Film Review
In 1922, the 33-year-old German film director F.W. Murnau exhibited three
very different films in which his striving for psychological realism is achieved
in startlingly different ways. Of these, the most celebrated is his
vivid vampire tale
Nosferatu,
an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's
Dracula that ended in
a costly lawsuit for plagiarism and a court order that all prints of the
film be destroyed (thankfully a few copies survived). The other two
-
The Burning Soil (originally titled
Der Brennende Acker)
and
Phantom - are more down-to-earth
melodramas, and like
Nosferatu both came close to being obliterated
not long after they were made. After being lost for many decades,
The
Burning Soil resurfaced in 1978 (in an Italian psychiatric institution),
and
Phantom was only restored in 2002.
Watching these three miraculously preserved films back-to-back, you cannot
help being struck by how different they are, and yet they have a single,
unifying thread: man's tragic susceptibility to corrupting influences that
prevent him from finding true fulfilment in life. The influence of
Schopenhauer runs through much of Murnau's work but in this collection of
films (to call them a 'trilogy' would be overstating matters somewhat) the
idea that human beings are forever prone to irresistible forces (greed, malice,
desire) which inevitably result in loss and suffering is at the heart of
the narrative.
The Burning Soil is the most conventional of the three films, a mix
of morality play and crowdpleasing melodrama which, stylistically, lies midway
between the bold expressionism of
Nosferatu and surprising naturalism
of
Phantom. Its one supernatural element - a seemingly cursed
plot of land - is quickly dispelled once it has been revealed that the land
owes it unnatural character to the vast oil deposit lying beneath it.
What then follows is a scenario familiar to anyone who has ever watched George
Stevens'
Giant (1956) or the 1980s
TV soap opera
Dallas - a lurid tale of ambition, greed, frustrated
love, sibling rivalry, betrayal and revenge, with a spectacular denouement
and a worryingly high body count.
The film's secondary title
The Drama of an Ambitious Man is a suitable
résumé for the plot, which (uncannily presaging Murnau's subsequent
Faust) sees an ambitious young man
selling his soul for the sake of wealth and social advancement. Johannes
Rog (played by the prolific Russian film star Vladimir Gajdarov) could teach
the Ewing family a thing or two about skulduggery and double dealing - is
it a coincidence that his initials are J.R.? - but some of the other characters
are just as prone to human frailty, including the psychotically vindictive Gerda
and the apparently unforgiving older brother, Peter.
This rambling, soap-style intrigue contains some of the most vivid characters
of Murnau's entire oeuvre, all played with arresting conviction by some very
capable actors. The impressive cast includes (in a minor role) the
remarkable character actor Werner Krauss - he played Orgon in the director's
later film
Herr Tartuffe
(1926) but is best known as the evil showman in Robert Wiene's
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
(1920). In opposition to the overtly expressionistic approach
used in
Nosferatu, Murnau relies far more on his actors to express
their characters' psychological state, using close-ups much more freely than
exaggerated camera angles and lighting effects. The film's style is
nearer to that of Carl Theodor Dreyer than F.W. Murnau - Dreyer's
Master
of the House (1925) in particular looks as if it may have been influenced
by this film.
In common with many of Murnau's subsequent films - including
Der Letzte Mann (1924) and
Die Finanzen des
Großherzogs (1924) -
The Burning Soil is as much a scathing
piece of social commentary as it is a morality play, and the director's evident
contempt for raw capitalism is powerfully expressed by contrasting the ruinous
pursuit of wealth at all costs with the honest life of the peasant farmer.
As in
City Girl (1930), one
of the films that Murnau made in Hollywood not long before his untimely death,
the simple life of the farmer cultivating the land is an ideal that offers
man the surest path to happiness, whilst those who are lured away by the
prospect of easy wealth and social advancement are destined for disappointment
and personal failure.
The film's realistic sets are given a subtle expressionistic lift to create
a clearer demarcation of the two very different worlds portrayed in the film.
The peasants' cottage feels claustrophobically confined (which helps us to
appreciate J.R.'s need to escape from it), but it has a warmth and security
which is totally lacking in the cathedral-like rooms in the aristocrats'
icy cold ancestral castle. Between these two there lies a vast expanse
of flat open countryside that seems to be perpetually covered in a thick blanket of snow.
This is the so-called Devil's Field, where apparently nothing grows and no
one dares to set foot, although it harbours untold wealth for anyone brave
enough or greedy enough to defy the ancient superstition. The only
sign that man has ever set foot here is a derelict chapel, alongside which
J.R. will construct his cursed oil well. Once the cycle of greed and malice has run its
fiery course, these two structures stand together in the wintry wilderness like the last skeletal
remnants of a lost civilisation, tombstones to two of mankind's
greatest follies - religion and capitalism. The Devil's Field is aptly
named.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
For generations, a plot of land belonging to the wealthy Rudenburg family
has been known as the Devil's Field, on account of the fact that, many years
ago, the head of the family was killed in an explosion whilst digging a well
to find buried treasure. Since then, nothing has ever grown on the
field and the local peasants are convinced it is touched by Satan.
The present Count von Rudenburg is not so superstitious and his own investigations
lead him to discover that beneath the field there is an enormous oil deposit.
Just before his death, he bequeaths the field to his younger wife, Helga,
knowing that it will one day make her a rich woman. The count's ambitious
young secretary, Johannes Rog, had been courting his daughter Gerda, but
the discovery of the oil deposit prompts him to transfer his attentions to
Helga. Johannes and Helga marry not long after the count's death, and
within no time Johannes is out trying to raise the capital to begin construction
of an oil well on the Devil's Field. Fearing that her inheritance is
cursed, Helga persuades Johannes' peasant brother Peter to buy the field
off her for a paltry sum. On hearing this news, Johannes is overcome
with rage and orders Helga to buy back the field from Peter. Now knowing
that Johannes only married her for her legacy, Helga does as she is commanded
and then kills herself. Gerda seizes the opportunity to try to resume
her former romance with Johannes, but when she learns that he loves her no
more than he loved her stepmother she is sickened and conceives a spectacular
revenge...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.