MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: DAS FIDELE GEFANGNIS/THE MERRY JAIL (1917)

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

DAS FIDELE GEFANGNIS/THE MERRY JAIL (1917)

This early Ernst Lubitsch five-reeler (a bonus on Criterion’s DVD edition of his sublime TROUBLE IN PARADISE), turns out to be one his more carefully directed Berlinstrasse farces, perhaps because he doesn’t act in it. It’s a tolerable bit of fluff, in reasonable physical condition, with a plot lifted directly from DIE FLEDERMAUS and Germany’s biggest star, Emil Jannings, horsing about as the tipsy jail keeper. Lubitsch was wildly popular as director & actor right from the start, but as a filmmaker his breakthrough wouldn’t occur until ANNE BOLEYN in 1920, so this is mostly for completists.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

DAS FIDELE GEFANGNIS/THE MERRY JAIL (1917)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE