that there was spontaneous applause during
the battle scenes and at the end of each reel. The orchestral score,
by the popular operetta composer Eduard Künneke (1885-1953), was
independently reviewed in the press – the first time that a film
score was taken seriously by German critics. Though the film was
praised as a technical masterpiece, there were some objections
(Berliner Zeitung, 20 March 1922): “German spirit, German
handicraft, German art – maybe a little bit too much American style,
and therefore we cannot praise it with the same enthusiasm as other
works by Lubitsch.” Weak points in the storyline were subsequently
pointed out (Film-Kurier, 18 December 1922): “From reel to reel
there is a different main character – and in the end the audience
doesn’t sympathize with anybody.” All in all, Das Weib des Pharao
was not the most successful film of all time, as it had been
anticipated to be. It failed to eclipse Madame Dubarry, and it could
not save EFA, which was facing severe financial problems thanks to its
arrogant behaviour, massive investments, and costly contracts. A year
and a half after its foundation EFA was liquidated. Zukor lost about
$2 million in this miscalculated investment. The only assets of EFA
were Pola Negri, who was brought over to Hollywood in September 1922,
and Ernst Lubitsch, who would follow in December 1922. Today all six
productions of EFA are lost, or survive only in fragments. For decades
Das Weib des Pharao was available only in a print at Filmmuseum
München, struck from a duplicate negative with Russian intertitles
held by Gosfilmofond, and with German intertitles added and compiled
from the original screenplay. Its length was about half that of the
premiere version. For this new reconstruction, a project of Adoram
München, Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, and Filmmuseum München, in
cooperation with George Eastman House, the original tinted nitrate
print with Russian intertitles (the basis of the Russian dupe
negative) was located in the vaults of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv,
and was completed with scenes from another tinted nitrate fragment
with Italian intertitles from the Roberto Pallme Collection at George
Eastman House. Additional material used in the restoration included
the last sequence of the film, with German intertitles, which was
found with the nitrate material of the Joe May production Das indische
Grabmal (The Indian Tomb) preserved by Filmmuseum München; some
outtakes which were found in a 16mm reel with film clips; and shots
from the Russian preservation print which were damaged in the original
nitrate material. Since the badly damaged nitrate material could not
be satisfactorily duplicated by traditional methods, all the materials
were scanned in 2K-resolution by the company Alpha-Omega, which
specializes in dealing with damaged nitrate films. Frame by frame the
pictures were stabilized, cleaned, and repaired. With the help of the
screenplay, contemporary programs, newspaper reviews, and a fragment
of the censorship card, the film was reconstructed shot by shot, with
missing parts replaced by stills and explanatory title cards. The work
was extremely difficult, since in all the nitrate fragments the order
of the shots had been rearranged – evidently to create new
storylines. The Russian material was compiled from at least two
different prints, resulting in varying tinting tones, while sometimes
the same shots were used in different parts of the film. In the
Italian print from George Eastman House the Weib des Pharao material
was combined with a scene from an unidentified film showing a battle
around a medieval castle. The digital data, well documented in a
digital editing-list with all the information on each shot, has been
transferred back to film in the original full-aperture silent-film
format. The film’s original orchestral premiere music by Eduard
Künneke has been arranged for the reconstructed version by Berndt
Heller and recorded with the orchestra of Saarländischer Rundfunk.
For the screening at the Giornate del Cinema Muto the music will be
played from a DVD and synchronized with the 35mm film projection. –
STEFAN DROESSLER By the time Lubitsch started making Das Weib des Pharao in 1921, he stood at the top of the German film industry. He had made 17 features and short features since 1918, including comedies, historical epics, and literary adaptations, and almost all had been box-office successes. Madame Dubarry (1919) was an internationally acclaimed hit. It premiered under the title Passion in the United States in December 1920, and was crucial in breaking down the lingering post-war prejudice against German film. The German government’s ban on the importation of foreign films, put in place in 1916, had been continued after the war’s end. Only at the beginning of 1921 were American films seen again on German screens. During those 5 years, Hollywood style had changed considerably. The three-point lighting system had been devised, principles of continuity editing had gelled, settings were simpler and less eye-catching, and acting depended more on facial expression. People in the German industry noticed the differences, particularly in the lighting. They were impressed by backlighting, seen in the glamorous images of Mary Pickford (shot by Charles Rosher, who would later film Pickford in Rosita for Lubitsch). Lubitsch was quick to understand the new traits of American films and to master them. Das Weib des Pharao was the first film he directed after seeing modern Hollywood, and the change from his earlier work is striking. It and Die Flamme (1922) occupy a brief transitional period between Lubitsch’s German and American careers. Lubitsch had long worked for the Union company, which had united with other firms to found UFA in late 1917. In December 1920 Union’s owner, Paul Davidson, decided not to renew his contract with UFA. The rising inflation which would eventually spiral into hyperinflation was limiting Davidson’s financial freedom, and some of his lead actors were receiving feelers from American production companies. Davidson wanted to form a company for Lubitsch. His chance to do so was provided by a new, American-owned company that was being formed in Berlin. The Europäische Film-Allianz was officially founded in April 1921 as an American-German company. Ultimately EFA stemmed from a short-lived attempt by Famous Players-Lasky and its distribution wing Paramount to make films abroad. The immediate founder of EFA was the Hamilton Theatrical Corp., which was half-owned by FP-L; UFA also had holdings in EFA. EFA either invested in smaller production companies or contracted the distribution rights for their films. These initially included Joe May-Film GmbH, Ernst Lubitsch-Film GmbH (founded in December 1920), and companies headed by Henny Porten and Ossi Oswalda. In forming his own company under EFA, Lubitsch brought with him some long-time collaborators, including scriptwriter Hanns Kräly, cinematographer Theodor Sparkuhl, and designer Kurt Richter. EFA set out to create the most modern studio in Europe, outfitted with state-of-the-art American equipment, including lamps and Bell & Howell cameras. In 1920, a large exhibition hall in the Zoo area of Berlin had been converted to a studio, the country’s largest. Unlike earlier film studios, its walls were not of glass; it was Germany’s first “dark” studio, a type that had become increasingly common in America since 1915. Such buildings were designed to be lit entirely artificially, allowing the filmmakers more control over the look of the shots. EFA took over what became the EFA-Atelier am Zoo studio in April 1921. It was nearly three times the size of Union’s main studio building (30 x 75 meters), and it was equipped with all the major types of American lighting equipment, far more varied than what German filmmakers were accustomed to. An American observer visiting the studio in 1922 to observe Lubitsch at work on Die Flamme (also made for EFA) remarked on the facility: “When I entered the Lubitsch studio I felt as though I had been plunged suddenly from Berlin into the depths of Hollywood. There were the same treacherous cables to ensnare your brogues, the same, or almost the same, arc lights, spots and banks” (Photoplay, December 1922, p. 96). Not surprisingly, the two films Lubitsch made for EFA display a strong American influence. The lighting style of Das Weib des Pharao is the most obvious indicator of the impact of Hollywood films on Lubitsch. Up until 1921, German filmmakers typically poured diffused light into a set from the front. The principles of directing dimmer fill-light onto the sets or using back-light to model the actors’ figures were almost unknown. In Das Weib, suddenly we see a heavy dependence on backlighting. In many interiors, selective light picks out parts of an impressive set without making it obtrusive. Edge lighting often creates depth by making the character stand out against a relatively dark background. Shooting night-time scenes outdoors had been difficult in Germany. Using the large American “sunlight” arcs, Lubitsch was able to shoot a number of exteriors at night, using spotlights from the sides and rear. In some cases flares (motivated as torches) supplement the arc light – a tactic Griffith had used 5 years earlier in the night battles in the Babylonian section of Intolerance. Here we see Lubitsch moving toward the mastery of lighting that he would gain in Hollywood. The film’s most familiar image, from a scene of the hero entering a ziggurat-style tomb, displays Lubitsch’s considerable understanding of how to apply the new equipment to which he had access. A single sunlight arc placed at a steep angle above the set picks out the vertical “steps” in the ceiling and illuminates the hero, his arm casting a single, unobtrusive, and crisp shadow. A second sunlight arc at the top of the steps outlines him in light and creates another sharp-edged shadow of his figure almost unnoticeably on the floor, where the bed nearly hides it. If working in EFA’s large, American-style studio altered Lubitsch’s lighting style noticeably, the sets for Das Weib des Pharao were largely in the old German epic style that had helped make Madame Dubarry so popular. Ernst Stern, who had designed the sets for Die Bergkatze, Lubitsch’s previous film, collaborated with Richter on Das Weib. As an amateur Egyptologist, he was in a position to render the sets, statues, and even some of the hieroglyphic texts with a semblance of authenticity. Moreover, Paramount’s backing meant that the film’s budget ran to $75,000, almost twice what American experts had estimated Madame Dubarry had cost. Stern recalled that all of the sets were built full-sized, with no use of miniatures: “There was no difficulty about finance, as we were working for American backers. It was still the inflation period, and even a single dollar was quite a lot of money, so we had no time-robbing financial calculations to make, and we went to work cheerfully with a ‘Damn the expense’ attitude” (My Life, My Work, London, 1951, pp. 182-183). For earlier films, Lubitsch’s large sets had been built on the backlot at Union’s Tempelhof studio, but the sets for Das Weib were constructed on a leased stretch of land in a Berlin suburb. The site was surrounded by modern buildings, and the sets had to be tall enough to block them from the camera’s view. Stern’s sets prefigure those in Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments, made for Paramount about a year later. Although the exterior sets were reminiscent of those in Lubitsch’s earlier epics, the use of selective lighting gave them a look that was new to German cinema. Despite these innovations, the acting style in the film carries on the tradition current throughout the German cinema of the 1910s, when actors from the stage had brought a fairly broad pantomimic acting to the screen. Perhaps partly because of its much larger budget and enormous sets, Das Weib draws extensively on an exaggerated acting style that bears little resemblance to the subtle performances that Lubitsch would soon draw from his actors in such films as The Marriage Circle. Having Paul Wegener and Emil Jannings star in the same film no doubt contributed considerably to the effect. – KRISTIN THOMPSON
DAS
WEIB DES PHARAO (Theonis, la donna dei faraoni / The Loves of
Pharaoh)
(Soyrce/Fonte: http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/edizione2005/Lubitsch_Weib.html) |
