Erotic (1929)

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Movie
German title eroticism
Original title Erotic
Country of production Czechoslovakia
original language Czech
Publishing year 1929
length 85 minutes
Rod
Director Gustav Machatý
script Gustav Machatý
production Gem film, Prague
music Jan Klusák , Erno Kostal
camera Václav Vich
cut EB White
occupation

Erotik , also known under the original title Erotikon , is a Czech silent film love melodrama by Gustav Machatý from 1929. Ita Rina plays the daughter of a simple track keeper who succumbs to the seductions of an elegant, urbane city dweller, played by Olaf Fjord .

action

One night with a heavy rainstorm, as the emblems on his suitcase reveal, a well-traveled man knocks at the old railroad attendant's house. He lets him in and you befriend over a bottle of good Scottish whiskey. A little later, the stranger named George also met the beautiful daughter of the track keeper. Andrea is like wax in the hands of the worldly city dweller, who turns out to be a skilful and sensitive seducer. While Andrea hopes for the knight in golden armor, the dream man for a future together, George is nothing more than a Casanova and Don Juan, for whom Andrea is just one of many, a nice pastime on the way through. The next morning George moves on. While Andrea, who was impregnated by him last night, patiently waits for a message from him, George has long been indulging in new pleasures and debauchery in the next town.

Years have passed and it is a great coincidence that George and Andrea meet again. In the meantime she has married the well-to-do and elegant Jan, and yet her fire flares up again for Jean when she sees him again. There is brief contact, George is not averse to refreshing the old bond. But now Andrea recognizes the true character of the notorious grave-wolf and womanizer, whose tendency to follow women who do not belong to him will ultimately have fatal consequences for him in the end. Hit by a revolver bullet from an equally uglier and older and jealous competitor, George sinks dead to the ground. Only when Andreas Mann looks at his wife meaningfully and thinks she can see an endless amount of love in his gaze, Andrea presses himself against Jan's chest, knowing that he will be the only man of importance to her.

Production notes

Erotic originated in the autumn of 1928 and the following winter in Czechoslovakia and was premiered on February 27, 1929 in the Czechoslovak capital, Prague. In Germany, the film ran a few months later, in May of the same year. In 1934 a sound version of this film with dialogue scenes, music and noises was distributed in Austria under the title “The Perfume of a Woman”.

The film structures were designed by Julius von Borsody and Alexander Hackenschmied .

Reviews

Gustav Machatý once stated that a film director does not need a scriptwriter, whereupon the reviewer in the Film-Kurier viciously countered that “Erotikon” was the best proof that this thesis was not true.

Jerzy Toeplitz called Erotikon a “psychological film” in his “Geschichte des Films” and wrote: “This strip had nothing in common with Stiller 's film of the same name ; it is much more likely that the story about the seduction of the marshal's daughter by an elegant gentleman from the city is based on Pushkin's “postmaster”. (…) If Machatý had been dealing with a valuable script, he would not have wasted his undoubtedly existing talent with formalistic gimmicks. Erotikon is an example of cinematic eclecticism, it is a mixture of all possible styles and methods. The scenes in the train are assembled in a “Russian way”. They are short image settings cut side by side. Dupont's film Varieté was the model for the chamber play-like scenes , the camera is kept in uninterrupted motion here. The stars were photographed here according to the “Hollywooder”, that is, “sweetly” (...) The cosmopolitan eclecticism in the film form was supplemented by foreign actors: with the Swede [sic!] Olaf Fjord, the Yugoslav Ita Rina, the Italian Luigi Serventi and the German Charlotte Susa. "

The Hamburger Echo read: “It remains uncomfortably clear that it is primarily a game of erotic sensations. Spicy and delicately served, many will taste them. Ita Rina and Charlotte Susa, the main characters, know how to fill their game with glow and charm so that it says little and yet hides nothing. "

In Bucher's encyclopedia of the film, Machatý's biography reads: “His real talent lay in the field of stylish erotic, the use of which in Erotikon (1929) brought him a lot of success and attention. Stylistically, the film shows Russian influence alternating between naturalistic and symbolic sequences, and the international cast with Yugoslav Ita Rina reflected Machatý's cosmopolitan attitude (...) ... Machatý achieved the erotic effect primarily through his symbolic imagery. "

The film's large personal encyclopedia called the film an "artistically rather thin-blooded melodrama" and stated in Gustav Machatý's biography: "'Erotikon' was a discreetly implemented love story with 'erotic' kissing and affectionate scenes that were daring for the times."

Heinrich Fraenkel's Immortal Film summed up the image sequence of the much discussed, intimate kissing scene: “The photo was not allowed to be displayed by the censors in Germany, but it seems to us that real passionate sensation, like that shown here in Olaf Fjord's play and Ita Rina is above all prudish prejudice. Nothing human should be withdrawn from the attempt at artistic creation as long as it expresses a strong and true feeling and as long as it does not become the end in itself of slippery ambiguity and thereby offend good taste. "

Georges Sadoul wrote about Machatý: “Machaty, who was a very fertile artist, achieved international fame with two“ daring ”films:“ Eroticism ”and above all“ Ecstasy ”(...) Both films are simple stories of adultery, one ironic, the other tragic; What is special about them is that they do not end after the lovers' first kiss and that they are drawn with keen observation of the environment: the train station in "eroticism", the landscape in "ecstasy". The love scenes are bold, but not offensive, and shaped with very skillful shooting techniques and photography. "

On film.at you can read: “ Erotikon , the melodramatic story of a young girl who is abandoned by her seducer to be courted again later, as a now married woman. With a minimum of subtitles, Machatý found a subtle film language that creates the atmosphere of eroticism, seduction and desire through a series of symbolic images and cross-fades. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. on this: Kay Less : Das Großes Personenlexikon des Films , Volume 6, S. 543. Berlin 2001
  2. ↑ Jerzy Toeplitz : History of the film, Volume 1 1895-1928. East Berlin 1972. p. 488.
  3. ↑ Film-Kurier No. 149, from June 25, 1929
  4. ↑ Jerzy Toeplitz : History of the film, Volume 1 1895-1928. East Berlin 1972. p. 487 f.
  5. ↑ Hamburger Echo, No. 136, from May 18, 1929
  6. ↑ Bucher's Encyclopedia of Films, Verlag CJ Bucher, Lucerne and Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 478.
  7. ↑ 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 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 543.
  8. ↑ 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 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 186.
  9. ^ Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film. Munich 1956, p. 345
  10. ^ Georges Sadoul: History of the cinematic art. Vienna 1957, p. 319 f.
  11. ↑ Erotikon on film.at

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