The Sunday Intertitle: L’Herbier Rides Again

Magnificent intertitles from L’HOMME DY LARGE, the closing film at this year’s Hippfest.

I have my tickets to all of Sunday’s screenings, now I just have to calculate which of the Thursday, Friday and Saturday films I can afford. I’m extremely tempted by FILIBUS THE AIR PIRATE with music by my chum Jane Gardner, but there’s also THE WOMAN MEN YEARN FOR and CITY GIRL… And I’ve never seen THE LOVES OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, showing on Thursday with Fay Compton in the lead (before she owned Hill House), and on the same day, Asta Nielsen as HAMLET.

Since my writing work for the fest has bagged me tickets to POIL DE CAROTTE and THE MARK OF ZORRO, it makes sense to concentrate on Friday and Saturday, since actually getting to Bo’ness and back is part of the expense.

Oh, I just can’t decide!

(Anybody with a car going through on Thurs, Fri or Sat?)

The Sunday Intertitle: A Chance on the Hash

When the Chicago waitresses in Murnau’s CITY GIRL spot Charles Farrell praying before his meal, the sassy friend character remarks ~

The top image sort-of illustrates part of what’s so great about the diner scenes in CITY GIRL — the intense feeling of heat and claustrophobia.

The former is established by intertitular references and sweat, and also behaviour — the waitresses cramming themselves into the line of fire of the few, inadequate fans, and later, Mary Duncan shooting one fan’s blast right at a relieved Farrell, as a favour.

The dialogue, which would qualify as snappy pre-code stuff if it didn’t have to linger onscreen long enough to be read, is presumably from Elliott Lester’s play, with adaptation by H.H. Caldwell and Katherine Hilliker (SUNRISE, SEVENTH HEAVEN), credited with titles. But I was excited to see Bertholdt Viertel credited with co-adaptation & scenario (with Marion Orth). His later films as director include two, THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK and LITTLE FRIEND, of which I am exceptionally fond.

To return to the scene’s effectiveness, Murnau also crams as many actors into shot as possible, and crowds the frames with moving parts, like those fans. Filming along the diner counter he creates serried rows of humanity, all stuffing their faces with the doubtful hash, and by setting the joint below street level, the view outside actually contributes to our feeling of suffocation, with a high window displaying only legs, legs, all of them going somewhere.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with a high window, but it does call to mind the arrangements in a dungeon.

I have a Murnau project on the go — expect more on this master!

 

The Prophecy

While this poor chap is catching 40 winks in Murnau’s THE HAUNTED CASTLE…

…who should turn up but Graf Orlok, the bald vampire from NOSFERATU, two films too early? (This is all we see of him, but I’d know that hand anywhere!) What’s he doing here?

Friedrich Murnau is perhaps the greatest exponent of prophetic cinema, and his life and death have some mysterious corners worthy of exploration…

One thing that has struck me in the past is how, in the magic carpet ride from FAUST (insert obligatory reference to Murnau’s WWI experience as a pilot HERE), the landscapes traversed resemble those, initially from earlier Murnaus, like these, which echo NOSFERATU:

 

But later, the lanscapes seem to emerge from films Murnau was YET TO MAKE!

The cornfields in CITY GIRL have the same aura of white gold as these, viewed in FAUST…

The frothing streams of TABU are pre-echoed by this miniature landscape, from FAUST again.

Could it be that the other vistas in this amazing sequence are environments drawn from the films Murnau WOULD HAVE MADE, had he not died so abruptly?

(These faustscapes, by the way, are among the Impossible Places I would most like to visit, along with the worlds of Hayao Miyazaki and the strangely glazed countryside flown over after the Tunnels of Light sequence in 2001. My bags are packed.)

Ironically, some of these shots were taken here in Scotland. I am ALREADY THERE!

THE DEATH OF MURNAU

Murnau’s death mask, illegally photographed by the author.

The rather good documentary that accompanies Masters of Cinema’s new DVD of NOSFERATU focuses on production company Prana Film’s intention to make films on mystic and supernatural themes, since the company founder was something of a sorcerer himself. But the documentary draws a blank when it ponders the question of whether Murnau himself believed in occult forces.

The enigma can be simply cleared up by referring to Lotte Eisner’s definitive study of Murnau:

In 1931, Murnau, she tells us, hadn’t visited his mother in Germany for some time, so he made plans to go and consulted a fortune-teller, “as was his habit.”

“You will arrive at your mother’s on April 5th, but in a different manner than you expect,” intoned the psychic, perhaps adding, “Wooo-oo-oooo-oo!” (My speculation.)

Rose Kearin, Murnau’s secretary, had some kind of bad feeling about this trip and urged Murnau not to take a plane to catch the boat. So Murnau hired a car and Filipino driver to get about on the continent, and another car, a Rolls, to take him to the boat. Murnau objected to the Rolls’ chauffeur, “But how ugly he is!” and insisted that his own driver should take the wheel. The journey began, with Murnau, the two drivers, Ned Marin, who managed the company that did the post-synching on Murnau’s last film, and a German shepherd dog called Pal.

Here we must discount the version narrated by Kenneth Anger in his entertaining smear-fest Hollywood Babylon. Ie. Murnau did not cause the car to crash by fellating the driver. My adaptation of Sherlock Holmes’ famous dictum runs, “Once we have eliminated whatever entertaining myth Kenneth Anger is peddling, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” 

As the Rolls sped along at top speed, a lorry came in the opposite direction, and the pulchritudinous chauffeur lost control. The car left the road and hurtled down a bank. Murnau, who’d been dozing, awakens to find himself in a vehicle plunging nightmarishly into the void. At this point — classic example of a guy who’s seen too many movies — he throws himself out of the car. Rolling at high speed he cracks his head on a fencepost and fractures his skull. Death follows rapidly.

Everybody in the car is fine. Even the fucking dog is fine.

Murnau’s body arrives in a box at his mother’s on April 5th, as predicted. Woooo-oo…

Murnau’s death mask sits on Greta Garbo’s desk in Hollywood for years.

A young Persian gardener said to his Prince:

‘Save me! I met Death in the garden this morning, and he gave me a threatening look. I wish that tonight, by some miracle, I might be far away, in Ispahan.’

The Prince lent him his swiftest horse.

That afternoon, as he was walking in the garden, the Prince came face to face with Death. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘did you give my gardener a threatening look this morning?’

‘It was not a threatening look,’ replied Death. ‘It was an expression of surprise. For I saw him here this morning, and I knew that I would take him in Ispahan tonight.’

~ Jean Cocteau, The Look of Death.