"The Blue Angel"

[stoutfellow]

Last night I decided to go with another oldie, and watched "The Blue Angel", a 1930 German film starring Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich. (It was Dietrich's first major role.) It's a rather sordid story about a professor whose life is ruined when he gets involved with a cabaret singer. (I have a bit of a quarrel with the translators. My German isn't very good, and the sound was rather muddy, but it was clearly stated that he was a professor at a gymnasium, which I believe is more like a high school than a college; the subtitles, though, suggested that he was a college professor.)

It occurs to me to compare the situation in this movie with one popular theme in modern USAn film and song - the idea that people from the lower classes are freer, more alive than the educated and the genteel. I'm thinking of, for instance, Billy Joel's song "Uptown Girl" and the TV series "Moonlighting", but there are plenty of other examples. In "The Blue Angel", by contrast, Professor Rath's infatuation with Lola Lola is presented as an absolute disaster for him. I have to wonder: is the popular view today (and its relative, the appeal of the "bad boy") any better - any more realistic - than the view presented in "The Blue Angel"?

Actually, one could probably box the compass by looking at stories where someone lower-class is elevated by the attentions of someone upper-class ("Sabrina", or "My Fair Lady", for example - and yes, I know that Shaw didn't intend for Henry Higgins and Eliza to be romantically involved, but the film clearly does), or where someone lower-class is destroyed by involvement with someone upper-class. That last is rarer; the only example that comes to my mind is Sholom Aleichem's "Schprintze". (Tevye had more daughters than appear in "Fiddler on the Roof"; Schprintze was the eldest, and her story is a sad one.)

I wish I knew more. It would be interesting to look at the times and places where these different sorts of story were popular.

Comments

Class in Movies

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

A lot of the John Hughes "teen" movies -- "Pretty in Pink" etc, -- go to that issue, sometimes with benefit to the class-crossers and sometimes not.

Dudley Moore's "Arthur" and sequels take a particular bent. As does "Pretty Woman" -- (ever read about the version of that, as pitched? $6000, A love triangle: Julia Robert's character reaches and teaches the Richard Gere character enough about getting in touch with his feelings and respecting his partner that Gere can finally reconcile with his (uncast and unseen in the final version) rich fiance', leaving the hooker back on the street after the week, only $6000 to show for her efforts.

Then there is how Princess Leia redeems the soul of smuggler Han Solo ...

Re: Class in Movies

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't heard of that version of "Pretty Woman". It fits the pattern well enough, though - Gere's character is evidently improved by his association with the hooker, even if the relationship ends. I wouldn't have thought of this, but "Roman Holiday" gives yet another variation on the theme - both characters are improved, even though their relationship ends by mutual consent. Hunh.

How do you spell *cut-your-throat depressing*?

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Yay, I get to have a computer back!

_Der Blaue Engel_...one of the *most* affecting movies I've ever seen. It's been probably been 25 years since I last saw it in undergraduate school. I was horribly depressed for days after seeing it. Especially the pitiful scene where he crowed like a rooster.

The thing about it is that there are actually three classes here at issue. The lower class, the upper class, and the bourgeoisie. The upper class had their own rules of decorum, and the lower class was pretty much expected to have loose morals, because, after all, they couldn't be *expected* to know any better. The class that *really* had to behave was the petite bourgeoisie. You are correct that a Gymnasium is a high school, but it is the secondary school for college-bound students, and frankly, I found the students who had just graduated from it and were freshmen at the university to have about the same level of education as our B.A. programs offer. Sobering thought, huh?

So, the middle class was expected to be the ultimate in conservative, staid, and *respectable* behavior. In particular, the teachers had an obligation to provide a moral compass for the students and never do anything that smacked of disrepute. The middle class did not forgive one of its own that crossed the line. For a teacher, being branded as "amoral," which, at the time, would include an affair with a cabaret singer, basically ended his life as he knew it. He would be shunned by his peers and avoided in general by his class for fear of contamination. And once he had fallen, and *knew* what it had cost him, his spirits, his self-respect, and confidence spiraled into a decline.

As I said, it's been 25 years since I've seen it, so maybe others could offer a different insight into the movie. We tend to be so egalitarian in America that, even though we *have* classes, the distinctions aren't so great, nor are they insurmountable, i.e., through education, marriage, etc. In the Germany of the time, those class differences meant everything. Heck, in _Woyzeck_, by Georg Buchner, (set in the late 1800s IIRC), Woyzeck, the soldier, could not even address his officer directly using the first person. As in, "Would HE like some tea?" You can see that the feelings from this movie have stayed with me for a l-o-n-g time!

Re: How do you spell *cut-your-throat depressing*?

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

the pitiful scene where he crowed like a rooster

Yes, that was a horrifying moment. (By the way, there's another German film of about the same vintage that I've been trying to identify. I haven't seen it, but I think I have it on tape; the lead character is a rather pompous hotel doorman, if I recall correctly, who - again - winds up in ruin. Does that ring a bell with you?)

Re: How do you spell *cut-your-throat depressing*?

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

The film didn't ring a bell, so I did a Yahoo search under "German movies" and "doorman." It elicited the following website that has brief descriptions of German movies by title, director, and also lists actors.

http://www.csuchico.edu/flng/german/films.htm

I believe this movie listed below is what you are remembering. Frankly, it sounds about as cut-your-throat depressing as "Der Blaue Engel." (g) Viel Spass dabei!


7. The Last Laugh
by F. Murnau, 1924, 91 min.

One of the major works of German silent cinema, Murnau's class drama depicts the fall of the respected, aging, hotel doorman (Emil Jannings) of a posh Berlin hotel, who is cruelly stripped of his position and reduced to a bathroom attendant. The film was ground- breaking for its expressive, mobile camera work, which imparts information visually, without subtitles. "The camera on a trolley glides, rises, zooms, or weaves where the story takes it. The camera takes part in the action and becomes a character in the drama" (Marcel Carne). With Max Hiller, Maly Delschaft and Hans Unterkirchen.

Re: How do you spell *cut-your-throat depressing*?

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

That's the one! Thank you!