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| Some architecture, Murnau style |
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| Pride |
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| The final humiliation |
Title: Der Letzte Mann
Year: 1924
Director: F. W. Murnau
Format: Blu-ray
Label: Masters of Cinema
Notes: Another expressionist classic that's hard to represent with just a few screenshots. This melodramatic tale of a man's pitiful decline at the end of a proud career opens with a bustling hotel scene in which Murnau's roving camera seems to never stop moving and this energy continues throughout. There seems to be a sort of choreography to the camera work that dazzles. It took me a good ten minutes to notice the lack of intertitles due to the impressive frenzy. And that was despite reading about their absence in advance!
I'm not sure the fairy tale epilogue was to my taste. It slightly lowers the impact of the tragic ending highlighted in my third screenshot. However without this unlikely triumph the film would probably feel quite miserable. Perhaps this optimism was more in keeping with films of the time.
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