Masterpiece – Scene by Green

Die Nibelungen (1924)

Fritz Lang | Part 1 (2hr 30min), Part 2 (2hr 11min)

As a new medium of storytelling emerged in the early 20^th century, the appeal in reimagining those archetypal fables of centuries past grew with it, paying homage to heroes and monsters who passed through songs, plays, and novels. The 13^th century epic poem Nibelungenlied was very familiar with such adaptations too, building an enduring legacy through Richard Wagner’s operatic cycle ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’, though it took a visionary such as Fritz Lang to recognise its extraordinary potential as a work of cinema. The result is a five-hour fantasy saga of ambition so grand, it is surprising that it often gets buried beneath his better-known films Metropolis and M. Nevertheless, Lang’s majestic tale of greed, betrayal, and vengeance stands as a monumental achievement of silent filmmaking, lifting mythical kings and battles out of legend and giving them extraordinary, larger-than-life form on the silver screen.

The impact of Lang’s creation did not fade with the passing decades and shifting cinematic trends either. Eighty years later, Peter Jackson would adapt the works of another storyteller deeply inspired by Germanic and Norse mythology – J.R.R. Tolkien, whose The Lord of the Rings series bear more than a passing resemblance to Richard Wagner’s cycle of operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Just as dwarven riches, fearsome dragons, and magic treasures are scattered through Siegfried’s quest for glory in the ancient legend, so too do Bilbo and Frodo Baggins encounter them in their own respective journeys, with archetypes reflecting humanity’s capacity for good and evil being deeply embedded in both.

*High fantasy and incredible imagination in Lang’s visual creations, resting the Nibelung treasure on the shoulders of chained dwarves.*

*Miniatures used for establishing shots, imparting a sense of wondrous grandeur.*

*Imposing authority in the main hall of Burgundy, commanding a solemn air of medieval reverence.*

*The wild mountain men are prototypes for Jackson’s orcs, tearing meat from the bone with their teeth.*

*The Oscars were not yet established in 1924, but Die Nibelungen surely would have surely won Best Hair and Makeup for these feral, unruly wigs.*

When Jackson eventually decided to take the reins and adapt The Lord of the Rings himself, we continue to see how his visual designs and staging drew influence from Lang’s own duology. The primitive mountain men who feast on hunks of meat look to be the prototypes of orcs, particularly with their unkempt makeup and hairstyling, while the imposing sets which comprise the Kingdom of Burgundy mirror the cavernous halls and fortresses of Middle Earth’s majestic cities. When Siegfried ventures to Iceland, Lang even uses magnificent castle miniatures upon steep mountains to personify Queen Brunhilde’s prideful, stubbornly independent character, laying the groundwork for similar architectural achievements three years later in Metropolis. Like Éowyn, she defies traditional gender roles as a powerful warrior, and yet the role she plays in ensuring Siegfried’s downfall alongside King Gunther’s devious adviser Hagen of Tronje reveals both to be cunning, Wormtongue-adjacent manipulators.

*A castle perched on a steep, rocky mountain rising from the fire below, announcing Queen Brunhilde before we meet her.*

*Brunhilde is a fiercely independent warrior queen, challenging traditional gender roles with her stubbornness and pride.*

*The one-eyed hagen of Tronje is weaselly and treacherous, whispering in King Gunther’s ear and pulling strings for his own purposes.*

Lang is clearly attuned to the archetypes of this text, bringing each together in service of an epic narrative following our hero Siegfried’s rise, betrayal, and the vengeance that his widow seeks for his assassination. As the son of King Siegmund, he is a valiant figure destined for greatness right from the start, mastering the art of forging under the reclusive blacksmith Mime and immediately resolving to marry the beautiful Princess Kriemhilde, brother to King Gunther. His adventure through towering forests and misty swamps sees him fight a dragon, astoundingly brought to life as a giant, mechanical puppet that breathes real fire, and gain Achilles-like powers of invulnerability by bathing in its blood – that is, except for one spot on his shoulder which is shielded by a leaf. Later, his encounter with the crafty King of Dwarves brings him to the heart of a mountain where he claims the trickster’s net of invisibility, the legendary sword Balmung, and the rest of his enormous hoard.

*Towering forests emerge from and disappear into darkness, diminishing Siegfried in a daunting world.*

*Danger lurks in misty swamps – an archetype found in fantasy tales from The Lord of the Rings to The Neverending Story.*

*Magnificent practical effects with the life-sized dragon puppet, breathing real fire as Siegfried fights it one on one.*

*The King of Dwarves, a hostile, covetous, yet tragic monster not unlike Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.*

*Towering, fantastical rock formations in the dwarven cavern, inviting Siegfried into a new world.*

By the time Siegfried arrives at the Kingdom of Burgundy, he has amassed enough power and influence to win an audience with King Gunther. Taken with songs of Siegfried’s conquests, Kriemhilde longs to meet the brave adventurer, yet portentous dreams also warn her of future misfortune. Lang’s decision to render these visions in silhouetted cut-outs is a formal masterstroke, enlisting the help of animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger who only a couple of years later would use this technique to create cinema’s first animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Here, we witness a collection of shapeless masses morph into birds, setting two black eagles against a white falcon who perishes in the assault. Kriemhilde may not immediately understand the dream’s symbolic significance, but given that this first part of Die Nibelungen is subtitled Siegfried’s Death, it isn’t hard for us to foresee their intertwining of fates.

*Lotte Reiniger is brought in to animate this dream sequence, morphing light and shadow with ethereal grace.*

*Symmetrical blocking and magisterial mise-en-scène as Siegfried arrives in the Kingdom of Burgundy, flanked by his vassals.*

Lang’s daring manipulations of special effects do not end here either. To make the beautiful Kriemhilde his wife, Siegfried must first aid Gunther in winning Queen Brunhilde’s hand in marriage, yet it is plainly evident that the King is not up to the physical challenge of besting her in the three tasks she sets him. Fortunately, Siegfried has a cunning idea – with his net of invisibility, our hero can help the King cheat in the stone hurl, distance jump, and spear throw. Manifesting through faint double exposure effects, Siegfried secures victory for King Gunther, and thus marries Kriemhilde back in the Kingdom of Burgundy.

*An inspired us of double exposure to reveal Siegfried’s invisible form, assisting King Gunther in his feats of physical prowess.*

*A triumphant return to Burgundy with soldiers lining the horizon and standing in the moat, holding the bridge aloft for their king. Magnificent scale rendered in rigorous staging.*

*A gorgeous garden backdrop of flowers as these lovers unite, bound by matrimony yet destined to be separated.*

*Establishing shots inspired by D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, revelling in the enormity of sets which dwarf the extensive ensemble below.*

It is only a matter of time though before Brunhilde recognises her husband for the submissive weakling that he is, as well as the con which Siegfried has orchestrated, thus commencing Die Nibelungen’s political intrigue with her pursuit of retribution. Siegfried took her maidenhood, she lies to King Gunther, who is quick to turn on his friend. This “ravenous wolf” must be put down, he declares, and the duplicitous Hagen is more than happy to feed his madness.

*An assassination treacherously disguised as a hunt, turning the high fantasy of Die Nibelungen towards political intrigue.*

Kriemhilde meanwhile continues to be haunted by prophetic dreams of Siegfried being ripped apart by a boar and crushed by two mountains, yet even after she is tricked by Hagan to mark on her husband’s tunic the location of his sole weakness, still she remains naïve to the conspiracy which surrounds them. Only after Hagen has pierced Siegfried’s vulnerable shoulder with a spear during a hunt and brought his body back to the castle does Kriemhilde begin to grasp the treachery afoot in the Kingdom of Burgundy, and Lang once again draws from Georges Méliès’ playbook to visualise her love withering into grief. Recalling her dire dreams, she sees Siegfried standing with open arms in front of a blooming tree, which rapidly shrivels up before our eyes as he fades from view. Still the image continues to transform though, and through a skilful blend of lighting, editing, and production design, Lang menacingly morphs these dead branches into a large, sinister skull.

*Kriemhilde’s last memory of her living husband is corrupted by his death, creatively symbolised in these dissolves transforming a withering tree into a skull.*

Never again do we see the light return to the princess’ eyes, with this newfound bitterness positioning her as the vindictive antihero of Die Nibelungen’s second part, Kriemhilde’s Revenge. Her patience is deadly and her string-pulling merciless, outdoing even the late Brunhilde who took her own life with gleeful satisfaction after Siegfried’s death. The transformation we see in Margarete Schön’s performance is tremendous, her face hardening as she finds a new husband in King Attila of the Huns and twists his pledge of loyalty into sworn vengeance against her family. His pleas to forget Siegfried go ignored, while his one-sided, lovesick devotion draws mockery from his own people, accusing him of falling under the “White Woman’s spell.”

*Kriemhilde is overcome by a cold ruthlessness stemming from grief, light leaving her eyes.*

*An impeccably lonely frame, using the arches and towers of Burgundy to isolate Kriemhilde in her mourning.*

*Rigorous blocking, movement in Burgundy’s symmetry…*

*…making a terrifically harsh juxtaposition against the chaos of the Hun kingdom.*

*Wooden, tribal designs decorate Kriemhilde’s new home within a far more ferocious culture of warriors.*

As we move deeper into the second part as well, Lang’s mise-en-scène notably shifts with it, distinguishing the immaculate symmetry and opulence of Gunther’s palace from the exotic, rugged design of the Hun kingdom. Instead of guards stationed in rigorous formations, Kriemhilde is greeted by hordes of barbaric warriors and gawking masses, while Attila’s primitive hall of scattered weapons and dirty floors chaotically illustrates his warmongering culture. As he ventures into battle too, tents made from animal hide host legions while campfires fill the air with black smoke. These people may be crude, yet in them Kriemhilde sees an opportunity to stir dissent, particularly when Gunther, Hagen, and the Burgundian soldiers eventually arrive on their steps as visitors for the Midsummer Solstice.

*Crude leather tents and black smoke as Attila sets out for battle.*

*Siegfried never truly loses Kriemhilde’s heart, yet Attila is besotted with her, making for tantalising power plays as she seeks revenge.*

*Compare the Attila’s main hall against Gunther’s – these kings inhabit entirely different worlds, and Lang illustrates their differences through their shared traditions.*

Although Lang swings away from the more fantastical elements of Die Nibelungen in Kriemhilde’s Revenge, the political manoeuvring only deepens. With Attila backing down from his pledge and asserting Hagen’s rights as a guest, Kriemhilde decides to take matters into her own hands, bribing the Hun warriors with gold to incite conflict during the feast. When the chaotic confusion ultimately leads Hagen to slaughter Attila and Kriemhilde’s son though, all civility is officially thrown out the window. In the final act of this five-hour duology, Lang stages an epic battle of sieges, hostages, and executions, simultaneously drawing inspiration from the fall of Babylon in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance and setting a standard of cinematic medieval warfare that Jackson would later strive to match in The Lord of the Rings.

*Fast-paced action editing kicks in as we head into the climactic final act, seeing the Huns lay siege to their own building where the Burgundy soldiers take shelter.*

*Hagen Tronje remains as ruthless as ever fighting for his life, and Kriemhilde matches him in pure force of will.*

Despite her success in stoking hostility and trapping the Burgundians inside the hall though, Kriemhilde is far from satisfied. “I died when Siegfried died,” she coldly laments, turning away from the sentimental innocence of her youth. With her son as the first casualty of this war, her soul blackens beyond redemption, callously rejecting her brothers’ pleas for mercy when they refuse to turn over Hagen. It is all too fitting that this woman who seeks the destruction of her family should order the Huns to attack their own infrastructure, and demand her most faithful vassal to kill his son. Heritage means nothing to a woman so twisted by rage that her only loyalty is to a dead man, and it is through her own selfish actions that she ultimately sets in motion the downfall of two great civilisations.

*Confronted by the death of her own kin, Kriemhilde’s facade cracks a little, yet she remains firm in her merciless pursuit of vengeance.*

In the flames and black smoke which billow up from the burning hall, a blazing emblem of Kriemhilde’s barbaric legacy is born, before eventually collapsing beneath its own weight. “Loyalty, which iron could not break, will not melt in fire,” Hagen’s men staunchly proclaim, refusing to give up their leader even as they are crushed by the falling roof. Lang’s practical effects are as spectacular as ever here, yet tragedy reigns in the wake of such a daring set piece, with Gunther and Hagen emerging from the ruins to face their executioner.

*Epic visuals as flames and black smoke billow up from the hall, marking one of the great set pieces of the silent era.*

Although Kriemhilde finally delivers the vengeance she has long sought against her kin, there is no great reward awaiting her on the other side of this conquest. Die Nibelungen has few survivors, as even the tyrannical princess soon falls to the blade of her own disillusioned sword master. From the wondrous fantasy of this legend’s beginning, love withers into grief, and finally begets contempt, violence, and widespread devastation. Lang orchestrates legend with a composer’s precision, and through a finale as colossal as the stories which inspired it, he concludes an operatic spectacle that continues to reverberate cinematic fanfares, choruses, and cadences through the ages.

Die Nibelungen is currently in the public domain and available to watch for free on YouTube.

Destiny (1921)

Fritz Lang | 1hr 39min

When Death hitches a ride into town with a pair of lovers, they do not quite understand the mark that is placed on their heads. They live in a world of joy so sweet, they cannot fathom a force that would tear them apart, yet destiny holds no regard for such romantic affection. What lies behind the walls that Death has erected next to a cemetery is a mystery to the local villagers, so when the young woman’s fiancé mysteriously disappears one evening and is later witnessed walking through the barrier with a procession of ghosts, she is left in devastating grief.

Still, she does not give up so easy on her lover. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death,” she reads from the Bible’s Song of Solomon, and thus newly inspired, she sets out to win him back from the clutches of Death.

*Murnau uses the negative space of this wall to great effect, dominating compositions with its vast height and breadth.*

*Double exposure effects add a touch of the ethereal to this procession of deceased souls.*

For Fritz Lang, this is merely the framework of his Gothic anthology film. Like the three other fables told here, the young woman’s bargaining with Death is grounded in archetypes stretching back centuries, underscoring the universality of her struggles, desires, and fears. It is rather through Lang’s haunting visuals where this film paints out astonishing visions of that eternal, incorporeal spectre which exists at the root of all human behaviours and, here in Destiny, takes eerie form with a black cape and gaunt, pale features.

*A dissolve transfigures a pint glass into an hourglass, hinting at Death’s ominous presence in this town.*

*German expressionism distilled in a single shot – dominant darkness, geometric shapes, and a claustrophobic sense of foreboding.*

*The hall of candles makes for a magnificent set piece, each flame representing a soul that flickers for its lifetime, yet is inevitably snuffed out.*

Illusory special effects suggest Death’s presence to excellent effect here, manifesting translucent ghosts and the supernatural transfiguration of a pint glass into an hourglass, though Lang’s set designs are often even more impressive. Those who approach Death’s vast wall are dwarfed beneath its colossal façade which separates the living from the deceased, and when we finally cross to the other side with the young woman, we are met by a dark hall of long, towering candlesticks. Each one individually represents a life, Death explains, burnt up and eventually extinguished. The woman’s love for her fiancé is pure, yet no more so than all those other grand stories of star-crossed sweethearts which echo throughout history, and certainly not enough to overcome life’s natural limits. Nevertheless, Death strikes a deal.

“Look at these three lights flickering out. I place in your hands the chance to save them! If you succeed, even with only one of them, I will give your loved one’s life to you!”

*Three fables, three candles – a tremendous formal motif giving weight to each individual tragedy.*

From here, Destiny splits into three tales, presenting mirrored narratives of doomed lovers and poetically recasting our two main actors as reincarnated versions of themselves. There is a slight touch of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance present in this splintered storytelling, distinguishing each thread by their diverse settings, and as such Lang’s accomplishment of mise-en-scène only continues to expand. Where the Islamic city of the first tale is a busy settlement of patterned textiles and sandstone buildings, Venice is defined by its lavish Renaissance architecture, while the Chinese Empire is a paradise of highly stylised gardens and ornate palaces. Even the fonts of his intertitles shift with each fable too, as if translated and handed down by scribes to modern audiences.

*Clashing patterns, sandstone buildings, and busy crowds in the Islamic city.*

*Majestic Renaissance architecture and art decorating the halls of power in Venice.*

*Twisted trees and exotic gardens in the Chinese Empire.*

In the ‘Story of the First Light’, the Caliph’s sister Zobeide conducts a secret affair with a European derogatively branded a giaour – a non-Muslim. After the Caliph almost catches him during the holy month of Ramadan, Zobeide sends her servant to find the European and tell him to meet her in the palace at night. When the servant is followed by the Caliph’s guard though, the European is ultimately sentenced to be buried alive, thus extinguishing the first of Death’s three flames.

*A secret affair conducted in a Middle Eastern palace of lattice windows, fine drapery, and polished floors.*

In the ‘Story of the Second Light’, a Venetian carnival sets the scene for a forbidden romance between noblewoman Monna and her middle-class lover Gianfrancesco. Her politically powerful and jealous fiancé Girolamo has no patience for such disloyalty, and so after hearing of her plans to kill him, he deliberately mixes up her letters and sends Gianfrancesco into her trap. With Monna tricked into accidentally killing the man she loves, the second flame burns out, and Girolamo’s earlier words ring painfully true.

“How near to death men often are without suspecting at all. They believe an eternity remains to them, yet they do not even outlive the rose with which they trifle.”

*A sharp yet minimalist composition, using the architecture to frame a Venetian fountain in an archway.*

In the ‘Story of the Third Light’, Lang’s special effects bend our perceptions of reality further than ever when the magician A Hi is summoned to entertain the cruel Emperor of China. Stop-motion animation unravels an extraordinarily long scroll, miniatures and double exposure effects whisk us away with a flying carpet, and forced perspectives make a horse appear to rapidly grow while an army of pocket-sized soldiers emerge from A Hi’s robes. Still, the Emperor remains unimpressed, demanding the magician hand over his assistant Liang and thus provoking her lover, Tiao Tsien. Still Lang continues to weave movie magic of his own when Liang steals A Hi’s wand to escape, ultimately turning herself into a statue and her lover into a tiger that is slain by their pursuers. As a tear runs down the statue’s cheek, the final flame dissipates, proving once and for all that love cannot conquer mortality.

*The third fable is the most visually impressive of all three, set around the Chinese Emperor’s impressively ornate palace.*

*Murnau’s double exposure blends images to give the impression of a magic carpet soaring over mountaintops.*

*An abundant array of special effects and camera trickery in the third fable, using forced perspective to make these soldiers appear to be miniatures marching out from under A Hi’s robes.*

Still, Death does not claim victory over the young woman with such finality. If she can take the life of another in the hour before midnight, then she can trade it for the life of her beloved, maintaining that balance which governs all creatures. Desperate, she beseeches an old man and a beggar whose lives she believes are inconsequential, though her misfortune soon takes a turn when a fire breaks out in the neighbourhood. Lang’s colour tinting thus far has reflected the warm yellows of interiors and cool blues of the evening, but now as this blaze lights up the town, its startled villagers are consumed in red hues. His editing is similarly effective here as they attempt to douse it, cutting between their noble efforts, a mother’s panicked realisation that her baby is still trapped inside, and the young woman’s anxious journey inside to sacrifice the infant for her lover.

Nevertheless, this pure heart cannot be so easily corrupted when the innocence of another is on the line. “I was not able to overcome you for that price,” she cries to Death.

“Now take my life as well! For without my beloved it is less than nothing to me!”

*Red tinting sets in with the building fire, heavily contrasting against the town’s yellows and blues.*

*Excellent editing in this sequence as the villagers take water from the fountain to douse the blaze, and the young woman is faced with a moral choice from inside the building.*

*One life may be exchanged for another – Death is fair, abiding by a harsh set of rules existing outside the boundaries of human morality.*

Just as like the candle motif marked the end of a life with a snuffed-out flame, the extinguished house fire signifies the loss of another, sending the young woman to meet her fiancé in the afterlife. Clearly no love, no matter how great, can loosen the grip of death – yet this does not mean that it too must perish, as we witness their ghostly apparitions ascend to the heavens. Within Fritz Lang’s Gothic compendium, love is immortalised across all ages through the very act of storytelling, bound to a destiny as timeless as the tales themselves.

*Death cannot break love, but delicately embraces it as man and woman move into the afterlife together.*

Destiny is currently in the public domain and is available to watch on free video sharing sites such as YouTube.

Ossessione (1943)

Luchino Visconti | 2hr 20min

Ossessione’s derelict inns, sweaty singlets, and messy kitchens are far removed from the glamour of Hollywood’s film noirs, yet its forbidding tale of lust, murder, and fatalism nevertheless runs parallel to those expressionistic fables. When Gino’s hitchhiking lands him in a roadside tavern, the contempt that its co-owner Giovanna holds for her husband and business partner Giuseppe is revealed to be as strong as her attraction towards this new visitor. From there, an affair that maliciously seeks to remove Giuseppe from the picture unravels, revealing the dark hearts of those involved. Luchino Visconti’s camerawork is elegant here, navigating this conspiracy with intrigue as it turns towards a mirror during their nefarious plotting, and wanders through lives bars where secrets lurk between lovers.

With that said, Ossessione’s narrative is also impossible to remove from the social context it was made in. With Italy still under Fascist occupation in 1943, the hardships of the working class were at an all-time high, significantly deteriorating the nation’s sense of cultural identity and moral clarity. Neorealism was not yet a full-fledged movement, yet Visconti is thoughtfully sowing its seeds here, offering an unrelenting window into the life of the poor and the extremes to which they go simply for a taste of pleasure. His location shooting along provincial roads and in the seaside city of Ancona serves to underscore that authenticity as well, even as the narrative veers beyond the mundane and into gritty crime drama.

*A crane shot lifting us above the truck, and introducing us to the roadside tavern where love and resentment will equally bloom.*

*A murder conspiracy unfolds in this reflection, catching Gino and Giovanna’s doubles as they sink to new, nefarious depths.*

Still, Visconti’s merging of naturalism and fatalism was not exactly unheard of before his remarkable directorial debut. France’s poetic realism gracefully merged the two in the 1930s, seeing directors like Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné navigate tales of moral corruption with a floating visual style that no doubt influences Visconti here. Meanwhile, the fact that the film is based on the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice binds its roots close to American noirs, even as it introduces a devious femme fatale whose screen presence is far removed from the allure of Barbara Stanwyck or Mary Astor. Clara Calamai is no doubt a beautiful actress, but Visconti does not shroud her in soft lighting and trendy outfits. Giovanna’s lonely dinners in a grimy kitchen reveal a far sadder existence than her Hollywood counterparts, surrounding her with towers of dirty dishes as she reads from a newspaper and eats a bowl of pasta.

*An early progenitor of Italian neorealism, using stone streets and buildings to imbue this tale with an unrelenting authenticity.*

*Visconti using the littered ground as his mise-en-scène in this high angle, composing a sparse yet messy shot.*

*Poverty encompasses Giovanna on every side with these stacked dishes and bottles – a beautifully crowded shot.*

When two young, attractive people such as Gino and Giovanna fall into each other’s orbit then, it is plain to see just how easily their dreams of escape escalate into destructive delusion. After initial talks of murder lead to their first breakup, destiny seems to draw them back together in a bar, coaxing the lovers to believe in a greater force at play. “Before, the world seemed a big place. Now, there is only your shop,” Gino romantically murmurs as an oblivious Giuseppe performs onstage. Putting off their plans any further seems pointless – the time to strike presents itself when all three drive home together, and the two conspirators ultimately find the perfect opportunity to stage a deadly car accident.

*Visconti’s camera is truly free as it drifts through this lively bar.*

*A secret affair hiding in plain sight, drowned out by drunken crowds and live singing.*

*Darkness wraps around the murderous lovers and their oblivious victim as they approach the point of no return.*

Upon Gino and Giovanna’s return to the tavern, its atmosphere is more unwelcoming than ever, as if recognising the violence that has been inflicted upon its owner. It is dark and quiet inside, resurfacing Gino’s feelings of guilt as he realises what he has done. Giovanna’s desire to reopen shop with him is met with harsh rejection, which is only aggravated further by the discovery that she took out a life insurance policy before the murder. The more distance he places between them though, the greater her jealousy becomes, and Visconti’s camera soaks up the emotional drama as we follow her stalking him through streets. When Gino goes even further and confesses a heavy conscience to his new lover Anita, he is visually trapped behind his bed’s mesh netting in one aptly framed shot, effectively caught in Giovanna’s web while the police close in.

*The tavern is dark and lifeless upon their return, the chairs stacked upon tables and visually imposing upon this shot.*

*The camera attaches to Giovanna as she stalks Gino through the streets, obsessively tracking his movements.*

*Mesh netting suffocating Gino as he begins to feel the consequences of his actions.*

Clearly Gino is not the sort of man to learn from his mistakes though. When Giovanna comes forward with news of her pregnancy, he reconsiders their future together at an empty, overcast beach where they ultimately reconcile. As shallow pools of water catch their upside-down reflections, Visconti composes a scene of meagre romance in this lifeless locale, and even Giuseppe Rosati’s score continues its tense, foreboding melody. Giovanna may finally agree that leaving town is the best course of action, but they are fools to believe that they can simply start a new life together after all they have been through. Besides, that wicked hand of fate isn’t quite done with them yet, drawing Ossessione closer than ever to its film noir contemporaries.

*Bleak, miserable romance on this wet beach, the lovers’ reflections caught in its shallow puddles.*

The moment these lovers hit the road, we see inevitable tragedy take ironic shape and finally solidify when Gino tries to overtake a truck passing by an embankment. Just as Giovanna killed her husband by veering his car off-road, so too does her own story end at the hands of another driver, nudging her vehicle down a steep drop and into the water below. That the police should arrive a few moments later as Gino pulls Giovanna’s limp body from the wreckage only twists the knife deeper, delivering a far more degrading punishment to the man who blatantly ignored his own conscience on multiple occasions. Redemption is a luxury that the poor cannot afford in Ossessione, and through Visconti’s unvarnished, cynical naturalism, he adeptly delivers a solemn condemnation of moral decrepitude that cannot be swayed by fleeting hopes or half-hearted regrets.

*Bitter justice is served twice over, both by the police and the invisible hand of fate.*

Ossessione is currently streaming on Prime Video.

La Terra Trema (1948)

Luchino Visconti | 2hr 45min

The villagers of Aci Trezza do not speak Italian, La Terra Trema’s opening text is sure to inform us. Theirs is a Sicilian dialect which most people would have trouble comprehending, but Luchino Visconti is not interested in rounding off these rough edges for the sake of his mainland audience. His ensemble is made up of real townsfolk rather than professional actors after all, so why compromise on those details which give their insulated community such character and complexity? Moreover, why not use its rugged coastlines and bustling marketplaces in place of artificial studio sets, capturing their lives with even greater authenticity?

Visconti was not the only neorealist pushing these innovations forward in the 1940s, though where Vittorio de Sica and Roberto Rossellini used real locations to tell the stories of individuals, La Terra Trema leans into the story of its setting. The omniscient Italian voiceover which describes Aci Trezza’s daily routines and power structures does not compromise the naturalism on display – rather the opposite in fact, effectively shaping this literary adaptation into a work of docufiction which observes the village with a distant curiosity. It speaks in present tense, underscoring the spontaneity of each narrative development, but there is also no doubt regarding Visconti’s meticulous craftsmanship. This tale of one fisherman’s attempted revolution against the greedy local wholesalers is given an epic stage here, tracing the sort of rise-and-fall archetype that once belonged to Roman mythology, yet which Visconti transposes to a microcosm of modern Sicily.

*Leading lines into the background, using blocking of actors to design the frame while remaining completely organic.*

*La Terra Trema is a family saga, and Visconti matches his visuals to the epic scope – not so much with vast landscapes than the sheer density of his crowded shots.*

As is typical of these grand sagas as well, we find a family at the centre of its drama, rich with history and traditions which have thrived for generations. “The women always worry about the men at sea, as the family has always had a boat at sea, ever since the name Valastro has existed,” the narrator informs us, introducing the clan to whom our working-class hero Antonio belongs. Long have they been exploited by the wholesalers, but now that he has returned home from war, he has also brought with him radical new ideas. Uniting his fellow fishermen, he encourages them to resist budging on their prices, and ultimately claims victory despite the violence which breaks out. With the wholesalers temporarily out for the count, Antonio has the whole town on his side, yet this is only the beginning of his grand ambitions to reform Aci Trezza’s fishing industry.

*Revolution among workers, using Eisenstein’s ‘monistic ensemble’ to transcend individualism.*

*Staggered blocking of the wholesalers’ faces in this frame – a wonderful composition imposing smug superiority.*

It is no surprise that Visconti was commissioned by the Italian Communist Party to create this film, even if he diverged a little from their instructions to shoot a documentary. The product is ideologically akin to the Soviet Montage films of the 1920s, though formally the only significant influence here emerges from Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of the ‘monistic ensemble’, blocking large crowds as single units that transcend individualism. When it comes to the pure visual composition of bodies in the frames as well, few are Visconti’s equal. The full depth and scope of his frame are used to build out social hierarchies within the Valastro family and beyond, staggering actors in dynamic tableaux that seem to emerge organically from their weathered environments. Even when his camera is tracking through masses pulling boats ashore or haggling at the market, still these hundreds of people are staged with a piercing clarity, revealing the unity and tension which pervades everyday life in Aci Trezza.

*Intricate staging within the Valastro home, distinguishing men, women, and children.*

*Masterful work with crowds, amplifying the scope of this saga.*

*Incredible complexity and desnity in Visconti’s composition, filling the frame with bodies in different poses as the Valastro family hits rock bottom.*

Perhaps just as impactful in characterising these people are the textures of the village itself, its rough stonework worn to debris and rubble by decades of exposure to the elements. Upon walls tarnished by discoloured stains, we also occasionally find the hammer and sickle symbol, blatantly pointing to the rising Communist sentiment in the area. Despite the complex social structures which see military officers perversely leer over impoverished women, it is clear that no one here is truly wealthy. These people are trapped by their unfortunate circumstances, ravaged by a capitalist system which equates them to their economic value and condemns them to squalid living conditions.

*Weathered textures framing Visconti’s actors, encompassing them in destitute poverty.*

*Much of this village has collapsed into debris and rubble, and Visconti’s location shooting does not shy away from exposing this side of Italy.*

*Communist symbols graffitied on walls, pointing to rising anticapitalist sentiments in the region.*

*Class and status depicted through height, with military officers often leering over the women of the town.*

This is not to say that Aci Trezza lacks beauty, though its magnificence is entirely inseparable from the greyscale austerity of its land and seascapes. From the hours spent gazing longingly at the Mediterranean Sea and waiting for their men to return, the Valastro women may know this better than anyone too. Visconti’s low angles capture their black imprints against grey skies with great severity, their flapping cloaks giving the impression of crows as they brave the wind on the rugged headland. Jutting out of the water, craggy outcrops obstruct our view of the horizon, yet these also stand as familiar, welcoming landmarks to departing and returning sailboats. Meanwhile, high angles of the shoreline itself crowd the mise-en-scene with these wooden vessels resting between trips, blending in with the coarse sand and rock.

*The Valastro women stand upon rocks in flapping, black cloaks like crows, gazing out at the sea – a masterfully bleak composition in this low angle.*

*Craggy outcrops beyond the shore interrupt the horizon, standing as familiar landmarks to sailors.*

*Rocky shorelines and wooden boats – Visconti loves setting these elemental textures against each other.*

So bleak is this environment, it is difficult to see how Antonio’s success could ever be sustainable here. His dreams of becoming independent, buying a boat, and cutting the wholesalers out of the supply chain manifest through pure willpower and effort, yet still the narrator foreshadows an inevitable downfall. “Well, Antonio? You have everything. All you dreamed of is yours,” it sardonically reflects, moving beyond its once-detached tone. As much as we remain at a distance from these events, we can’t help but feel some resentment towards the cruel hand of fate which unleashes a destructive storm upon Antonio’s work, as well as the unforgiving capitalist system which kicks him while he’s down.

*Antonio ostracised from his community, one man against the crowd.*

Pressure mounts on the Valastro family when the bank comes to repossess their house, and soon even the town turns on them, effectively cutting Antonio’s sister Lucia off from any prospect of marriage. No longer is he a hero of the working class, but a reckless pariah who tried to enact change too quickly, and Visconti’s blocking continues to evolve with these new dynamics as the fisherman finds himself isolated among his own people. “One by one, the tree’s branches wither and fall,” the narrator laments, watching a once-respected clan collapse by the actions of one man who gambled their possessions away on a brighter future. Desperate and hungry, he returns to the smirking wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt, and resigns himself to working under them once again as an underpaid labourer.

*Antonio remains isolated even within his own fractured family.*

It takes solidarity to spark revolution, and although it is this missing ingredient which sinks Antonio’s economic ambitions in La Terra Trema, the narrator does not lose hope in the slow wheel of progress. “No one will help him until they all learn to live and support each other,” it reflects, “and within himself he’ll find courage to start a new life.” Its impression of neutrality has faded, yet Visconti’s writing maintains a sincere conviction in the spirit of Aci Trezza – even if it continues to lie dormant beneath the cumbersome weight of inequality. For as long as these progressive ideals remain alive as a mere thought or feeling, human dignity endures in La Terra Trema, ingrained in the very fabric of a society sustained by its indispensable, tenacious working class.

*A humiliating return to the status quo, meeting the wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt and no bargaining power whatsoever.*

La Terra Trema is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The Last Laugh (1924)

F.W. Murnau | 1hr 28min

As far as the proud, jolly doorman of The Last Laugh is concerned, there is no greater calling in life than the hospitality he offers to patrons of the Atlantic Hotel. This is his entire identity, so essential to his being that he is not even given a name. Instead, he is distinguished by his portly figure, regal moustache, and elaborate, militaristic uniform, commanding respect from those who pass through the revolving door he loyally guards. That he is so willing to help the homeless children who loiter outside his apartment building speaks to the strength of his moral character as well, establishing him as a man whose existence has been joyfully dedicated to the service of others.

It is a cruel turn of events then which delivers a letter of demotion into his hands, relegating him to the position of washroom attendant. He has gotten too old for his position, management claims, and in his place a younger man has donned the uniform he holds in such esteem. Framed through the glass double doors of the boss’ office, darkness surrounds him on all sides, until the camera tracks forward across the barrier and into the room itself. As we read these devastating words, F.W. Murnau imprints a vision over the top of the previous attendant handing in his white coat, and the text begins to blur in tearful distress. There is a desolate future ahead of this former doorman, and from here The Last Laugh plunges into his deep humiliation, teasing out the shame and indignity that comes with an earth-shattering shift in status.

*Emily Jannings strikes a proud, regal figure with his moustache and uniform, setting up his bombastic pride before the humiliating fall.*

*Murnau’s camera tracks forward from outside the door and into the room as bad news is delivered.*

*In the absence of intertitles, Murnau uses these creative visual cues to relay exposition.*

So rich is Murnau’s visual storytelling here that all exposition is minimised to a single intertitle, giving him room to explore the ambitious limits of his camerawork and mise-en-scene. Three years before Fritz Lang’s triumph of set design that was Metropolis, The Last Laugh was bringing to life busy streets, apartment buildings, and majestic hotels built on studio stages and backlots, each brimming with the sort of expressionistic detail that Germany was pioneering in the 1920s. The glass revolving door in the hotel foyer makes for a particularly impressive set detail as well, the oscillation of its vertical lines constantly reframing exterior views and merging with brisk camera movements to imbue the city with a bustling liveliness.

*Tremendous apartment buildings and city sets constructed on studio backlots, brimming with expansive expressionistic detail.*

*The revolving doors make for a superb recurring set piece, its oscillating lines constantly reframing exterior views of the city.*

On a larger scale, this liberation from static tripods sits at the core of The Last Laugh’s stylistic brilliance, especially standing out for its immersion into our downtrodden doorman’s psyche. Right from the very first shot, we are introduced to the hotel from within the elevator, descending multiple stories as we gaze through the metal grills into the crowded lobby. When the doorman dances, the camera spins with him in gleeful unison, and when he dashes past sleeping security guards on the night shift, it too takes desperate flight.

*The very first shot introduces us to the lobby via the elevator, descending into the bustling crowd.*

*The camera spins with the doorman as he dances, swept up in his exuberant glee.*

*Clean geometric lines and shapes in Murnau’s sets, making a bold statement of class and privilege.*

Having recently dabbled in the realm of horror and fantasy, Murnau relishes the uncanny dreaminess of these visual devices, entering the doorman’s waking nightmare of the hotel’s edifice bearing down on him like a monster and later slipping into his unconscious mind with experimental panache. There, a double exposure effect blends a close-up of his sleeping face with an absurdly tall vision of the hotel’s revolving doors, before entering hazy, distorted crowds lavishing him with applause. There is no cumbersome struggle with bulky luggage in this world, as he is instead endowed with an almost superhuman strength, lifting bags with one arm above his head and tossing them into the air. For a moment, Murnau’s camerawork even goes completely handheld, stumbling with the doorman in dizzy motions among his ardent admirers.

*Our entry into the doorman’s dream is marked by this double exposure effect, merging his face with that revolving door which extends infinitely up past the top of the frame.*

*Hazy, distorted visuals in the doorman’s dream as he easily lifts bags in the air above his head, groggily captured by a swaying handheld camera.*

When the doorman awakes the next morning though, it seems that reality hasn’t quite caught up. Too embarrassed to come clean to his family and neighbours about his demotion, he bears the weight of a guilty conscience, and through point-of-view shots we see his perception of the world stretch and blur in disorientating patterns. He finally arrives for his first day at work, yet in Murnau’s beautifully severe wide shot, this washroom looks far closer to a prison of harsh angles and dingy lighting. The mirror which extends an entire wall simply reflects his shame back at him, and next to it he sits alone in a wooden chair, no longer dominating frames with his hefty physique but rather shrinking into the background.

*Faces stretch and warp as the doorman faces the world with a guilty conscience.*

This washroom looks far closer to a prison of harsh angles and dingy lighting in Murnau’s beautifully severe wide shot, extending a mirror along an entire wall to reflect the doorman’s shame back at him.

Every bit of Emil Jannings’ physical presence embodies this transformation too, making for a soaring accomplishment of silent acting that few others from this era have matched. It is a depressing thing to witness a man as large and exuberant as him shrivel up in sheepish submission, his back hunching over as he cowers before patrons and colleagues. Within Murnau’s magnificent close-ups too, his beaming smiles fall into maddened grimaces of distress and misery, and his tired eyes drift off in disoriented confusion.

*Jannings’ face is meant for German Expressionism – a canvas of heightened emotion.*

*The exposure of the doorman’s secret is played as horror, suspensefully edging his relative towards the washroom before hurtling us towards her screaming face.*

There seems to be no end to the doorman’s suffering either, as it is only a matter of time before the truth of his demotion comes home to his family and neighbours. When one relative visits the hotel, Murnau plays her discovery like straight horror, suspensefully edging us towards the washroom before hurtling towards her terrified expression as he comes into view. Gossip spreads quickly around his apartment building too, and Murnau’s camera actively tracks its passage in whip pans between balconies and tracking shots into attentive ears. Catching like wildfire through the community, derisive laughter surrounds the doorman as he stumbles ashamedly through the streets, and soon inundates the entire frame as a multiple exposure effect thrusts expressions of gleeful scorn upon us.

*Gossip spreads fast, and the camera tracks its passage in whip pans between neighbouring balconies.*

*A brisk tracking shot into a neighbour’s ear, receiving news of the doorman’s humiliation.*

*We stumble with the doorman down the street, neighbours pointing and mocking his shame.*

*Cruel laughter dominates the frame in a double exposure effect, undercutting whatever dignity the doorman had left.*

In a pure tragedy, this is where the story would end, leaving our wretched protagonist at his lowest point. In a strange twist of fourth wall breaking justice though, Murnau’s sole intertitle confesses the pity he took on the doorman, instead bestowing upon him an improbable epilogue which lands him as the beneficiary of one Mexican multimillionaire’s fortune. Whoever’s arms he should pass away in should inherit his estate, the wealthy man’s will decrees, and it just so happens that the Atlantic Hotel’s washroom should host his fatal heart attack.

Murnau’s moving camera continues to blend elegantly with the blocking here, comically revealing the doorman’s jubilant face behind a crowd of waitstaff and an enormous cake, though formally this development is shaky at best. However pleasing it is to see him become the hotel’s most distinguished guest and give its staff the respect he never received, this jarring shift in tone has no grounding in the narrative which led up to it. Clearly Murnau’s stylistic intuitions are sharper than his plotting, so it is fortunate indeed that this fable plays out largely by way of its dynamic, enthralling visuals. It is through the avant-garde after all that we find reality slipping so elusively from our grasp, and it’s in that vulnerable state that The Last Laugh reveals the heartbreaking capacity of our self-loathing, ready to destroy us the moment we hang our pride upon the dubious, fragile illusions of social status.

The Last Laugh is in the public domain and available to watch on YouTube.

Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

Roy Andersson | 1hr 40min

Somewhere in the unnamed Swedish city of Songs from the Second Floor, a crash test dummy falls seemingly out of nowhere into a quarry. In a lavish hall, a crowd of clerics, aristocrats, generals, and businessmen prepare a young girl called Anna for a mysterious task. Finally, Roy Andersson pays off both scenes in a darkly funny punchline that leads the child along the top of a cliff, before sending her plummeting to an unseen death. As the same elites who groomed her for this ritual passively bear witness, a mournful hymn builds to a crescendo, commemorating the innocent life they have sacrificed to whatever gods might save them from the insipid, desolate hell they themselves have built on Earth.

Like an artist curating a solo exhibition, Roy Andersson is compiling a gallery of evocative tableaux that each express their own self-contained story in Songs from the Second Floor. No single image here reveals the full apocalyptic senselessness that this city of eternal traffic jams and mind-numbing bureaucracy has descended into, but when each are considered in unison, a more expansive landscape begins to form of surreal, urban decay. There is no redemption for bosses who fire their most loyal staff after 30 years of service, and no hope for the employee who pathetically clings to his superior’s leg as he is dragged crying down office hallways. All that can be done is to bury the shame deep down – though where is the sanity in that when humanity’s moral failures pervade the mundanity of everyday life?

*A crash test dummy falls from a cliff onto a pile of rocks.*

*A young girl is groomed for a mysterious tasks by a crowd of adults.*

*Both vignettes come together and deliver an incredibly dark punchline – the young girl is sacrificed at the edge of the cliff, observed by members of society’s elite.*

Individual scenes here vary between tightly interwoven episodes and standalone vignettes, yet each play their role in Andersson’s astoundingly formal world building, erecting life-sized dioramas that trap pale, lethargic characters in Edward Hopper-style paintings. There is a complete absence of in-scene editing, and in its place we find a consistent dedication to wide, static shots with a remarkable depth of field, often extending highly stylised sets far into the distance where background figures carry out their day-to-day routines. At its most absurd, this manifests as a procession of flagellating businessmen trudging their way through the perpetual congestion, hoping to find atonement through self-punishment like the masochistic monks from The Seventh Seal. Even when life beyond the immediate setting isn’t visible though, the noise of road rage and car horns can often be heard from just outside enclosed walls, rooting these trivial, woeful tales within a common dystopia.

*Detail in Andersson’s world building, calling back to the masochistic monks of The Seventh Seal with this procession of businessmen and women whipping themselves through the city’s busy streets.*

Perhaps the only thing holding Andersson’s film back from total melancholy is its sharply attuned, deadpan satire, carried by his idiosyncratic ensemble and revealing a civilisation that has reached a point of unsalvageable stagnation. Comparisons to Jacques Tati and Wes Anderson’s playful mockeries of modern society are apt, especially in their meticulous manufacturing of eccentric structures to speak for their monotonal characters, though Andersson’s humour possesses a far darker edge than either. Without physical slapstick or whimsical montages driving its narrative forward, Songs from the Second Floor languishes in the uncomfortable silence of awkward interactions, washed out by drab, desaturated colour palettes sapped of life.

*Truly pathetic characters – we pity them as they grovel at the feet of their superiors, and as others quietly watch on from their offices.*

*Surreal perfection in Andersson’s mise-en-scène, establishing the flat, low-contrast visual style that he would continue to stick to from this point on in his career.*

Although Federico Fellini’s cinematic chaos does not draw so clean a parallel, Andersson’s condemnation of an indulgent, undignified culture reveals this influence to be particularly potent. Much like the Italian director’s later films, Andersson’s surreal imagery and episodic narrative unveil the egocentric irony in human suffering, manifesting as miserable self-pity afflicting an entire civilisation. When strangers are beaten up in public, injured in a botched magic trick, and stuck in a train door, bystanders in Songs from the Second Floor watch on with blank expressions, preferring to keep a distance from those who desperately need help.

*A formal dedication to vignettes, each played with absurd deadpan as bystanders observe the suffering of others from a neutral distance.*

Then again, perhaps it is the very fact that everyone is occupied by their own personal burdens which keeps them from stepping forward. In a particularly Felliniesque metaphor, Andersson stages what seems like hundreds of travellers at an airport terminal dragging overloaded trolleys of luggage towards the counters, where hostesses wait with professional apathy. The soundscape of desperate groans almost sounds like a hellish torture chamber, and although the distance to cover is minor, it feels like an eternity away as bags begin to topple over.

*Perhaps the single greatest shot from Andersson’s entire filmography, extending this airport terminal deep into the background as passengers struggle with their towers of luggage.*

Clearly everyone has their crosses to bear, and for some in Songs from the Second Floor, these manifest quite literally. If Andersson centres any character in this expansive tapestry of miserable lives, then it must be the middle-aged salesman Kalle who burns down his furniture business, attempts to claim insurance on it, and decides to join his old friend Uffe hustling religious paraphernalia. Lugging a crucifix-shaped package through train stations and cafeterias, he expects to find some financial or spiritual salvation, albeit one which never materialises. Religion is reduced to nothing more than a cheap commercial enterprise, and when he decides to seek genuine solace in a church, even the vicar is too preoccupied by his own troubles to consider the needs of his congregation.

“At the end of your wits… so who isn’t? I’ve been trying to get my house sold for four years.”

*Glimpses of spiritual transcendence as train passengers burst out into an operatic chorus, while Kalle remains woefully apathetic.*

*Andersson’s satirical critique of religion evokes Luis Buñuel, cutting into the con artists and salesmen who turn a profit on religious paraphernalia.*

This is not to say that Kalle’s world is absent of mysticism or empathy. The aggrieved entrepreneur is simply too blind or deaf to appreciate it, even ignoring the melancholy, operatic chorus sung by surrounding commuters on a train. Their shared sorrows swell in beautiful harmony, carrying over to the following scene in a diner as well where Andersson reveals just how far this song of suffering resonates. Neither does Kalle grasp the divine enlightenment that his son Thomas has been blessed with, yet which has tragically condemned him to a psychiatric hospital. “Beloved be the one who sleeps on his back,” he proclaims, quoting Peruvian poet César Vallejo, before continuing to exalt all those overlooked by a complacent society.

“Beloved be the bald man without a hat.

Beloved be the one who catches a finger in the door.”

This poetry is the reason Thomas has gone insane, Kalle claims, so it is ironic indeed that each visit ends with the salesman being forcibly removed by hospital staff for his furious breakdowns. The resemblance Thomas’ words bear to the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount is certainly no coincidence here. He is a Christlike figure, albeit one who has been debilitated by a culture which sees his wisdom and calls it madness. He is no Son of God, but neither was Jesus, Thomas asserts – he was simply a man who was tormented to death for his kindness.

*Thomas is the closest thing to a pure, moral figure that this film has, confined to a psychiatric hospital and called mad for his offbeat wisdom.*

Still, the guilt which lingers beneath society’s thin veneer of apathy cannot be entirely ignored. The only time Andersson’s camera moves in Songs from the Second Floor is at the point where reality almost entirely breaks down, seeing it track backwards along a train platform where a man with bleeding wrists follows Kalle. This is Sven, we soon learn, a man who Kalle once owed money to yet eventually took his own life before being repaid. Kalle was not directly responsible for his death, though he sheepishly confesses to feeling relieved upon hearing the news.

Not far behind Sven is another spectre, though this one manifests as a far greater trauma in European history. Approaching Kalle with a noose around his neck, a young Russian who was hung by Nazi Germany is looking for his similarly deceased sister, hoping to apologise for his transgressions. Kalle has never met him before, yet still he feels a sense of shame as the foreign ghost stalks him through the city. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m afraid I can’t help you because I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Kalle weakly apologises as the boy pleads to him in his own language, though this is evidently little more than a convenient excuse for an embarrassingly disinterested man.

*Echoes of European history haunt Kalle as ghosts, underscoring Sweden’s national guilt.*

When all is said and done, was Sweden’s diplomatic policy of neutrality in World War II not a radical position in itself, granting themselves permission to sit by as millions died across the Baltic Sea? Elsewhere at a nursing home, the staff who celebrate a senile general’s 100^th birthday ignore his Nazi salute and deluded greeting to Hitler’s right-hand man, as Andersson further characterises a nation whose self-proclaimed tolerance is also its greatest flaw. These ghosts may fade into obscurity, but they never truly disappear as long as the living refuse to address the torment they have inflicted and suffered, leaving the dead to amass an overwhelming force in the film’s closing minutes.

*Nazis live on in modern day Sweden, shoved away into nursing homes so society doesn’t have to think too much about them.*

Just outside the city’s borders, Kalle meets with his friend Uffe, who has given up his business. “How can you make money on a crucified loser?” he grumbles, hurling crosses onto a pile of junk. Religion has apparently fallen so far from the mainstream, no one even is even seeking the empty promises of its cheap icons. We can’t quite make out the faces of the people trudging towards him in the far distance, but when Uffe finally leaves, Kalle is quick to identify the leader.

“Why are you chasing me, Sven? Why are you tormenting me? I can’t make it up to you. How could I do that? You have no relatives. What can I do? Sven! Can we not treat each other decently? Forget it all. The past… just look ahead!”

The trash that he throws is enough to scare some off, and yet a hundred more rise from the earth, continuing their zombie-like march. Kalle whimpers, resigned to his fate, and though Andersson does not linger on this shot long enough to reveal what that might be, we do finally recognise the girl at the front.

*An eerie, ambiguous conclusion as the sacrificed girl leads a crowd of ghosts to Kalle, forcing a terrifying confrontation with his own conscience.*

After all, how could we ever forget that chilling image of a blindfolded child being led to her death along a cliff top? Like Sven and the Russian boy, Anna’s spirit continues to haunt those who call society’s evils ‘necessary’ and shirk moral responsibility. It wasn’t long after her demise that those who bore witness tried to drown their guilt at a hotel bar, we recall. There, an elderly aristocrat vomits on the countertop, a woman struggles to pick herself up off the floor, and one man’s demented cry eerily spreads through the establishment. “Where are we?” they collectively moan in confused discord, as if coming to the realisation that this modern hell has been nightmarishly fashioned from the reality they once believed in. As far we are concerned in Songs from the Second Floor too, this existential question might as well echo across the entire city.

*This city is a nightmarish limbo, designed by those who wield absolute power yet ironically wonder where it all went wrong.*

Songs from the Second Floor is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

Mikhail Kalatozov | 1hr 37min

There is no known horror greater than that faced by soldiers on the frontlines of war, and as Veronika learns through the excruciating loss of her loved ones back home, there may be no loneliness like the grief suffered by its survivors. At least in the early morning of 22^nd June 1941, the last few hours of her innocence are peacefully spent exploring Moscow and watching cranes fly overhead with her boyfriend Boris, only to be disrupted by the news of Germany’s invasion. He will surely be exempt from serving, she believes, yet he barely needs a push to offer up his services. Before she knows it, he is whisked away without so much as a farewell, and Veronika is left to make sense of this unfamiliar, upside-down world.

Life is incredibly fragile in The Cranes are Flying, but so too is the spirit of a nation subjected to unfathomable trauma, and Mikhail Kalatozov’s dynamic camerawork does not spare us from the immediacy of this anguish. Ultra wide-angle lenses are his primary aesthetic of choice here, delivering a crispness in close-ups which cross the boundaries of personal space, and in long shots reveal the sheer scale of Moscow’s overwhelming affliction. What was a once a city that Veronika wandered freely rapidly transforms into an urban dystopia of sandbags and anti-tank obstacles, imposing harsh, angular beams of steel on the environment and bouncing their jagged reflections off wet pavement.

*Ultra wide-angle lenses are Kalatozov’s primary aesthetic of choice here, delivering a crispness in close-ups that cross the boundaries of personal space.*

*Moscow becomes an urban dystopia of sandbags and anti-tank obstacles, imposing harsh, angular beams of steel on the environment and bouncing their jagged reflections off wet pavement.*

High and low angles dramatically intensify scenes like these, and particularly when paired with a deep focus, they also draw attention to the raw, elemental textures of mud, water, and concrete that Kalatozov’s characters tread across. His rapid, handheld camera movements generate a visceral sense of whiplash here too, efficiently adjusting shots without ever sacrificing their severe clarity. Canted angles and delirious montages further disorientate us in Kalatozov’s hyper-stylised sequences, forcing us to adopt the mindset of those driven to the brink of madness and despair. When Boris is tragically shot in battle, long dissolves uneasily bridge spinning point-of-view shots and slow-motion dreams of marrying Veronika, while her own attempted suicide later adopts a similarly kinetic frenzy.

*Avant-garde surrealism in Boris’ dying visions of marrying Veronika, blending slow-motion photography, extreme camera angles, and long dissolves.*

*Kalatozov builds his editing to a fever pitch once again as Veronika attempts suicide, placing us directly within her point-of-view.*

Kalatazov is wise to hold off on these more turbulent visuals until later in the film though, instead approaching Veronika’s first major loss with brisk tracking shots as she anxiously runs through smoke, debris, and emergency workers to reach her bombed-out apartment building. The edifice is still on fire when she climbs its crumbling stairs, and the reveal of her home reduced to nothing but rubble and open-air is devastating. All at once, a future without her family suddenly comes into focus, and she is sent reeling into a state of numbing shock.

*The camera traverses the living, breathing world of wartime Russia, each individual dealing with the destruction of Moscow in their own ways.*

*Tragedy strikes close to home – devastating set pieces revealing the sheer calamity of war.*

*Tatyana Samoylova is the heart and soul of Russia, benefitting enormously from Kalatozov’s evocative close-ups.*

Within the icon of ravaged innocence that is Veronika, The Cranes Are Flying places the soul of the Russian people, and actress Tatyana Samoylova plays each beat with understated sensitivity. Kalatozov is not quite a realist when it comes to cinematic style, though his penchant for capturing faces in intimate detail still allows for more naturalistic performances, giving the impression of an ordinary world falling prey to man’s corrosive madness.

Nowhere is this more evident either than in Veronika’s rape at the hands of Boris’ cousin Mark, set against the backdrop of a violent storm of lightning, billowing drapes, and a crashing sound design. The visual direction here verges on expressionistic, lifting our heroine far outside her comfort zone and inevitably isolating her even further, as she is forced to marry the man who has effectively stolen what little of herself she has left. Meanwhile, her forced relocation to a cramped cabin in Siberia with Boris’ disapproving family severs her last remaining link to the simple life she once knew back in Moscow, leaving her agonisingly unaware of whether her true sweetheart is even alive.

*Creative framing and reflections, dauntingly closing in on Kalatozov’s actors.*

*Curtains billow and lightning flashes – the stormy weather matches Veronika’s own inner turmoil as she is raped by Mark.*

*Delicately placed long dissolves in scene transitions, blending gorgeous close-ups with superbly blocked wide shots.*

Still, somehow within all this fear and guilt, there remains salvation in a future that reveres the past. It is surely more than just coincidence which lands an orphan auspiciously named Boris in Veronika’s path when she is at her lowest, pushing her to make the first step towards rebuilding the family she lost. Neither is Kalatozov so cruel as to let her dwell in broken-hearted misery when she finally learns of her boyfriend’s tragic fate. As returning troops disembark trains and greet their families, his camera hangs steady on her teary face moving through the joyful yet suffocating crowd, striking a jarring contrast that feels almost unfair to Boris’ memory. As his friend Stepan takes the podium though, his words deliver a rousing assurance that the legacies of the fallen will become the foundation of a new promise – that no one will ever have to feel this pain again.

“We shall do everything to ensure that sweethearts will never again be parted, that mothers may never again fear for their children’s lives, that our brave fathers may not secretly hold back their tears. We are victorious and live on, not in the name of destruction, but in the name of building a new life!”

*An agonising contrast between Veronika’s grief and the surrounding happiness – the war is finally over, but she is lonelier than ever.*

*A majestic crane shot lifts above Stepan and the crowd, rousing their patriotic spirit.*

Veronika’s wounds may not be healed, but we can see this peace fill her up from within as the camera gently eases off its close-up. As she hands out the flowers she had brought for Boris, her eyes are directed upwards, and there Kalatozov recalls the innocence from the film’s opening scene that we had assumed was irrecoverable. Flying over Moscow in a v-formation, another flock of cranes heralds a new era for the Soviet Union. Maybe not an era for Boris, or even for Veronika who will never be the same as she was before, but one which will see both give to younger generations the blissful, idyllic lives that the horrors and tragedies of war have stolen from them.

*Marvellous bookends to Kalatozov’s narrative, returning to the titular cranes as a symbol of peace and freedom.*

The Cranes Are Flying is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Passenger (1975)

Michelangelo Antonioni | 2hr 6min

Television journalist David Locke doesn’t know much about fellow hotel guest Robertson, but based on their limited conversations, it appears that he is joyfully liberated from the burdensome responsibilities that so many carry in modern society. “No family, no friends. Just a few commitments,” the mysterious Englishman shares in their first meeting. “I take life as it comes.” Now as Locke finds his new friend’s body lying cold in his room, he does what any man seeking to escape an unfaithful wife and unsatisfying job would do. This is his opportunity to make a clean break from his dull, disappointing life, reporting the death as his own and adopting Robertson’s identity.

In this moment, Michelangelo Antonioni plays a familiar trick of discontinuity that he had previously experimented with in L’Eclisse and Blow-Up, though in The Passenger it is his camera movement rather than editing which shifts our perception of reality. As Locke forges a new passport, an audiotape recording of his and Robertson’s first meeting plays over the top, and we slowly pan towards the balcony where the voiceovers imperceptibly transition into a live flashback. When their discussion begins to wrap up, Antonioni similarly drifts the camera across the room back into the present day, effectively eroding the boundaries of time and identity which have long been missing in Locke’s life. Perhaps becoming an entirely different person is the key to finding that purpose he has never known, our protagonist resolves, and thus he sets out on a globetrotting journey meeting all of Robertson’s scheduled engagements.

*Locke stares down at the dead man whose identity he wishes to claim, resolving to start a new life.*

*Camera movement plays an unusually important role for Antonioni, erasing boundaries between past and present as it floats into this flashback…*

The Passenger’s scope is immense, spanning multiple countries across Europe and Africa which each hold some sort of clue to Robertson’s actual identity. This narrative might conceivably sound like a mix between Alfred Hitchcock and The Talented Mr. Ripley, though Antonioni is not so concerned with the meticulous plotting of its mystery, instead framing Locke as a man aimlessly wandering both a literal and figurative desert. This is where we meet him after all, not long before he is abandoned by his guides and gets his Land Rover stuck in a dune. He can scream at the sky all he likes, but that simply drives him to the point of exhaustion, collapsing him against the car as Antonioni’s camera despairingly pans across the Sahara’s vast, flat expanse.

*Locke wanders a literal and figurative desert, searching for purpose in a world that simply drives him to exhaustion.*

There are no manmade structures bearing down on Locke in this environment, and no busy crowds to stifle his expressions of anguish. Even when Antonioni does introduce magnificent architectural marvels into his mise-en-scène though, these aren’t the giant, oppressive monuments of his previous films, subjugating characters to a harsh, modern civilisation. Locke is not dominated by his surroundings, but lost in them, drifting through scenes set against vast backdrops of apartment buildings, cultural landmarks, and abstract public artworks. Somewhat ironically, this is also the sort of freedom that he relishes, every so often taking the time to appreciate this newfound independence. Leaning out of a cable car spanning a channel of water, he stretches his arms wide open, and he almost seems to fly as an overhead shot revels in his liberation.

*One cinema’s great overhead shots as Nicholson leans out of a cable car, and for a brief moment seems to fly across the water.*

*Architectural marvels impose bold shapes and patterns on Locke’s environment.*

Negative space is key to Antonioni’s compositions here, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses both urban and rural locations, though he often fills them in with textures that project Locke’s mental state onto the world. His outfit almost blends in with the white-washed plaster walls and green shrubs of a rustic Spanish settlement, and when he begins to realise that his wife Rachel has sent a television producer to track him down, his fragmented psyche manifests in a mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

*Matching colours between Locke’s costume and surroundings, both bleeding into each other.*

*Negative space filled with gorgeous textures, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses our protagonist at every turn.*

*Locke’s fragmented psyche manifests in this mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.*

Without any clear boundaries defining these eclectic settings, the tension between Locke’s desire for both freedom and purpose sits at the heart of his inner conflict. To unite the two, he must effectively design his own labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends – and now that he has officially taken Robertson’s identity, what better artefact is there to arbitrarily craft it from than the dead man’s diary? Not even he knows what this itinerary might lead to, though it is surely more enticing a prospect than returning to the wife, house, and job that he has grown so disillusioned with.

*Antonioni traps Nicholson in a modern labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends.*

*Modern structures rise up from concrete, forming the basis of Antonioni’s long shots and world building.*

Jack Nicholson is sublime in his navigation of this quest, turning in his bombastic screen persona for a subdued uncertainty that pairs nicely with Maria Schneider’s gentle encouragement, spurring him on as a loyal companion. With no name given to her other than the Girl, her identity is kept vague enough to become whatever Locke needs in any given moment. It is fitting that he should introduce her as an architecture student as well, displaying an intellectual appreciation and understanding of their environments, even if she can’t always directly assist him. He alone must be the one to pave his path forward, discovering what it means to a live a life on his own terms.

The danger that comes with this unfettered independence is simply a part of the deal, Locke reasons, but there are certainly caveats here he would rather dismiss. When he learns of Robertson’s profession as a black-market arms dealer, he does not retreat to the comfortable confinements of his old life, but instead maintains the belief that he can keep outrunning trouble before it catches up to him. With both Rachel and a militant guerrilla movement on his tail though, each believing they are looking for Robertson, it is evident that the consequences of his decisions are inevitable – and perhaps there is a subtle recognition of this in his final monologue to the Girl as they lay down together in a rural Spanish hotel.

*It is fitting that Locke’s love interest should be an architecture student, their first meeting taking place in this grand cathedral loaded with history and culture.*

In the story Locke tells, the joy that a blind man found in regaining his sight was quickly dashed upon realising that “the world was much poorer than he imagined.” It doesn’t take a great imagination to recognise him framing himself in this allegory of existential suffering. The darkness that once consumed them both at least concealed the truth of life’s ugliness, and in the blind man’s case, suicide was tragically the only escape.

This is not the end that Locke is destined for in the final minutes of The Passenger, though his listless resignation to an early grave certainly aligns their respective deaths. The 7-minute long take which skirts around the edges of this incident formally caps off the wandering camerawork that has pervaded the film, and perhaps even stakes its claim as the strongest single shot of Antonioni’s career, divorcing us from Locke’s perspective as he lays down in his hotel room. With only his legs in frame, we peer across the bed at the window grills, opening onto the bright, dusty courtyard where each plot thread converges at once.

*A 7-minute long take, and perhaps the finest shot of Antonioni’s career, beginning with a slow creep forward past Locke in his hotel.*

*The camera approaches the window grills and slyly slips through, seemingly defying the laws of physics.*

*The camera floats around the dusty courtyard as narrative threads collide.*

As the Girl lingers in hesitation over whether to leave, the African assassin who has been right behind Locke for some time arrives, and Rachel arrives in a police car a couple of minutes later. Drifting forward ever so slightly, Antonioni’s camera frames everything perfectly between the iron bars, before it squeezes through the narrow opening and emerges outside. Antonioni’s nifty manipulation of the set in this moment lifts us beyond Locke’s subjective perspective, effectively defying physics as we take on the role of an invisible, neutral observer wandering the scene, and patiently wait for Locke’s inevitable collision with his pursuers.

Like our protagonist, we are but passengers on this journey, fluidly taking the point-of-view of whatever character we are positioned to identify with. There is an entire world beyond Locke’s solipsistic journey, but only now as the camera circles back on the building to look through the window from the other side do we view him within alternative contexts that he was blind to. Little did he realise when stealing Robertson’s identity that he was also adopting his fated demise, and the aftermath as well reveals a complicated legacy in his wake. “Do you recognise him?” the police officer asks Rachel, whose response in finding her lifeless husband rather than Robertson is layered with profound disbelief.

“I never knew him.”

*The camera turns back around to look in at the hotel room from the outside, revealing Locke’s body as his wife arrives a few minutes too late.*

Given the identical position of Locke’s body from when we last saw it, we can infer that there was little struggle when the assassin entered the room. That The Passenger should conclude not with this though, but rather a far simpler shot of the Girl departing the hotel at dusk only underscores his total irrelevance in a world that keeps moving on, fading his strange, fruitless bolt for freedom into the milieu. Antonioni does not seek to overwhelm us with grief here – that would be far too straightforward in its clear distinction between life and death. Like Locke, we must confront the desolate, senseless banality of the emptiness, and continue living with it long past his consciousness is granted a merciful release.

The Passenger is not currently streaming in Australia.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Sergei Eisenstein | 1hr 15min

It is no coincidence that history’s most effective propaganda films have also featured fast-paced, avant-garde editing, and some of cinema’s finest at that. This device despicably valorised the Ku Klux Klan in The Birth of a Nation, celebrated Communist revolution in I Am Cuba, and stoked political conspiracy theories in Oliver Stone’s JFK – yet Battleship Potemkin nevertheless looms large among them all. The uprising of the working class against their Tsarist rulers is the central conflict here, and with Sergei Eisenstein labelling the oppressors “vampires” and “monsters,” it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to realise where his loyalties lie.

This film is a product of the Soviet Union in its earliest years, not so much aiming to disseminate historical facts than to rouse passion and outrage from civilians. Under the purview of an artist who understands his craft on an intimate level though, Battleship Potemkin also transcends its own political message. The five methods of montage that Eisenstein developed in the early 1920s stand true across time, unaffected by shifting ideologies or opinions, and are cleanly distilled here in their purest forms. From this mechanical arrangement of moving images, he composes a narrative that disengages from conventional notions of heroic individualism, and in true socialist fashion identifies the collective masses as their own champions.

*In absence of a solo protagonist, the masses are our heroes in Battleship Potemkin, and Eisenstein’s eye for blocking these enormous crowds are major visual strength.*

If we are to pick a protagonist from the vast ensemble gathered in Battleship Potemkin though, that label must fall on sailor Vakulinchuk, who leads his crew’s initial rebellion against the cruel commanding officers. Even then though, his presence after Act II is largely symbolic, spurring on the Bolshevik cause as a martyr. Besides the obvious political dramatisation, Eisenstein represents the story of the real Vakulinchuk relatively accurately here, using a little-known historical event as the foundation of his artistic experimentations.

With Battleship Potemkin‘s dedication to packing hundreds of extras into the scenery and covering the full totality of this revolt, it may very well be one of the shortest epics ever put to screen, coming in well under 90 minutes. This can be mainly attributed to the sheer amount of visual information being thrown at us in the brisk, economical editing, though Eisenstein’s magnificent mise-en-scène shouldn’t be underrated either, particularly in scenes set upon that remarkable monument of naval warfare that is the Potemkin. Here, he carves out a rigorous array of geometric shapes from its industrial design, slicing through compositions with long, grey cannons and trapping its crew among vast webs of rope. Symmetry is crucial here as well, particularly in his blocking of the crew in militaristic formations along both sides of the deck, while his immense depth of field capture them in motion across multiple levels of the ship.

*Eisenstein carves out a rigorous array of geometric shapes from the battleship’s industrial design, angling the camera up through these grates to frame the sailors like prisoners behind bars.*

*Long, grey cannons slice through the mise-en-scène – these harsh diagonal vectors are especially valuable given that the length of each shot is so short.*

*Hammocks encase the sailors in a web of cocoons, hinting at the imminent emergence of newly born insurgents.*

Inside the sleeping berth where Eisenstein’s story begins, the hammocks crowding the frame almost look like cocoons, hinting at the imminent emergence of newly born insurgents. Talk of revolution has been passing around for some time, and after they refuse to eat a hunk of rotten, maggot-infested meat, the threat of execution is visualised in a haunting dissolve of bodies hanging from the masts.

The rising tension here demonstrates the first of Eisenstein’s five methods, metric montage, which creates a tempo based on a specific number of frames for each shot. As a canvas cover is thrown over the condemned sailors and a firing squad marches out, the pacing accelerates, cutting between rifles raised in perfect rows, Vakulinchuk’s stirring fury, and the officers’ malicious grins. This immediate danger is what finally triggers the riot on the vessel, leading into the first of Battleship Potemkin’s bravura set pieces.

*A creative use of a dissolve edit, visualising the threat of hanging sailors from the masts of the ship.*

*The first of Eisenstein’s masterclasses in rising tension through montage editing, accelerating the pacing as Vakulinchuk’s fury reaches the end of its fuse.*

Eisenstein’s staging here is marvellous, navigating the multiple battles unfolding across the ship with rhythmic montage – the adjustment of each shot length according to the movement unfolding onscreen. Meanwhile, cutaways to the Russian Orthodox priest onboard reveal him holding his cross like a weapon, demonstrating intellectual montage through the symbolic association of juxtaposed shots. These sailors are not merely rebelling against the government or its armed forces, but are subverting organised religion itself, toppling the power structures which bolster the Tsarist rule.

*Movement in the frame, running parallel in opposite directions – what looks like chaos is actually orchestrated through purposeful blocking.*

*The Russian Orthodox priest wields his cross like a weapon, symbolically representing the tyrannical connection between organised religion and the state.*

*A fine composition as Valukinchuk hangs from the side of the ship, martyred in his righteous rebellion against the Potemkin’s commanding officers.*

This mutiny is a victory for the Bolsheviks, yet for now celebrations must be put aside to mourn the loss of Valukinchuk, whose body is delivered to the Port of Odessa and set up inside makeshift shrine. Ships gently pass by as bereaved crowds gather, looking to pay respects in powerful solidarity. Eisenstein’s editing is not defined by tempo, continuity, or symbolism here, but rather uses complementary close-ups and long shots of unified crowds to capture the melancholy lament in the air, typifying his method of tonal montage. When one loudmouthed man tries to turn this wounded sorrow into antisemitic prejudice, fists clench and brows furrow, but not in support of his bigotry. Everyone can see that he is appropriating this tragedy for his own purposes, and thus he is promptly shut down.

Tonal montage as ships pass through the port and crowds gather to pay respects to a fallen hero. Eisenstein moves from frantic action to melancholy grief, yet still carries every emotion through his editing.

*Close-ups are played like staccato montages as one man tries to turn wounded sorrow into prejudice, only to be faced with the anger of those seeing through his ploy.*

*108 frames of blazing socialist glory, aggressively puncturing Eisenstein’s black-and-white mise-en-scène.*

As the Potemkin docks at the Port of Odessa and its locals gather in camaraderie, Eisenstein continues to navigate these swells of emotion with remarkable dexterity, even injecting colour in 108 frames of a waving red flag that he hand-tinted himself. As such, the shift from enamoured celebration to terror arrives with a jolt, heralded by a woman’s head violently spasming in uneven jump cuts as she is shot down by an advancing Cossack army. Before we can even register the threat, the infamous massacre upon the Odessa Steps has begun, seeing Eisenstein pull out every montage technique at his disposal to deliver seven minutes of raw editing genius.

*Tonal whiplash through editing – rapid-fire jump cuts of a woman being shot commences the Odessa Steps sequence.*

*Eisenstein’s greatest set piece and a monumental piece of cinema history, using this long stretch of stone stairs down to the harbour as an icon of social instability.*

From either end of this Soviet landmark, the stairway appears to stretch far into the distance, forcing citizens to flee towards either the infantry descending from above or the cavalry waiting to pick them off below. Eisenstein’s camera does not offer these soldiers the same empathetic close-ups as it does their victims, only ever taking their perspective by descending the steps with their steadfast regiment, and moving in a line as unyielding as the geometric formations of their raised rifles.

While this wall of white uniforms mows down everyone in their path, children are horrifically crushed in the stampede, pushing one devastated mother to pick up the broken body of her son and face her assailants. She stands alone in their long, dark shadows, begging them to end this terror, and for a brief moment we wonder whether she has at least slightly stirred their hearts. Within this fable of good and evil though, Eisenstein leaves no room for moral ambiguity – this mother is shot dead on the spot, and the Cossacks continue their forward march.

*Rifles aligned in perfect rows, mercilessly cutting down those who stand in their way.*

*Close-ups play a crucial role in Eisenstein’s montages, bouncing horrified expressions off the trauma surrounding them.*

*Tremendous compositions even in the midst of such fast cutting, as a lone, grieving mother hopelessly stands beneath long shadows of the descending Cossack forces.*

As the Odessa Steps sequence torpedos towards its climax, Eisenstein demonstrates the fifth type of montage that he defined as a young film theorist, inducing a more complex emotional response than metric, rhythmic, or tonal montages on their own. Overtonal montage combines all three here, suspensefully inching a baby carriage closer to the steps, following the motion of its uncontrolled descent, and spreading panic among onlookers who helplessly watch on in terror. The pacing accelerates as we cut from the baby’s face to the spinning wheels, and then just as it tips over, we are confronted by a snarling Cossack soldier striking the camera. Denying us the clean resolution of a long shot, Eisenstein instead chooses to end this sequence on a dissonant note, tightly framing a gasping woman with shattered, blood-streaked spectacles before fading to black.

*Overtonal montage as the scene builds to a devastating climax, cutting between the falling baby carriage, the reactions of onlookers, and the aggressors continuing their march.*

*Shattered, blood-streaked spectacles – the final shot of the Odessa Steps sequence is also perhaps its most memorable after the tumbling baby carriage.*

More than any political message or isolated image, Eisenstein recognises that emotion in film is derived from the timing and arrangement of these shots, congealing into a sweeping indictment of the merciless Tsarist regime. Beyond the disenfranchised men leading the Bolshevik cause, the innocence of women and children are at stake in Battleship Potemkin, and with it, the lifeblood of the very nation.

If the government considers this slaughter the best course of action to quell growing dissent among civilians, then they underestimate the furious passion of the Bolsheviks. “The ship’s guns roared into reply to the massacre,” the intertitles read, before we witness the Potemkin’s cannons shatter the Odessa Opera House into pieces.

That night as its sailors rest and prepare for an imminent confrontation with the Tsarist squadrons, Eisenstein settles an anxious tranquillity across the ship, silhouetting men against moonlit skies and slowing his montage editing down to a gentle lull. When that fleet of enemy ships begins to emerge over the horizon though, Battleship Potemkin launches into its final set piece, fearfully anticipating the gunfire that will surely sink this vessel of hope.

*Soldiers silhouetted against a moonlit sky, heavily intertwined with the ropes, masts, and ladders they hang off.*

Machines whir and black smoke billows from the warship’s chimneys, hanging a dark, ominous cloud overhead as it steers towards the squadron with nothing but a tiny destroyer by its side. Rather than meeting them with violence though, another far riskier tactic is considered. “Signal them to join us!” the sailors call out, raising flags and beseeching peaceful passage.

Once again, Eisenstein uses his metric montage to drive up tension, weaving close-ups of rotating gun turrets and rising cannon muzzles among long shots of the naval battleground – though this time bloodshed does not eventuate. “Brothers!” the sailors of the Potemkin call to their comrades aboard the Tsarist fleet, who eagerly allow them to pass between their ships. Hanging from the railings and crow’s nests, crews from both sides wave to each in solidarity, spurring on the Bolshevik movement which in years to come will take over all of Russia.

*Once again, Eisenstein builds his montage editing to a climax – and this time greets us with total catharsis as the Potemkin is allowed safe passage past Tsarist ships.*

Such bright optimism marks a notable shift from the bleak cynicism which ended Eisenstein’s previous film Strike, though if anything it simply proves the versatility of his editorial orchestrations, coordinating hundreds of dynamic images into fervent expressions that span humanity’s full emotional spectrum. In the hands of this young Soviet film theorist, cinema becomes a symphony of notes, rhythms, and textures, and Battleship Potemkin towers within the art form as the peak of such visual, kinetic innovation.

*Gorgeous symmetry as the sailors of the Potemkin celebrate their solidarity, delivering a win for the workers of Russia.*

Battleship Potemkin is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Stanley Kubrick | 2hr 39min

The mysterious, erotic cult that Dr. Bill Hartford infiltrates one night after a bitter argument with his wife Alice may be deeply sensual, but it can’t exactly be described as intimate. Anonymity is highly valued here, concealing the faces of its members with impassive masks even as they bare their naked bodies. Orgies are performed with ritualistic solemnity upon fine furniture, while other guests quietly watch from the sidelines of this manor’s lavish, Baroque interiors. Within the main hall too, their red-cloaked leader conducts a ceremonial prayer, chanting a deep, guttural hymn and swinging a thurible around his circle of prostrating followers. Whatever this is, Bill certainly finds it more exciting than his monogamous marriage to Alice, though playing in the realm of dreams is a dangerous game when reality inevitably beckons from the other side.

Having long been fascinated by cinema’s potential to unlock humanity’s repressed desires, Stanley Kubrick’s interrogation of matrimony and temptation finally sees him aim his camera towards the act of sex itself. It may be one of the most common human activities alongside eating and sleeping, but it is perhaps the only one to also be considered taboo, never to be spoken about in polite company. In essence, it is a secret club that we know everyone is part of, yet which also demands us to remain silent on the personal matter of our fantasies, habits, and history. As we witness when Bill is caught out and forced to remove his mask, the threat of being exposed does not simply incite shame and humiliation. It is an existential threat to our very being.

*A stunning piece of production design inside the cult’s manor, laying into the warm, red palette of sensuous lustful desire while injecting a harsh sterility.*

*Superb blocking throughout the manor, draping fully-cloaked and naked members across each other while hiding their identities behind masks.*

Fortunately, there is a woman at this party who is oddly protective of Bill, offering to take his punishment when he is put on trial in front of the entire cult. He is “redeemed,” and therefore allowed to leave with nothing but a stern warning to disregard what he has witnessed – though the urge to probe deeper into this underworld isn’t so easily ignored. How can he return to his ordinary life and marriage after glimpsing such a thrilling, earth-shattering secret?

Of course, this is not the only function Bill attends in Eyes Wide Shut. Being one of cinema’s greatest formalists, Kubrick foreshadows the cult’s covert gathering with a Christmas party in the film’s first act. Besides the wealthy host Victor Ziegler and old friend Nick Nightingale providing entertainment on keys, Bill and Alice do not know any other guests – an awkward situation that returns at the cult’s mansion where Ziegler and Nick are again the only acquaintances present in a crowd of strangers. If the masquerade is where identities are concealed and desires are freely expressed, then this soirée sees its guests put on courteous facades for the sake of social convention, while infidelity quietly simmers in flirtatious passes. That is, until Ziegler urgently summons Bill upstairs to save his mistress Mandy from an overdose, suddenly shining a harsh light on his private affairs.

*The first of many beautifully lit scenes, illuminating the Christmas party with golden fairy lights, chandeliers, and coloured bulbs.*

It is clearly a thin layer of decorum separating these characters’ private and public personas, even behind the closed doors of their most intimate relationships. That is where Bill’s psychosexual journey starts in Eyes Wide Shut after all, as the day after Ziegler’s party, he and Alice jealously confront each other about the strangers they flirted with. The only reason men would ever speak to women like her is to sleep with them, he asserts, while the opposite sex is simply programmed differently. This is the belief which his faith in their marriage rests upon, and so when she confesses to a fantasy that she had about another man, his fragile world is shaken.

The verbal sparring between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman here displays incredibly fierce performances from both actors, drawing from the well of natural chemistry they shared in their real-life marriage before its breakup. While the rest of Alice’s story in Eyes Wide Shut is largely confined to their apartment, jittery, monochrome hallucinations of her making love to other men continue to haunt Bill on his night-time wanderings, as he smoothly glides across rear-projected backdrops of New York’s streets.

*Jittery, monochrome hallucinations manifesting Bill’s greatest insecurity.*

*Rear projection as Cruise wanders through New York streets, disconnecting from his surroundings as if in a dream.*

Kubrick’s reappropriation of what used to be a classical Hollywood technique is carried through with avant-garde flair here, effectively lifting Cruise out his immediate environment and submerging him in a dreamlike state. The ambient, practical lighting that is carried through the film as a whole also serves to shape his ethereal world with vibrant beauty, constantly underscoring the holiday setting with sparkling Christmas trees, golden fairy lights, and decorated shop windows. When Bill ventures into a dim, moody jazz club, its array of coloured bulbs become bleary stars in the background of shots, while cool, blue washes in his apartment contrast its festive warmth with melancholic innocence.

*The jazz club where Bill meets with Nick is an underworld of ethereal, ambient beauty, its lights becoming a backdrop of bleary stars.*

*A meticulous recreation of Greenwich Village streets despite being shot in England, maintaining the excellent use of practical lights.*

*The occasional cool, blue wash in Bill and Alice’s apartment contrasts its festive warmth with melancholic innocence.*

Eyes Wide Shut does not evoke this cultural imagery merely for its striking aesthetic though. Like the cult’s devout worship of sex, Christmas represents the intersection of the sacred and profane. It is historically a Christian celebration, yet its pagan roots stretch even further back, while in modern-day society its spiritual significance has been entirely stripped away. Religious iconography is scarce to be found here, as Kubrick instead recognises it as an annual orgy of consumerism, encouraging us to gorge ourselves on the world’s temptations. As the final scene in the toy shop demonstrates, these may merely manifest as whimsical, material goods for children, though adults are far more likely to pursue more carnal exploits as an escape from loneliness that this time of year often brings.

*Christmas represents the intersection of the sacred and profane, here stripped of religious significance and embodied purely through secular decorations.*

*An annual orgy of consumerism, celebrated in the commercial stores that Bill visits throughout the film.*

For us too, the atmosphere that Kubrick builds is deeply intoxicating, lulling us into a trance strung together by impressionistic long dissolves and a minimalist piano motif alternating between two eerie notes. His camera is fully engaged with the movement of bodies, twirling around Alice’s amorous dance with an older Hungarian man at Ziegler’s party, and later slowing down into a steady, prying zoom as she and Bill embrace in the mirror. Moments like these often break up the cold sterility that is present in Kubrick’s detached wide shots, and thus we often find ourselves alternating between perspectives of the human body as either vessels of profound emotion, or merely an anatomical collection of organs acting on animal instinct.

*Kubrick’s eye for composition did not weaken over the decades – the framing, blocking, and palette of this opening shot is a stunning formal setup for the film.*

*An excellent camera zoom as Bill and Alice embrace in this mirror shot, tentatively inching closer to the following consummation.*

*Long dissolves as dreamy transitions between scenes, shifting from intimate close-ups to wide shots.*

There is no need to settle on one interpretation over the other here – Kubrick recognises that it is merely a matter of subjective versus objective perceptions, and it is frequently impossible to tell the difference. Whether he is being seduced by his patients’ daughters or going home with a prostitute, Bill is teased with sexual advances everywhere he goes, though each time he is incidentally pulled away by some other engagement. If this is a dream, then perhaps it is his subconscious mind waking him back up, pushing him back to his duties as a faithful husband and respectable doctor who must maintain a clinical relationship with the human body. He walks a very narrow line, but the fact that he never entirely throws himself into temptation even saves his life on at least one occasion, as we learn when the prostitute’s HIV diagnosis comes to light.

*Temptation follows Bill everywhere he goes, yet each time he is pulled away as if waking from another dream.*

More ambiguously, the treatment that Bill administered to Mandy may have also incidentally been the reason he was allowed to leave the cult’s manor unharmed, as he eventually deduces the identity of his masked saviour and receives confirmation from a man who was present – Ziegler. With that said, his secret club did not actually play any role in killing her, the cultist claims. It was all a ruse to scare Bill off, and the fatal overdose being reported in the news is merely incidental.

Whether or not Ziegler is telling the truth, it is enough motivation for Bill to abandon his investigation completely. Whatever personal issues may be present in his marriage to Alice, the risk of divorce, an STD, or even death is simply too significant to be treated with such recklessness. At the same time though, can we truly appreciate what we have in front of us if we don’t grapple with the darkness that lies on the other side?

*The green hanging lights over the red billiard table – subtly evocative of the red circle in the manor’s main hall.*

“Maybe I think we should be grateful,” Alice ponders in the final minutes of Eyes Wide Shut. “Grateful that we’ve managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream.” After all, dreams do not belong to distant, far-flung worlds. They are closely intertwined with the actions and decisions we make every day, guiding us towards tangible futures born from primal fantasies. By carefully traversing that indistinct realm which dissipates each morning upon being touched by sunlight, Kubrick delicately reveals those depraved, shadowy figures that live inside us all, and the invisible power they hold over our minds, civilisations, and humanity.

Eyes Wide Shut is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV and YouTube.