What to expect
Sternberg uses early sound, smoke, cramped backstage space, and Dietrich’s controlled performance to turn authority into spectacle. The professor’s descent is also a study of who is permitted to perform and who cannot survive being watched.
How to ease in
Begin with the contrast between classroom and nightclub. Listen to how voices, songs, bells, and laughter strip the professor of the control his formal language once provided.
Heads-up
A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes sexual jealousy, humiliation, alcohol, coercive behaviour, misogyny, age disparity, workplace exploitation, and psychological collapse.
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The professor enters the club to restore order and discovers that order has no authority there. I watch sound itself change sides, from the bell he commands to the laughter he cannot stop.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Emil Jannings — Prof. Immanuel Rath · Marlene Dietrich — Lola Lola · Kurt Gerron — Kiepert · Hans Albers — Mazeppa
- Screenplay
- Robert Liebmann · Karl Vollmoeller · Carl Zuckmayer
- Production
- Erich Pommer · Universum-Film AG (UFA)
- Cinematography
- Günther Rittau
Credits
Version map
Sources for the facts
Where to go next
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