A Venetian night

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Movie
Original title A Venetian night
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1914
Rod
Director Max Reinhardt
script Karl Vollmoeller
production Paul Davidson
for PAGU, Berlin
camera Friedrich Weinmann
occupation

A Venetian Night , also a Venetian night or Venetian Night called, is a 1913 rotated, German silent film by Max Reinhardt .

action

The focus of the event is the German educational traveler cand. Phil. Anselmus Aselmeyer. When he arrives in Venice, he is intercepted by the bizarre house servant Pipistrello and taken to his employer's hostel. There Aselmeyer witnessed the marriage of the corpulent oil trader Mestre Mangiabene with the Marchesina dei Bisognosi. This beautiful, young but impoverished noblewoman loves someone else, a young officer.

The young Studiosus encountered these experiences and their protagonists on the following night as a wild nightmare with love and passion, jealousy and murder as central ingredients. The young officer appears to him, for example, who is stabbed by Pipistrello as he approaches the Marchesina. When the bride asks him, the young German, for help to sink the body of her lover in the water, it is the eerie, grumpy house servant Pipistrello who, dancing around him like a dervish in monkey-like movements, resurrects the dead in four ways leaves. To make matters worse, Aselmeyer then has to compete in four duels with this officer homunculus.

Anselmus Aselmeyer is so caught up in his never-ending nightmare that he does not notice how the completely drunk groom is unceremoniously dumped on his hostel bed next to him. Badly affected by the previous night, Anselmus then flees the eerie inn the next morning. His last glance falls on a passing gondola. On board: the bride, groom and the young officer.

Production notes

A Venetian Night was filmed in Venice in the spring of 1913 and had four acts. The studio recordings were made in the Union studio in Berlin-Tempelhof . The film was based on Karl Vollmoeller's pantomime " Venetian Adventures of a Young Man ".

The playing time was about an hour. The film was censored on June 17, 1914, but was premiered on April 16, 1914 in the Union Palace Kurfürstendamm as part of a press screening. Shortly thereafter, the film also premiered in the United States.

Theater actor Alfred Abel , who played Anselmus, made his film debut here. Carl Wilhelm served Reinhardt in Venice as assistant director. Some sources name Karl Freund as another cameraman besides Friedrich Weinmann .

Although filmed before Die Insel der Blessed , A Venetian Night was released by the producing PAGU as the second Max Reinhardt film. Previously there had been some censorship problems.

Reviews

The contemporary as well as the post-war criticism came to quite different opinions when evaluating the film:

In Der Kinematograph , issue no. 382 of April 22, 1914, the following was to be read: “After the Union's first Max Reinhardt film," The Island of the Blessed ", which unfortunately did not quite meet the expectations attached to it, one saw with all the greater tension towards the second work in the series. Karl Vollmöller's "Venetian Night" is considered a cabinet piece by Reinhardt's directorial art and, since it allowed the development of all possible scenic effects, it appeared to be excellently suited for the cinematograph from the outset. If one adds that outstanding artists from the Deutsches Theater took over the roles, that the recording took place in Venice itself and that no expense was spared in order to give the peculiar work a worthy garment, one could expect a very outstanding masterpiece of modern photography . Of course - what had leaked among the film experts did not open up any brilliant prospects for him; it was even claimed that Reinhardt had failed completely as a film director. [...] Some of the scenes that bring mood images of Venice are wonderfully successful (like the trip to the island of the dead and the midnight hauntings on it), but they are treated too incidentally, too rarely. This very interesting task, which is characteristic of the director, was mastered in three or four scenes; that's a shame - after the rehearsals on offer one would have wished four times as much ..... Incidentally, the action takes place almost exclusively in a Venetian inn, and even if the direction was able to develop a lot of subtleties and put some samples of their good taste down, so after all, their field of activity is quite limited. - A very special praise is due to the performance of the actors from the Deutsches Theater. First of all, Maria Carmi should be mentioned here. which in her role as bride offered a fascinating game in which one can admire the masterful technique as much as the depth of sensation and the development of artistic temperament [...] And if you summarize all impressions of the evening to a definition of the film, so one arrives again at the verdict: a true work of art that can arouse applause and contradiction, but never inspires indifference. "

In the Lichtbild-Bühne issue 18 of April 18, 1914, it says: “Professor Max Reinhardt, despite his popularity as an artist, one can say that the enfant terrible of the film industry gave us the cheerful flickering play" The Island of the Blessed "; this first work was preceded by his journeyman's piece "A Venetian Night", which was finally brought to the public cautiously after a year. According to the principle that a good thing is always expensive, the "Union" has brought out this mysterious nighttime ghost for 3 marks per person. A house that was overly sold out wanted to experience the piquant enjoyment of a possible theater scandal in this price range, because the many small technical and artistic indiscretions that reached us from Venice during the cranking activity were met with a lot of professional smiles. The film rose from oblivion with a certain tension and 28 musicians and it was - liked, because the excellent play of the actors saved the film novelty, which was considered dubious as useless. Maria Carmi, the wife of the author Karl Vollmöller, offered a brilliant performance, and the recording operator put a lot of mood painting into some scenes, even if the effect of the film often suffered due to strongly noticeable haze formation. All in all, one can say that the ingenious and peculiar act was extremely captivating. We are pleased to be able to state that the film can be described as a good one despite the bad reputation that preceded it. "

In the Union-Theater-Zeitung you could read in issue 16 on April 17, 1914: “The greatest of all living directors, Professor Max Reinhardt, the director of the German Theater, is also in his second production for the PAG" Union " Film, a masterpiece. The first - "The Island of the Blessed" - is probably still in everyone's memory. The color world of Bücklin celebrated its resurrection in this series of scenes, which was filled with the magic of distant southern regions. The second Max Reinhardt film is also set in Italy; A deep blue summer night laughs over the lagoon city, soft music drifts from dark gondolas, slim figures rush over light bridges ... a night in Venice. Venetian night ... a young man's adventure is masterfully crafted here. The romantic dreamer, a young German man with longing eyes, falls into the magic of the Venetian night. What he experiences is not reality. But it looks like a real event. The images of the dream form a chain. And when the young man wakes up, he breathes freely. Nothing happened ... Only the fat man from Mestri is lying across the bed. The scenery is an idyll; but the action is grotesque. [...] This game comes from Karl Vollmöller. The representation is carried out by the members of the Deutsches Theater. Maria Carmi, the beautiful wife of the poet, is the slender, seductive bride, Joseph Klein her fat bridegroom from Mestri. Alfred Abel gives the young stranger all the romantic magic of German dreaming. Ernst Matray, however, as Pipinello has a marvelous agility and dry humor. The smaller roles are also cast by well-known artists. So here we are in front of a magnificent work in which the alluring music of the south can be heard. "

Reclam's film guide writes: “Reinhardt called this film, which he shot with the ensemble of his theater, in the subtitle“ A mimic theater ”. In fact, the emphasis on pantomime is more striking. In some places moody scenes and sequences are achieved, but the mediocrity prevails. The translation of the template, which was successful on stage, into film form remained unsatisfactory. "

In Jerzy Toeplitz story of the film states: "The film was both the audience to be quite cool even when the criticism recording. The cinematic implementation, which is strongly reminiscent of Böcklin, repelled the viewer through its artificiality. The outdoor shots, taken at Marina Massa near Carrara, were inconsistent with the studio shots and the style of acting that was given by the director in the manner of a ballet performance. Reinhardt had mechanically transferred the stylization concept of the theater to the film, he either was not able or did not want to use the means of expression of the film creatively. "

Individual evidence

  1. Kinematograph Critique (1914) in filmportal.de
  2. Lichtbild-Bühne -Kritik in filmportal.de
  3. Union Theater Zeitung Criticism in filmportal.de
  4. Reclams Filmführer, by Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. P. 133. Stuttgart 1973.
  5. Jerzy Toeplitz: History of the film, Volume 1 1895-1928. East Berlin 1972. p. 136.

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