The Plague of Florence
The Plague of Florence | |
---|---|
Directed by | Otto Rippert |
Produced by | Erich Pommer |
Written by | Fritz Lang |
Based on | The Masque of the Red Death, short story by Edgar Allan Poe[1] |
Starring | Theodor Becker Karl Bernhard Julietta Brandt |
Music by | Bruno Gellert |
Cinematography | Willy Hameister |
Production
company |
|
Release dates
|
23 October 1919[2] |
Running time
|
102 minutes (2000 restored version) |
Country | Germany |
Language | Silent German intertitles |
The Plague of Florence (German:Pest in Florenz)[3] is a 1919 German silent historical film directed by Otto Rippert for Eric Pommer's Deutsche Eclair (Decla) production company. It stars Marga Kierska, Theodor Becker, Karl Bernhard and Julietta Brandt.[4] The film is set in Florence in 1348, just before the first outbreaks in Italy of the Black Death, which then spread out across the entire continent.[5]
Cast
- Otto Mannstädt as Cesare, ruler of Florence
- Anders Wikmann as Lorenzo, Cesare's Son
- Karl Bernhard as Lorenzo's confidant
- de as A Fool
- Franz Knaak as The Cardinal
- de as A monk
- Marga von Kierska as Julia, a courtesan
- Auguste Prasch-Grevenberg as Julia's first servant
- Hans Walter as Julia's confidant
- Theodor Becker as Medardus, a hermit
- Julietta Brandt as The Plague
Plot outline
Julia, a rich courtesan (Marga von Kierska), arrives in Florence. A cardinal fears that her beauty could rival the church's power, and orders inquiries to be made about her Christian beliefs. Cesare, the city's ruler, and Lorenzo (his son) both fall madly in love with her. A mob, led by Lorenzo, storms the palace where Julia is about to be tortured. Lorenzo kills Cesare, his father, and rescues her. Lust and excess overtake the city. Even Medardus, a hermit, is overcome by her beauty, and he also is driven to commit sacrilegious acts. Florence's fine buildings are turned into dens of sexual debauchery. Excess and manslaughter continue uninterrupted until the arrival of a ragged female figure personifying the Plague, who infects the whole city with her deadly disease and plays the fiddle while the population dies in droves.
Production
The production company was Eric Pommer's Decla Film-Gesellschaft, the German branch of the French Éclair company (hence Deutsche Éclair). It didn't become Decla-Bioskop until 1920, after merging with Deutsche Bioskop. The latter company was originally formed by Jules Greenbaum in 1899, sold to Carl Moritz Schleussner in 1908,[6] and moved to the Babelsberg studios in 1911.[7]
The imposing, crowd-filled, exterior sets of mediaeval Florentine architecture including the Medici Palace[8] were designed by the architect Franz Jaffe (1855-1937), previously royal buildings advisor to the King of Prussia. Some of the more intimate interior scenes were filmed at 9 Franz Josef-Straße, Weissensee, Berlin,[9] a glasshouse studio built in 1914 for the Continental-Kunstfilm production company.
The cameramen Willy Hameister and Emil Schünemann had previously filmed Continental's In Nacht und Eis, the first feature film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic: one of the stars in that film was Otto Rippert, who then went on to direct some further ten films for Continental in 1912 and 1913. See also List of films made by Continental-Kunstfilm.
Performances
The film received its première at the de:Marmorhaus Theatre, Berlin, but the music specially composed by Bruno Gellert wasn't finished in time, and wasn't played until several days later.[10]
References
- Citations
- ↑ Sarno 2005, p. 132.
- ↑ Film-Kurier (Berlin) vol. 1, no. 107, 9 October 1919, p. 3. (in German). Accessed 23 February 2016.
- ↑ The film's name in German lacks the usual article 'Die'. A literal translation of the German title would be simply 'Plague in Florence'.
- ↑ Ott, p.19
- ↑ Tibayrenc 2007, p. 731.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lichtbild-Bühne, Vol. 12, no. 30, 26 July 1919, p. 27. (in German). Accessed 23 February 2016.
- ↑ Robinson 1997, p. 25.
- ↑ Lichtbild-Bühne (Berlin), Vol. 12, no. 43, 25 October 1919, p. 20. (in German) Accessed 23 February 2016.
- Sources
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Halle, Randall; McCarthy, Margaret (2003). Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective. Wayne State University Press.
- Ott, Frederick W. (1979). The films of Fritz Lang. Carol Publishing Group.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). The Plague of Florence at IMDb
<templatestyles src="Asbox/styles.css"></templatestyles>
<templatestyles src="Asbox/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Interlanguage link template link number
- 1919 films
- 1910s historical films
- 1910s horror films
- German historical films
- German epic films
- German horror films
- German films
- Films of the Weimar Republic
- German silent films
- Films directed by Otto Rippert
- Films based on short fiction
- Films set in Florence
- Films about viral outbreaks
- Films set in the Middle Ages
- 1910s German film stubs
- Historical film stubs
- German black-and-white films