Pola Negri Dances Seductively in Ernst Lubitsch’s Silent Adaptation of the Classic Tale
DIRECTED BY ERNST LUBITSCH/1918
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: JULY 9, 2024/KINO CLASSICS
Made by prominent filmmaker and film personality Ernst Lubitsch in the very closing weeks of World War I, just as his native Germany was going down in defeat, his realization of Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella Carmendances obliviously to the plight of the outside world.
A vehicle for famed vamp actress Pola Negri, who assumes the title role of the firey, seductive Romani commoner who drives men to all manner of moral compromise. Central to the story of the film (which covers only the final third of the source novella) is the character of Don José Navarro (Harry Liedtke), a respectable Dragoon Sergeant in Sevilla on track for a bright future.
Alas, Don José falls for lowly tobacco factory worker Carmen, to say he’s derailed would be a considerable understatement. Rather than honorable promotion and a happy marriage to his fiancée, he gets demoted and imprisoned before falling in with a band of smugglers and becoming an outlaw. He does it all for the sexually outward Carmen, who proceeds to go off with a bullfighter, leaving Don José behind. Madness in a proto-Noir downward spiral follows.
According to the disc’s audio commentarian, film historian Anthony Slide (whose academic track provided this critic with many of the film facts shared here), Lubitsch’s adaptation includes scenes and moments not featured in the original rather lengthy 250-plus page novella. Lubitsch, it seems, had no qualms about having his way with Carmen, which, by 1918, had already been brought to the screen by Cecil B. DeMille, Raoul Walsh, and Charlie Chaplin (all in 1915; Chaplin’s actually a parody of DeMille’s).
Extremely well reviewed upon its release, the film went on to be released recut in America under the title Gypsy Blood. Several other cuts came about as Lubitsch’s true version became lost to the ages. That is, until the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung recently undertook a two-year 4K restoration of the 1918 original cut. The Kino Classics disc contains a brief (five-minute long) German documentary about this challenging reassembly.
As successful as Lubitsch’s Carmen may have been, today it struts about as something of an outlier to the filmmaker’s reputation. Remembered now for his enigmatic “Lubitsch touch” commonly most associated with his Hollywood comedies, Carmen resides amongst his earlier lesser-considered German dramas. In such, Carmen also demonstrates the influence of stateside luminaries of the day Griffith and, yes, DeMille- they being inescapable makers of grand epics.
Here, Lubitsch luxuriates in his hordes of period extras in Spanish peasant garb cheering as the entire army parades through the town set. Within this, his depiction of said army might be riddled with shades of dopiness, reflective of the filmmaker’s own anti-military leanings. But still- the open-field combat sequence later in the film had a particular The Birth of a Nation wideness.
This satisfying Blu-ray release of the restored Carmen features a score correctly described as “lively” by composer Tobias Schwenke, and performed by the orchestral ensemble, Kontraste. The clarity of certain shots is downright staggering, even as others are rough and ragged. This is to be expected considering that the film as presented here is a painstakingly cobbled-together assembly of necessary portions of the other surviving variant cuts. Original color tinting is also restored, making for a popping run of aqua, green, blue, and even shockingly red scenes.
As for Carmen herself, Negri is perfect for the part. Energized and ghoulish at times, yet never not sexy, her love affair with the camera is a beguiling one. Lubitsch, who never shied away from any and all manner of mature sexuality on film, is not surprising to have selected this material for adaptation, even in Germany at this particular time.
American audiences’ fascination with the very staunchly liberated character is something more of a mystery. Anthony Slide presumes that she, being a ruiner of good men, resonates as a curvy and come-hither foreigner-as-cautionary tale. Lubitsch would disagree, as his framing of the character is far more nuanced than all that. Only now, over 100 years later, is mainstream America perhaps ready for Carmen. Unfortunately, that same general public has long ago lost its appetite for silent black and white movies. Hence, even as Kino Classics serves up the film in glorious high definition, Carmen will continue to elude even as she intrigues.