Josef von Sternberg | The Last Command | Dishonored | Blonde Venus | Macao
Classic Film and Television Home Page
Josef von Sternberg is a great filmmaker, whose works are notable for their extraordinary visual beauty.
Sternberg's remarkable command of film technique has inspired several studies:
The Last Command (1928) draws some of its plot inspiration from two films in which Emil Jannings also starred: Lubitsch's Madame Dubarry (1920), and Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924). It shares the word "Last" in its title with Murnau's film, and the plot of a man whose self esteem comes from wearing a fancy uniform, and being broken in spirit when he is forced to give it up.
Herman J. Mankiewicz's titles also make many bitter references to the Czar's conduct of World War I. These are also in the pacifist tradition of bitter criticism of that war, that was popular in the 1920's. This criticism shows up in many, many American authors of the period, and has nothing to do with the subject of communism.
Sternberg sees Hollywood as being similarly composed of all powerful aristocrats at the top - the directors - and a proletarian mob below - the mass of poverty stricken extras. But his greatest opprobrium is reserved for neither the cruel, capricious directors or the brutalized extras, but for the army of yes men and assistants in between. These assistants toady up to the directors above them, and mistreat and are contemptuous of the poor extras below.
The chief visual motif of the actual film set are lathe constructions; we see many boxes, platforms and set fragments made out of thin wooden boards. This low tech construction is intermixed with high tech camera and lighting equipment. I have no idea how this looked to audiences in 1928: whether the wood looked as primitive to them as it does to me today. The overall set looks both very complex, and yet a bit simpler than the elaborate grid shown in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), twenty years later: my next major point of reference to what a film set looks like.
Sternberg's use of camera movement in The Last Command is more sporadic than in other directors with his pictorial skill. There are some spectacular camera movements, but the majority of the shots are static compositions. The traveling shots tend to be forceful, intense, fast moving progressions along a straight path: down a banquet table, a review pass a line of troops, a track pass a mob. They tend to be done for an intense emotional effect, an effect of delirious force, and to be part of dramatic climaxes for a scene. They are part of an over all emotional plan of a scene which tends to include many static camera setups. They do not tend to be visually exploratory, as they are in George Cukor, or a consistent way of looking at the world, as in Mizoguchi or Murnau. Instead, camera movement is part of Sternberg's film language, something he can deploy apparently at will. Later Sternberg films, such as Blonde Venus, will employ camera movement more systematically. Such works are the models for the later films of Mizoguchi Kenji and Max Ophuls, and the fountainheads of their style.
Dishonored (1931) is a spy story of World War I. Its plot somewhat recalls that of Rex Ingram's Mare Nostrum (1926). Both films focus on a beautiful woman who spies for the Austrian-German side; both are ultimately based on the real life story of Mata Hari, the glamorous spy. In both films the woman is executed by firing squad, also like the real life Mata Hari. Both include a similar incident in which she insists on being shot while wearing her glamorous clothes, calling them "the uniform in which I served my country". Sternberg's disciple Curtis Harrington will also make an outstanding film entitled Mata Hari (1985), thus completing the cycle.
Sternberg's dramatic sense often recalls that of Ingram in general. Both directors' films mix delirious portraits of dramatic historical events, with personal romantic melodramas. Both evoke intense emotion. Both follow events over long periods of time, with many changes of fortune for their characters. Both directors visit many exotic locations. The slow paced pictorialism of both directors is somewhat similar, although Sternberg is a much greater creator of images. Both have similar heroes in their films: these tend to be glamorous macho men wearing fancy military uniforms. Antonio Moreno's sea captain in Mare Nostrum anticipates such uniformed Sternberg heroes as Gary Cooper in Morocco (1931) and Clive Brook in Shanghai Express (1932). Sternberg's heroes will be overwhelmingly attracted to the heroines of those movies, just as Moreno is in Mare Nostrum.
Mare Nostrum has a forceful pacifist message, and a mountain of guilt and angst for its hero. It is in the tradition of such scathing looks at World War I espionage as Frances Marion's The Love Light (1921), a grim film in which romance is also sordidly betrayed by espionage activity. By contrast, Sternberg's film is much more light hearted. Consequently, Sternberg's film is a lot more fun, even if it is much less politically insightful. Still, the pacifist orientation of Mare Nostrum is consistent with the anti-war commentary in Sternberg's The Last Command, and Sternberg's distaste for the war lords in Shanghai Express. Both Sternberg and Ingram employ satire to convey the distaste and disgust they feel for people who conduct wars.
The depiction of blacks has much in common with Sternberg's sympathetic depictions of working women in An American Tragedy and Macao. Both groups are seen as a working proletariat, a group of hard working people at the bottom of the social ladder. Neither has much money or power, and none have any upper class mannerisms.
This film features several long camera movements tied to architecture. In these Marlene Dietrich moves slowly along a staircase, aisle or corridor, while the camera tracks her. She and the camera follow a path. Often there are elaborate objects in front of the camera's view, such as the palms in the musical number XXX. The background is also most elaborate and complex.
Sternberg tends to move his camera in both directions along this path:
The backgrounds and walls in Blonde Venus and many other Sternberg films are extremely complex. Often, nearly every square inch of the walls are covered by objects. These form complex visual patterns. For example, the agent's office is full of framed show biz pictures. Their endlessly repeating rectilinear compositions recall the geometric paintings of Mondrian. They also anticipate the rectilinear compositions of Ozu. Each photo is of a different size, and they are arranged in a complex irregular pattern on the wall.
Similarly, the dressing room is full of women's costumes on the wall. These are hanging on hooks, sitting on shelves, and just leaning against the wall, including one prop on a long pole. Cary Grant picks up and manipulates this pole: it recalls all the similar long rifles and bayonets used by the male extras in The Last Command. Such poles are phallic symbols. Mizoguchi will similarly include a long fishing pole in Osaka Elegy (1936). The women's costumes all have a 3D effect, although they are nearly flat, and mainly parallel to the wall. This is the equivalent of a frieze, a combination of 3D effects with a basically 2D surface. Cubist artists, such as Picasso, and their Russian Constructivist heirs had made the frieze one of the most popular formats of early Modern Art. Such friezes show up in many sets in Blonde Venus, including the night club set, and the heroine's apartment.
The night club where Dietrich sings "Hot Voodoo" is similarly festooned with every possible decorative object. Many of these are plants. When Sternberg photographs the club, the people in the foreground are usually in clear focus. But often times, the background objects are not. They instead form a complex pattern of light and shade, in which individual objects cannot be discerned clearly. Sometimes a plant shape will be clear, such as a palm leaf or an aroid leaf, but otherwise, the entire background composition will be an abstract pattern. The abstract pattern is full of shapes that suggest night club decoration, but the exact objects will be unclear.
Even the plants in the foreground will often be in silhouette. The front of the image will be festooned with plant leaves, which hang down from the top of the frame. Sometimes these will be photographed literally; other times they will appear as black silhouettes. When silhouetted, they are still recognizable as plant shapes, but they have taken one step towards abstraction, becoming a pure outline of black. Sternberg loves objects in the foreground of his images, and this will be one of the most recurring features of his visual style.
Sternberg also includes portrait shots of Cary Grant, and of the night club owner O'Connor. Both of these are medium shots, and capture their subject men in languid repose, very effective for character building and moody meditation. Both images are full of pure abstraction in the background. The lighting effects behind O'Connor are a full piece of Abstract Art, made up out of light. The background is full of irregular streaks of light and shadow, complex arcs and patterns of light. It is an awesome effect. Some of this imagery is probably soft focus photography of objects in the background of the night club; the rest is probably pure painting with light.
This circular composition recalls the circular casinos to come in Macao and The Shanghai Gesture.
Macao (1952) was von Sternberg's last Hollywood film. It does not have a big reputation today. But Macao looks astonishingly beautiful, in the best Sternberg tradition. Sternberg's visual effects are a matter of composition. These compositions are achieved through careful set design, camera placement, and lighting.
The upper stories of the casino are full of railed openings, leading to the lower floors. I have never seen anything else like this, in any other movie. This means that when shooting on the upper floor, one is constantly seeing opening leading below, and circular arch openings leading to other rooms. Both the circles and the openings seem like female symbols. The fact that all the croupiers seem to be female adds to this impression, as does the way in which Russell seems to be in charge of the night club area and entertainment. This gives the entire casino a female aspect. The film's other chief female character, the croupier Gloria Grahame, also presides in the casino. We seem to be in a female realm.
Dexter's office is all rectilinear lines, in keeping with its position as a male enclave.
Sternberg further elaborates the light from the blinds by two effects. These effects are purely geometrical, in accordance with Sternberg's fascination with mathematical patterns. Light from one of the blinds extends from the upper wall onto the ceiling. We see the angular bend in the bar of light formed from the projection onto the ceiling. Secondly, the lights near the door are projected on an angle on the wall, making them narrow at one end, and widening out as they project leftward across the wall and the screen. This is a beautiful and complex effect.
These later scenes often employ curtains or netting; these were largely absent in the earlier sections of the film. The netting gets heavier and more elaborate. Finally, in the climactic sequence Sternberg drapes his entire harbor set with elaborate, heavy fishermen's nets. The effect is truly spectacular. It looks like some of the "environment" art of the 1970's and 1980's.
Von Sternberg was noted for glamorous costumes. Here the women all seem to be wearing elaborate jewelry. Jane Russell wears a huge necklace during her first big song, that glitters in the light. Gloria Grahame also gets jewelry. During her second song, Russell gets a metallic dress that glitters with every turn of her body. It is remarkable and in the Sternberg tradition of elaborate costumes. Also highly unusual: the gloves half covered with jewels that Grahame wears while she is shaking the dice. I've never seen anything like them in another film. The jeweled regions make an elaborate curved 3D region on the back of Grahame's hands and arms. They add compositional complexity to the scenes. Close-ups in Sternberg do not necessarily lead to a loss of visual detail, as they often do in other directors. Instead, Sternberg often simply changes his scale, with an elaborate piece of jewelry or other object adding a visually spectacular quality to the scene.
The men are also dressed to the max. Sternberg favored clothes for men that suggested the dignity of their professions. His men in earlier films are often in officer's uniforms, clothes that suggest the last degree of refinement. Here the men are mainly in white tropical suits and tuxedos. These are extremely elegant and upper crust, in Sternberg's tradition. Sternberg's men are always exceptionally elegant and well turned out, yet dressed in clothes that suggest they are good at their work. Sternberg liked to shine a bright light over his characters, making them stand out from the lower lighting of the surrounding scene. He does this several times with the men's white suits, making them virtually flame out with whiteness from the screen. The effect adds to the elegance of their look.
The short answer to this question is a cautious "yes", but with reservations. Macao was made in the film noir era, and it has some but not all of the characteristics of noir. First of all, Macao is a genuine crime film. This puts it squarely in the noir tradition. It is a film whose plot involves suspense for its characters proceeding from the crime elements: this too is noir like.
Macao has a lot of nocturnal photography, like other noir films. On the other hand, its photography tends to be in the Pictorialist tradition of Sternberg's earlier films. It is not mainly a John Alton like experiment in high contrast photography.
The central characters of Macao are neither criminals nor detectives. Both Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell play adventurers who wander around the Orient taking odd jobs. Both get involved with Dexter's schemes innocently and by mistake. Neither one shows the "obsession and alienation" that Alain Silver has identified as characterizing noir characters. The characters' competency at their jobs, and general control of their own fate, also marks them out as distinct from the noir tradition. Neither one is child like, obsessed or neurotic, and neither one looks like they are pushed around by forces they cannot control.
The setting of the film is a lot more exotic than most film noir, which mainly takes place in an American urban underworld. The next year, Robert Aldrich's World For Ransom (1953) will be set in a similar milieu to Macao, with its look at crooks in Singapore. Both films will look a lot alike, with Hollywood actors wandering through elaborate sets, filled with visually interesting chinoiserie. Both films show night clubs and living quarters; both films also show street scenes that are obviously constructed inside a studio - and which are nevertheless visually creative and enjoyable to watch.
All in all, it makes sense to regard Macao as Sternberg's personal take on the noir tradition, a cross between noir elements and his own tales of exotic adventure and romance. It is greatly to be pitied that Sternberg did not get more chances to make noir films. His great visual gifts could have enhanced the noir heritage.
One might note that neither film would encourage anyone to gamble. Macao shows how crooked and fixed casinos are, and how they exploit people; Gesture shows their negative impact on people's lives.
Andrew Sarris has stressed how virtuous all of Sternberg's characters tend to be. Similarly, both the dialogue and characterization underline here that Russell has kept her virtue and her dignity intact through all the exploitative male owners and bosses around her.