{"id":4041,"date":"2009-03-18T02:52:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T10:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4041"},"modified":"2010-02-20T13:10:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T21:10:43","slug":"phantom-fw-murnau-1922-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4041","title":{"rendered":"Phantom (F.W. Murnau, 1922): Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"For a film that was long thought to be lost, F.W. Murnau\u2019s Phantom<\/em><\/a> is extremely well preserved and is another example of Murnau\u2019s genius.\u00a0 Released the same year as Murnau\u2019s Nosferatu<\/em>, the film is not the masterpiece that film is, but does contain scenes that rival any in that film or in his entire career.<\/p>\n

Lorenz (Alfred Abel) is a city clerk living with his mother (Frida Richard) and sister (Aud Egede Nissen), but he has aspirations of being a poet.\u00a0 He is the perfect, dutiful son and is known as being an honest man.\u00a0 When he lays eyes on the beautiful Veronika (Lya De Putti) he becomes obsessed and from there it is all downhill for him.\u00a0 He continues to tell people he is a poet even though his poems were rejected by the publisher.\u00a0 He stops going to work and spends much of his time stalking Veronika\u2019s residence and spending more time with his sister who is of dubious reputation.\u00a0 When he finds a look-alike to Veronika (Lya De Putti again) he showers her with gifts bought with money he swindled from his rich aunt by convincing her he can pay back the money with the royalties from his poems.\u00a0 By chasing a phantom image of love, he brings about his downfall.
\n\u00a0
\nWhile the film is not the masterpiece one might expect from Murnau, it is still sprinkled with sheer moments of genius that make the film worth watching.\u00a0 The viewer can clearly see Murnau extending the possibilities of cinema with his expressive camera work.\u00a0 There are a handful of breathtaking scenes including one where Lorenz is feeling the world falling in on him and Murnau, through incredible cinematography from Axel Graatkjaer and Theophan Ouchakoff, shows the buildings around him caving in on him and their shadows chase him down the street.\u00a0 It is a truly exhilarating scene to watch and evidence that Murnau was at the top of his craft.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The acting in the film is, collectively, very mature for the silent film era and is one of the film\u2019s many strengths.\u00a0 However, the film is not without its flaws.\u00a0 The story fails to be very intriguing despite Murnau\u2019s expressionistic camera work.\u00a0 This flaw is mostly due to the viewer\u2019s lack of interest in the main character, Lorenz, whose actions are at times\u00a0baffling and difficult to relate to.\u00a0 Another problem with Lorenz is the casting of Alfred Abel to play him.\u00a0 His acting is good enough, but he is far too old to have played the role.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The film also suffers from excessive tinting which became a distraction after awhile. \u00a0But with so few films left from Murnau it is easy to forgive the flaws of this film and just be thankful there is another Murnau film out there that we can enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. For a film that was long thought to be lost, F.W. Murnau\u2019s Phantom is extremely well preserved and is another example of Murnau\u2019s genius.\u00a0 Released the same year as Murnau\u2019s Nosferatu, the film is not the masterpiece that film is, but does contain scenes that rival any in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films","category-silent-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}