Artwork accompanying the DVD
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Artwork accompanying the DVD |
March 15, 2006
Anna Christie is a play in four acts written in 1920 by Eugene O'Neill.
Interestingly, when it was adapted to the screen in 1930 it was filmed twice using the same sets, two casts, two screenplays, and two directors, except that Greta Garbo played the same role in both. The English screenplay was written by Frances Marion. The German version was screenwritten by Walter Hasenclever.
The English version was filmed first and it was directed by Clarence Brown.
Both versions are available on a single DVD.
Aside from the play itself and the sets, Garbo's acting was the only thing common to the two versions. What impressed me most is that Garbo, despite not knowing German, which must have made it difficult for her to memorize her lines and to interpret the character, performs the role of Anna Christie impressively. Her handling of the German dialog is excellent and is a tribute to her skill as an actress.
I've had a chance to compare two scenes in the English version with the same two scenes in the German version. Based on that comparison, my conclusion is that the German version is better.
The two scenes I'm basing my conclusion on are:
The flaws in the English version are:
In the Coney Island scene, both the Anna and Marthy characters are overacted, which is undoubtedly a reflection of the fact that this is their first talking movie, but what seriously undermines the credibility of the scene is that, inexplicably, Garbo's interpretation of the Anna character at that point is that Anna is very visibly under the influence of alcohol, despite the fact that she's had nothing to drink but a glass of milk. This character misinterpretation occurs after Marthy, who is drunk, has left the table. Did Garbo unconsciously mimic the Marthy character? Why did the director not catch the error and reshoot the scene? Was he overawed by Garbo, not paying attention, or afraid he might go over budget?
Of the three possibilities, Clarence Brown's own description of how he directed Garbo tells us it is the first: Brown was overawed by her. In a retrospective on Garbo's career in which Brown was interviewed [Garbo, produced by Patrick Stanbury, distributed by Warner Home Video, 2005], he said that he learned to trust her interpretation of scenes more than his own judgement. This is a case where his trust was misplaced.
This error must have been noticed, because in the German version, which was filmed afterward, it does not occur.
In the Barge/Denouement scene, the dramatic high point of the film, the director frequently has Garbo's head in full frame close-up and shot from below and to her right. There are two things wrong with this. First, it is too intimate and thus undermines the cold rage that animates the character in this scene and which needs to be communicated to the audience. Second, this tight framing exposes Garbo's slight tendency to a double chin which also undermines the emotion which she is trying to communicate. We might attribute this to Brown's being so impressed by Garbo's famous good looks that he forgot that this was the dramatic high point of the script.
The miscasting refers to the actor chosen to play Matt in the English version. He projects over strongly an Irish-American stereotype. I found this gratuitous and distracting. Also, the actor chosen to play Chris, Anna's father, seems too soft for the old seaman role.
All of these considerations speak in favor of the German version as the better of the two. However, there is one factor against it: The German side of the DVD is digitized from a worn exhibition print from the George Eastman House archives which has the English subtitles optically exposed well into the image area of the frames and they they cannot be turned off.
Aside from this defect I highly recommend the German version.
OTTO