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igenlodeI spent the day up to my ears in Luis Trenker...
It all started when I wanted to check the spelling of the Swiss guide's name in "Der Kampf ums Matterhorn", which I remembered from the intertitles as being 'Cros' but which the Internet credits and film handout for this picture all give as 'Cross' (probably because the IMDb does and everywhere else used that as a reference.)
So I saw that YouTube apparently had an upload of the film, and I went to look at it in order to find the credit screen at the start and update the IMDb if necessary.
But the clip turned out to start off with Luis Trenker doing an introduction to the film, talking about how he came to make it, etc. My German isn't exactly wonderful, but since I'd read quite a lot of the information in the programme notes for the film screening I could make out what he was talking about, even if not everything he was saying. (The big advantage of foreign-language silent films is that you get to read the dialogue cards rather than needing to follow the spoken words -- and the screening I saw was subtitled in English too!)
YouTube offered German subtitles, so I tried switching those on so that I could read rather than struggling to listen, but they were automatically generated and on this subject matter practically useless: "Matterhorn", for example, came out as a different set of random implausible words each time, as did the acronym UFA (a famous German film studio) and all the other names that were being mentioned. The results were so grossly and confusingly inaccurate that I could actually understand better with the subtitles off, whereupon I could at least get the general gist -- a somewhat gratifying discovery :-p
(It did remind me of desperately struggling with TV-based comprehension exercises at A-level, though; they give you extracts from real documentaries/broadcasts as opposed to the specially-recorded slow and clear comprehension tapes we had at the lower levels, and you simply can't follow almost all of it. It's a matter of clinging on frantically to individual words here and there rather than expecting to understand every sentence as previously, and it makes the most tremendous difference if you happen to be familiar with the subject matter beforehand.)
So I sat through the clip waiting for the film to start and hoping I might pick up the answers to a few questions I'd been curious about, like just how much of the shooting ("drehen" -- "to turn", referring to the process of a cameraman hand-cranking the camera!) had taken place on location, and whether they used climbing doubles. I couldn't make out an answer to either question, but he did talk about carrying heavy car batteries up mountains, presumably to power equipment on location.
(Rereading the programme notes, I see that Trenker himself is quoted there from his autobiography as saying that he knew Zermatt well since he had climbed both Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn from there. He at least clearly did his own climbing on screen; since it was a team of people who had worked together on previous Alpine films, they probably were all competent amateur climbers.)
After about ten minutes of intro, the YouTube video cut out. 'Good,' I thought, 'that must mean that the other three parts are the long ones containing the actual film...'
But the 'intro' went on in the next clip (2/4)... and on, and on. Eventually it dawned on me that this wasn't an upload of the silent film at all; it was Luis Trenker presenting a German television documentary about the actual making of the picture! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKGmUhsoAsYVVRWFZbbmvBxgX7YqGVRGc
The TV programme did finish up with some quite lengthy illustrative clips of climbing sequences from the sound version of the film, "Der Berg Ruft" ("The Call of the Mountain"), with Trenker narrating -- I suspect the reason for using those was that they simply had no access to any prints of the silent version, which apparently wasn't restored until 2015-6.
It didn't get me any further forward on the name question, however... YouTube then helpfully prompted me to a full upload of the sound version, and I thought that might provide opening credits. (It does, but of the sort that only list the performer and not their roles -- however, the character's name is visibly written onscreen at one point as 'Cross', but one has to watch almost the entire film to get that far!)
I was curious enough about the remake to watch the whole thing (ninety minutes of German dialogue...) I did notice that there was an upload on YouTube of the Alexander Korda English remake, "The Challenge" (with an Emeric Pressburger screenplay), but mentions I'd come across of it when reading about the silent version were not flattering about Trenker's ability to function in English and said the non-climbing sections were tedious, and I felt it would give him and the film a fairer chance to see the original German-language version.
So I did... having acclimatised myself to the experience of listening to almost all the dialogue in a haze of incomprehension, and picking out only a handful of clear phrases here and there. If I hadn't already known the story I suspect I wouldn't have had any idea what was happening, but as it was I was able to follow much of it.
As promised, the love-rivalry element has been excised altogether -- which ironically has the effect for me of making the Carrel/Whymper friendship less credible. Without the long scenes of Felicitas helping nurse the Englishman back to health with her husband being nudged into gathering suspicions, and without the scene where they go climbing again after Whymper's recovery and Carrel struggles with temptation, and without the scene where they come upon Felicitas half-frozen upon their return, ending with Whymper's attempt to bow out 'because I don't want to come between the two of you', there is basically a big chunk missing out of the relationship between the two men. Without all those strong feelings and the reaction against them -- not to mention without all that screen-time -- I got the impression that Whymper and Carrel barely know each other in comparison to the earlier version :-( One mountain rescue of a man you met only minutes before does not a lifelong loyalty make; in this version, Whymper is shown leaving Breuil in the next scene as soon as they get him down from the mountain, so it appears as if they have known each other for only a few hours in total, for much of which Whymper was unconscious :-p
The other big change I was conscious of was the set-up of a formal trial structure at the end, rather than what I remembered as an impromptu kangaroo court in the bar of the hotel at Zermatt; that felt a bit over the top and straining credibility in comparison (although apparently in real life there was an inquiry). But I certainly didn't feel that the non-climbing sections were trivial or silly, as was claimed of the Korda version, and Trenker's vocal acting abilities in German at least seemed fine.
Having watched that film, and being somewhat unclear about many of the details... I then went so far as to take a look at the English version. Just to see if it would give me a clue as to what was going on.
To my surprise (and somewhat to my shock), it turned out to be significantly different.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of the changes relate to the English climbers; the whole original opening sequence showing the menace of the mountain, as a harmless villager is struck by a random rockfall, has been cut, as has the scene showing Carrel attempting and failing to pioneer a route solo and carving his name in the mountain to mark his highest point of ascent (this carving actually gets referred to later on in the English dialogue, despite the fact that it no longer happens on screen!)
Instead, the English version jumps fifteen minutes in with the meeting of Whymper and Carrel... and it makes at least two significant visual changes to that scene. It definitely removes a shot in which Carrel appears to actively sabotage the Englishman's climb (by jerking the line on which he has him belayed, thus pulling him off the rock during a tricky manoeuvre), and it uses the earlier rockfall shot to replace one in which Whymper looks down and loses his grip, thus changing the story so that he is knocked off the mountain rather than falling through an unforced error... in other words, it generally flatters all the characters :-p
I can't and shan't go into all the differences, which would supply the material for a substantial Film Studies analysis paper (and some of which, on another glance at the German version, seem to be the result of misunderstandings bolstered by memories of the silent version; it looks as if Felicitas is actually the innkeeper's daughter rather than Carrel's wife in both sound versions, for instance, although it's less obvious in the German version as her father is less hostile to the relationship). But I'd say that the 'village' material in the English version generally is weaker, mainly because it tries to be funny: the comedy sidekick Luc with the heavy Italian accent is one of the least successful parts of the German version, and the English version adds a drunken mayor and a stupid village policeman.
Many of the changes seem to be trying to explain things more, i.e. giving more screen time to Whymper's injuries after his accident (which as I said above, did seem very abruptly dealt with in the previous version -- but I'm not sure an elaborate sub-plot about getting Carrel's mother to nurse him was an improvement), or giving diagrams to illustrate the progress of the rival climbing parties up the mountain, perhaps because an English audience was thought to be less likely to know the geography. I certainly found that part invaluable; I hadn't understood at all in the German version why Carrel apparently turned round and started back down the mountain, until the diagram in the new version showed that they found they had reached the top of an isolated buttress and had to abseil down the far side to continue!
I rather missed the character of Douglas's fiancée -- she may have been removed because an English audience was more likely to know that she didn't exist :-p Having Whymper simply send back Carrel's rucksack instead of returning the rare bird feather he had gathered for him seemed a rather prosaic substitution to indicate the broken friendship. And having young Hadow complain of feeling unwell on the way up the mountain was presumably intended to excuse his slip on the way down...
The two films are very far from being a simple remake on the same sets and using the same script -- although a few scenes do correspond almost line for line -- but a number of the shots can be recognised as having been directly reused from the earlier version. Unsurprisingly this includes a lot of the dialogue-free and expensive to shoot location and climbing footage (although if you watch the scenes back to back on YouTube, a luxury that could have been anticipated by no-one, you can see that the English version of these sequences is often shortened by comparison, presumably to make room for all the new scenes featuring the English characters :-p)
In a couple of cases Korda appears to have reused long-shots featuring the actors from the previous film, rather than reshooting with the new characters. But oddly, the fall sequence looks much more artificial in the English version despite being almost identical (and there would have been no point whatsoever in restaging that). It occurs to me belatedly that what we are seeing is in all probability the less-successful special effects shots from a different take or camera, with the best ones having already been included in the original print negative, a procedure I've seen mentioned elsewhere.
But one massive change to the end of the film is that Carrel's motivation for going back up the mountain has been reversed -- he goes not to defend Whymper ("es geht um Ruf aller Bergsteiger"), as in the silent original, but to prove that he is lying. Then, having discovered the truth, he carries out a last-minute Wild-West-style rescue rather than a courtroom intervention. (Among its many laboured explanations, the English version does at least address an issue that had troubled me since the silent version -- how can you possibly prove that a piece of rope is what you say it is, instead of just being any old random length that you have brought with you? It doesn't address the problem in all versions of how Carrel can plausibly alone and at dusk climb a mountain that has repeatedly defeated him by daylight...)
But these changes mean that we lose a couple of the most effective moments from the ending of the German version: when Carrel finds the bottle with his name added to the list of victors, and when the two men finally celebrate by climbing to the top together instead of Carrel gracefully conceding defeat. Again, deliberate changes to flatter English sensibilities, I wonder?
Comparing the lengths, I see that "The Challenge" is actually twenty minutes shorter than "Der Berg Ruft". It comes across as longer :-p
I suspect it has a lot of additional dialogue and plot devices and fewer mountain shots -- but the result is that it feels 'busy' and over-laboured, with few of the elaborations actually being an improvement, alas.
(Oh, and it gives the guide's name as "Croz", which at least suggests that I may have been right in my recollection that the silent version used "Cros"!)
It all started when I wanted to check the spelling of the Swiss guide's name in "Der Kampf ums Matterhorn", which I remembered from the intertitles as being 'Cros' but which the Internet credits and film handout for this picture all give as 'Cross' (probably because the IMDb does and everywhere else used that as a reference.)
So I saw that YouTube apparently had an upload of the film, and I went to look at it in order to find the credit screen at the start and update the IMDb if necessary.
But the clip turned out to start off with Luis Trenker doing an introduction to the film, talking about how he came to make it, etc. My German isn't exactly wonderful, but since I'd read quite a lot of the information in the programme notes for the film screening I could make out what he was talking about, even if not everything he was saying. (The big advantage of foreign-language silent films is that you get to read the dialogue cards rather than needing to follow the spoken words -- and the screening I saw was subtitled in English too!)
YouTube offered German subtitles, so I tried switching those on so that I could read rather than struggling to listen, but they were automatically generated and on this subject matter practically useless: "Matterhorn", for example, came out as a different set of random implausible words each time, as did the acronym UFA (a famous German film studio) and all the other names that were being mentioned. The results were so grossly and confusingly inaccurate that I could actually understand better with the subtitles off, whereupon I could at least get the general gist -- a somewhat gratifying discovery :-p
(It did remind me of desperately struggling with TV-based comprehension exercises at A-level, though; they give you extracts from real documentaries/broadcasts as opposed to the specially-recorded slow and clear comprehension tapes we had at the lower levels, and you simply can't follow almost all of it. It's a matter of clinging on frantically to individual words here and there rather than expecting to understand every sentence as previously, and it makes the most tremendous difference if you happen to be familiar with the subject matter beforehand.)
So I sat through the clip waiting for the film to start and hoping I might pick up the answers to a few questions I'd been curious about, like just how much of the shooting ("drehen" -- "to turn", referring to the process of a cameraman hand-cranking the camera!) had taken place on location, and whether they used climbing doubles. I couldn't make out an answer to either question, but he did talk about carrying heavy car batteries up mountains, presumably to power equipment on location.
(Rereading the programme notes, I see that Trenker himself is quoted there from his autobiography as saying that he knew Zermatt well since he had climbed both Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn from there. He at least clearly did his own climbing on screen; since it was a team of people who had worked together on previous Alpine films, they probably were all competent amateur climbers.)
After about ten minutes of intro, the YouTube video cut out. 'Good,' I thought, 'that must mean that the other three parts are the long ones containing the actual film...'
But the 'intro' went on in the next clip (2/4)... and on, and on. Eventually it dawned on me that this wasn't an upload of the silent film at all; it was Luis Trenker presenting a German television documentary about the actual making of the picture! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKGmUhsoAsYVVRWFZbbmvBxgX7YqGVRGc
The TV programme did finish up with some quite lengthy illustrative clips of climbing sequences from the sound version of the film, "Der Berg Ruft" ("The Call of the Mountain"), with Trenker narrating -- I suspect the reason for using those was that they simply had no access to any prints of the silent version, which apparently wasn't restored until 2015-6.
It didn't get me any further forward on the name question, however... YouTube then helpfully prompted me to a full upload of the sound version, and I thought that might provide opening credits. (It does, but of the sort that only list the performer and not their roles -- however, the character's name is visibly written onscreen at one point as 'Cross', but one has to watch almost the entire film to get that far!)
I was curious enough about the remake to watch the whole thing (ninety minutes of German dialogue...) I did notice that there was an upload on YouTube of the Alexander Korda English remake, "The Challenge" (with an Emeric Pressburger screenplay), but mentions I'd come across of it when reading about the silent version were not flattering about Trenker's ability to function in English and said the non-climbing sections were tedious, and I felt it would give him and the film a fairer chance to see the original German-language version.
So I did... having acclimatised myself to the experience of listening to almost all the dialogue in a haze of incomprehension, and picking out only a handful of clear phrases here and there. If I hadn't already known the story I suspect I wouldn't have had any idea what was happening, but as it was I was able to follow much of it.
As promised, the love-rivalry element has been excised altogether -- which ironically has the effect for me of making the Carrel/Whymper friendship less credible. Without the long scenes of Felicitas helping nurse the Englishman back to health with her husband being nudged into gathering suspicions, and without the scene where they go climbing again after Whymper's recovery and Carrel struggles with temptation, and without the scene where they come upon Felicitas half-frozen upon their return, ending with Whymper's attempt to bow out 'because I don't want to come between the two of you', there is basically a big chunk missing out of the relationship between the two men. Without all those strong feelings and the reaction against them -- not to mention without all that screen-time -- I got the impression that Whymper and Carrel barely know each other in comparison to the earlier version :-( One mountain rescue of a man you met only minutes before does not a lifelong loyalty make; in this version, Whymper is shown leaving Breuil in the next scene as soon as they get him down from the mountain, so it appears as if they have known each other for only a few hours in total, for much of which Whymper was unconscious :-p
The other big change I was conscious of was the set-up of a formal trial structure at the end, rather than what I remembered as an impromptu kangaroo court in the bar of the hotel at Zermatt; that felt a bit over the top and straining credibility in comparison (although apparently in real life there was an inquiry). But I certainly didn't feel that the non-climbing sections were trivial or silly, as was claimed of the Korda version, and Trenker's vocal acting abilities in German at least seemed fine.
Having watched that film, and being somewhat unclear about many of the details... I then went so far as to take a look at the English version. Just to see if it would give me a clue as to what was going on.
To my surprise (and somewhat to my shock), it turned out to be significantly different.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of the changes relate to the English climbers; the whole original opening sequence showing the menace of the mountain, as a harmless villager is struck by a random rockfall, has been cut, as has the scene showing Carrel attempting and failing to pioneer a route solo and carving his name in the mountain to mark his highest point of ascent (this carving actually gets referred to later on in the English dialogue, despite the fact that it no longer happens on screen!)
Instead, the English version jumps fifteen minutes in with the meeting of Whymper and Carrel... and it makes at least two significant visual changes to that scene. It definitely removes a shot in which Carrel appears to actively sabotage the Englishman's climb (by jerking the line on which he has him belayed, thus pulling him off the rock during a tricky manoeuvre), and it uses the earlier rockfall shot to replace one in which Whymper looks down and loses his grip, thus changing the story so that he is knocked off the mountain rather than falling through an unforced error... in other words, it generally flatters all the characters :-p
I can't and shan't go into all the differences, which would supply the material for a substantial Film Studies analysis paper (and some of which, on another glance at the German version, seem to be the result of misunderstandings bolstered by memories of the silent version; it looks as if Felicitas is actually the innkeeper's daughter rather than Carrel's wife in both sound versions, for instance, although it's less obvious in the German version as her father is less hostile to the relationship). But I'd say that the 'village' material in the English version generally is weaker, mainly because it tries to be funny: the comedy sidekick Luc with the heavy Italian accent is one of the least successful parts of the German version, and the English version adds a drunken mayor and a stupid village policeman.
Many of the changes seem to be trying to explain things more, i.e. giving more screen time to Whymper's injuries after his accident (which as I said above, did seem very abruptly dealt with in the previous version -- but I'm not sure an elaborate sub-plot about getting Carrel's mother to nurse him was an improvement), or giving diagrams to illustrate the progress of the rival climbing parties up the mountain, perhaps because an English audience was thought to be less likely to know the geography. I certainly found that part invaluable; I hadn't understood at all in the German version why Carrel apparently turned round and started back down the mountain, until the diagram in the new version showed that they found they had reached the top of an isolated buttress and had to abseil down the far side to continue!
I rather missed the character of Douglas's fiancée -- she may have been removed because an English audience was more likely to know that she didn't exist :-p Having Whymper simply send back Carrel's rucksack instead of returning the rare bird feather he had gathered for him seemed a rather prosaic substitution to indicate the broken friendship. And having young Hadow complain of feeling unwell on the way up the mountain was presumably intended to excuse his slip on the way down...
The two films are very far from being a simple remake on the same sets and using the same script -- although a few scenes do correspond almost line for line -- but a number of the shots can be recognised as having been directly reused from the earlier version. Unsurprisingly this includes a lot of the dialogue-free and expensive to shoot location and climbing footage (although if you watch the scenes back to back on YouTube, a luxury that could have been anticipated by no-one, you can see that the English version of these sequences is often shortened by comparison, presumably to make room for all the new scenes featuring the English characters :-p)
In a couple of cases Korda appears to have reused long-shots featuring the actors from the previous film, rather than reshooting with the new characters. But oddly, the fall sequence looks much more artificial in the English version despite being almost identical (and there would have been no point whatsoever in restaging that). It occurs to me belatedly that what we are seeing is in all probability the less-successful special effects shots from a different take or camera, with the best ones having already been included in the original print negative, a procedure I've seen mentioned elsewhere.
But one massive change to the end of the film is that Carrel's motivation for going back up the mountain has been reversed -- he goes not to defend Whymper ("es geht um Ruf aller Bergsteiger"), as in the silent original, but to prove that he is lying. Then, having discovered the truth, he carries out a last-minute Wild-West-style rescue rather than a courtroom intervention. (Among its many laboured explanations, the English version does at least address an issue that had troubled me since the silent version -- how can you possibly prove that a piece of rope is what you say it is, instead of just being any old random length that you have brought with you? It doesn't address the problem in all versions of how Carrel can plausibly alone and at dusk climb a mountain that has repeatedly defeated him by daylight...)
But these changes mean that we lose a couple of the most effective moments from the ending of the German version: when Carrel finds the bottle with his name added to the list of victors, and when the two men finally celebrate by climbing to the top together instead of Carrel gracefully conceding defeat. Again, deliberate changes to flatter English sensibilities, I wonder?
Comparing the lengths, I see that "The Challenge" is actually twenty minutes shorter than "Der Berg Ruft". It comes across as longer :-p
I suspect it has a lot of additional dialogue and plot devices and fewer mountain shots -- but the result is that it feels 'busy' and over-laboured, with few of the elaborations actually being an improvement, alas.
(Oh, and it gives the guide's name as "Croz", which at least suggests that I may have been right in my recollection that the silent version used "Cros"!)
no subject
Date: 2019-06-10 11:16 pm (UTC)In fact a freeze-screen and closer study proves it to read "Während wir hier den Sieg feiern, kehrt Carell 150 m unter uns als Geschlagener zurück und büßt so seinen Verrat an uns" -- "while we were celebrating victory Carrel 150m below us had to turn back defeated, thus paying for his betrayal"
I have to say I prefer my version, which makes more sense in the light of both characters' behaviour both before and after this scene :-(