Synopsis: Master painter Claude Zoret's close relationship with his "adopted son," the handsome Eugene Michael, is threatened when a displaced aristocrat, Princess Zamikow from Russia, attracts the young man's attention. Zoret refuses to see the problem even though Michael is spending large sums of money and even selling valuable paintings by Zoret to keep her. This story is paralleled by Mrs. Adelsskjold's adulterous affair with the dissolute young Duke de Monthieu. Even as Zoret paints what he intends to be his last great masterpiece, he finds himself increasingly isolated and despairing.
Carl Theodor Dreyer's
Michael (1924, also known as
Mikael) represents not only a major stylistic breakthrough in Dreyer's career, but also a significant, early example of gay-themed cinema. Dreyer was able to direct the film in Germany thanks to the support of Germany’s leading producer at the time, Erich Pommer. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Herman Bang (1857-1912), a noted Danish writer; it was adapted once before in 1916 by the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller under the title of
Wings.
Bang is often regarded as a representative of the Decadent movement in fin-de-siecle literature, which typically featured refined, neurotic protagonists, often isolated from the rest of the world with its encroaching barbarism. (For a good anthology of Decadent literature, see George C. Schoolfield's
A Baedeker of Decadence.) On the other hand, his skill at using detail to delineate character and his interest in the difficult lives of ordinary people align him with Naturalism. Relatively little known in the U.S., Herman Bang's writings were nonetheless popular in Germany and admired by such noted figures as Thomas Mann, Robert Musil and Rainer Maria Rilke. Thus it is fitting that a German director, F. W. Murnau, would later adapt Bang's 1890 novella
The Four Devils into a 1928 film produced for Fox, but no known print of that film survives.
It is noteworthy that, as Danish scholar Casper Tyberg points out on the carefully researched commentary track accompanying the DVD edition of the film, the subject of homosexuality is in fact handled indirectly in the novel. While it is often assumed that Dreyer toned down this aspect of the novel to make it more palatable for film audiences, his overall approach, including characterizing Michael as Zoret's "adopted son," is essentially faithful to the book. Nonetheless, the nature of Zoret and Michael's relationship is made clear by establishing a parallel between Mrs. Adelsskjold's infidelity to her husband with Michael's decision to leave Zoret in favor of Princess Zamikow.
In fact, Bang's novel should be understood within the larger context of a growing body of literature and art on homosexual themes that appeared around the turn of the century, among them Andre Gide's novel
The Immoralist (1902) and the Russian poet Mikhail Kuzmin's novella
Wings (1906). Bang's homosexuality was widely known at the time and occasionally resulted in disparaging comments by the Danish press. Fearful of arrest, he fled to Paris in the 1890s, where he worked for a few years as a theatrical producer, earning considerable acclaim for his productions. While his ambitions as an actor were never realized due to his overheated performance style, Bang became popular for his public readings. Later, during a reading tour to the United States, he passed away in Ogden, Utah after falling ill during a train ride.
One of the most remarkable aspects of
Michael is its set design (by Hugo Haring). Zoret's studio and living quarters are crammed with paintings, sculptures and bric-a-brac, creating the sense of an artist who has traveled widely and has attained a certain level of material comfort thanks to his popularity. Because of Dreyer's insistence on authenticity, a large number of the props were actually antiques, thus requiring that a night watchman guard the set. Later in his career, Dreyer suggested that the settings in the film were deliberately exaggerated in their lushness in order to suggest the hothouse romanticism of Bang's prose. One could argue that this strategy extends to Benjamin Christensen's performance; though notably restrained, he does on occasion roll his eyes upward to emphasize his inner turmoil. The film is also innovative for its intensive use of close-ups and eyeline matches to suggest the complicated network of desire that underpins the characters' relationships.
While
Michael was praised by the German critics, it attracted neither the German box office nor the international attention that Pommer had hoped. In the U.S, it was released in 1926 under the exploitative title
Chained. According to historian Eileen Bowser, it was re-released in 1930 under the title
Chained: The Story of the Third Sex, a ploy which ironically lumped this most sensitive of art films together with sleazy grind house fare. Its critical reputation has grown significantly in retrospect; critic Tom Milne characterizes the film as "perhaps Dreyer's first masterpiece, assure, reticent and radiant with subtle inner connections."
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Screenplay: Carl Theodor Dreyer and Thea von Harbou
Camera: Karl Freund and Rudolph Mate
Production Design: Hugo Haring
Cast: Benjamin Christensen (Claude Zoret), Walter Slezak (Eugene Michael), Nora Gregor (Princess Zamikow), Alexander Murski (Mr. Adelsskjold), Grete Mosheim (Frau Adelsskjold), Dider Aslan (Duke de Monthieu), Robert Garrison (Charles Switt), Max Auzinger (Majordomus), Karl Freund (Art Dealer Leblanc).
BW-87m.
by James Steffen
