Saturday, December 8, 2007
A Silent Doll
The Doll is a 1919 short feature directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It accompanied the disk that included "Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin" a feature documentary I discussed here in the buffet a couple days ago.
Another great aspect of the consumer DVD revolution is that it gives folks opportunities to check out great film work in the first eras of the development of the film medium.
Sure, it is easy to find the acting overwrought and artificial or the technical aspects artificial in pre-1930s cinema. But the rewards are great once finds ways to become more engaged. I sometimes will watch silent film on computers because I find that it will give on a bit more intimate experience. Soundtrack substitution is also useful. Folks who reissue silents don't always take care or creativity to come up with something that works. And lastly, things sometimes just move too darn slowly with fixed camera and stage like exposition, especially after you understand the characters and action being played out. The solution? Judicious use of the 2x or greater for when things feel slow. I always try to know where the remote is to hit the double arrow button from time to time.
The Doll has lots of wonderful moments and is very funny in places. Not roll over and clutch your midsection kind of laughter, but I found myself in lots of involuntary bursts of Ha! or even Ha! Ha! And lets face it there is lots of entertainment that is supposed to solicit that kind of response here 90 years later that fails.
Lubitsch targets aristocrats, duplicitous monks, and anyone or anything else he finds disingenuous. Baron Chantrelle is concerned about preserving his family's aristocratic dynasty, but nephew Lancelot is fearful of marriage and women. A town decree brings out 40 women who chase Lancelot through the street in a sort of medieval village version of A Hard Day's Night until he is finds refuge in a monastery occupied by greedy monks who all look kind of like Curly Joe of the Three Stooges. When a personal ad is located by the monks requesting Lancelot to return for a 300,000 franc dowry they urge Lancelot to marry. But he clearly states he does not want to marry a woman.
The Monks then show him an advertisement of Hilarius Giluermund, the world famous dollmaker: "Offered to bachelors, widowers and misogynists! I have succeeded with the help of a mechanism I built, in constructing a human-like doll who can walk, dance and sing by pushing different buttons. Hmmm interesting the monks knew about this. Lancelot agrees to check things out, but is concerned: "Only if it doesn't hurt." the intertitle reads.
Well, through plot and circumstance, Lancelot ends up, not with a doll, but Ossi, the daughter that Hilarius model for his life like doll. The doll is played by Ossi Oswalda a comic actress that the Lubitsch in Berlin documentary held a Mary Pickford like status.
The world of the doll is filled with creative touches. The large showroom that the less respectable dolls dance in has twin stages an arched entry way and zig zag triangles that make it unique and memorable. Another dancing scene with Ossi as the doll and monks is also a lot of fun.
The Doll is a trifle. But one can't be impressed by its craft, sense of whimsy, and its ability with its men in a horse suit and trees of triangular plywood to create a kind of world of its own with limited means, just as the expressionist films of Lubitsch's countrymen did for the darker side of human nature in the next few years.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:11 PM
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