A Midsummer Night's Dream (1925)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | A midsummer night's dream |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1925 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans Neumann |
| script |
Hans Behrendt Hans Neumann Klabund (subtitles) based on the comedy of the same name by William Shakespeare |
| production | Hans Neumann |
| music | Hans May |
| camera | Guido Seeber |
| occupation | |
| |
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a German silent film from 1925, based loosely on the comedy of the same name by William Shakespeare .
action
In the plot loosely based on Shakespeare's model, Neumann's film comes up with all sorts of modernist ideas - Theseus uses a telephone, for example - and anarchic ideas - such as that of a battle scene between Greek warriors and an Amazon army - that loosen up the classic material and take a conventional point of view preferential audience can be understood as a provocation. The actors step out of their roles several times and seem to improvise in these moments. The elf king Oberon is played, instead of by a man as usual, by a woman , Tamara Geva (1907-1997), Russian dancer and wife George Balanchines , 17 years old at the time of shooting .
Production notes
A Midsummer Night's Dream , subtitle: A cheerful carnival game , filmed at the end of 1924 and the last Shakespeare adaptation in silent film, was censored on February 27, 1925, was premiered on March 10, 1925 in the Berlin UT Nollendorfplatz and was 2529 meters long on five acts.
The idiosyncratic film structures and the numerous costumes were designed by Ernő Metzner . Reimar Kuntze assisted head cameraman Guido Seeber . The expressive dancer Valeska Gert , who made a lasting impression here as Puck (see review by Osswell Blakeston), made her film debut in A Midsummer Night's Dream, as did her Austrian colleague André Mattoni .
Hans May made a remarkable and highly regarded debut here as a film composer. His unconventional compositional performance was praised by international critics. For example, the journal Variety found : “A real advance in scores for accompanying comedy pictures”, whereas in the Third Reich it was sharply rejected due to its avant-garde tendencies.
Reviews
The ratings of this film varied widely. While some critics praised the sometimes anarchic, parodistic, exuberant element of this conventional film experiment, which bursts with forms, others criticized precisely this fact about A Midsummer Night's Dream . Below are three examples of the very reception:
“Valeska Gert (as Puck) leaves her part as a hierophant to show how much fun you can have when you appear liberated; Krauss leaves his part to show what a great actor he is. The device sticks out its tongue at the audience in a rogue manner; Krauss sticks out his tongue at the audience so everyone can see how well he can play the part of a devil ... There are other things in this film that are more inevitable in Rabelais tradition than I have ever seen in the most exuberant Rabelais comedy have ... The heartiness in this film is not prejudiced, it grows into the simple joy of cutting a person in two with a battle ax. "
“In 1925, Hans Neumann mixed up episodes of Greek history, partly according to old legends, partly according to free invention, with Shakespeare's“ Midsummer Night's Dream ”in Offenbach's manner and also linked the old Shakespeare with the modern jazz band. There is no need to speak seriously of this bluff here because it has nothing to do with Shakespeare or the art of film. "
Paimann's film lists summed up: “The director chose the form of the parodic adaptation and thus undoubtedly found the most suitable. The extensive material is presented without significant lengths and in a very amusing way, particularly successful in the fairy tale game. The presentation is very good in all roles, the presentation in accordance with the given framework and consistently successful, as is the photography. In summary, a picture that is undoubtedly above average, but which on the other hand, through its reproach, is only aimed at a mature, art-loving audience. "
Web links
- A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Translation: "a real step forward in the music to accompany film comedies"
- ↑ see assessment by Oskar Kalbus in the review
- ↑ A Midsummer Night's Dream ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2016 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. In Paimann's film lists (479/1925)
