Thinking Aloud About Film: Maskerade (Willi Forst, 1934)

The MASKS AND MUSIC: THE FILMS OF WILLI FORST strand of last year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato, curated by Lukas Foerster, was so popular that I was unable to see any of them. Richard is more organised and came out raving about two: MASQUERADE/ MASKERADE (1934) and TOMFOOLERY/ ALLOTRIA, (1936). Luckily for us The Internet Archive has a very good copy of Maskerade which enabled us to see it (or in Richard’s case, to see it again). In the podcast below we talk about the film in relation to the Wiener Genre, Authorship, Anton Walbrook’s career (he is here billed as Adolf Walbrook), the difficulties of dealing with works from authoritarian regimes, how it was the most popular film of its year in the German-speaking world. More specifically we discuss the rhythms of the opening scene, Anton Walbrook’s introduction, the narrative invention of the narration of the publication of the muff drawiing, the mise-en-scéne, the influence of vaudeville and the film’s intent on pleasing. We relate the film to Lubitsch’s work and comment on how a particular shot of a camera seeming to float through a window might have influenced Minnelli (in Meet Me in St. Louis) and, according to Mark Fuller, Powell & Pressburger (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp). All this and much more may be listened to in the podcast below: