Cast:
Emilia Unda (Mother Fräulein von Nordeck zur Nidden), Dorothea Wieck (Governess Fräulein von Bernburg), Hertha Thiele (Manuela von Meinhardis), Hedwig Schlichter (Fräulein von Kesten), Ellen Schwanneke (Ilse von Westhagen), Erika Mann (Fräulein von Atems), Gertrud de Lalsky (her Excellency von Ehrenhardt), Marte Hein (Duchess), Lene Berdolt (Fräulein von Garschner), Lisi Scheerbach (Mademoiselle Oeuillet), Margory Bodker (Miss Evans), and Else Ehser (Elise, wardrobe mistress) Directed by Leontine Sagan.
Review:
"The whole of Mädchen in Uniform was set in the Empress Augusta boarding school, where Winsloe was educated. Actually there really was a Manuela, who remained lame all of her life after she threw herself down the stairs. She came to the premiere of the film. I saw her from a distance, and at the time Winsloe told me "The experience is one which I had to write from my heart." Winsloe was a lesbian...However, I really don't want to make a great deal of...or account for a film about lesbianism here. That's far from my mind, because the whole thing of course is also a revolt against the cruel Prussian education system."
It's easy to say someone is best known for their first theatrical effort when they have plenty of credit to go along with it. Born Leontine Schlesigner in Austria-Hungary, she grew up in a variety of places around Europe that ranged from South Africa to Vienna. She did training for the theatre with the Max Reinhardt that would lead to a career for herself on stage alongside a few appearances in film. At the age of 42, she directed her first film with this effort. She would direct two further theatrical efforts with Men of Tomorrow (1932, co-directed with Zoltan Korda) and Gaeity George (1946, co-directed with George King); she would work in England and South Africa within the theatre as a director until her death in 1974. The film was an adaptation of Christa Winsloe's 1930 play Gestern und heute [Then and Now] (although it was written as "Knight Nerestan"), and Winsloe collaborated with Friedrich Dammann on the screenplay, while Carl Froelich served as both producer and "senior artistic director". The film would inspire a French novel and film with Olivia (1941, 1951) along with two remakes (1951, 1958). The one key difference between adaptation was the climax, which ended in a suicide for one of the characters (Winsloe would publish a novel relating to the characters in 1933 with Das Mädchen Manuela; incidentally, the play was the only one that Winsloe wrote prior to her murder in 1944). This was certainly a provocative film for its time, then and now. It includes an all-female cast and it was made as a collective effort between cast and crew (who took less pay in order to make the film, although its success in profits would seep into the hands of producers). It also happened to be released near the tail end of the Weimer Republic, one that managed to garner some attention in distribution, such as the United States (First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped give it attention in terms of recommending the film whereas other places threatened to ban it).
Of course while the film certainly ranks as a key piece for female filmmaking, it happens to also be a look upon the dynamics of academy teaching, which I suppose should make sense with their striped clothing that makes them look like prisoners, where they need to only obey rather than think, complete with filming in the Potsdam military orphanage (alongside work in Berlin-Tempelhof). That, and a love story involving it taking spirit in a variety of forms - a lesbian one. It was a mild success upon release, overshadowed by releases of the time. However, growing turmoil within Germany in the decade led to a curtailing in releases for this film alongside exile for members of the crew, such as with Theile and Mann each leaving for Switzerland by the mid 1930s due to Nazi takeover that felt the film was "decadent". It also happens to take place with two actresses playing a teacher-student dynamic of forbidden love that fooled me in one aspect: they actually were the same age (23), though it does not gaze upon its romance with anything more than a kiss on the mouth. In this sense, Thiele (who had played the role on stage) takes the lead quite well in sensitivity, one that resonates with artful movement and grace without withering to a challenging part in terms of taboos and believability. One cares for what they see and don't see in scenes spent in the school with her, such as her recollections of her mother or her first time spent with the others and their affirmative mood towards their governess. Wieck completes the angle of infatuation with her style of warm reasoned charm, one that we can read affliction for with subtlety that makes them seem like a double act with how she and Thiele match with each other with even the smallest of glances or gestures. Unda is the clear foil for each of them as the authority figure, and she does quite well with the material given, careful in cold measures as the representation of maintaining the values of the time (namely a spartan living) without becoming a cliché to poke at. Others in the cast do fine with the closely-knit settings, such as with Schwanneke and her brash attitude to being oneself with charm in the eyes of those who either seek to play off it or counteract it. There is quite a fluid look on display here, one that manages to look quite shimmering despite (or perhaps because of) its shooting within the school setting, where one doesn't find a stale shot on display here. It certainly deserves its place as an international cult classic, one that grips attention with its natural feel for well-placed shots and artful handling of conflict between authority and freedom, one that makes its 98 minutes go by with calm pacing and careful framing that allows the viewer to approach it with interest and ambiguity that made it a worthy curiosity upon queer film circles in the 1970s. It lands most of what it wants to accomplish in careful planning with a delicate subject matter involving what it means to find oneself in the throes of burgeoning womanhood and all that comes from it, whether that means a struggle to maintain oneself in freedom or with passion in life and love. In that sense, it certainly merits as a curiosity for what it says on the outside and inside after nine decades since its release as a useful piece to women filmmaking.
Next Time: A 1949 double-feature starts with a familiar tale...done the first time around, with Gigi (1949).
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment