A penetrating new reading of Murnau's classic silent film that
shows its transitional status, both historically and stylistically,
while emphasizing its innovative camerawork and the ethical stakes
of its story. An undisputed masterpiece of silent cinema, F. W.
Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924) stars the larger-than-life Emil
Jannings as a proud hotel porter who is demoted to lowly washroom
attendant. One worker's misfortune becomes a tragic turning point
in a social drama as much about the struggling Weimar Republic,
which had just overcome several years of social, political, and
economic instability, as about its working-class citizens. At once
clinging to the symbols of the old order while helplessly thrust
into an unforgiving modern world, Jannings's fallen porter embodies
the contradictions of this transitional moment for the young
democracy. Samuel Frederick shows us that Murnau's film is
similarly transitional: born at the crossroads between the
Expressionist style of the early 1920s and the emerging aesthetics
of New Objectivity, it is both soberly realistic and oneirically
distorted. With only one intertitle, The Last Laugh's flow of
images is complemented by cinematographer Karl Freund's innovative
mobile camera, which, "unchained" from the tripod, swims
effortlessly through the film's different urban spaces. Here,
inanimate objects become charged with potency and architecture is
animated, conveying both allure and danger. Frederick's incisive
analysis of the film foregrounds the visual dynamism of its
technological and aesthetic experimentation while also pursuing the
ethical implications of its central figure's downfall.
General
| Imprint: |
Camden House
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Series: |
Camden House German Film Classics |
| Release date: |
September 2023 |
| First published: |
2023 |
| Authors: |
Samuel Frederick
|
| Dimensions: |
191 x 133mm (L x W) |
| Pages: |
110 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-1-64014-129-2 |
| Subtitles: |
German
|
| Categories: |
Books
|
| LSN: |
1-64014-129-4 |
| Barcode: |
9781640141292 |
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