From the artistic Russian filmmaker Evgeni Bauer, who embraced dark and macabre stories that resemble the dark and terrifying stories of Edgar Allen Poe, the Milestone Collection brings together a release featuring three films showcasing Bauer’s artistic creativity as a director but also how he was able to create shocking films during from 1913-1917. “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul” is a film that features suicide, rape and murder… not exactly topics that you seen in silent cinema but nevertheless an intriguing and shocking film for its time!
© 202 British Film Institute, 2003 Milestone Film & Video. All Rights Reserved.
DVD TITLE: Twilight of a Woman’s Soul (as part of the “Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer: The Milestone Collection”)
YEAR OF FILM: 1913
DURATION: 48:34
DVD INFORMATION: B&W & Color Tinted, Dolby Digital Stereo
COMPANY: Image Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: December 9, 2003
Directed by Yevgeni Bauer
Written by V. Demert
Produced by Aleksandr Khanzhonkov
Cinematography by Nikolai Kozlovsky
Production Design by Yevgeni Bauer
Starring:
Vera Chernova as Vera Dubovskaja
A. Ugrjumov as Prince Dolskij
V. Demert as Maksim Petrov
V. Brianski as Vitali Brianski
Russian film poet Evgeni Bauer combined the technical virtuosity of D.W. Griffith with the haunting terror of Edgar Allan Poe and the artist’s eye of Johannes Vermeer. He is — perhaps — the greatest film director you have never heard of. During his brief four-year career, Evgeni Bauer created macabre masterpieces. They are dramas darkly obsessed with doomed love and death, astonishing for their graceful camera movements, risqué themes, opulent sets and chiaroscuro lighting. Tragically, Bauer died in 1917, succumbing to pneumonia after breaking his leg.
For many decades, Bauer’s films were buried in the Soviet archives — declared too “cosmopolitan” and bizarre for the puritanical Soviet regime. But with the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bauer’s work has risen like a glorious phoenix out of the ashes of time.
Twilight of a Woman’s Soul (1913), Bauer’s first surviving film, tells the story of a society woman who kills her rapist and — in its aftermath — must make a new life for herself when her husband leaves her.
As America had filmmaker D.W. Griffith, Russia had Yevgeni Bauer (also known as Evgeni Bauer), a film director, theatre artist and screenwriter who created over 80 films between 1913 and 1917, which only 26 have survived.
A filmmaker known for his long sequence shots and displacement of camera virtuosos, Bauer was also known for taking on storylines that dealt with terror. Stories that were dark and feature love and death, what made Bauer so successful is his theatre talent which made him focus on lighting, filming angles, the use of materials to create fog and his focus on composition, creative artistry that made him an early auteur of the silent film era.
Unfortunately, the Russian filmmaker hurt his leg on a movie set back in 1917 and despite his work ethic of trying to shoot the film while on a bath chair due to his injury, the filmmaker would have pneumonia and die.
To celebrate the career and films of Evgeni Bauer, Milestone Entertainment has released “Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer” which includes three of his films: “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul” (1913), “After Death” (1915) and “The Dying Swan” (1916).
In “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul”, the film revolves around a Vera Dubovskaja (played by Vera Chernova), a daughter of a Countess. Unlike her mother, Vera is not so happy when it comes to the life of a rich girl, she gets bored easily and is not so enthusiastic in participating. She wants more from life.
And eventually, her mother gets her involved in delivering food for the poor. When they arrive to one home, they enter a room of where the poor are gambling and literally take advantage of the two women’s generosity.
The two then venture to the home of Maksim Petrov (played by V. Demert, who also wrote the film), a literal pig sty but where the Countess would pinch her nose due to the stench, Vera shows her kindness by helping the injured man by bandaging her arm. Needless to say, the poor man has taken a liking to Vera.
When they return home, Vera realizes that she loves helping the poor and wants to dedicate her life to them. Meanwhile, the poor man, Maksim wants to see Vera once again, so he writes her a letter that he needs her help immediately.
He manages to sneak into her room to leave a letter and when she discovers it, she quickly goes to visit Maksim. But she realizes that it was a trap. Maksim rapes Vera and treats her like she’s nothing. When he passes out to go to sleep, she grabs a knife and kills him.
Vera makes it back home but realizes her life will never be the same.
Months have past and eventually, Vera gets better and manages to attract the interest of Prince Dolskij (played by A. Ugrjumov). The two grow closer to each other but before they can get any closer, Vera wants to reveal her secret to him. How will Prince Dolskij react when he finds out that she had been raped and that she is also a murderer?
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Twilight of a Woman’s Soul”is presented in 1:33:1, black and white and color-tinted. While there are some areas where you can see spotting, scratches and negative damage and jittering, but considering the age of this film, it’s still very watchable and for a silent film that is nearly a hundred years old, in watchable and pretty much good condition. The fact is that when it comes to Evgeni Bauer, there are not many surviving films of this filmmaker, so considering that,as a silent film fan, I’m grateful to have watched this film and see that Milestone has given fans a very good version of the film. It’s not a perfectly clean version but for the fact that it is fully intact and there is no major nitrate warping or degradation, the print is definitely watchable.
As for audio, “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul” is presented in Dolby Digital stereo with original music by Laura Rossi, piano by Jill Crossland, violin by Sophie Langdon and cello by Miraim Lowbury. The music is very good and works great with the film.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer: The Milestone Collection” comes with:
- Film Essay on Evgeni Bauer – (36:45) A film essay on Evgeni Bauer by Yuri Tsivian who analyzes the three films and gives us an idea of why Bauer’s film technique was very creative and artistic for its time.
- Stills gallery – Featuring a few still photos of Evegeni Bauer and the talent that he worked with. Note: The still photos are automatic play and not controlled by remote button presses.
- DVD-Rom – Mad Love Press Kit – Featuring photos of Evegeni Bauer, the talent that worked with Bauer and still photos. Information requires Adobe Reader.
While I have seen my share of horror or German expressionist silent films, what intrigued me about Evgeni Bauer is the connection people make with Edgar Allen Poe and the Russian filmmaker.
Bauer’s films, primarily the three featured on this DVD release is not your typical, happy ever after storyline. While the characters do have a time of happiness, there is always something that is bound to happen to the protagonist or a main character and it’s typically, the ending is opposite of the happy films that one may have been accustomed to in American silent cinema.
Not the case for the three films on “Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer”. As a matter of fact, in “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul”, rarely do you find films where the protagonist is raped and murders her rapist.
But it does happen in this film.
If there is anything that may have a hint of banality, it’s the way Vera’s husband, the prince, reacts to her secret. But what happens at the end is definitely not an ending people would expect. Call it a shock ending, but this is something not typical in a silent film. Literally, this one film alone touches upon suicide, rape and murder and while Hollywood has had its share of pre-code films, this film was created in 1913 and it would have been interesting to know how Russian moviegoers reacted to the film.
Unfortunately, while Evgeni Bauer is respected among filmmakers who had a chance to watch his silent films, he is literally an unknown to many generations since his passing in 1917. Only a little over a dozen films have been found and so, there is not much out there to know about the man, other than how artistic and creative he was in using his theatre experience in film and it definitely shows in “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul”.
Overall, the film is quite intriguing and not too sure if American audiences watched this film during the teens or ’20s but I will say that many of us who are silent film fans, are pretty lucky that the Milestone Collection did bring this out for US release and giving us a chance to watch Bauer’s films.
A wonderful inclusion to “Made Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer” DVD release!
(Note: The review is for the film, “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul” and not a review of the entire DVD).
