Once more I find myself literarily immersed in E.T.A. Hoffmann, and when it came to a select a silent film for this week the most thematically relevant seemed to be…
Der Student von Prag (1913; Ger.; Hanns Heinz Ewers)
Hard-up student and swordsman Balduin agrees to receive a fortune from the sinister Scapinelli, who takes as his price the reflection of Balduin. Enriched, Balduin pursues the Countess Margit, but he is shadowed both by the besotted Lyduschka, and by his own doppelganger…
The film has a theatrical set of introductions to the main players: they appear in front of sets of curtains, their names displayed on large painted panels that bar us from them. This is not unusual for a feature film of 1913, when the cinema was foregrounding its cultural respectability and boasting of its artistic abilities. After all, the author, Ewers, was a well-known author and Wegener a well-known stage star. But the film immediately takes us by surprise with the final credit: here are the lead actor, Paul Wegener, and the film’s writer-director, Hanns Heinz Ewers, discussing the film on location in Prague. Wegener is smoking a cigarette, pointing with his stick. But it is the author who looks most showy: wearing a huge broadbrimmed hat and smoking a pipe, he seems to flirt both with Wegener and with us. And in the background, resting in a tinted haze, is the city of Prague. If the theatrical trappings of the first credits promised a studio-bound literary adaptation, the film immediately corrects our expectations with this real exterior space.
Akt 1. Get used to this: a single shot, carefully arranged and composed in depth, that only occasionally pans right or left to follow a particular action. Otherwise, everything that happens does so within this restricted circumstance. The only cuts to will be to intertitles or information in the form of documents. (Thus far, so Bordwell.) But what is the effect of this style on this particular story, this particular setting? For a start, the uncanny enters in plain sight. The opening scene/shot shows the students gathered in the background among the tables and chairs of a café. In the foreground, a single table and two chairs. Balduin refuses to join in the revelry or admire the dancing of Lyduschka. He sits on one chair. Who will occupy the other? The dancing reaches a crescendo. Then in the midground horses and black carriage appear: they divide Balduin from the background, driving (quite literally) through the middle of the scene. Scapinelli—old, grey-bearded, slightly stooped, wearing clothes that may once have been smart—descends and sits next to Balduin. The carriage departs. In the background, the students drift away. They are uninterested in the action in the foreground, but Lyduschka lingers. In the rear of the shot, she lurks—curious, concerned, observant,—visually placed between the two figures in the foreground. She sees—as we do—Scapinelli tap Balduin on the arm. Balduin says he is ruined: he wants a lottery ticket or a rich wife. Scapinelli says something: we do not know what. (How perfect is the fact of silence here: the words of a stranger are all the more sinister for being unheard. Despite our proximity, we are in the same position as Lyduschka in that we cannot hear what is being said.) This single shot encapsulates the whole film: the distanced student, the devilish stranger, the ignored lover. And listen to the music. The music does a lot of the work here, building tension as well as atmosphere across the length of this otherwise static scene. It is boisterous for the students and Lyduschka’s dance; it is sinister for Scapinelli; it leaves the consequences of the scene hanging in the air, a few little leaps on the piano and woodwind…
Now to Countess Margit and her fiancé, the Baron von Waldis-Schwarzenberg. It’s another static shot, a studio set this time—or so it appears. But when the servant opens a door in the background we are in the midst of a wood. Pale birch trees occupy the frame of the door. It’s fabulously unexpected, almost dreamlike in its apparition. It’s like one of Klimt’s woodscapes: nothing but pale-limbed birches, surrounded by leafmeal (here, the tinting makes the dim forest floor a shadowy, rich sepia). Figures exit into the woods. We glimpse them through the doorway: they are walking into the dim trees. It’s a beautiful image, made mysterious by the distance the camera keeps between us and them, by the stillness of the frame-within-the-frame. It’s like they’ve wondered off into a painting. (And yes, frames within frames become an important feature in this film…)
Now to the hunt. What gripped me about this sequence? The way it has no stated goal or narrative shape. There are no titles to give it (to give us) a clear sense of direction. Shot: the estate’s gates, the gleaming track, the great pack of dogs at the horses’ feet, dust rises (the piano rumbles and scales up and down). Shot: the lake’s edge, dogs and horses running rear-left to mid-right (the piano is having a field day). Shot: the woods, a path, the horses and pack moving from rear to front, now just at walking pace, but huge clouds of dust rising to engulf the camera (the tempo of the piano line increasing, growing almost wild). Shot: hounds, scampering from rear-right to front-left, pursued by horses. Shot: the same scene, moments later, a kind of jump cut (familiar from the very earliest films, where the “view” is subtly edited to remove some anomaly or section of inaction), the horses riding past. Where are we going? What is the object of the hunt? The music is bustling, bristling: does it know what is about to happen? There is a line in a Hoffmann tale (“The Stranger Child”) where two children are being pursued by sinister spirits in the woods; they follow a path leading home: “but somehow—they didn’t know why—instead of getting out of the wood, they seemed to keep getting farther and farther into it”. That is how I felt about this sequence. Anything might be about to happen. The hunt might go on forever, or end in sudden triumph or catastrophe.
Finally, a clear narrative emerges. Shot: the countess and cousin, on their own. (The piano burnishes the scene with romance, with threat.) The countess will obey familial wishes to marry but does not love her cousin. She rides away. She passes Balduin and Scapinelli. The student runs in her wake, Scapinelli lopes with sinister, comic steps in his wake. We are back at the lake: the countess falls into the water. (The pianist is rushing up and down the keys.) Balduin leaps to the rescue, and the countess slips him an amulet in thanks. (Still the film gives no close-ups, so the title must pre-explain the action for us to comprehend: it adds to the sense of foreshadowing, foretelling.)
Balduin in his study. On the right of frame, a great mirror, against which he practices fencing. Outside we see Lyduschka. (The accordion joins the piano and strings.) She gives Balduin a bouquet of flowers. But Balduin is visiting the countess. The same set with the woods in the background: Balduin is ignored by the Baron and Margit’s father, shoved to the right of the frame. He is made to look and feel out of place. He lingers in the doorway. We see the countess’s interest, the count’s jealousy.
We return to Balduin’s study. The mirror is placed at such an angle that the reflection appears a moment sooner than we might expect: the reflection is further inside the room than Balduin. Just as, now that Scapinelli enters, his reflection lopes further into the room than the man himself. Scapinelli is smiling (the piano issues sinister chords). He spreads endless streams of money across the table. There is cinematic trickery here: hidden joins that supply the miraculous riches. But the best trick of all is yet to come, and it is better hidden. Scapinelli produces a contract: 100,000 gulden in exchange for whatever Scapinelli can take from Balduin’s meagre study. Balduin signs eagerly, not thinking what Scapinelli could take. Scapinelli lingers. They watch each other in the mirror. Scapinelli gestures, looks at the contract. We see the document again. Scapinelli gestures about the mirror, much like Méliès gestured to audiences in his earliest films—emphasizing the impossibility of what he was about to do. After the shot of the text, we return to the scene: Balduin drops the contract, as does his reflection. But then the reflection steps slowly of the frame and into the room. Technically, the shot is absurdly brilliant. First, the left of the lens was masked and the right half of the scene filmed; then, the film strip was rewound and the left half of the scene filmed with the right of the lens masked. (This way round, so that the camera could be unmasked halfway through the scene to record the rest of the scene, when Balduin must cross the frame from left to right to again gesture with bewilderment at the now empty frame of the mirror.) So the same strip of celluloid bears two strips of time, seamlessly joined by the camera operator’s skill—and by the immaculate timing of Wegener’s performance (just imagine the difficulty of getting a piece of paper to drop to the floor twice in the same way). This is where the static camera has such a rewarding role: to provide an apparently stable reality, then to break it. Per Freud’s reading of the uncanny (“unheimlich” in German, literally the “unhomely”), the “unhomely” rests against and may coexist with the “homely”: here, the stable “reality” on screen (static camera, long takes, deep staging) may itself hide a sinister “unreality”. As if in acknowledgement of the trick and its magnificent execution, Scapinelli doffs his hat and bows before leaving the room in the wake of Balduin’s reflection. End of Akt 1.
Akt 2. A ball at the palace of the count. Lyduschka follows. We see her clambering up precipitous exteriors of the palace walls and gardens, up seemingly endless staircases. The interior of the ball is a stage set, but these exteriors are gloriously real: Balduin and the princess walk along moonlit colonnades, beset with shadows (and with a waltz theme that becomes a kind of sinister march). Then the colonnade is shown to overlook the old city, and the lovers’ conversation is observed by Lyduschka. (Her climbing of the exterior walls is almost vampiric: what kind of a person is she? Are her intentions “homely” or “unhomely”?) She sees Balduin write a note to the countess, who has been taken away by the baron. But who is this? Leaning against a column is Balduin’s double, his reflection come to life, his doppelganger. There is a sinister quotation that names the double as a kind of “brother”. (The very appearance of the note is as inexplicable as the double himself: where is this “voice” of the film?)
After the ball, the countess in her salon, before a mirror: another mirror that offers an odd angle for the reflection. It is while inspecting herself in the mirror that she finds Balduin’s note, asking her to meet him in the Jewish cemetery the next night. She then reclines on her chaise longue and seems to happily imagine their meeting. But the scene lingers. Why? Well, look at the framing, which changes subtly over the length of the shot: the camera gently pans to the right, re-emphasizing the mirror in its composition, as well as (beyond it, to the right) the dark space of the balcony door and the night beyond it. Recall also that we’ve seen the countess on that chair before: in the credit sequence, where we were introduced to the character. Visually, her role was foretold and is now fulfilled. Also, the mirror (obviously) refers back to Balduin and his reflection, who will keep disturbing their romance. Finally, the dark space of the night outside foreshadows the two invasions of her salon later in the film: very soon, Lyduschka will climb the walls and steal Balduin’s note; later, Balduin himself will inveigle his way in to plea with the countess in person. Again, much is being suggested by comparatively simple devices. So Lyduschka enters and steals the note, leaving through one frame (the balcony door) while the mirror stands empty in the centre of the frame. End of Akt 2.
At this point there is a “Musical interlude”, the very presence of which is interesting: the film itself acknowledges its score, and the role music plays in shaping the film for its audience. It’s only a brief interlude, but it gives you a moment to reflect and ponder what might happen next…
What happens next is Akt 3. The countess is outside, descending the steps. She passes very close to the camera, which gently tilts and pans to the right to keep her in the frame: it’s the closest we get to a close-up, making her movement seem all the more furtive. In the next shot, she is ambushed by Lyduschka, who then creeps along after her.
In the cemetery, bathed in delicious blue tinting, the countess wanders slowly past the grand monuments to the dead. Lyduschka still lurks. She is like a pale wraith, preying upon the lovers. She hugs the walls, hides in doorways. And here is Scapinelli, who bows to the countess and makes as if to follow her. But we don’t see him again in the scene. Rather, we see Balduin among the Jewish tombstones. He is nervous of who—or what—might appear from the rear of frame, and so are we. That it is the countess who appears is not reassuring: for we are already anticipating another. (The music is romantic, dreamy, but hesitant—something is hovering in the wings.) And then we see it: the other. Balduin’s doppelganger appears from behind a giant tombstone. The lovers are afraid. Though the apparition doesn’t follow them, they run from it. (Again, the technical quality of the shot is superb: the apparition appears in the midst of dimly glowing wild grass and weeds, gently swaying in the breeze. That the masking and matching technique doesn’t show in the more uncontrolled environment of this exterior space is amazing.)
Meanwhile, Lyduschka shows Balduin’s note to the baron—who soon plans to fight a duel with his rival. Just look at Balduin’s newly-furnished apartment. We see the former student surrounded by a mise-en-scène full of telling details: look at the two sets of candelabra, the two silhouette portraits on the wall, the two chairs laid out. While he cannot see his reflection in a hand mirror, we can see the doubling all around him: we can see what he cannot. The duel, too, is a kind of mirrored combat. The count brings news of the baron’s decision to duel and begs Balduin to refuse the fight. The next day Balduin goes to the duel (we assume to turn it down), but en route we are given a title: “His act, which he would not commit, committed by another.” In another beautiful exterior woodland scene, we see the two Balduins pass one another. The real Balduin stumbles away in fright. In the next shot, he sees from a distance what has happened: people are gathered in a meadow, someone is bending over a fallen figure. The timespan of these few shots confused me on first viewing, and on second it does so again. How much time has passed? Didn’t the doppelganger pass by only a moment ago? The tense of the titles suggest that the duel has yet to happen, but Balduin discovers it is already too late: time is weirdly displaced, in this film where the uncanny keeps sneaking up on you. End of Akt 3.
Akt 4 begins with more text, which this time reveals itself to be a quotation from Alfred de Musset. The mysterious “brother”, dressed in black, sits beside the poem’s narrator. Even when footnoted, the content of the text is still unsettling. Who is doing the quoting? Who is reading the text? It’s the filmmakers speaking to us, of course, but because this is a text and because there is no obvious authorial “voice” elsewhere in the film, the quotation is strangely detached from its source. Its deployment makes sense (it comments upon the film’s theme) but the way it is deployed leaves the viewer faintly uneasy. (This needs more thought… for another day.)
Balduin wishes to visit the countess but is refused. In the next scene, he has “surrendered” to drink and frivolity. A dance scene that mirrors the opening scene: Balduin in the foreground at a table with two chairs, while in the background the dancers revel. And here is Lyduschka. But this time she comes over to him, tries to get him to dance, and when he refuses she dances anyway.
Next, an incredible scene: a gambling table. Chiaroscuro lighting. Balduin with endless luck. The faces retreat into the darkness. Only Balduin is left. But the doppelganger appears and sits opposite him. It’s the first time they exchange words: “Dare you also play against me?” They sit, Balduin transfixed, until he finally retreats into the shadows like the others before him.
Balduin sneaks back to the countess’s estate. It is now that he climbs up to her salon. His journey is through real locations: fabulously sinister gateways, overgrown, swathed in blue moonlight; glowing night-time gardens; shadowy paths along dappled walls. The way Balduin carries his cloak makes it look like a second skin, a black shadow, thrown over his arm. In the salon, there is that mirror again: placed at such an angle that it is prominent throughout the scene while revealing no reflection. At the rear of the shot, the open balcony doorway—like the unoccupied mirror frame—suggests an imminent arrival, another “guest” waiting in the shadows. Finally, the countess steps into the mirror—and realizes Balduin casts no reflection. (There is no trick here: the mirror is angled precisely to achieve this effect.) Now the doppelganger appears, not through the doorway but inexplicably next to it: it is Balduin who now flees through the doorway.
Similarly, as he flees the estate it is the doppelganger who can slide through a side gate while Balduin laboriously climbs over the main gates. There follows a brilliant series of shadowy exteriors around an abandoned Prague: Balduin racing along empty lanes, down empty steps, beneath dark arches. The cloak over his arm looks like his shadow, his double. A view across the city, and Balduin still flees—and now back into the birch-lined road through the woods. As with the changing views of the hunt sequence, any clear sense of geography or direction is lost in this section of the film. (Remember Hoffmann: “but somehow—they didn’t know why—instead of getting out of the wood, they seemed to keep getting farther and farther into it”.) We might be blundering about in these mysterious landscapes forever. Frantic, Balduin hails a passing carriage; it is driven by his double. The way the doppelganger turns to greet his passenger is wonderful: as unsettlingly comic and frightening as the similar scene (when Hutter is greeted by his coachman in Transylvania) in Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) that it may have inspired. And when Balduin reaches his home, his double is already there, stepping out of the shadows: as in the duel sequence, the doppelganger seemingly precedes his actions. Think back to the way the reflection in Balduin’s study seemed to precede the real Balduin stepping across the room: it’s the same thing, taken to its uncanny conclusion.
Finally, Balduin is in his rich apartment. He takes out a box from a cupboard, and from this a pistol. He is poised—perhaps—to kill himself, but the doppelganger appears again—stepping slyly into frame from the left. (From whence has he stepped? There is no answer.) Balduin takes aim, fires. The apparition is gone. But after a moment of triumph, racing around the empty room, Balduin realizes his reflection is still absent from a mirror. And when he reaches into his pocket, we realize he himself seems to have a bloodstained wound upon his chest. He falls to the floor, dead. And in comes Scapinelli. That loping gait of his, it’s marvellous. He sees the body, gets out the contract and rips it up. He bows to the corpse and stalks merrily out.
There is another quote from Musset. The text takes up the voice of the double, who promises to sit upon his brother’s tomb. And that’s just what we see next. There is the doppelganger, sat upon Balduin’s tomb. The branches of a weeping willow wave in the breeze. There is the raven, and you realize you’ve seen it somewhere before: it was sat on Scapinelli’s shoulder in the credit sequence. That it reappears here now is a brilliant touch, bringing the film to its inevitable conclusion. The visual design of the credits, like the Musset poem, pre-ordain (pre-write) the protagonists. The first image of the film was Wegener as Balduin, his name spelled out on a board; so too, the last image is of Wegener as “Balduin”, accompanied by his name written on a sign.
What a superb film. Atmospheric, mysterious, technically brilliant. I was looking for something Hoffmannesque and I got it: a Hoffmannesque world of Old Europe in the 1820s, complete with Hoffmannesque students pursuing Hoffmannesque romances, shadowed by Hoffmannesque doppelgangers. (Yes yes yes, I know the film is inspired by the work of Poe, Musset, and Goethe, but Hoffmann remains my go-to German Romantic for all things sinister and beguiling.) Whilst I’m talking about authors, I should add that the director of Der Student von Prag is variously credited as being Hanns Heinz Ewers and/or Stellan Rye and/or Paul Wegener. This rather suggests a collaborative effort, principally shaped by Ewes. I must also say that the Edition Filmmuseum DVDs (released by the Filmmuseum München) are exemplary: the set contains two complete versions of the film, one with Josef Weiss’s music in the surviving piano score (with optional audio description) and another with an orchestrated version of Weiss’s music by Bernd Thewes. (I will undoubtedly devote a future post to praising the silent film scores of Bernd Thewes.) It also boasts the shortened English export version of the film, together with a short film made by Ewers in 1913. I hope to watch the 1926 version of Der Student von Prag (with Conrad Veidt) to see how it compares—and (though it falls beyond the remit of this blog) the 1935 version with Anton Walbrook. But the memory of this 1913 version is already lingering in my imagination, and I’m exceedingly glad to have seen it in such a wonderful edition.
Paul Cuff
The Realm of Silence 