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The Blue Angel
(1930) - Directed by Josef Von Sternberg
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Drama
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"You're corrupting my pupils."
(1930) - Directed by Josef Von Sternberg
--------------------------------------------
Drama
-------------------------------------------------
"You're corrupting my pupils."
Recently I got curious about the classics in my catalog. As a film buff, I need to be serious about every era of filmmaking, but I've been slogging on the classic years, especially the farther back you go. This is gonna be a little embarrassing to admit, but when I don't include short films, I have only seen five films from the year 1930. I plan on fixing that as soon as possible. I'd like to get at least up to 30 soon, so I'm gonna be serious about exploring every year of the 30's until I get bored, and I hope I don't. And one of the starting points, besides that cheap and easy mockumentary Ingagi, is the Josef Von Sternberg classic: The Blue Angel.
This is a famous but loose adaptation of a classic German novel, Professor Unrat. In this film, Professor Rath is teaches college-level English, but soon gets little hints that some of his class are going to see a showgirl at a club. Upon entering this club in an attempt to catch his students in the act, he meets with Lola and starts to fall for her. But after he visits again, the secret is out, and his students have lost respect for him. Now without a job, Rath decides to marry the girl. But being married to a girl who's job is to be shared among men isn't what he had in mind, and soon it becomes too much for him.
You know, the funny thing about exploring classic directors is that you sometimes find one that you consider a bit overrated. In my case, it's Josef Von Sternberg. I keep trying to get into his classics and I've never really been satisfied, often citing his films as overrated. The Blue Angel is no exception. I keep hearing that he's one of the greats of Austrian / German cinema, but I have yet to really believe that. I might not have seen all of his classics (in fact, this is my fifth film of his), but I get so utterly underwhelmed almost every time I see his movies that I even get bored at the mention of his name. Underworld's his only movie that would make it close to five-stars for me, and even then I think it's a little overrated.
As for The Blue Angel, this is so much worse to me. The first scenes was a beautifully directed surrealist look at a clock, and that's as fancy as it gets throughout the majority of the movie. This kind of thing only happens one other time, which tells me it was completely unnecessary. It could've used so much more of this fancy direction considering that the plotting was super sluggish. The majority of the meat involved doesn't happen until the third act, and this is largely because the characters are so underwritten that it hurts. Rath is nothing more than a pretentious professor with a weakness for women. He's basically a less-threatening Frollo. And our girl, Lola, doesn't do anything unique to the character. She's just there to be a charming woman, and nothing more. The students have no character, either. They're also just there to maybe show off one or two college hijinks that anyone can put to shame.
As for the genre, it seems a bit difficult to determine for a while. Like I said, it gets more balanced at the third act. For the first two, there are only faint amounts of multiple genres, and none of them stand out. The romance barely has any romantic tension, the comedy is extremely mild and the drama takes forever to build up. Some scenes, like when the prof's looking for his students, are just the director filming the situations themselves and not really relying on comedy or drama to build up any sense of a big bang. Hell, even the musical numbers feel weak. The only real big bang is at the end, which might be effective, but also feels forced at the VERY end, like it suddenly wants to become a Greek tragedy.
I was certain that this would be the movie that ends my Sternberg curse, considering its hype, but it only helped to cement it even further down my spine. I really don't think this deserves to be ranked among other classics of the time like the same years' All Quiet on the Western Front, which I consider an example of early cinema perfection that ranks with both classic and modern greats. This one attempts to be a heartwrenching example of how temptation can lead to a humiliating downfall, but in place of real emotion is just general bitterness without any real drama or comedy to justify it. And this is coming from a man who has a history of emotional breakouts due to my autism. It's well-filmed and acted, and gets the point across, but it's hardly an enjoyable experience to me. With a better screenwriter, I'd like it more, but no, this is super overrated to me.
= 58
Josef Von Sternberg's Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 1 Bad)
Underworld: 93
The Scarlet Empress: 85
Dishonored: 80
The Blue Angel: 58
An American Tragedy: 43
Score: 71.8 / 5
Josef Von Sternberg drops on my Best Directors List from #174 to #196 between Jay Roach and Stephen Sommers.
This is a famous but loose adaptation of a classic German novel, Professor Unrat. In this film, Professor Rath is teaches college-level English, but soon gets little hints that some of his class are going to see a showgirl at a club. Upon entering this club in an attempt to catch his students in the act, he meets with Lola and starts to fall for her. But after he visits again, the secret is out, and his students have lost respect for him. Now without a job, Rath decides to marry the girl. But being married to a girl who's job is to be shared among men isn't what he had in mind, and soon it becomes too much for him.
You know, the funny thing about exploring classic directors is that you sometimes find one that you consider a bit overrated. In my case, it's Josef Von Sternberg. I keep trying to get into his classics and I've never really been satisfied, often citing his films as overrated. The Blue Angel is no exception. I keep hearing that he's one of the greats of Austrian / German cinema, but I have yet to really believe that. I might not have seen all of his classics (in fact, this is my fifth film of his), but I get so utterly underwhelmed almost every time I see his movies that I even get bored at the mention of his name. Underworld's his only movie that would make it close to five-stars for me, and even then I think it's a little overrated.
As for The Blue Angel, this is so much worse to me. The first scenes was a beautifully directed surrealist look at a clock, and that's as fancy as it gets throughout the majority of the movie. This kind of thing only happens one other time, which tells me it was completely unnecessary. It could've used so much more of this fancy direction considering that the plotting was super sluggish. The majority of the meat involved doesn't happen until the third act, and this is largely because the characters are so underwritten that it hurts. Rath is nothing more than a pretentious professor with a weakness for women. He's basically a less-threatening Frollo. And our girl, Lola, doesn't do anything unique to the character. She's just there to be a charming woman, and nothing more. The students have no character, either. They're also just there to maybe show off one or two college hijinks that anyone can put to shame.
As for the genre, it seems a bit difficult to determine for a while. Like I said, it gets more balanced at the third act. For the first two, there are only faint amounts of multiple genres, and none of them stand out. The romance barely has any romantic tension, the comedy is extremely mild and the drama takes forever to build up. Some scenes, like when the prof's looking for his students, are just the director filming the situations themselves and not really relying on comedy or drama to build up any sense of a big bang. Hell, even the musical numbers feel weak. The only real big bang is at the end, which might be effective, but also feels forced at the VERY end, like it suddenly wants to become a Greek tragedy.
I was certain that this would be the movie that ends my Sternberg curse, considering its hype, but it only helped to cement it even further down my spine. I really don't think this deserves to be ranked among other classics of the time like the same years' All Quiet on the Western Front, which I consider an example of early cinema perfection that ranks with both classic and modern greats. This one attempts to be a heartwrenching example of how temptation can lead to a humiliating downfall, but in place of real emotion is just general bitterness without any real drama or comedy to justify it. And this is coming from a man who has a history of emotional breakouts due to my autism. It's well-filmed and acted, and gets the point across, but it's hardly an enjoyable experience to me. With a better screenwriter, I'd like it more, but no, this is super overrated to me.
= 58
Josef Von Sternberg's Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 1 Bad)
Underworld: 93
The Scarlet Empress: 85
Dishonored: 80
The Blue Angel: 58
An American Tragedy: 43
Score: 71.8 / 5
Josef Von Sternberg drops on my Best Directors List from #174 to #196 between Jay Roach and Stephen Sommers.