THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY (DIE LIEBE DER JEANNE NEY)

Showings

Castro Theatre Fri, May 3, 2019 7:10 PM
Film Info
Director:G.W. Pabst
Cast:Édith Jéhanne
Uno Henning
Fritz Rasp
Brigitte Helm
Year:1927
Country:Germany
Total Run Time:105 min.
Format:DCP

Description

Musical accompaniment by the Guenter Buchwald Ensemble
Bolsheviks and Cossacks are at each other’s throats in post-revolutionary Russia, with love just one of the casualties. Based on the novel by outspoken Soviet and Left Bank habitué Ilya Ehrenburg, The Love of Jeanne Ney intertwines eroticism and espionage for a story that ranges over a troubled continent between world wars. Jeanne Ney (Édith Jéhanne) flees the Crimea for Paris when her diplomat father is killed after receiving a list of Bolshevik agents from the lecherous opportunist Khalibiev (Fritz Rasp)—a list that contains the name of Jeanne’s lover (Uno Henning)! Shot partially in Paris by German auteur G.W. Pabst, Jeanne Ney earned its most fervent admirers abroad. “A milestone in the history of our art,” wrote Oswell Blakeston, thumping for a stateside release. “Should the art guilds of America overlook this film they no longer have any right to their titles.” Memorable supporting players Brigitte Helm, Hertha von Walther, Adolf Edgar Licho, Sig Arno, and Vladimir Sokoloff round out the excellent cast.

Print courtesy of F.W. Murnau Stiftung

 

Introduction by Jay Weissberg

 

Copresented by Berlin & Beyond and California Film Institute

Additional Information

  

Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald Ensemble

Musicians Guenter Buchwald, Frank Bockius, and Sascha Jacobsen join together to accompany Pabst's Weimar masterpiece.

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair`s Paris qui dort, Chaplin´s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu. A soloist known for his virtuoso improvisation, he has appeared regularly at film festivals in Berlin, Bonn, Bologna, Zurich, Pordenone, and Seattle. He is a lecturer at the Film Science Institute at the University of Zurich and resident conductor of the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra for Silent Film in Concert. He is cofounder of the Silent Movie Music Company and is musical director of Bristol’s Slapstick Silent Film Festival in England. He made his first appearance at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in 2013.

Versatile percussionist Frank Bockius specializes in jazz and is versed in medieval, flamenco, and Latin music styles. He has performed for dance and theater companies as well as in his own bands, including the jazz quintet Whisper Hot and the percussion ensemble Timpanicks. He joined the Guenter Buchwald's Silent Movie Music Company twenty years ago and has since performed for silent films at festivals in Kyoto, Pordenone, and Sodankylä, Finland. He made his first appearance at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in 2014.

Bassist Sascha Jacobsen draws on a variety of musical styles from classical to jazz and Argentine Tango. He has performed with Kronos Quartet, theatrical greats Rita Moreno, Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone, musicians Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and Raul Jaurena, among many others. Jacobsen is in demand as a performer, composer, and arranger, with commissions by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Berkeley Youth Symphony, and SF Arts Council among others. He is also a dedicated teacher and has coached students at numerous arts and music schools in the Bay Area. Jacobsen is the founder of the Musical Art Quintet, which performs his original compositions, and plays bass in the group. SF Weekly writes, "Classical training and a taste for evocative melodies underpin this sound."