Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 7-March-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Blue Angel (1930)

"The Blue Angel" propelled Marlene Dietrich (and her collaborator, director Josef von Sternberg) out of German silent films and into international talkie fame, but 75 years have blurred the reason why. To be sure, the movie paints a decent picture of the fragility of innocence, but its story is too general and characters too broad to make the sort of indelible impression that normally launches legends and jump starts careers. Looking back on it now, I can only conclude that "The Blue Angel" may be a classic, but it's not a revelation.

The story centers on Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings), a middle-aged professor who has spent the good part of his life locked away in an ivory tower. Dr. Rath's orbit is confined to a classroom and a small set of chambers, which he shares with piles of books and a bird he forgets to feed. One day, he catches several of his pupils drooling over pinup postcards of a woman named Lola-Lola (Dietrich), who is the featured performer at a local cabaret called The Blue Angel. With all the indignation of the righteous and naive, Dr. Rath takes it upon himself to go to the cabaret, evict any students lurking there, and give the proprietor a good talking-to. However, his search for wayward boys lands him in Lola-Lola's dressing room, where, with no experience to shield him, he quickly succumbs to her charms. Before he knows what hit him, Rath finds himself abandoning the life he has always (and exclusively) known and heading into a future of snowballing humiliation and pain.

Of course, "The Blue Angel" cannot have the same impact today as it did when it was released. Some of its original punch presumably came from the precautionary (and therefore titillating) message about the dangers of fallen women, and the fact that Dietrich exposes her garters in most of her scenes. To me, the fallen-woman theme borders on archaic claptrap and Dietrich's appearance seems pretty tame (after all, many modern women routinely wear less on hot summer days). Absent any pertinent morality or vicarious thrills, however, the movie still provides an interesting character study, if only in a generic way. The professor is best viewed as an archetype (especially since few people would credit him with a personality), the embodiment of the sort of self-inflicted isolation and ignorance that inspires both pity and contempt, both the desire to protect and the desire to pervert. As his bane, Lola-Lola is precisely what she needs to be and no more. One never gets a sense of what she wants out of life or the professor; she exists just to turn men on (in some way not entirely clear to me, for Dietrich comes across more as a fact of life than a person). The strange union of Rath and Lola-Lola is not one of individuals; rather, it draws its power from the fatal conjunction of innocence and worldliness, of the rigidity of reason and the vagaries of the flesh, of a spirit dependent on structure and a spirit conditioned to take whatever comes.

Interestingly, the movie doesn't present either way of life as without fault, but opts instead to show that such disparate world views cannot coexist without the stronger, more vital one destroying the other. This is an intriguing and rather timeless concept, but overall "The Blue Angel" forgoes the profound and personal to offer a parable firmly rooted in its cultural and historical context.

Note: This review is based on the German version of the film (with subtitles), not the English version that was shot at the same time with the same cast and crew. Both are available on DVD.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.