Sodom and Gomorrah (1922)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sodom and Gomorrah |
| Original title | Sodom and Gomorrah |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1922 |
| length | reconstructed version: 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Curtiz |
| script | Michael Curtiz, Ladislaus Vajda |
| production | Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky ( Sascha-Film ), Arnold Pressburger |
| music | Kaz Boyle (1998) |
| camera |
Franz Planer , Gustav Ucicky |
| occupation | |
| |
Sodom and Gomorrah (also with the subtitle The Legend of Sin and Punishment ; in English: Queen of Sin and the Spectacle of Sodom and Gomorrah ) is an Austrian monumental silent film from 1922 by Michael Curtiz . The film was shot at Laaer Berg in Vienna , as the gigantic backdrops, which were specially designed and built for the film , would have been too big for the film studios of the producing Sascha-Film in Sievering. The film is characterized less by its often opaque storylines than by the fact that it is the largest and most expensive film production in Austrian film history. Depending on the information, between 3,000 and 14,000 actors, extras and employees were employed in the production of the film.
action
Mary Conway, a young woman who loves the exuberant luxury life, is instigated by her mother to marry the wealthy stock market professor Jackson Harber. At first Mary refuses ("I can't take the proposal seriously, he could be my father"), but the mother convinces her by explaining to Mary that the luxury life would be over without Harber's money. Later, in a striking manner, Mr. Harber slips his mother a large check. Mary briefly reports to her previous favorite, a sculptor, and invites him to the engagement party. The engagement party will be a boisterous party, completely in the style of the 1920s. The honest sculptor cannot stand the situation and is shot himself in the presence of Mary. Imbued with intrigue, Mary keeps the misfortune a secret and continues to celebrate. The injured person is cared for next door. Mary then makes Edward, the son of Jackson Harber, beautiful eyes. When the party becomes more and more exuberant and soon resembles an orgy, a priest steps on the scene, puts a stop to the goings-on and threatens this corrupted world to doom. Mary approaches the young man and can briefly arouse feelings for her in him, but the Man of God remains steadfast. And then father and son meet (he holds Mary in his arms). A quarrel - a struggle - Mary puts a knife in Edward's hand - the father falls dead to the ground. The police arrested Edward, but the priest was able to explain Mary's complicity. Mary is put in prison and sentenced to death. Before her execution, that priest comes to her, Mary tries again to seduce him, but then the film changes and tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as if in a dream:
The ancient city celebrates exuberant festivals. Only the Jew Lot leads a godly life. However, his wife (Mary) pays homage to the goddess Astarte . An angel of the Lord appears as God's judgment, who also prophesies the downfall of the corrupted world, he is housed by Lot. The crowd wants Lot to surrender the stranger and they finally storm Lot's house and tie the angel to a stake in front of Astarte's idol. But the miracle of God brings the punishment on Sodom and Gomorrah: fire rains from the sky, the buildings collapse, a flood floods the city. The angel graciously allows Lot and his wife to leave the city with him, on condition that they do not look back on the disaster. But Lot's wife can't help it, she turns around and freezes into a pillar of salt.
The dream ends. The captured Mary Conway is led to the execution site. And suddenly she wakes up again: She is lying in her luxury bed during the engagement party and it is before the disastrous argument between father and son Harber. Purified by the double dream, Mary leaves the party, leaves Jackson a suicide note and goes to the hospital, where the injured sculptor is now being cared for. Insight and repentance lead her to his bedside: he will get well again.
production
The producer was Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky . This was in 1918 in the United States to examine the film industry there. It was there that he had the idea of producing monumental films with a large number of extras in Austria , as these were very popular in the USA at the time and he also had the USA as a sales market in his sights. For this purpose he also founded the Herz Film Corporation in New York as a sales branch for his Sascha-Film.
The film, produced from 1920 to 1922, was directed by Michael Kertész, who later called himself Michael Curtiz in the USA , and his wife, the Hungarian Lucy Doraine , played the leading role. Walter Slezak played her teenage lover. According to Willi Forst , Hans Thimig , Paula Wessely and Béla Balázs were among the extras .
The film is unique in Austrian film history because of its size during the shooting. The American monumental films, the Italian antique films and the German costume films were all to be outbid. Thousands of craftsmen, architects, decorators, sculptors, plasterers, stage builders, pyrotechnicians, cameramen, hairdressers, make-up artists, tailors and thousands of unskilled workers and extras, mostly unemployed and children, found employment in Austria, which was characterized by inflation and unemployment, during the three years of filming. Thousands of costumes, wigs, beards, sandals, tinsel jewelry, standards, teams of horses and the like were made especially for the production mostly on site. In this context, Béla Balázs spoke of “equipment madness”. In later films, due to costly experiences in films like this - Sodom and Gomorrah ultimately cost more than five times as much as planned - the variety of sets was reduced significantly in favor of more uniformity.
The outdoor shots took place at Vienna's Laaerberg , in the Lainzer Tiergarten, in Laxenburg, in Schönbrunn and on the Styrian Erzberg . The Laaerberg was therefore very suitable for filming, as it was a fallow landscape at that time, with a few brick ponds that filled the former clay pits. Several thousand workers were required just to set up and manufacture the scenery. 300 to 500 actors had to be present at each filming. In the case of mass scenes, even around 3,000. In addition, there was also an enormous number of horses that were needed for some film scenes.
At the end of the film the temple should collapse, which is why pyrotechnicians were hired to blow it up. Nevertheless, mishaps occurred that even resulted in deaths and injuries, which should also have legal consequences. The director was acquitted and the "tub maker" (artificial fireworks) sentenced to 10 days' arrest and a fine of 500,000 kroner.
backgrounds
Many of those involved in the film became successful representatives of their field in the following years. The cameraman Franz Planer made a career in Hollywood, as did director Michael Curtiz and actor Walter Slezak, who also emigrated a few years later. Gustav Ucicky , employed as a cameraman , later became one of the leading directors of the Nazi era in Germany and Austria. The set maker Julius von Borsody worked in this position for decades in Austrian and German film. After the film was completed, Michael Curtiz and Lucy Doraine divorced.
architecture
The architectural masterpiece was the "Temple of Sodom" designed by three architects, which was one of the largest film structures in the world at this time. Under the direction of the film architect Julius von Borsody, his assistants Hans Rouc and Stefan Wessely worked with specialist companies such as “ Mautner und Rothmüller ” and the Austrian Film Service on the monumental buildings of Sodom, Gomorrah and Assyria. What was striking about the architecture of the buildings was the ornamentation similar to Art Nouveau. Expressionist architecture emerged in the dream sequences.
Another staff
The production design came from Julius von Borsody and Edgar G. Ulmer . Remigius Geyling , head of equipment at the Burgtheater , was responsible for the costumes and among other things he designed the headdress for Lucy Doraine, who wears eleven different costumes in the film version that is still available today. Arthur Gottlein was an assistant director.
anecdote
One of the leading actors, Walter Slezak, son of the singer Leo Slezak , told in his 1974 book “When does the next swan go” of his discovery by the director Michael Kertész, who was known all his life for his language difficulties: “One night around half-way twelve, I strolled into the Sacherbar on the Opernring, sat down and asked for a scotch with soda. I smoked a cigar and presented the image of a blasé, elegant roué and bon vivant . Two men and one woman sat at the next table. This pointed to me, the gentlemen turned and stared at me - long and hard. I recognized the woman - she was a very famous Hungarian film star at the time, Lucy Doraine. She smiled at me - I smiled back. And then one of the two gentlemen stood up [...] and sat down next to me: 'Stotten, you were floating in front of me!'. He spoke this sentence dead serious and with a thick Hungarian accent. I must have looked very stupid because he went on: 'Please understand - you are my vision!' I thought a madman who had fled had sat down with me, and I was determined not to irritate him. 'Of course, I understand perfectly!'. - 'No, you don't understand,' he said very sadly, but I'll explain, if you please. My name is Kertész, Mischka. I am preparing 'Sodom and Gomorrah'. Legend of sin - and I need beautiful young fellows - and you, if you please, are beautiful young fellows! '. Slowly I understood [...] "
Performances
Giuseppe Becce , one of the most prominent film composers in Germany at the time, was engaged for the premiere in Berlin . In his musical accompaniment, pieces of music from opera, ballet, suites, intermezzi and fantasies were mainly of romantic origin. In addition to works by well-known composers such as Tchaikovsky , Bizet , Massenet , Sibelius and Verdi , his compilation also included the Hans Heiling Overture by Heinrich Marschner , the overture from the opera Yelva by Carl Gottlieb Reissiger and works by other lesser-known composers.
Reviews
When the film appeared on October 7, 1922, the Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung wrote: “The punishment for the sin of capitalist arrogance occurs only in dreams - dreams are foams! - in the film 'Reality', on the other hand, the modern Sodom and Gomorrah suddenly transforms into a lovely rose bush idyll and the wedding altar forms the end [...] So everything is not meant so badly [...] Therefore, workers can work on this Film doesn't find the right taste. "
Versions
The original version was 3945 meters long, which corresponded to a playback time of around 3 hours, and was performed in two parts. Until 1987, only a 25-minute fragment of the film from the Soviet film archive was in the possession of the Filmarchiv Austria (then still the Austrian Film Archive). However, other parts of the film could be found in state film archives of the GDR and the ČSSR , so that after reconstruction by the Filmarchiv Austria, although not the original version, but an honest version, which has been designed for export since 1923, could be worked out. In addition, a fragment of a Russian version was saved, which with the help of far-reaching interventions had turned the film into a violent criticism of capitalism. From the Soviet recut of Michael Curtiz 's Austrian monumental film, there is also a previously little noticed Yiddish poetry adaptation by the poet Moshe Lifshits, titled Sdom (Sodom), from 1922/23 .
In cooperation with the Filmarchiv Austria, the film was released in October 2008 in the DVD series Der Österreichische Film (the Soviet version is only attached to the VHS of the Filmarchiv Austria from 2002).
literature
- Walter Fritz , Götz Lachmann (Eds.): Sodom and Gomorrha. The legend of sin and punishment (= series of publications by the Austrian Film Archive. Volume 18, ZDB -ID 1087188-3 ). Vienna 1988.
- Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (eds.): Imaginated antiquity. Austrian monumental silent films, history pictures and historical constructions in Sodom and Gomorrah, Samson and Delilah, the slave queen and Salammbô. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-901932-15-1 .
Web links
- Sodom and Gomorrah in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ ANNO, Arbeiter Zeitung, 1922-10-07, page 7. Retrieved on October 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Nikolaus Wostry: Sodom and Gomorrah or the charm of brevity. In: Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (ed.): Imaginierte Antike. Austrian monumental silent films, history pictures and historical constructions in Sodom and Gomorrah, Samson and Delilah, the slave queen and Salammbô. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2002, pp. 163–174.