classicfilm | For you Murnau people

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For you Murnau people

OK, this is kind of a weird question. At the end of "The Last Laugh," there's a title card that comes up saying, effectively, that Murnau was forced by convention to add a happy ending. (It's been a while since I saw the movie, so I remembered it as saying the studio forced him into it--but this review says otherwise.) The title card sounds really cynical, which would be understandable if Murnau really did feel forced to add a false ending, and Roger Ebert, in the link above, refers to the act as "dimwitted," as if it were a crummy artistic choice.

Did Murnau really feel this way, though? Can anyone who's a little more familiar with the guy himself, or with how he worked, tell me what they think? My personal response as a viewer was that the happy ending was a really masterful stroke, one that was a deliberate and cunning choice. The happy ending is so patently impossible that it makes the "real" ending, the one that would have occurred in real life, that much sadder. When I watched it, it was like there were two stories running in my head at the same time--one where the old man died alone and miserable, and one where he rather improbably ended up just fine. The difference between the two was staggering.

Anyway, I've been wondering about this one for a while and wanted to see if anyone had some info or just a point of view about the movie and its ending.

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Ridiculously, I haven't seen "The Last Laugh" yet, but I did just read about it in A History of Narrative Film. I'll have to go home to see what exactly Cook says, but he's taken the party line that Murnau was forced. I'll try to remember to look it up.

I suppose it's possible he was! Somehow, between Murnau's status in the film world and the fact that (for me, anyway) the false ending worked so powerfully to subvert itself, I've always thought it couldn't be the result of an imposition from studio admins. But what if it is? Does that make the ending any less effective? *ponders*

Well, that's an interesting question in general. How much does the "artist's" intent matter when you're judging the effectiveness of the work? There's disagreement about the status of Caligari--as in, whether the asylum portion was originally there or whether it was imposed upon the film--and I suppose it's possible to say that even if the director/writer was wrong, and his/her intent subverted, does that make the end result less valuable? Because Murnau didn't see it?

I don't know. Sometimes director's cuts are great things. Sometimes they do diminish the power of the work because, for whatever reason, the person in charge couldn't stand back far enough, or had some stake in it that didn't help artistically, or... I don't know.

Oh yeah, I think Lang imposed the framing device on "Caligari," right? Because UFA (or whichever studio it was) was all "Oh god, this crazy mess is never gonna work. Fritz, fix this, will you?"

(That's my heavily-paraphrased apocryphal version. ;))

I really see what you mean. Like...well, you can tell that somehow I feel like the ending of LL would be a little less awesome for me if it was accidental. I know that's kind of an idiosyncratic personal opinion, though, not an objective thing. Like, I feel fine about "Caligari," and that was definitely tampered with. Wacky.

Have you seen much of Chaplin's stuff? Talk about an artist who was in his own bubble and couldn't stand back from his work. I love his stuff, but when he was older, in the 60s I think, he went back and fooled with a lot of his earlier works. Some of them he re-cut slightly, and most of them he re-scored. And it's not a good thing! His compositional skills were moderate at best, and although that worked well at the time (like the "Modern Times" soundtrack), it seems like he was really artistically wacko once he got a few decades between himself and the work. And have you seen the version of "The Gold Rush" that's his official authorized version? It's got a really, really irritating voice-over. Oy.

If you actually like all of those things, I'm sorry for being a little extra-flaily about them. ;)

*I should say "several of them he re-scored," not most. Whoops. Also, my point was that as far as I've ever heard, Chaplin didn't take outside input from anybody, unlike a lot of other great directors, who worked in partnerships or at least had a writing team.

Well, I've heard some debate about the Caligari thing, so I don't know, but yeah, that's the story. (The more film stuff I read, the more I am convinced it is all apocryphal and we cannot trust it!)

I don't think that opinion is idiosyncratic. I think it's pretty common. I think we want our "heroes" (of whatever stripe) to be aware of what they're doing. If it's an accident, it takes away from their talent/glory/whatever. But I often wonder if that's how I should think about it, because heavens, so much comes out through unconscious inspiration, through happy accidents. Welles said that directing was the art of presiding over accidents, and I know many writers or songwriters who simply cannot speak intelligently about their creative process--or even the end product--because they've produced something that they might not fully consciously understand, or be able to articulate.

Of course, the matter of having something imposed from the outside is different. We don't *know* that von Stroheim's version of "Greed" is qualitatively better, but we assume it is, just like Welles' version of Ambersons. Either way, it's a damn shame that they were tampered with, because we feel outrage at that being "taken away." What would happen if someone found either, and no one liked the original? Most people need editors, or constructive criticism, or partners. Is the difference when it gets "taken away"?

I haven't seen the "official" Chaplin stuff you're talking about, but it sounds awful. He wasn't a great technician. I think in general it's a mistake for artists to redo their work unless they literally remake it and leave the original be. I hate that Spielberg suddenly felt uncomfortable about the guys with guns in E.T. and so took 'em out. (Let's not even mention Lucas. Oh wait, I have.) You do what you do. When your politics/opinions/revolutionary youthful outlook on life change, does that give you license to erase your artistic past?

Since I'm already ranting a bit, I'll mention one director's cut I don't like, and which I think was Got Wrong: Amadeus. Yeah, not a classic, oh well. Anyway, the film used to cut from Salieri's perusal of Mozart's music for the first time to his diatribe against God and burning of the crucifix--in the new version, it goes to Stanzi's humiliating sexual pass, Salieri's refusal, then the God business. For me, this weakens the entire thrust of the film and the character. On the other hand, Blade Runner should have been the director's cut version from the beginning, so...

Ultimately I've said nothing.

I dunno, that was a pretty impressive movie in a lot of ways. :-D Oh god, I forgot about the "E.T." debacle. So shameful.

And you know, Lucas is another one of those dudes who gives the impression, to me anyway, of being totally all up on himself and not really working with or accepting outside influences. That's been a bit of a hobby-horse for me lately, since I think that Lang's partnership with von Harbou made their work particularly fabulous, and in the music field, I really admire how Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan work together as a songwriting team. It revitalized his work when they started doing that.

Yeah, when imposition is involved, rather than a voluntary give-and-take, that's when I begin to get worried about whether the original artistic vision is better. But then again I wish someone had imposed on Lucas and kept him from re-working his earlier stuff. Bleah.

That's the thing about the humanities, it's all nothing in the end. :-D

Well, as for Lucas, I think those movies were a lot better when he had more outside influence. I mean, he directed A New Hope, and not the other two. That tells me something important. So yeah, I agree with you. And what about Powell and Pressburger? Though naturally that doesn't work for everyone, there's plenty of evidence of teamwork winning out.

Ohhh yeah, Powell and Pressburger, of course. :-D And, like...Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, which I know they don't work as equal partners exactly, but she's his editor, right? IMDb says she's done every film of his since "Raging Bull," so yeah, that's a powerful relationship right there.

I think it might be about letting other people keep you honest, or something. I'm not sure.

Or sometimes it's something ineffable. I mean, I don't think Garfunkel contributed much to the songwriting, but I do know that I like Paul Simon's work pre-solo career much better. Did that have anything to do with Garfunkel? Or is it just coincidence, getting older, etc?

That makes me wonder about musicians I like who just don't do so great anymore (in my opinion, not necessarily in others'). What about Jethro Tull? Did they just run out of steam? Cos Ian Anderson wasn't the only creative force in that group.

Of course, then you have Bob Dylan, who as far as I'm concerned exemplifies the whole "artist in a bubble" thing. Although I have to say a lot of folks seem to like his current stuff.

As you said earlier, we're not really saying anything in the sense that we're coming to firm conclusions, but I do think these sorts of discussions are great for working out a better, if also fuzzy, understanding of how people work. :-D Isn't that part of why we like movies anyway?

With anything creative, I think you have to admit that you'll never truly uncover all the motives, or the correct concoction of them. Because on top of that creative input, you've got personal issues and relationships and interests waxing and waning.

Oh, I do think this is great fun! Thanks for creating the community.

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For you Murnau people

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