You're right to object. And I apologize. First, that was the second half
of a one-paragraph entry (so I give you the whole thing now). Second, I
was obliged to write about Mamoulian and yet I feel strongly that
negative criticism is not useful: better someone tell me how to like
what I don't like than how not to like what I do like, and in my
experience the reasons why others dislike something I like are always
irrelevant to why I like it, even when true. So I am simply (ab)using
Mamoulian in order to identify what von Sternberg does.

**

Rouben Mamoulian (Tiflis, Georgia, Russia. 1898-1987) Moscow Art
Theater. England 1920; US in 1923.
Imported from Broadway when sound came, Mamoulian responded as hoped. On
one hand, his films had a manner that privileged text and dialogue and
the careful playing out of a concept. On the other hand, they brimmed
with self-conscious tricks in cutting, camera movement and design. The
combination made Mamoulians movies seem refreshing and brash in the
early 30s (like David Lynchs in the 80s), but already by the 40s they
seemed academic. Applause (1929) used a very mobile camera, in an
intentional reproach to the wooden staticity of most (but not all) early
talkies; Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1932) managed to watch Spencer
Tracy's transformation without a cut; and Love Me Tonight (1932) used
songs as an excuse for montage-of-free-association. But today none of
this bravura equals the simple, direct eroticism of Joan Peers's love
scene and strip-tease. And in contrast to Peers, Helen Morgan, the star
of Applause who was raved over at the time, is a bore, not by her fault,
but thanks to Mamoulia's general tendency to be a bore. His dialogue
could often profit from a seventy-percent cut, but instead his scenes
waddle slowly toward full belaborment of self-evident ideas. Queen
Christina (1934) has one of Garbo's better performances chiefly because
Mamoulian raises her natural ponderousness to Grand Guignol proportions.
Naturally Mamoulian fidgets; who would not? In Song of Songs (1933)
Marlene Dietrich's character is many times more elusive and distant than
any of her Sternberg characters (although Paramount's intent was to find
a more commercial director for her), and the reason is that Mamoulian is
literally incapable of looking at Dietrich for more than a second or two
without cutting to a reaction, or cutting closer, or cutting farther
away, before finally running away entirely, from embarrassment, no
doubt, at the perpetration of so many cheap imitations of Sternberg, at
the fact that Mamoulian, incapable of creating a new Dietrich character
(as Sternberg accomplished seven times), can only record her aping her
Sternberg personas. Again, he fidgets. And, finally, this is why
Mamoulian is boring: because he cannot make a movie that is happening
before us; instead, he makes a film that follows a text. His tricks,
like his cutting up Dietrich, add a layer of distraction from whatever
emotional reality his characters might undergo, and worse, convince us
that the tricks and special effects are more interesting than the
characters and their stories.



David Ehrenstein wrote:

> I am in complete agreement that "Song of Songs" is
> terrible, but it's quiteunjust IMO to then say "And,
> finally, this is why Mamoulian is boring: because he
> cannot make a movie that is happening before us;
> instead, he makes a
> film that follows a text."
>
> What do you mean by that? Does "Love Me Tonight" not
> "happen before us"? What about "Applause" and "City
> Streets"? Are they phoned-in? I think not.
>
>