Meriota, the dancer

Movie
German title	Merista, the dancer
Original title	Meriota, the dancer
Country of production	Austria
original language	German
Publishing year	1921
length	94 minutes
Rod
Director	Julius Herzka
script	Louis Mink
camera	Eduard Hoesch
occupation
Max Devrient : Pope Alexander VI. Oskar Beregi Sr. : Cesare Borgia Nora Gregor : Lucrezia Borgia Viktor Kutschera : Antonio Quirini Ferdinand Maierhofer : Cecco, landlord Armin Seydelmann : Mateo Felice Maria Minzenti : Merista Susanne van der Osten : Teresa Quirini Norbert Schiller : Luigi Quirini Rudolf Bandler : Filippo, the fool Wilhelm Schmidt : Manrone Tosca Hanns Kurth Anna Kallina Hans Siebert : Pietro Campo

Meriota, the dancer (German distribution title: Merista, the dancer ) is an Austrian period film from 1921.

action

It tells the story of a love affair between Cesare Borgia and the dancer Meriota (Merista) against the background of the customs and cultural history of the 15th century.

background

Production notes

The story is based on set pieces from Gobineau's novel The Renaissance , Mereschkowski's novel Leonardo da Vinci and Meyer's novella Angela Borgia , but it is unmistakably an invention of its own.

The production company was Das-Kino from Vienna. The buildings were taken over by Hans Berger , the costumes by Karl Alexander Wilke . The film had a prelude (285 meters) and five acts in the respective lengths of 455, 430, 300, 270 and 392 meters, so a total of 2,132 meters, which corresponds to approx. 94 minutes.

A German press screening already took place on November 1, 1921, the actual premiere on January 27, 1922 in Vienna.

Censorship decision

The film was examined on December 19, 1921 by the Berlin Film Inspectorate (No. 4907). It was approved without a cut, but was subject to a youth ban.

On the immediate complaint of the assessors Kuratus Steinberg and Pastor Steinweg, there was a renewed examination on December 23, 1921. The decision of December 19, 1921 was confirmed, but three subtitles had meanwhile been removed. As evidenced by the pleadings, these cuts were handed over directly to the film inspectorate during or before the hearing.

The reason for the objection was the portrayal of Pope Alexander VI. Admittedly he himself was “an unworthy Pope” by the standards of the Catholic Church, but it was objected that one “regards itself [the Catholic Church] and its members as one big family, for whom every institution and every form of its faith is timeless and be an object of veneration with a very special sensitivity. This sensitivity of all Catholic circles, including the educated, would be injured by such a representation ”. The Film-Oberprüfstelle found this objection to be unfounded.

Web links

• Meriota, the dancer at filmportal.de
• Meriota, the dancer in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Film length calculator. Retrieved April 7, 2015 (frame rate: 20). 
2. ^ Censorship decision of December 19, 1921 at the German Film Institute
3. ^ Censorship decision of December 23, 1921 at the German Film Institute