It's probably best to begin a review of the film I watched with liner notes by David Gasten of The Pola Negri Appreciation Site: "...Henny Porten's "Backstairs" (1921) (aka "Hintertreppe (its original title)) is one of the earliest attempts at reproducing a pioneering and revolutionary genre of German theatre called "intimate theatre" (kammerspiel). This purposefully minimalistic film seized the imaginations of film critics, and helped pioneer a small but very influential subgenre of German film called the kammerspielfilm; this film style would come to a greater fruition in F. W. Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927) and Hedy Lamarr's breakthrough film "Ecstasy" (1933)."
Quite honestly, I've never watched a film like this one. It nearly felt as if I were in a theater watching a huge, but somehow intensely intimate, stage performance by the three main players, and really only two. The film only lasts for 50 minutes. Henny Porten's performance is not only Academy Award worthy, but one of the finest performances I've ever seen on film - BUT - is also so stylized as to be disturbing at times, too. There are moments when time itself seems to slow down for her and fellow actor, Fritz Kortner, the other main actor of the piece; and when that occurs the actors seem to move in slow motion, though it's their movement and not a camera trick that is doing the linearity of the film. And - it's all very natural. The sets are simply amazing. The first thing that came to my mind were sets from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", expressionistic things that looked as if they came out of a dream sequence. The sets in "Backstairs" are small and cramped and dirty and poor and mis-shapen and dark and thick and at angles and curves that are claustrophobic. May I say, too, that the second thing that struck me immediately is that the set of the outside of the living quarters looked nearly identical to that which is in the later film, "The Last Laugh" (1924) - nearly exact, if not part of the same set.
I think to give what this film is about, I need to quote a review that appears in the IMDb because it clarifies several things that may be questioned while watching. This is a review by "fredhedges" that appeared last 19 August (2019); he begins by correcting a review that had appeared above that perhaps mis-interpreted the film: "The Synopsis given above is, I believe, inaccurate, a misreading of the narrative. The Lover, played by Wilhelm Dieterle, unexpectedly disappears and is not heard from - an occurrence which would have been understood by audiences of the time to imply the young man being at the front during the war. Out of love for the Girl, who is devastated by the man's absence incommunicado, the Mailman (Fritz Kortner) forges a letter to her, to make her happy. She discovers the ruse and is terribly upset; she has to assume that the Lover has been killed. But she also sees the kindness of the Mailman's actions, and returns his affection. But then the Lover returns, showing the Girl the letter she wrote him earlier, which no doubt declared her love for him. "What's going on? You wrote this to me, and now I see you creeping out of this person's place!" It looks like a betrayal, and perhaps it was, since a kiss can be a code for something more intimate. There is an inevitability to the tragic denouement...I take my reading of the narrative from Anton Kaes' excellent book Shellshock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War."
Truly a great movie with only one, maybe two, intertitles in the whole thing. Not for everybody, but for those interested in early experiments in cinema, and not necessarily avant garde , this could be a revelation.
Stars again Henny Porten, Fritz Kortner, and Wilhelm Dieterle and Eugene Dieterle, with several extras near the tragic end.
Quite honestly, I've never watched a film like this one. It nearly felt as if I were in a theater watching a huge, but somehow intensely intimate, stage performance by the three main players, and really only two. The film only lasts for 50 minutes. Henny Porten's performance is not only Academy Award worthy, but one of the finest performances I've ever seen on film - BUT - is also so stylized as to be disturbing at times, too. There are moments when time itself seems to slow down for her and fellow actor, Fritz Kortner, the other main actor of the piece; and when that occurs the actors seem to move in slow motion, though it's their movement and not a camera trick that is doing the linearity of the film. And - it's all very natural. The sets are simply amazing. The first thing that came to my mind were sets from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", expressionistic things that looked as if they came out of a dream sequence. The sets in "Backstairs" are small and cramped and dirty and poor and mis-shapen and dark and thick and at angles and curves that are claustrophobic. May I say, too, that the second thing that struck me immediately is that the set of the outside of the living quarters looked nearly identical to that which is in the later film, "The Last Laugh" (1924) - nearly exact, if not part of the same set.
I think to give what this film is about, I need to quote a review that appears in the IMDb because it clarifies several things that may be questioned while watching. This is a review by "fredhedges" that appeared last 19 August (2019); he begins by correcting a review that had appeared above that perhaps mis-interpreted the film: "The Synopsis given above is, I believe, inaccurate, a misreading of the narrative. The Lover, played by Wilhelm Dieterle, unexpectedly disappears and is not heard from - an occurrence which would have been understood by audiences of the time to imply the young man being at the front during the war. Out of love for the Girl, who is devastated by the man's absence incommunicado, the Mailman (Fritz Kortner) forges a letter to her, to make her happy. She discovers the ruse and is terribly upset; she has to assume that the Lover has been killed. But she also sees the kindness of the Mailman's actions, and returns his affection. But then the Lover returns, showing the Girl the letter she wrote him earlier, which no doubt declared her love for him. "What's going on? You wrote this to me, and now I see you creeping out of this person's place!" It looks like a betrayal, and perhaps it was, since a kiss can be a code for something more intimate. There is an inevitability to the tragic denouement...I take my reading of the narrative from Anton Kaes' excellent book Shellshock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War."
Truly a great movie with only one, maybe two, intertitles in the whole thing. Not for everybody, but for those interested in early experiments in cinema, and not necessarily avant garde , this could be a revelation.
Stars again Henny Porten, Fritz Kortner, and Wilhelm Dieterle and Eugene Dieterle, with several extras near the tragic end.