This is why I watch these old silent films. I didn't know anything about Yevgeni Bauer, but now I consider him among Christensen, DeMille, Griffith and Tourneur as the masters of early feature-length films. Stored away until the fall of the Soviet Union, his films are now seeing light thanks to the British Film Institute's (BFI) release and the Milestone series. "Twilight of a Woman's Soul" is his earliest film known to exist, and it is flawed when compared to Bauer's later work, but in itself is an amazing work for 1913.
The camera is mostly stationary (except for a short, slow forward dolly shot), generally with theatrical long takes, but Bauer does some remarkable things with lighting and staging, or mise-en-scène. Most evident are the scenes in Vera's bedroom, with the lit background covered by curtain and a window providing only some light in the shaded foreground, casting shadows on characters who embrace the space. Mirrors are also prominent in these scenes, which Bauer likely took from Danish cinema. Sets, in general, are never left unfilled, creating space, which Bauer finds interesting use for, such as in the party scene.
I liked the sudden cuts to not show the rape and murder, if only because it foreshadows the superior pacing and editing of Bauer's later work. Another cut from Vera pointing for the prince to leave her to a shot of him at the door is a sign of the flow of shots he would later accomplish. Additionally, there is some of the self-referential, explicitly self-aware nature of his other films here. Besides what one could read into the use of mirrors, there is dreaming and the prince finding her on stage. Tinting, masking and superimpositions also demonstrate Bauer's technical skill. Bauer later used dreams to greater effect in his tragedies.
Watching his films has been an exciting experience for me, especially his other tragedies on the BFI DVD ("After Death" and "The Dying Swan"). Reading many film history texts, one would be under the impression that Russian cinema before Lenin, the experiments of Lev Kuleshov and the brilliant montage filmmakers Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko and others was inferior and outdated compared to the films being made in Western Europe and America; the only good film to reach Russia being what was imported. Now, film history needs to be rewritten (and some are), to include Russia as a film-making nation (with Bauer, the animation of Starewicz and other filmmakers) to rival America, Scandinavia, France and other states in the art of film, if not the industry.
The camera is mostly stationary (except for a short, slow forward dolly shot), generally with theatrical long takes, but Bauer does some remarkable things with lighting and staging, or mise-en-scène. Most evident are the scenes in Vera's bedroom, with the lit background covered by curtain and a window providing only some light in the shaded foreground, casting shadows on characters who embrace the space. Mirrors are also prominent in these scenes, which Bauer likely took from Danish cinema. Sets, in general, are never left unfilled, creating space, which Bauer finds interesting use for, such as in the party scene.
I liked the sudden cuts to not show the rape and murder, if only because it foreshadows the superior pacing and editing of Bauer's later work. Another cut from Vera pointing for the prince to leave her to a shot of him at the door is a sign of the flow of shots he would later accomplish. Additionally, there is some of the self-referential, explicitly self-aware nature of his other films here. Besides what one could read into the use of mirrors, there is dreaming and the prince finding her on stage. Tinting, masking and superimpositions also demonstrate Bauer's technical skill. Bauer later used dreams to greater effect in his tragedies.
Watching his films has been an exciting experience for me, especially his other tragedies on the BFI DVD ("After Death" and "The Dying Swan"). Reading many film history texts, one would be under the impression that Russian cinema before Lenin, the experiments of Lev Kuleshov and the brilliant montage filmmakers Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko and others was inferior and outdated compared to the films being made in Western Europe and America; the only good film to reach Russia being what was imported. Now, film history needs to be rewritten (and some are), to include Russia as a film-making nation (with Bauer, the animation of Starewicz and other filmmakers) to rival America, Scandinavia, France and other states in the art of film, if not the industry.