His last order
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | His last order |
| Original title | The Last Command |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1928 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Josef von Sternberg |
| script | John F. Goodrich , Lajos Biró |
| production | Jesse L. Lasky and Adolph Zukor for Paramount Pictures |
| music | Rafal Rozmus (2004) |
| camera | Bert Glennon |
| cut | William Shea |
| occupation | |
| |
His last command (OT: The Last Command ) is a feature film from 1928 by Josef von Sternberg . Emil Jannings won the first Oscar in the Best Actor category for his performance in the silent film and for his performance in The Way of All Flesh .
action
The Tsarist General and Grand Duke Sergius Alexander sentenced the revolutionary Leo Andreyev to prison and fell in love with his partner, Natalie Dabrova. She wants to murder him, but shrinks from doing so when she realizes that he is basically as much a Russian patriot as she is.
When the general falls into the hands of the Bolsheviks , she helps him to escape and is killed in the process, which leads to a nervous breakdown in him.
Years later, the general lives in poor conditions in Hollywood , where he makes ends meet as an extra. Lev Andreyev, now a successful director, recognizes him and gives him the role of a Russian general in a battle scene to humiliate him.
When Sergius Alexander is supposed to address his "soldiers", he loses contact with reality, believes he is actually on a battlefield of the Russian Civil War and gives a cheering speech in which he asks them to fight for Russia. The effort is too much for him, and he collapses, dying.
background
Emil Jannings came to Paramount Pictures in 1927 with a lucrative contract in Hollywood . The studio launched the actor with the title Best Actor in the World and preferred to use him in films that showed Jannings as a victim of his own desires. Already the first film The Way of All Flesh , in which the actor begins as a respected doorman in a hotel and ends up as an alcoholic in the gutter, was a great success with audiences and critics, who were enthusiastic about Jannings' gestural style, which was more borrowed from the theater . The Last Command was conceived according to a similar pattern: At the beginning, Jannings is presented as a powerful man who exploits his position without any humanity and finally ushers in his own downfall through sexual greed for a young woman played by Evelyn Brent . The film should be his last film shot in the United States.
At the same time, Josef von Sternberg , who in 1927 had risen to one of the studios' major directors as a result of the surprising success of the gangster film Underworld , also understood The Last Command as a critical analysis of how power structures work and as a commentary on how Hollywood works . The role of the director is therefore ambivalent and von Sternberg later claimed that he let his own character traits flow into the part.
Jannings won the first Academy Award for Best Actor for the film along with work in the lost film The Way of All Flesh . In the early days of the Academy of Motion Picture Science , the rules still allowed nominations for several films at the same time. In addition, the prize was still awarded for the years 1927 and 1928 together, so that a film from the corresponding year was used for the winners.
Lajos Biró received a nomination for Best Screenplay . In 2006, His Last Order was classified as Particularly Conservative and added to the National Film Registry .
criticism
"A prime role for Emil Jannings in a film that already clearly shows the sarcasm and stylistic refinement of Sternberg's later melodramas."
literature
- Klepper, Robert K .: Silent Films, 1877-1996. A Critical Guide to 646 Movies. Jefferson (NC) and London 1999.
- Mergenthaler, Volker: Wanderer between two worlds. On the problem of the transitory in Josef von Sternberg's "The Last Command". In: External Images. Emigration and exile in international cinema. Ed. V. Ulrich Meurer and Maria Oikonomou. Bielefeld 2009, pp. 35-65.
Web links
- His last command in the Internet Movie Database (English)