Sleeping Beauty

There seems to be some disagreement about whether Paul Leni made this first or Dr. Hart's Diary first. I was going off of Wikipedia's ordering when I made my list, and yet the IMDB lists this first. Also, the only copy I could find includes a broken up talk from somebody who describes Sleeping Beauty as Leni's first. I guess I got it wrong. Who knew that trusting Wikipedia would lead me down the wrong road? I'm not entirely convinced, but there's a certain assuredness to the filmmaking in Sleeping Beauty that implies more experience from Leni, though that's not to say that Dr. Hart's Diary was poorly made (even if not very good overall).

Billed as one of the most expensive and greatest accomplishments of German cinema at that point in history contemporaneously (you know, when the German film industry was just about a decade old), Sleeping Beauty is a silent era effort at spectacle, using the well-known fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm as the angle. It's an exercise in production design more than anything else, telling the barest of bones version of the actual story (the surviving film is only forty minutes long) while providing a lot of visual things to take in.

This film eschews some of the problems that plagued Dr. Hart's Diary in having a sharper look at its characters, needing fewer of them to be fully realized even while they perform actions on screen, and never naming anyone. There is, of course, the titular beauty (Mabel Kaul) who is cursed by the evil witch (Hermann Picha) because the king (Paul Biensfeldt) and queen (Kathe Dorsche) refused to invite her to the girl's baptism. She puts the curse that the girl will die when she pricks her finger on a spindle, a curse partially lifted by a fairy at the baptism who says that she and the palace will only fall into a deep sleep instead, which, of course, happens years later when the beauty is grown up.

The appeal of the film really is the visual design. From the costumes that are ornately fashioned and uniquely built to differentiate characters easily to the sets that are intricately filled with detail to the later sections with model work to represent the palace covering in vines and roses, it's nice to look at. I should note that the only copy I could find, though, was rebuilt from a television broadcast in VHS, and the contrast was terrible with whites blowing out completely, making fine detail non-existent. It's sad to see that the best part of the film gets lost in the only copy I could find, and I imagine that Ufa probably has the best elements of but without much interest in restoring a minor work of a mostly forgotten director who died nearly a century ago.

Working at really the beginning of the medium, Leni used whatever tools he could have to make the film as visually resplendent as he could. He used large sets. He used great costumes. He used models. He used freeze frames. He used forced perspective. He used puppets. I could think of some more things he could have done (filming vines pulling off of the castle in reverse and then playing it the other way to make it look like it's wrapping up the castle might have looked better than just using a small wall of vines rising up from the bottom of the frame.

Of course, the story unfolds with the prince (Harry Liedtke) showing up to make his way through the vines. He doesn't have trouble with them, though, unlike the three others from a few minutes before that the vines actively fight off. He doesn't really earn his saving of the beauty other than being the prince, I guess. Oh well, it comes and goes quickly without ever getting the witch her due.

It's extremely simple narratively, giving us the barest of bones of the story, but the visuals are nice while being really short and never outstaying its welcome, moving lightly from one little plot point to the next as it gives us nice things to look at.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the film good, but it's kind of nice in a little, quaint sort of way.

Herr Paul Leni was an essential film director and remarkable set designer during the magnificent German silent era though his name is not remembered or praised as often he deserves. Whether working as director or designer, Leni was meticulous in creating just the right atmosphere for the story. He was comfortable with "Kammerspiele," "Expressionism" and the "avant-garde."

Herr Leni 's astounding ability and versatility are very much in evidence in "Dornröschen" ( Sleeping Beauty ) (1917), a beautiful film with evocative settings and ornate costumes, all the work of Herr Leni.

At this point, this Herr Graf considers it not necessary to tell in detail the story of "Dornröschen", an old fairy tale that Herr Graf's great-great grandfather told him many times during his aristocratic childhood. The usual fairy tale ingredients are all there: a beautiful princess, a prince charming, a good fairy and a witch, an evil spell and a happy ending, The life in the palace, both upstairs and down, is brought to life by elaborate sets in the Romantic mode but there is humor as well. Special effects are also used when needed to bring across the atmosphere of fantasy.

The actors are particularly convincing in their roles: a lovely and fragile princess ( Frau Mabel Kaul ), a vigorous and bold prince ( Harry Liedtke ) and the evil witch performed by a man, Herr Hermann Picha, (not unusual for the times). All in all, an inspired and delightful rendition of an old story.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must awake his servants with a whipping rather than a kiss.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com