I'm a passionate advocate on behalf of German Expressionist films, especially from the silent era. I'm still bitter about an incident at the 1982 World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, when an audience full of idiots (jaded by high-tech S/FX movies) laughed at the cardboard sets in 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari'. Those morons didn't care that the high degree of originality and imagination in 'Caligari' more than made up for its tiny production budget.
'Shadows', however, while firmly within the Expressionist genre, is too arty for its own good. While this film does have some merits, its flaws greatly outnumber and exceed its merits.
All the actors perform their roles with hand-to-brow histrionics of precisely the sort which have given silent-film acting a bad reputation. Several of the actors in this movie have given good performances elsewhere, so I assume that director Arthur Robison deserves the blame for their mannered theatrics here. During one scene, when a swain aims a punch at his rival, the actor cannot simply throw a punch: he must put his fist up against the other man's face, and then shove.
Alexander Granach, as a showman with a shadow box and shadow puppets, demonstrates some extremely deft hand shadows, apparently with no other props supplementing his hands. But, when the puppet-master isn't performing, Granach lurches across the screen like Igor the hunchback. Ruth Weyher is pretty and graceful but is given no opportunity to behave like a human being.
This silent film was originally released with no intertitles. Several other silent features also eschewed captions -- 'The Last Laugh', "The Old Swimmin' Hole", 'The Last Moment' -- but those films had linear plots which the audience could easily follow. The plot of 'Shadows' is deeply confusing, made even more confusing by the arty pretensions, and the story would have been far easier to follow with some captions. A curator at the Murnau Archiv has told me that 'Shadows' was given intertitles by several exhibitors when it was released outside Germany.
The plot -- such as it is -- vaguely reminded me of Renoir's 'Rules of the Game' and Bergman's 'Smiles of a Summer Night': in a swank country manor, some people with more money than sense amuse themselves at each other's expense. But here the cast members are introduced in arty tableaux that are more alienating than edifying. After the final tableau, we're treated to the odd spectacle of a single upraised finger casting a shadow on the screen. What does this mean, please? Later, in hindsight, we understand that this signifies the beginning of the drama's Chapter One. (I saw this film in London, where the audience burst out laughing at the start of Chapter Two, symbolised by a hand with TWO upraised fingers: in Britain, this two-fingered gesture has obscene connotations.) The finger device is confusing, and adds nothing to the story ... nor does the decision to divide the narrative into arbitrary chapters.
The production design is impressive: judging by the furniture and clothes, this story takes place somewhere in Europe (probably Germany) circa 1830: again, some titles would have helped. But Robison considerably weakens the effect of these wonderful costumes and sets by obscuring them with elaborate shadows, and by gimmicky effects such as raising and lowering a proscenium curtain in front of the actors. (As if we need to be reminded that this very artificial story is merely a story!)
Considerable talent, effort and expense were put into 'Shadows', to little effect. Rather a lot of today's movie-goers are sadly prejudiced against silent films, misperceiving them all to be crude and laughably overacted. Sadly, 'Shadows' is precisely the sort of movie which would convince such people that all the negative stereotypes about silent movies are true after all. My rating for this failure: 2 out of 10, mostly for the production design.
'Shadows', however, while firmly within the Expressionist genre, is too arty for its own good. While this film does have some merits, its flaws greatly outnumber and exceed its merits.
All the actors perform their roles with hand-to-brow histrionics of precisely the sort which have given silent-film acting a bad reputation. Several of the actors in this movie have given good performances elsewhere, so I assume that director Arthur Robison deserves the blame for their mannered theatrics here. During one scene, when a swain aims a punch at his rival, the actor cannot simply throw a punch: he must put his fist up against the other man's face, and then shove.
Alexander Granach, as a showman with a shadow box and shadow puppets, demonstrates some extremely deft hand shadows, apparently with no other props supplementing his hands. But, when the puppet-master isn't performing, Granach lurches across the screen like Igor the hunchback. Ruth Weyher is pretty and graceful but is given no opportunity to behave like a human being.
This silent film was originally released with no intertitles. Several other silent features also eschewed captions -- 'The Last Laugh', "The Old Swimmin' Hole", 'The Last Moment' -- but those films had linear plots which the audience could easily follow. The plot of 'Shadows' is deeply confusing, made even more confusing by the arty pretensions, and the story would have been far easier to follow with some captions. A curator at the Murnau Archiv has told me that 'Shadows' was given intertitles by several exhibitors when it was released outside Germany.
The plot -- such as it is -- vaguely reminded me of Renoir's 'Rules of the Game' and Bergman's 'Smiles of a Summer Night': in a swank country manor, some people with more money than sense amuse themselves at each other's expense. But here the cast members are introduced in arty tableaux that are more alienating than edifying. After the final tableau, we're treated to the odd spectacle of a single upraised finger casting a shadow on the screen. What does this mean, please? Later, in hindsight, we understand that this signifies the beginning of the drama's Chapter One. (I saw this film in London, where the audience burst out laughing at the start of Chapter Two, symbolised by a hand with TWO upraised fingers: in Britain, this two-fingered gesture has obscene connotations.) The finger device is confusing, and adds nothing to the story ... nor does the decision to divide the narrative into arbitrary chapters.
The production design is impressive: judging by the furniture and clothes, this story takes place somewhere in Europe (probably Germany) circa 1830: again, some titles would have helped. But Robison considerably weakens the effect of these wonderful costumes and sets by obscuring them with elaborate shadows, and by gimmicky effects such as raising and lowering a proscenium curtain in front of the actors. (As if we need to be reminded that this very artificial story is merely a story!)
Considerable talent, effort and expense were put into 'Shadows', to little effect. Rather a lot of today's movie-goers are sadly prejudiced against silent films, misperceiving them all to be crude and laughably overacted. Sadly, 'Shadows' is precisely the sort of movie which would convince such people that all the negative stereotypes about silent movies are true after all. My rating for this failure: 2 out of 10, mostly for the production design.