Thursday, October 17, 2024

Scott Lord Silent Film: Gosta Ekman in Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926)


The immanent departure of director F.W. Murnau for America had already been announced by the periodical Motion Picture News during late 1925 while Murnau was readying the film "Faust". It was to star Gosta Ekman, "a young Swedish actor who has the title role. He has been a star on the legitimate stage and is now making his first appearance in pictures." Scholar Janet Bergstrom, University of California notes that F.W Murnau had recieced a letter from William Fox during 1925 prompted by the success of "The Last Laugh" (Der Letze Mann) and had already signed a contract to leave for America while filming "Faust" and "Tartuffe".

Janet Bergstrom, University of California , writes that with the film "Faust", among others, Murnau had "unchained the camera" with moving shots that seemed unique...sweeping the audience's emotions with them". Of these moving shots, Bergstrom brings to our attention tracking shots that were photographed above their subject by having rails mounted on the ceiling of the studio.

The use of a mobile camera by Murnau is clearly referred to by Robert Herlth, a designer of sets on the film "Faust", who wrote on the lighting of the film in a chapter entitled "With Murnau on the Set" included in the volume Murnau, published by Lotte H. Eisner. The set designer quotes Murnau as having said, " 'Now how are we going to get the effect of the design? This is too light. Everything must be made much more shadowy.' And so all four of us set about to trying to cut the light...We used them (screens) to define space and create shadows on the wall and in the air. For Murnau, the lighting became part of the actual directing of the film.'"

The periodical Photoplay Magazine during 1927 explained that F.W. Murnau had again resorted to literary adaptation for subject matter, "Goethe's panaoramic poem has been used as its basis and the adaptation was folowed, in the main, as closely as the screen permits...Murnau has caught the medieval atmosphere with suprising success." F.W. Murnau had actually jotted Goethe's name on one of his shootingscripts. Lotte H. Eisner, in his volume Murnau, writes that the script for "Faust", written by poet Hans Kyser, had originally contained a Walpurgisnacht, which may have only reluctantly have been elimanted from a script annotated by the director Murnau in order to "translate the text into visual terms and give directions to actors in terms ofimages."

silent film

Silent Horror Film

Silent Horror

Monday, October 14, 2024

Scott Lord Silent Film: Gustaf Wasa (Brunius, 1928)



Silent Film

John Brunius

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Gyurkoricsarna (John Brunius, 1920)



Silent Film

Scandinavian Silent Film

John Brunius

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: The Wild Bird (En Vindfagel, Brunius, 1...

Swedish silent film director John W. Brunius during 1921 directed acresses Pauline Brunius, Renee Bjorling and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson in the film "The Wild Bird" ("En Vindfagel"). Photographed by Hugo Edlund, the film was co-scripted by Brunius with screenwriter Sam Ask. The film was shown in the United States as "Give Me My Son". During its first run the periodical Moving Picture World subtitled its review with "Feature That Will Please Whenever Naturalness Is Appreciated". It provided the "exploitation angle" of "Get interest in it chiefly because it is foreign." The periodical The Film Daily wrote, "Its gets away from the conventional happy ending. It is not tragic, but unexpected, and not what you think it will be. The denoument is particularly well handled." Under the "story" section, it wrote, "Involved, but maintains the quality of coherence and stands out as unusual" and under the "direction" section it wrote, "handles more dramatic moments effectively but otherwise is average." Scandinavian Silent Film Silent Film