The Tower of Silence (1925)

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Movie
Original title The tower of silence
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1925
length 86 minutes
Rod
Director Johannes Guter
script Curt Johannes Braun
production Erich Pommer
camera Günther Rittau
occupation

The Tower of Silence is a German silent film by director Johannes Guter from 1924. The black and white film has six acts and was premiered on January 29, 1925 in the Berlin UFA theater Tauentzienpalast .

action

The two aviators Arved Holl and Wilfred Durian explore the Great Victoria Desert in Australia with their double-decker aircraft . After a scouting flight, Durian fails to land and the plane is lost. The two are stuck in the desert. In order to save their research results, the two of them draw a drawing to see who should save themselves on foot with the documents and the scarce water supplies. Although the lot falls on Holl, Durian secretly sets off with the documents and the water and leaves Holl in the desert. After successfully returning home, Durian convinces Holl's fiancée that he is dead and marries Liane.

However, Holl survived. He is seriously ill after a car accident in a decaying ruin of a monastery, which also includes the Tower of Silence . Ceel the tower keeper lives there, the mad scientist Eldor Vartalun, who constructs strange flying machines there, and his supposed daughter Eva, whom Holl nurses to health. Eve's mother's grave lies under the tower.

Here Holl learns about his fiancée's marriage to Wilfred Durian. The tower keeper tells him and Eva the story of their father. When he came back home after a long absence 20 years ago, he found his wife married to a durian - Wilfried's father. Eva is their daughter. The mother then threw herself to her death. After waiting many years for Durian's return and now meeting his son, Eldor kills him and then throws himself to his death with one of his flying machines.

background

In 2006 the film was restored by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation . The basis was an original negative with flash titles and the censorship card from the film archive of the Federal Archives in Berlin. The film was shown in this version at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 9, 2007. The plot is based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest . The Design of the film by Rudi Feld found particularly through the impressive scenes of the tower attention. Parts of the buildings from the recently filmed film The Nibelungs were reused for this purpose.

In England the film was called The Tower of Silence .

Performances:

  • Germany: January 29, 1925
  • Great Britain: April 5, 1926

criticism

“Rudi Feld's buildings are particularly successful, some of which reproduce that mysterious, fantastic atmosphere from which the tragedy of the silent tower grows and which, on the other hand, present patterns of New German spatial art in the interiors. Günther Rittau is responsible for the successful photography. "

- Anonymous in: Kinematograph (Berlin), No. 937, February 1, 1925

“(…) The work shows a stylistic dichotomy, which is initially due to the manuscript written by Curt J. Braun. On the one hand the medieval fantasy of the tower (even if only a fantasy adapted to the imagination of intellectual medium-sized companies), on the other hand the social milieu in the style of the tried and tested film convention. Here the direction of Dr. Must use well. His ultimate goal should have been to overcome the hermaphroditic character of the film, which was given by the material, through a unity of mood. This could have happened because the “modern” part, if one may say so, should also have been raised into the sphere of unreality. And above all: this event would have to rush past like a furio. Good prefers a Tempo Moderato, according to his nature . But these are objections that were of course completely out of the question for the crowd. This will stick everywhere to the strong suspense of the fable and to the blonde beauty of Xenia Desni, who glides through the action like a figure of light. As an actor, of course, she only gives a sketch, even if her cinematic talent flashes in a few mimic transitions. The ingenious Avrom Morewsky, known from the Yiddish theater, gives theater here in an exaggerated al fresco . His facial expression turns into a grimace, his gesture into an attitude in the Meininger style . (...) Hanna Ralph, Nigel Barrie, Fritz Delius give a neat film template. (...) "

- Heinz Michaelis in: Film-Kurier (Berlin), No. 26, January 30, 1925

Others

The two city shots in the film show the city of Dresden - the first a view from the Frauenkirche towards the east to the Elbe , the second from the town hall tower towards the west with the Kreuzkirche , Altmarkt and Sophienkirche .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. filmportal.de - The Tower of Silence. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 21, 2010 ; Retrieved March 7, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmportal.de
  2. Information on film. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 7, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / osiris2.pi-consult.de  
  3. cinemattraction - The Tower of Silence. Retrieved March 8, 2010 .
  4. ^ The Tower of Silence. Retrieved March 8, 2010 .
  5. murnau-stiftung.de - Restored films. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 22, 2012 ; Retrieved March 7, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.murnau-stiftung.de
  6. World premieres according to IMDb
  7. Information about the film. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 7, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / osiris2.pi-consult.de