The Last Man (1924)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The last man |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1924 |
| length | Orig. 2315 m (approx. 86 min.); restored version: 101 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau |
| script | Carl Mayer |
| production | Erich Pommer |
| music | Giuseppe Becce |
| camera | Karl friend |
| occupation | |
| |
The Last Man is a German silent film by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . It premiered on December 23, 1924 in Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo . The success of the film brought Murnau and several of those involved in the film international recognition. The film is also famous for its use of the unleashed camera and the almost complete absence of intertitles.
action
An aging hotel porter does his job at the door of the "Hotel Atlantic" in Berlin. He greets the guests there in his splendid uniform , with a handsome mustache and a jovial smile. One day when he suffers a faint attack while unloading a heavy suitcase, the hotel manager puts him in the men's room with reference to his old age. A disciple takes his place. The porter cannot take this humiliation. At night he steals his old uniform and now leads a double life : During the day he sadly goes about his job in the hotel toilet. After work, he secretly puts on his uniform to pretend to his family and neighbors that everything is the same as before. But the dizziness is soon discovered and family and neighbors turn away from him. The world of the porter finally collapses, only the night watchman of the hotel is still looking after him.
At the end of the story - after an intertitle in which the "author" distances himself semi-ironically from happy endings - a positive twist when a hotel guest, dying in the men's room, bequeaths his entire fortune to the former porter. The once humiliated can now come to the "Atlantic" as a confident, cheerful and generous guest and invite the night watchman to a feast, which the rest of the hotel guests, who have read the story in the newspaper, have a great time.
interpretation
With this film Murnau delivers a parable about the changeability of life according to the pattern of the medieval wheel of fortune: “Today you are the first, respected by everyone, a minister, a general, maybe even a prince - do you know what you will be tomorrow ?! “, It says in the opening credits. The special position of this first person in “The Last Man” is not emphasized by a military uniform, but by the livery of the porter of a luxury hotel. However, it gives him a similar self-esteem: in the evening, the porter struts home in his splendid livery to the working-class district, where he is admired by everyone.
The loss of the livery (uniform) symbolizes social decline. The old porter is demoted to the toilet guard; laughed at by the neighbors and repudiated by his relatives, he retires to the cellar, having become the "last man". But Fortuna's wheel continues to turn. Thanks to the fortune left by a wealthy customer, the toilet man becomes a sought-after hotel guest. This aftermath, introduced by the only intertitle of the whole film, should not be taken as an artificial happy ending. Rather, this conclusion continues, albeit with the opposite sign, the question posed at the beginning: Whoever is last today, can be first again tomorrow.
Camera work
"The Last Man" represents a milestone in the development of film technology and art. In addition to the assimilation of essential elements from Expressionism such as dream sequences with cross-fades and special effects, director Murnau and cameraman Karl Freund also turned into a more mature version for the first time in "The Last Man" Form what has been called the " unleashed camera ". The entrance scene, when the camera in the elevator moves through different floors and then through the lobby of the hotel to its revolving door, could even be seen as the first opening sequence in film history. Although the moving camera had already been used in earlier silent films, it played an outstanding role in “The Last Man” because it took over the porter's subjective point of view and thus gave his feelings a special expression.
Backgrounds and special features
- The production company was UFA through its subsidiary Union-Film . The shooting took place in the UFA studios in Neubabelsberg , today's Studio Babelsberg .
- This is one of the few full-length silent films that do almost entirely without intertitles. It was also difficult to convince the producers of the film because there had only been two known attempts up to that point, both of which were unsuccessful ( Schherd 1921 and Sylvester 1924, both directed by Lupu Pick ).
- The other lack of subtitles is particularly noticeable due to Emil Jannings' excellent art of playing and the equally excellent camera work only when the already mentioned single subtitle appears. Murnau, Freund and Jannings became world famous through the film, which is considered to be the climax of German expressionist silent films .
- The poster artist Theo Matejko created a portfolio of lithographs for the guests of honor at the premiere of the film.
Remake and reconstruction
- In 1955, a remake of the same name with a slightly modified plot was made under the direction of Harald Braun . The main roles in this version were played by Hans Albers , Camilla Spira , Joachim Fuchsberger and Romy Schneider .
- The reconstruction of “The Last Man”, made by the prominent Murnau expert Luciano Berriatúa from the original three versions, premiered on February 8, 2003 as part of the Murnau retrospective at the Berlinale . The incomplete original music by Giuseppe Becce was supplemented and orchestrated by the German composer Detlev Glanert . There are also other settings by Peter Schirmann , Timothy Brock , Florian C. Reithner and Richard Siedhoff.
Reviews
“A hotel porter sinks to a toilet man, a fate he cannot cope with. The expressionist silent film [...] portrays his ordeal by artistic direction with masterful images and excellent play right through to the batches. "
“In Murnau's outstanding silent film drama, the unleashed camera succeeds in compelling image sequences that only require very sparing inter-titles in order to make the mental processes clear. A positive end [...] was forced on Murnau; he staged it with deliberately ironic exaggeration. "
literature
- Ilona Brennicke, Joe Hembus : Classics of the German silent film. 1910-1930. Citadel Movie Books. Goldmann, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-442-10212-X .
- Christiane Mückenberger The last man. In: Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, pp. 110 ff. ISBN 3-89487-009-5 .
- Claudia Heydolph: The view of the living picture. FW Murnau's “The Last Man” and the origin of the picture narration. Verlag Ludwig, Kiel 2004. ISBN 978-3-933598-51-6 .
Web links
- The last man as a complete film in theInternet Archive
- The last man in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The last man at filmportal.de (contemporary reviews, premiere poster, censorship card, draft sketches, photos)
- The last man on Paimann's film lists
- The last man at the Murnau Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The Last Man on moviepilot.de, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ^ Film review - The Last Man on dieterwunderlich.de, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ↑ Review - The Last Man on molodezhnaja.ch, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ↑ The Last Man on filmzentrale.com, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ↑ 1924 - The last man unleashes the camera. at moviepilot.de, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ^ Filmportal - The Last Man on filmportal.de, accessed on July 28, 2017.
- ↑ The last man. on filmreference.com, accessed September 4, 2014. (Review, English)
- ↑ The German Film I: Pioneering Works, Silent Film and Early Sound Film. 1895-1933. at edinburgh.diplo.de, accessed September 4, 2014.
- ↑ One of the lithographs for The Last Man on filmportal.de, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ↑ The Last Man (1955) on film.at, accessed on September 4, 2014.
- ↑ The last man. ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. on arte.tv, accessed September 4, 2014.
- ^ The last man - new composition for the Murnau silent film (LM). Retrieved October 15, 2019 .
- ↑ The last man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 6, 2015 .
