The
Scarlet Empress
(Josef Von Sternberg, 1934)
Starring
Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlet Empress is a fantastic example of a
director whose cinematography simply reflects that he is deeply in
love with his leading lady. The way Sternberg presents Dietrich is
beautiful, the camera is presented as though it loves her and the
careful use of soft focus and precisely perfect lighting only
accentuates her beauty.
The
film is the story of Catherine II of Russia and features a great
strangeness of design. We are introduced to young Sophia (who later
becomes Catherine) and are shown her strict world as a child who is
being brought up specifically to be used to bring her family more
prosperity. Though strict, there is still an element of soft,
playfulness and innocence to her world. As an impressionable young
woman, she is convinced to travel to Russia to marry Duke Peter, son
of the great Empress. Her ideas of romance are soon shattered when
she discovers that the Duke is a simpleton. Now so far away from her
home in Germany, the brute force and of Russia is upon her to bare an
heir to the throne.
In
Russia, the whole mood and tone of the film changes. Everything
becomes so much more overpowering and the setting much more surreal
and disturbing. Models and imagery from the bible feature heavily
within the Russian palace, with exaggerated stone sculptures of
religious figures, integrated within the furniture. The Empress, a
harsh and cold ruler, has a mirror which is overshadowed by a stone
representation of what I believe is Satan, or definitely some hellish
beast. The décor is overcrowded, dense and Gothic and the ceilings
appear to be very high- there's nothing soft about this environment.
There
are several repetitions of imagery, specifically the ringing of bells
and religious figures- and the distortion of such figures, i.e. when
the Duke drills peep a hole through his mother's wall that cuts
directly through the eye of Jesus. Again, the eye is used as
symbolism for many things, specifically within the surrealist genre
though.
No comments:
Post a Comment