The lost shadow

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Movie
Original title The lost shadow
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1921
length 64 minutes
Rod
Director Rochus Gliese
script Paul Wegener
Rochus Gliese based
on Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso
production Paul Davidson for PAGU, Berlin
camera Karl Freund
Erich Waschneck
occupation

The Lost Shadows is a German feature film from the year 1921. Directed by Rochus Gliese played Paul Wegener the lead role.

action

The shy musician Sebaldus is invited by Barbara, the foster sister of the young Countess Dorothea Durande, to her birthday party in the Count's castle. This is a blessing for the young man from a small town on the Danube, as he has been in love with Barbara for a long time. Also present is the mysterious shadow player Signore Dapertutto. He does not always have his wards under control, rather the shadows lead a life of their own! Sometimes one shadow or another has escaped from him. This means that Dapertutto regularly has to recapture the shadows in a breakneck manner. One day, during one of these attempts at capture, his main character is torn in two.

Sebaldus, a young man of stout build, has a handsome shadow, as Dapertutto thinks. And so the director of the little shadow theater offers him to buy his own. When the musician promises him a supposed magic violin as a barter item, with which the owner will have both luck with Barbara and professional success, the somewhat simple-minded young man agrees. In fact, Sebaldus can use the magical instrument to outdo the annoying competitor Theobald, who is constantly flocking around Barbara. In any case, he doesn't want to give the violin back to the shadow player. He then rolls up Sebaldus' shadow and disappears.

But the shadowlessness of her new friend makes Barbara deeply insecure; Frightened by this condition, she flees to a monastery. Sebaldus now hurries from success to success. Soon he became a famous violinist. But one day Dapertutto returns and disavows the shadowless coram publico with a clever lighting trick through which only the violin casts a shadow. The people who cheered him on are now reacting disturbed, even downright aggressive. Pursued by the mob, Sebaldus wandered restlessly through the country until he met his Barbara again in the monastery. Together they want to try to chase back the lost shadow Dapertutto. In fact, they can snatch Sebaldus' shadow from him and end the devilish spook with the help of a cross.

Production notes

The shooting took place in 1920 in the Wachau (including at the Dürnstein castle ruins (Lower Austria) ) and in the Ufa Union studio. The five-act film passed the censorship on December 1, 1920, was released to the youth and premiered on February 3, 1921. On October 25, 1923, The Lost Shadow was awarded the title “popular education”.

The film structures are by Kurt Richter , the costumes by Rochus Gliese. Lotte Reiniger created the silhouettes for the intertitles, just as she did in Wegener's fairy tale films. Robert Baberske assisted head cameraman Karl Freund .

With Lyda Salmonova and Greta Schröder , two Wegener wives of the 1920s - the still wife Lyda and the soon to be wife Greta - played in the same film.

Reviews

Willy Haas wrote in Film-Kurier in 1921 : “This is a German double face. And, about this enchanting, spicy series of images that have been brought together to form a film - which should be the first word of joy, praise and gratitude that we want to express about him? But probably that it is a German work of art. The imagination of this nation hangs on the mysterious man who sells his shadow or his reflection to evil with a tenacity that is mysterious. This material is as Germanic as the idea of ​​"life as a dream" is Romance; a Calderon may have occasionally touched on that Faustian, a Shakespeare this arch-Catholic, Baroque circle of ideas. Because the man who sells his shadow is quite simply the German. The shadow is what is firmly outlined, the contour, the limitation of the person. And German, ten times German, in the noblest sense, is the wandering, immeasurably covetous, longing, suspicious, inadequate - - is the fear of stepping out of oneself, the outline of losing oneself. Only the German could raise this fear in himself to the concept of mortal sin - to the pact with "the evil one". Faust is as good as Peter Schlemihl or E.Th.A. Hoffmann's man without a reflection. On the other hand, only the German could counter this chaotic limitlessness with the sober, microcosmic, strict, almost cold outlines of a Holbeinian or Cranachian drawing. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Film-Kurier No. 30 of February 4, 1921

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