From Hungary, West Germany and Austria, István Szabó’s mesmerizing Hanussen—called Profeta in Hungary—opens with a German attack on a chapel in the First World War. The soft, dry colors suggest a fantasy, and the culmination is a potent though academic irony: the chapel graveyard, strewn with fresh corpses. This is a guess, but it is possible that Szabó intends the artificial elements here. A wounded German soldier, Klaus Schneider (the actual name was Hermann Steinschneider), finds himself with peculiarly empathetic and telepathic capacities. Under the name of Erik Jan Hanussen he becomes a stage magician who reads minds and foretells the future. (In reality, he was a charlatan and a fraud.) His career ascends as he predicts the political ascension of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Throughout, we may wonder what Szabó himself thinks of Hanussen’s stage act—to what extent, that is, he thinks it is authentic. But doesn’t the artificiality of the opening, with its brazenly ostentatious tracking shot along the barricaded German line as soldiers are poised to attack, offer a clue? We may note that Szabó nowhere mentions that “Schneider” was in fact Jewish (and Czech); but, especially given the film’s powerful opposition to anti-Semitism, may we not see around this “suppression” of historical truth and discover there a deliberate confusion of reality and fantasy by which Szabó moves us to infer something about the elusive nature of truth in history?
The Nazis try impressing Hanussen into their service and, here, are responsible for his 1933 assassination.
Klaus Maria Brandauer’s performance as Schneider/Hanussen is complex, brilliant; his wit glosses and undercuts a degree of nebulousness that (un)defines the character.
The main musical theme, by György Vukán, cunningly, offsidedly echoes Maurice Jarre’s main theme in Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969).
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THE CAMERAMAN (Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick, 1928)
September 22, 2008The same year he made his final masterpiece, Steamboat Bill, Jr., Buster Keaton forfeited his independence by signing up with M-G-M, the studio that had butchered Stroheim’s Greed (1924) and routinely practiced embalming “respectable” material. Uneven, The Cameraman, co-directed by Edward Sedgwick and (uncredited) Keaton, emerged from this new business arrangement. Alas, Keaton’s downfall was not entirely the fault of the studio. Keaton fans (such as I) must admit that a good deal of Keaton’s charm relied on his youth, and (in 1928) his playing parts ten years his junior was beginning to strain credulity. Associated with this, how long could he go on playing characters painfully out to prove themselves? Soon after, sound exposed his voice as arid—a needless aural repetition of his marvelous deadpan expression.
Already there is no getting away from M-G-M: the girl with whom Buster falls in love, Sally, works for the M-G-M newsreel department while he runs a one-man tintype operation, capturing clients on the street. The film opens with an hilariously inflated visual ode to newsreel journalism; against such heroism Buster’s work seems puny indeed. But Sally encourages Buster in his determination to become a newsreel photographer himself. Hearing there is a fire, Buster rushes out with his movie camera and boards a fire truck—into the fire station! At an empty Yankee Stadium, he asks the one person there, “Aren’t the Yankees playing today?” “Sure. In St. Louis.” Buster’s off to a losing start, but Keaton’s film is off to a good one.
But it is headed downhill. A date with Sally, which includes a community swimming pool, is prolonged and wretchedly unfunny. The entire romance in fact feels forced.
Buster does prove himself by solely capturing on film a Tong war in Chinatown.
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