Love (1926)

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Movie
Original title love
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1927
length 108 minutes
Rod
Director Paul Czinner
script Paul Czinner based
on the novella La duchesse de Langeais by Honoré de Balzac
production Phoebus film (Berlin)
music Willy Schmidt-Gentner
camera Arpad Viragh
Adolf Schlasy
occupation

Liebe is a German silent film from 1927 by Paul Czinner with Elisabeth Bergner in the leading role.

action

At the beginning of the 19th century, the beautiful Duchess of Langeais was a distinguished lady of the Parisian haute volée. Her appearance is flirtatious and playful, and that's how she deals with love affairs, for example when the Marquis of Montriveau, a high-ranking officer, inflamed for her. However, she keeps him at a distance and fiddles with him. When he realizes that the Duchess is playing games with him and seems to regard love only as an amusing pastime, he begins to lose interest in her and leaves her by the wayside.

At this moment the high nobility seems to understand what this feeling of “love” actually means: She begins to write passionate love letters to the Marquis and is even ready to compromise in public just to win him and his heart over. Disguised as a maid, she finally invades his apartment to be close to him. But when she has to see that all her letters are lying around unopened, she goes completely desperate to a monastery to say goodbye to worldly existence.

But now the Marquis realizes that the Duchess really loved him and, after years of searching, tracks her down in the monastery in order to kidnap her from there. But before that, faced with the decision to choose either God or earthly love, she chose the third way: voluntary death.

Production notes

Love was created in the autumn of 1926 in the Staaken film studios. The six-act film with a length of 2697 meters was premiered on January 3, 1927. The title “Volksbildend Künstlerisch” was awarded.

The Swiss theater actor Hans Rehmann made his film debut here as Marquis von Montriveau, the jack of hearts of Elisabeth Bergner's Duchess. Hermann Warm designed the film structures that Ferdinand Bellan carried out. Ilse Fehling created the costumes.

criticism

"How this inspired artist lets us experience a fate in the film 'Love' is new evidence of her high art."

- Forward , January 1927

“Elisabeth Bergner is the beginning, middle and end of the game ... she is a person: tormented and cheerful, dark and alluring, a strange, unpredictable sorceress. That is the secret of their success. "

- 8 o'clock evening paper , January 1927

“Elisabeth Bergner delicious in appearance and movement. An abundance of feelings shines and plays in front of the rigid evenness of the opponent of fate Hans Rehmann. "

- Berliner Tageblatt , January 1927

“From the scene where Bergner, wrapped in her coat, waits shivering on her lover's street at night, the scene at the bars of the monastery has not much of its own in terms of dramatic strength. And when she sinks down in front of the crucifix, this real tragedy of love dissolves into a deep minor chord that resonates in the heart for a long time ... "

- Photo stage , January 1927

“It was more than a great film success, it was the breakthrough of a special German film, not to be copied in any country and therefore effective in every country. The film is not German because of its material. (...) This film is German because it contrasts the language of the German fairy tale with something organically equivalent. "

- BZ at noon , January 1927

“Bergner has wonderful scenes. Inimitable how she starts a conversation. Or she plays with a cat. Or romp around the room. Or eat with him, the tall man in love. "

- Film-Kurier , 1927

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