Erdgeist (film)
Encyclopedia
Erdgeist is a 1923
German
Expressionist
film directed by Leopold Jessner
. It stars Asta Nielsen
as Lulu, a femme fatale
leading an amoral life in a world full of lust and greed. It also stars Albert Bassermann
and Carl Ebert
.
The film is based on the 1895 play of the same name
, which playwright Frank Wedekind
followed up with 1904's Die Büchse der Pandora
(Pandora's Box). The plays also formed the basis for the better-known 1929 film Pandora's Box
and the opera Lulu
.
1923 in film
-Events:*April 15 - Lee De Forest demonstrates the Phonofilm sound-on-film system at the Rivoli Theater in New York with a series of short musical films featuring vaudeville performers.-Top grossing films :-Films released in 1923:U.S.A...
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Expressionist
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
film directed by Leopold Jessner
Leopold Jessner
Leopold Jessner was a noted producer and director of German Expressionist theater and cinema. His first film, Hintertreppe , is considered a major turning point which paved the way for the later German Expressionist experiments of German filmmakers F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, and G.W...
. It stars Asta Nielsen
Asta Nielsen
Asta Nielsen , was a Danish silent film actress who was one of the most popular leading ladies of the 1910s and one of the first international movie stars. Seventy of Nielsen's 74 films were made in Germany where she was known simply as Die Asta...
as Lulu, a femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
leading an amoral life in a world full of lust and greed. It also stars Albert Bassermann
Albert Bassermann
Albert Bassermann was a German stage and screen actor.-Career:Bassermann began his acting career in 1887 in his birthplace, Mannheim. He then spent four years at the Hoftheater in Meiningen. He then moved to Berlin. From 1899, he worked for Otto Brahm. He began work at the Deutsches Theater...
and Carl Ebert
Carl Ebert
Carl Ebert was a German theatre and opera producer and administrator.-Biography:He worked as an actor and theatre director in Germany from 1915 to 1927, directing Brecht's In The Jungle of Cities in Darmstadt in 1927...
.
The film is based on the 1895 play of the same name
Earth Spirit (play)
Earth Spirit is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In German folklore an erdgeist is a gnome, first described in Goethe's Faust...
, which playwright Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
followed up with 1904's Die Büchse der Pandora
Pandora's Box (play)
Pandora's Box is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the second part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed".G. W. Pabst directed a silent film version , which was loosely based on the play, in 1929...
(Pandora's Box). The plays also formed the basis for the better-known 1929 film Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box (film)
Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora . Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer...
and the opera Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
.
Works Cited
- Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521434378.