May 18, 2008
Silent Sunday: After Death (1915)
Russian director Yevgeni Bauer directed 26 films during a four-year career before his death from pneumonia in 1917. William M. Drew wrote a fine introduction to Bauer's career; he tells us that Bauer made comedies, social dramas, and historical films, but what he's best known for are his dark tales of obsession. Three of these films, Twilight of a Woman's Soul, The Dying Swan, and this one, After Death, are available on DVD from Image Entertainment.
Here, the fates of Andrei (Vitold Polonsky), an introverted, even misanthropic scholar, and Zoya (Vera Karalli), a mysterious, beautiful actress, intertwine into a tangled knot of guilt that even death can't dispel. Or maybe it's that only death can dispel it.
(This is an attempt to start a regular feature. We'll see how regular it ends up.)
Posted by mike, May 18, 2008 10:18 PMGood post and review, Mike. I haven't thought about Bauer's films since writing about The Dying Swan some months ago. After reading your review I think I'll give After Death another look. One thing though: Méliès, Porter and others working with multiple exposure techniques around the turn of the century might have a beef with the implication that such techniques weren't invented yet in 1915. :) Your description of how and why it fails to work in this picture is food for thought. I'll look out for it when I re-screen it.
Are you planning the new regular feature to be Bauer films or silent film Sundays?
Posted by: Thom at May 19, 2008 2:15 PMThanks, Thom. I forgot you wrote about The Dying Swan, likely because I didn't know who Bauer was when you wrote your post. I'm really looking forward to that one--I really loved Twilight of a Woman's Soul, and liked this one quite a bit. I wish there was more of his work available on DVD.
As for Porter, Melies, et al. using multiple exposures: I already sort of weasled out of that one--"...or at least been in use in Russia by then"--but I'll delete the first part of that sentence. Then I'm covered until the next person with a better knowledge of the early silents comes along and cites a Russian film that used the techniques, at which point I'll change it to simply "I wish Bauer had used multiple exposures." Or maybe I'll skip that middle step right now.
I'm hoping to do a different silent film every Sunday. Next Sunday's installment will be Epstein and Bunuel's Fall of the House of Usher, which I watched last night, alone, in the dark, and I'm still a little freaked out. I'm sure, given my general disorganization, that some installments will be hastily dashed off paragraphs about 10-minute comedy shorts viewed at around 11:00 pm on the Sunday in question.
Posted by: mike at May 19, 2008 3:05 PM"I'm hoping to do a different silent film every Sunday."
That's great news. I miss the silent period more than I imagined I would when I was in the middle of researching some of it. Now I have a reason to get back into it every week. Looking forward to your future posts, pal.
Posted by: Thom at May 19, 2008 4:33 PM