Bestia (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Bestia |
| Country of production | Poland |
| original language | Polish |
| Publishing year | 1917 |
| length | 48 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Aleksander Hertz |
| script | Aleksander Hertz |
| production | Aleksander Hertz for Sfinks, Warsaw |
| camera | Witalis Korsak-Gologowski |
| occupation | |
| |
Bestia is a silent film with Pola Negri in the lead role , made in Warsaw in 1916, in Poland , which was then part of the Russian Empire .
action
The young Pola, a real tomboy, is her parents' problem child. She lives into the day and celebrates late into the night. The parents try to tame their daughter, but in vain. When there was another heated argument with her father one evening, Pola and her friend Dimitri decided to escape the constant harassment and patronizing at home. Soon, however, Pola had enough of Dimitri and also parted ways with him. While drunk, she steals all of his money and leaves him only a brief note. Pola's first job in her newfound freedom becomes a clerk in a fashion salon. But Pola soon discovered her true passion: dance. After some back and forth, she is hired by a cabaret as an in-house dancer.
There the young, impetuous girl meets the wealthy businessman Alexi Vilineff, with whom she then begins a relationship. She hopes that the significantly older man will no less than marry her so that she can live a life in luxury. One day Pola enters a posh restaurant at Alexis's side to dine together. Immediately she sees Dimitri, who works here as a waiter. Dimitri has not forgotten that Pola stole from him and wants to get revenge on her for it. A little later, Pola experiences the second shock: her wealthy businessman is already married and even has children! She then decides not to see Vilineff again. Little does Pola know that Alexi has already left his wife because of her. At the moment when Pola thinks she is already at the bottom, she meets Dimitri on the street, who shoots at her. She dies. Now Alexi intends to return ruefully to his wife and children. But she, who has been seriously ill for some time, has now died.
production
The approximately 48-minute film was made in the middle of the First World War in Warsaw, which was under German military rule. Bestia had its world premiere there on January 5, 1917. It is uncertain whether the film was shown in Germany. The title The Polish Dancer is often in circulation , but it is sometimes also applied to Pola's first-born Slave of the Senses (1914).
The melodrama can be seen as typical of the early silent films Pola Negris, the type of role shown there, the "vamp", she was to play again and again later. Bestia has two meanings in film history: it is the only Polish Negri film that still exists today (at least in part) and the artist's last Russian-Polish film before she was committed to Germany in 1917.
The then largely unknown Lya Mara (under the pseudonym Mia Mara ) can be seen in a supporting role . She also accepted an offer to Berlin in 1917 and, like the Negri, became a great silent film star.
Director Aleksander Hertz (1879–1928) is one of Poland's almost forgotten filmmakers. He is of paramount importance with regard to the film history of Poland: Even during the tsarist rule he owned the most important production company in Warsaw, the Sfinks, and directed or produced a number of films that were very successful at the time, including several with Pola Negri.
In 2011 Bestia was released on DVD in the USA.
classification
Lotte H. Eisner wrote about the young Pola Negri:
“She is the Magnani of the silent film era, vital, spirited. As seductive as the Lollobrigida was at the beginning . She does not act, is hardly an actress in the past or present sense. It is just there. (...) The Negri represents healthy sensuality in all its originality. There is nothing to tinker with and nothing to tinker with. In a time of round shapes, it is full of life and yet supple like a panther cat. (...) It is unencumbered, only seduction. Her intellectual, spiritualized counterpart is the great Asta Nielsen . Pola, the Polish woman, is a being full of harmlessness, ruled by instincts. She is the dancer in “ Sumurun ” with all her body flexibility, with all her rhythmic natural wildness. It is not for nothing that she seems predestined for this: the first film with her was the “Polish Dancer” and later the “Spanish Dancer”. "
Web links
- Bestia in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Bestia at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Pola Negri. In: Hans-Michael Bock (Ed.): CineGraph. Lexicon for German-language films. Delivery 9, D 1. Edition Text + Criticism, Munich 1987 (loose leaf edition).
- ↑ See Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 631.
- ↑ Lotte H. Eisner : The Magnani of the silent film era. (Essay). In: Official Festival Almanac. 14th International Film Festival, Berlin. 1964 (= Filmblätter. Vol. 17, No. 25/26, 1964, ZDB -ID 392290-x ). Film Blätter-Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 62 (on the occasion of a Pola Negri retrospective).