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Saturday, May 17, 2008

DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS (1919)

Magnus Hirschfield was a Berlin sex researcher who teamed up with filmmaker Richard Oswald for a series of films for use in his lectures. The ones on prostitution have apparently been lost, but 50 minutes of film turned up in the Moscow film archives on this fascinating & sympathetic tale of gay love and the laws of the time that all but countenanced blackmailers. (Tellingly, only the footage relating directly to the Queer story angle survives.) Conrad Veidt, tragically gaunt and already in need of shut-eye a year before his Somnambulist turn in CALIGARI, makes a riveting figure as the concert violinist who is the main victim. But Oswald’s filmmaking skills are half a decade behind the times (no small thing in 1919), which keeps the film from rising above historical curiosity.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  Well, more like read a little bit more about it in this link to a recent NYTimes article that updates our post which used the KINO DVD edition as its source.   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/movies/different-from-the-others-a-1919-film-on-homosexuality.html?ref=arts

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