Leaves from the book of Satan

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Movie
German title Leaves from the book of Satan
Original title Blade af Satan's bent
Country of production Denmark
original language Danish
Publishing year 1920
length 167 (original) 107 (German revival 1977) minutes
Rod
Director Carl Theodor Dreyer
script Carl Theodor Dreyer
Edgar Hoyer based
on the novel Satans sorger by Marie Corelli
production Nordisk Film , Copenhagen
camera George Schnéevoigt
occupation

First episode

Second episode

Third episode

Fourth episode

Leaves from Satan's Book is a Danish silent film drama from 1920 by Carl Theodor Dreyer, divided into four episodes .

action

The temptations of man by Satan are told in four parts . The prince of hell was banished from his kingdom by heavenly decree and sent to earth. There he should do his dark craft among the people. For every seduced soul that succumbs to him, his sentence is increased by another 100 years; 1000 years will be forgiven for whoever resists it. And so Satan goes about his diabolical work.

1st episode

Jerusalem , during the last days of Christ's life.

The Roman dominion of Palestine is in turmoil. A prophet named Jesus Christ heralds a new age full of love and evaporation. The masses cheer the new Messiah. This puts the power of the high priests in serious danger, who then want to crack down on them with a hard hand. They find their ally in Satan, who knows how to ingratiate himself with Judas and incite him to betray his master. The founder of the religion falls into the hands of his worst enemies and dies a little later in agony on the cross.

2nd episode

Seville at the time of the Renaissance .

The Holy Inquisition is raging in Spain . Don Gómez de Castro conducts astrological studies, which the Catholic Church accompanies with extreme suspicion. His daughter Isabel is raised by the monk Don Fernandez, who has fallen in love with the young woman. One day a catastrophe breaks out on the de Castro family: The caretaker accuses the astrologer because of his activities of magic, which he finds uncanny; so he must be in league with the devil. The arriving Grand Inquisitor, none other than Satan in disguise, condemns Castro to death for alleged heresy , the astrologer dies from the agony of torture. Isabel, sexually abused by Don Fernandez, burns at the stake.

3rd episode

Paris in 1793, in the aftermath of the French Revolution .

Count de Chambord intends to free Queen Marie-Antoinette, who has been captured by the French revolutionaries. The Jacobin Erneste Durand, actually Satan, can influence him and ultimately win him over to the cause of the revolution. Again, Satan's power is behind it. But the count's repentance is of no use to him. When the Revolutionary Guards hunt him down to guillotine the nobleman, he asks his loyal servant Joseph to look after his wife and daughter Genevieve in his absence. But the latter commits shameful treason and has them arrested. Soon there will be a second betrayal of Joseph ...

4th episode

Finland in 1918, as a result of the Russian Revolution .

The center of the action is a small station guard, where the good Paavo does his job and lives happily with his wife Siri. Close by, heavy fighting rages between the tsarist “whites” and the communist “reds”. The latter are led by Ivan, an outcast Russian monk. But in truth he is Satan, who wants to help the evil, communism, to victory. In the train station, Satan, alias Iwan, tries to divide the couple by igniting Rautamiemi in love for Siri. Then he tries to force the couple to collaborate. But both refuse, and Siri remains loyal to her husband. Ivan gives the order to shoot Paavo. While the steadfast Siri dies for her patriotism and conviction, Paavo is saved at the last moment. This time Satan has failed in an attempt to complete his murderous mission.

background

The planning of this film, which plays on four time levels, dates back to 1918. The shooting took place in 1918 and 1919. The world premiere was on November 15, 1920 in Oslo . In Dreyer's homeland, Denmark, pages from Satan's Book ran out on January 24, 1921. The German premiere took place in June 1922.

Dreyer's decision to make this film and create a panorama of human abysses was shaped by the following events: the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia with the subsequent harassment of the Finns by the Red Guards, as well as DW Griffith's monumental film Intolerance , whose design reveals leaves from the Book Satan's Oriented.

For Dreyer, who also worked unnamed on the design of the film structures, this film was his directorial debut. During the interruptions of the lengthy filming, he directed another film, The President , which was premiered first (1919). Leaves from Satan's Book is only the third Dreyer production to hit the cinemas.

criticism

The film was received quite inconsistently; The last episode in particular was criticized as it was viewed by some critics as very striking.

Reclam's guide wrote: “Similar to Griffith in Intolerance , Dreyer wanted to show the enduring endangerment of mankind, personifying evil and introducing Satan into the plot as a constant antagonist. The film is inconsistent, partly naive and not without length, but in places it is also very impressive. 'Untypical' for Dreyer is the Finnish episode with its many short shots that are assembled in a hard staccato rhythm. "

In the large Personenlexikon the film the following can be read: "Tell was in this respect to its design at Griffiths, intolerance 'reminiscent of art in four episodes from the temptations of evil, treachery and murder, persecution and oppression. Already there, but above all in his next films, one could see Dreyer's decisive interest in faces and in the emotions that were reflected in them. "

The lexicon of international film found: “The second film by the Dane Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968) formally anticipates those qualities that characterized his later film history-making works: the abstraction of people through close-ups in strict profile and frontal view, the Spiritualization in actor management. Clearly oriented towards Griffith's 'Intolerance', the (silent) film denounces people's intolerance in four episodes, linked by the 'tempter' Satan, who appears in ever new guise. If he succeeds in doing this convincingly in the first story (Judas' betrayal of Jesus), the further episodes (Spanish Inquisition; French Revolution; The Red Guard), apart from the staging furioso of the last episode, slip away in superficiality and one-sided distortion . "

In edition-filmmuseum it says: “In the four episodes from four completely different historical episodes, also in the continuous denunciation of intolerance, the overpowering model of Griffith's Intolerance (1916) is omnipresent. But not only because the monumental buildings and armies of extras of his American role model remained unaffordable for the Dane, the differences are clear. In contrast to intolerance, Dreyer only provided his four episodes with a brief framework plot; the episodes themselves are chronologically straightforward, self-contained, narrated. Although they are short in the novelistic sense, every historical decoration is painted with as many massive buildings as in every other long Dreyer film. The conviction that the abstraction of persons, the spirituality of an action can only be achieved on the basis of a reality that is as concrete as possible is emphatically demonstrated. In the last episode, the briefly sketched subplot of a young partisan who worked for the, shows that Dreyer, contrary to the popular belief of a gloomy master, carefully painted out tolerance, also knew how to invent the shortened staccato of a highly dramatic narrative cinema through masterful use of close-ups and detailed shots Last-minute rescue from the grim Bolsheviks. Leaves from Satan's Book is not least a masterpiece of a refined, steady increase in tempo from episode to episode - up to the furious fragments of scenes in the final narrative that disturbed the audience at the premiere. "

Filmmuseum.at came to the following verdict: “Four ages and four episodes with which Dreyer conjures up the real power of evil as what remains in history. Completely under the spell of the cinematic pioneering work of DW Griffith, Blade af Satan's Bog represents a transformation and variation of intolerance. Dreyer is also the first European director to gain his cinematic language from the clash of rhythmic montages, close-ups and tracking shots. With Griffith the streams of time mix in a naive and daring way. Dreyer, however, separates and tells in blocks. His pace is weighty, his intensity is calm and the center of his mystery play is the permanent alternation: the suffering of the persecuted, the imitation of Christ. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski : Reclams Film Guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-15-010205-7 , p. 39.
  2. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary. 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 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fitz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 436.
  3. ^ Pages from the Book of Satan in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on January 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ Leaves from Satan's Book in edition-filmmuseum
  5. ↑ Leaves from Satan's Book in filmmuseum.at