From the very first shots of this movie, my friend and I were just in awe of the way Murnau uses the camera to set up his situation. There's an intimacy to it, he brings us close to the characters. Also the way he uses the angles and straight lines of the windows, doors and buildings to frame his shots impresses us immediately with the dehumanizing nature of the city much as it did in his Oscar Winning American film "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans." As if the impressive direction and photography weren't enough to distinguish this as one of the most impressive films I've seen from the early 20s, the whole affair is anchored by a brilliant performance from Emil Jannings. He plays a man who is retired from his position as a hotel doorman and demoted to the washroom, which leads to a sort of nervous breakdown imaginatively filmed and a fetishistic attachment to the uniform of his former office.
This isn't a plot heavy film or a drama heavy film, basically it's a character study. It's remarkable for the fact that there are no dialog title cards, and only 2 or 3 informational title cards relating to various events and anchored to specific informational devices interior to the film (e.g. we see the boss' letter telling him of his demotion). The quality of the acting not only from Jannings but from the entire cast (perhaps with the exception of a broadly played gossip woman) we see very natural performances that you often don't in silent films.
Of the 3 films I've seen by Murnau, this film impressed me the most. It doesn't have the melodramatic elements that make "Sunrise" a bit more predictable, and it doesn't have the languid pace that slows "Nosferatu" for me. It reminds me in some ways of the films I've seen from the 30s by Jean Renoir -- there's this fantastic way that the camera follow the actors around on the streets, pulling ahead of them momentarily and then allowing the main actor to zip through the frame while it focuses on incidental details. I'm thinking specifically of the scene where Jannings escapes after stealing back the uniform, but there are several scenes along these lines.
Essentially I saw this film as a message of hope, interestingly couched with an explanation from the film-makers that "in reality" it would not have ended happily. It's too easy to see this card, one of as I said only 2 or 3 in the entire film and the only one that's not tied to a specific device, as Murnau's way of eating his cake and having it too. Is there a touch of the ending from this movie, with the two former bums riding off together, that comes to mind when you see Wilder's "Some Like It Hot"? Or has this been filtered by way of Mssrs. Lubitsch and Renoir et al? Either way I would describe the movie overall as purely cinematic, miles and miles beyond normal film-making techniques and taste of the early 20s and even arguably of today.
This isn't a plot heavy film or a drama heavy film, basically it's a character study. It's remarkable for the fact that there are no dialog title cards, and only 2 or 3 informational title cards relating to various events and anchored to specific informational devices interior to the film (e.g. we see the boss' letter telling him of his demotion). The quality of the acting not only from Jannings but from the entire cast (perhaps with the exception of a broadly played gossip woman) we see very natural performances that you often don't in silent films.
Of the 3 films I've seen by Murnau, this film impressed me the most. It doesn't have the melodramatic elements that make "Sunrise" a bit more predictable, and it doesn't have the languid pace that slows "Nosferatu" for me. It reminds me in some ways of the films I've seen from the 30s by Jean Renoir -- there's this fantastic way that the camera follow the actors around on the streets, pulling ahead of them momentarily and then allowing the main actor to zip through the frame while it focuses on incidental details. I'm thinking specifically of the scene where Jannings escapes after stealing back the uniform, but there are several scenes along these lines.
Essentially I saw this film as a message of hope, interestingly couched with an explanation from the film-makers that "in reality" it would not have ended happily. It's too easy to see this card, one of as I said only 2 or 3 in the entire film and the only one that's not tied to a specific device, as Murnau's way of eating his cake and having it too. Is there a touch of the ending from this movie, with the two former bums riding off together, that comes to mind when you see Wilder's "Some Like It Hot"? Or has this been filtered by way of Mssrs. Lubitsch and Renoir et al? Either way I would describe the movie overall as purely cinematic, miles and miles beyond normal film-making techniques and taste of the early 20s and even arguably of today.