The New York Times reporter enthusiastically wrote the following text: "Maunao is the genius of this era, and The Most Despicable Man is the greatest movie of all time!" ”。
F· W·茂瑙
(This article is from the first station of film and television life Time Network)
Time Network Feature Article The British veteran professional film magazine "Sight and Sound" must be more or less heard by fans and friends, this magazine, which has been published for nearly 90 years, invites film critics, scholars and cultural workers from all over the world to vote for the 250 greatest films in the history of cinema every decade.
Poster of Sunrise
Because of the professionalism and independence of See & Hear magazine, it can be said that this film list is the most valuable and convincing of all the lists of its kind. Beginning with its first selection in 1952, Sight & Hear's list was selected seven times, with Citizen Kane being voted the greatest film of all time five times in a row from 1962 to 2002. However, things have changed in recent years, and the last selection so far was in 2012, when Alfred Hitchcock's Ecstasy pulled Citizen Kane off the horse as the perfect film in the eyes of professionals.
But what we're talking about today is not the story of these two classic films, but the fifth place on the list, the talented German director F. W. Mauna's outstanding masterpiece "Sunrise".
Filmed in 1927, the film was hailed as "the greatest film of the silent age" and won the Award for Best Picture in the Arts at the first Academy Awards. Before 2002, Sunrise had never entered the top ten of the "Sight and Hearing" top 250 list, and it was only seventh in 2002, and continued to climb to fifth place in 2012.
Stills from Sunrise
In other words, with the passage of time, the aesthetic afterglow of "Sunrise" not only did not dissipate, but emitted a more dazzling light. Among the 100 most beautiful films ever selected by the famous French film magazine "Film Handbook", "Sunrise" is also on the list. Two major events in the film industry in 1927 completely changed the future direction of cinema: "Jazz King" represented the entry of cinema into the era of sound films, and "Sunrise" left a rich treasure for film aesthetics. The release of the two films also represents the passing of two film eras, the croaking of sound films and the sudden death of silent films.
Hollywood invites Mauna to "poverty alleviation through art"
German Expressionism masterpiece "Metropolis"
Film as a technology was born at the end of the 19th century, and in the early years of the 20th century, it has flourished, and the film has gradually become an artistic carrier that some artists consciously use and explore their creativity from the initial simple video recording tools and juggling projects. In 1911, the Italian poet Giotto Canute first included cinema in the category of "art", declaring it the seventh art after architecture, music, painting, sculpture, poetry, and dance.
At this time, the literary and artistic youth tried to explore the possibilities of film as art, which led to the emergence of various film movements on the historical stage in the early 20th century. The avant-garde film movement, the Impressionist film movement, and the German expressionist film movement rose and fell, greatly enriching the expressive techniques and artistic potential of film art, and Mao nao was one of the representatives of expressionist film.
Although many German film scholars insist that film was first invented by the German inventor Max Skoladanowski, they also admit that the development of early German cinema lagged far behind that of France, the United States, and even Italy, which was "born for art", and that the defeat in World War I was even more humiliating to the Germans, who realized that they had to start again in the field of culture and art. German banks and entrepreneurs joined forces in 1917 to form the prestigious Ufa Film Company, which brought together a group of young talents of the time: Fritz Lang ("Metropolis", "M is the Murderer"), Robert Wien ("Dr. Carrigal's Cabin", "The Hand of Olak"), Paul Wigner ("Clay Man Golian"), Ernst Liu Bieqian ("Madame Dubari"), and F. W. Maunau.
Stills from The Meanest Man, adapted from the novel The Coat by the Russian writer Gogol.
Don't forget that Nosferatu was also written by Maunau, the first horror vampire in film history
The wave of expressionist films led by this group of directors promoted the aesthetics of film and changed the image of the four words "German film", at which time German films began to be released on a small scale in North America. In January 1925, Mauna's new film, The Mean Man, was released in a New York theater, and discerning Americans, who did not even know the exact pronunciation of the director's name before the release, almost went to see a German film with a mocking mentality. And when they walked out of the theater, the expression on their faces was full of shock.
Film critics and audiences accustomed to hollywood taste were completely conquered by the "elegant" German film (especially the intellectual class), Hollywood film seemed to become synonymous with obsolescence and superficiality in an instant, and the Reporter of the New York Times enthusiastically wrote the following text: "Maunau is the genius of this era, and The Most Despicable Man is the greatest film ever!" ”。 German cinema and art cinema are almost synonymous, which also makes Hollywood feel a little threatened.
In the early 1920s, almost all German films released in the United States were unanimously praised, and the unsparing praise of film critics and journalists spread to almost all American cafes with the expansion of print media, which also exacerbated the "stereotype" that German films are art. Some in Hollywood began to call for trade protectionism and restrict foreign films from entering the North American market.
Mauna
The media dismissed this, even suggesting that it wasn't really a fear of the economy, but that they didn't want American audiences to know that Hollywood simply couldn't make a movie of this caliber. I believe that william Fox, the founder of Twentieth Century Fox, also read the media's views on Hollywood movies at this time, and he thought to himself, or should we just let this little German come to the United States to make films?
In Germany, Maunau has already produced art film classics such as "Northferatu", "Faust", and "Tadouf", which are almost excellent representatives of art films in the minds of Americans. In July 1926, Maunau came to New York from Germany, and William Fox hosted a grand welcome dinner at the famous Ritz Carlton Hotel in Manhattan, where celebrities from all walks of life gathered to witness the arrival of film geniuses to North America to "alleviate poverty through art", and the New York Broadcasting Corporation at the time even reported on it, believing that Fox's move would write a new history of cinema.
With the praise of the media, the expectations of the audience, the absolute trust of the boss, the freedom of artistic creation, there are very few Hollywood directors in history who have received such generous treatment, and Mao Nao is under this aura at this time, and his first Hollywood work "Sunrise" was born in this context. At that time, Variety magazine had disclosed that the shooting cost of "Sunrise" reached $1.2 million, and William Fox said lightly before the film's release that the film was not extravagant and wasteful, and the trust that Mao nao had, or how much pressure there was, could be imagined.
The audience didn't buy it, and the director died unexpectedly
The film premiered in New York on September 23 and was officially released in North America on November 4. But the reviews were mixed. At this time, the impression of German films by North American audiences was much worse than before, although "Sunrise" was a complete twentieth-century Fox-produced film from the production point of view, but a German director made a German novel into a "art" film with a German style, and the rebellious psychology in the audience's mind seemed to have replaced the earlier worship.
"Jazz Singer" represents the emergence of sound films
What's more, the release date of "Sunrise" coincides with the first sound film "Jazz Singer", a "foreign" film with a very high style, high song and low, and a local cultural (jazz) film with a revolutionary breakthrough in sound, which film is more likely to attract the public's interest, it is obvious.
The New York Times praised the film as "a masterpiece," while the famous Time magazine called it drowsy. However, at the first Academy Awards ceremony afterwards, the film still won three heavy awards: Best Art Film, Best Actress and Best Cinematography. Although the box office performance did not satisfy Fox, William Fox's purpose was achieved, and the image of Twentieth Century Fox Company has changed to a large extent, from a production company specializing in "grounded" films to a stylish film industry that can shoot large-scale "art films". They are not only entertainment businessmen, but also the driving force behind the art of cinema.
However, Mauna began to decline after ushering in the peak of his film career. Although William Fox signed him a five-year contract, the box office failure of Sunrise also made Fox lose interest in it, he tried to return to Europe to restart his film career, but did not succeed, and returned to North America to shoot two works "Four Devils" and "City Girl", but at this time Fox gave him a sharp reduction in budget, and no longer enjoyed full creative freedom, the box office of the two films was not satisfactory, the former film is even lost to this day. In 1929, Wall Street finance collapsed, Fox's stock price plummeted, and Maunau was completely expelled from the company.
In The mausoleum of Mauna, whose head was stolen from the tomb in 15 years, the police suspected that the thief was lighting candles at the scene and performing some kind of mysterious ritual
William Fox's "genius of this era" had no film to shoot at this time, and his fate took a sharp turn for the worse, and he met Robert Flahadi, the father of documentaries, the adventurer who made Nanuk of the North. Two artists who were unsuccessful in Hollywood hit it off and came to Tahiti in Southeast Asia to shoot the film "Taboo" featuring local aborigines, but the two filmmakers soon broke up, and the shooting funds were delayed, and Mao Nao insisted on filming at his own expense in the case of almost bankruptcy, and then signed a contract with Paramount to get a loan to complete the final shooting of the film.
Originally scheduled to premiere at the Central Park Theater in New York on March 19, 1931, both Maunau and Paramount were confident in the film. Legend has it that on March 10, a fortune teller warned Maunao to avoid the land route, and he planned to take a boat to New York for the premiere of "Forbidden."< At 6:30 p.m. that night, when he was driving a Rolls-Royce to arrange a boat ride, he rushed out of the seaside road to avoid the oncoming truck, and a generation of film masters were seriously injured and unconscious, and died in the hospital the next day at the age of 42.