GOTTA SEE IT # 10 - "THE BLUE ANGEL"
“THE BLUE ANGEL”
Starring: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Rosa Valetti, Hans Albers, Reinhold Bernt, Eduard von Winterstein, Hans Roth, Rolf Muller, Roland Varno, Carl Balhaus.
Written by: Heinrich Mann (novel), Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller, Robert Liebmann.
Directed by: Joseph von Sternberg
B&W - 1932
101 minutes
Germany
“Beware of blonde women, they’re special, every one. At first you may be unaware, but something is definitely there. A little hanky-panky can be fun, but from their clutches you’d better run.” – sung by Marlene Dietrich as “Lola Lola” in “The Blue Angel”
Sex vs. Intellect - I know which one I’d put my money on.
This match up for the ages sends us down some cracked and crooked steps into the deep dark belly of German filmmaking circa 1932. Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings), an esteemed professor, falls hard for a scandalous barroom entertainer named Lola Lola - played with effortless sensuality by early erotic icon Marlene Dietrich.
Compelling, focused, with an emotional intensity that is remarkably sustained for large stretches of scenes, The Blue Angel is a marvel to behold. Though a simple story of obsessive love and how it strips a once proud man of his dignity - leaving him stunned and struck silent by his inability to pull himself away from his object of desire – what amazes me most about this film is its’ sheer, cumulative power. Structured circularly, the scenes in The Blue Angel pass, one by one, each efficiently echoing and amplifying the last, until they achieve their full force in a devastating final shot which is simply too sad and haunting to be forgotten.
When Rath loses his dignity, something far more important also slips from his grasp - control. Students in Rath’s class snap to attention when he first enters the room every morning. Rath has total control over them. This is how he is able to teach them, to mould them and to keep the classroom from descending into anarchy. Without this power, he is finished as a professor. When his students spy their once intimidating prof reduced to a love struck schoolboy in Lola Lola’s presence, he is done. An authority figure is exposed as a fake and nothing will ever be the same.
Jannings and Dietrich, two legends of German film, make the most unlikely of couplings and, naturally, so too do Rath and Lola Lola – he’s large, heavy, unattractive, stiff and stuffy and she’s beautiful, sexy, playful and loose – yet their chemistry is undeniable. There’s an obvious father/daughter dimension to their pairing, yes, but you can actually picture the two as a romantic coupling. They compliment one another – he brings her class and sophistication and she offers him beauty, excitement and a much needed sabbatical from the suffocating strictness of his life.
Starring: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Rosa Valetti, Hans Albers, Reinhold Bernt, Eduard von Winterstein, Hans Roth, Rolf Muller, Roland Varno, Carl Balhaus.
Written by: Heinrich Mann (novel), Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller, Robert Liebmann.
Directed by: Joseph von Sternberg
B&W - 1932
101 minutes
Germany
“Beware of blonde women, they’re special, every one. At first you may be unaware, but something is definitely there. A little hanky-panky can be fun, but from their clutches you’d better run.” – sung by Marlene Dietrich as “Lola Lola” in “The Blue Angel”
Sex vs. Intellect - I know which one I’d put my money on.
This match up for the ages sends us down some cracked and crooked steps into the deep dark belly of German filmmaking circa 1932. Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings), an esteemed professor, falls hard for a scandalous barroom entertainer named Lola Lola - played with effortless sensuality by early erotic icon Marlene Dietrich.
Compelling, focused, with an emotional intensity that is remarkably sustained for large stretches of scenes, The Blue Angel is a marvel to behold. Though a simple story of obsessive love and how it strips a once proud man of his dignity - leaving him stunned and struck silent by his inability to pull himself away from his object of desire – what amazes me most about this film is its’ sheer, cumulative power. Structured circularly, the scenes in The Blue Angel pass, one by one, each efficiently echoing and amplifying the last, until they achieve their full force in a devastating final shot which is simply too sad and haunting to be forgotten.
When Rath loses his dignity, something far more important also slips from his grasp - control. Students in Rath’s class snap to attention when he first enters the room every morning. Rath has total control over them. This is how he is able to teach them, to mould them and to keep the classroom from descending into anarchy. Without this power, he is finished as a professor. When his students spy their once intimidating prof reduced to a love struck schoolboy in Lola Lola’s presence, he is done. An authority figure is exposed as a fake and nothing will ever be the same.
Jannings and Dietrich, two legends of German film, make the most unlikely of couplings and, naturally, so too do Rath and Lola Lola – he’s large, heavy, unattractive, stiff and stuffy and she’s beautiful, sexy, playful and loose – yet their chemistry is undeniable. There’s an obvious father/daughter dimension to their pairing, yes, but you can actually picture the two as a romantic coupling. They compliment one another – he brings her class and sophistication and she offers him beauty, excitement and a much needed sabbatical from the suffocating strictness of his life.
Made some eight years after the end of German Expressionism, The Blue Angel, nonetheless, is informed by the movement’s taste for chiaroscuro lighting and grotesquerie. One need only watch Rath’s first visit to the titular club – as he sneaks through the dark, over a dimly lit cobblestone road, with a tall building jutting out and slanting over top of him – to see this debt in action. Or watch Rath’s final return appearance – a scene so bold and cruel and freakish that it has lost none of its’ sinister impact some seventy odd years later.
Bird imagery and mimicry take centre stage in pathetically and comically illustrating the complete collapse of Rath’s core being. These scenes are weird and disturbing and add a sinister quality to the descent of this once prideful man. It’s as if, in stripping him of his sense of self, he becomes some sort of beast - a sickly squawking creature who has lost his way. Early in the film, in a moment that should’ve convinced Rath to jump right back into bed, he discovers his bird dead in its’ cage. It’s not too long after that that Rath is doing his best impersonation of his beloved deceased pet in a cruel cage of his very own making.
Bird imagery and mimicry take centre stage in pathetically and comically illustrating the complete collapse of Rath’s core being. These scenes are weird and disturbing and add a sinister quality to the descent of this once prideful man. It’s as if, in stripping him of his sense of self, he becomes some sort of beast - a sickly squawking creature who has lost his way. Early in the film, in a moment that should’ve convinced Rath to jump right back into bed, he discovers his bird dead in its’ cage. It’s not too long after that that Rath is doing his best impersonation of his beloved deceased pet in a cruel cage of his very own making.
