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The Wings (1916)
The Wings, or Vingarne to use the original Swedish title, is a 1916 silent film directed by Mauritz Stiller, perhaps best known for his 1921 film Sir Arne's Treasure and as the discoverer of Greta Garbo.
It is based on Herman Bang's 1902 novel Mikaël, which was the same source Carl Theodor Dreyer used for his 1924 film Michael. The story is that of a conniving countess (played by Lili Bech) coming between a gay sculptor, Claude Zoret (Egil Eide), and his bisexual model and lover, Mikaël (Lars Hanson), ultimately leading to Zoret's death in a raging storm at the base of a statue of Mikaël as the mythological Icarus.
Apart from being a very early gay-themed film, it is also notable for its innovative use of a framing story and telling the plot primarily through the use of flashbacks.
The film is largely lost, with only half an hour surviving of the original 70 minute film. A restoration was made using still photos and title cards to bridge the missing sections in 1987.
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Different from the Others (1919)
Different From The Others (German: Anders als die Andern) is a film which was produced in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It was first released in 1919 and stars Conrad Veidt and Reinhold Schünzel.
The story for Anders als die Andern was written by Richard Oswald with the assistance of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who also had a small part in the film and helped fund the production through his Institute for Sexual Science, with the aim of presenting the story as a polemic against the then current laws under Germany's Paragraph 175. Paragraph 175 made homosexuality a punishable offense, causing many men to be placed in the same position as the character portrayed by Veidt.
The cinematography was by Max Fassbender, who two years previously had worked on Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray, one of the earliest cinematic treatments of Oscar Wilde's classic tale of narcissism, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Director Richard Oswald later became a director of some considerable note, as did his son Gert. Veidt of course became a major film star the year after Anders was released, in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Anders als die Andern is noteworthy as one of the first sympathetic portrayals of homosexuals in cinema. The film's basic plot was used again in the 1961 UK film, Victim, starring Dirk Bogarde. Censorship laws enacted in reaction to films like Anders als die Andern eventually restricted viewing of this movie to doctors and medical researchers, and prints of the film were among the many "decadent" works burned by the Nazis after Hitler came to power in 1933. Some portions of the film have survived, and can be viewed today as an invaluable glimpse at both cinematic history and homosexual history.
Plot summary
Veidt portrays a successful violinist, Paul Körner, who falls in love with one of his male students. A sleazy extortionist blackmails Körner with threats that he will expose him as a homosexual. Flashbacks show us how Körner became aware of his orientation and tried first to change it, then to understand it. Körner and the extortionist end up in court, where the judge is sympathetic to the violinist, but when the scandal becomes public, his career is ruined and he is driven to suicide.
The film opens with Paul Körner (Conrad Veidt) reading the daily newspaper obituaries, which are filled with vaguely worded and seemingly inexplicable suicides. Körner, however, knows that Paragraph 175 is hidden behind them all--that it hangs over German homosexuals "like the Sword of Damocles".
After this thesis statement, the main plot begins. Kurt Sivers (Fritz Schulz) is a fan and admirer of Körner, a violin virtuoso, and he approaches Körner in hopes of becoming a student of his. Körner agrees and they begin lessons together, during which they fall for one another.
Both men experience the disapproval of their parents. Neither are out, but Sivers's object to the increasingly large amount of attention he focuses on the violin and his unusual infatuation with Körner, and the Körners do not understand why he has shown no interest in finding a wife and starting a family. Körner sends his parents to see his mentor, the Doctor (Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld).
The Doctor appears several times in the film, each time to deliver speeches more intended for the audience than the advancement of the plot. In this, his first appearance, he tells Körner's parents:
You must not condemn your son because he is a homosexual, he is not to blame for his orientation. It is not wrong, nor should it be a crime. Indeed, it is not even an illness, merely a variation, and one that is common to all of nature.
After Körner's coming out, he and Sivers begin seeing each other more openly. While walking together, hand in hand, through the park, they pass a man who recognizes Körner. Later that day, when Körner is alone, this man, Franz Bollek (Reinhold Schünzel) confronts him and demands hush money or else he will expose Sivers.
Körner pays him and keeps it a secret from Sivers that he does so. Eventually, however, the blackmailer's demands become too great and Körner refuses to pay. (Worthy of note: the scene in which Bollek reads Körner's reply to his demand occurs in a gay bar--probably the first screen appearance of one.) Bollek decides instead to break into Körner's house while he and Sivers are performing, but he is discovered by Sivers and Körner on their return and a fight breaks out. In the course of the fight, Bollek reveals to Sivers that he has been blackmailing him.
Sivers runs away and faces hardships trying to survive alone. Körner is left dejected and, over a photo of Sivers, remembers his past.
His first memory is of boarding school, when he and his boyfriend Max are discovered kissing by their teacher and he's expelled. Next, he remembers University and his solitary and lonely life there, and the growing impossibility of trying to play straight.
He remembers trying an ex-gay hypnotherapist, but finding him only to be a charlatan. Then he first met the Doctor, whose reaction was much different from those he had previously met. Among other things, he told him:
Love for one of the same sex is no less pure or noble than for one of the opposite. This orientation can be found in all levels of society, and among respected people. Those that say otherwise come only from ignorance and bigotry.
Remembering on, he recalled first meeting Bollek at a gay dance hall, and Bollek leading him on before ultimately turning on him and using his homosexuality to blackmail him.
Back in the present, Körner takes Else Sivers (Anita Berber), Kurt Sivers's sister, to the Doctor's lecture on alternative sexuality. This section of the film completely abandons the plot, but provides an insight into progressive late 19th century views on what would now be termed queer studies as the Doctor speaks on topics such as homosexuality, lesbianism, transgenderism, intersexuality, the perils of stereotypes, and the idea that sexuality is physically determined, rather than a mental condition.
Körner reports Bollek for blackmail and has him arrested. In retaliation, Bollek exposes Körner. The Doctor gives testimony on Körner's behalf, but both are found guilty of their respective crimes. Bollek is sentenced to three years for extortion. The judge is sympathetic to Körner, and gives him the minimum sentence allowable: one week.
Allowed to go home before his starting his term, Körner finds himself shunned by friends and strangers alike, and no longer employable. Even his family tells him there is only one honorable way out. He takes a handful of pills and kills himself.
Sivers rushes to his side as he lays dead. Körner's parents blame Sivers for what has happened, but Else harshly rebukes them. Meanwhile, Sivers attempts to kill himself as well, but the Doctor prevents him and delivers his final speech:
You have to keep living; live to change the prejudices by which this man has been made one of the countless victims. ... [Y]ou must restore the honor of this man and bring justice to him, and all those who came before him, and all those to come after him. Justice through knowledge!
The movie closes with an open German law book, turned to Paragraph 175, as a hand holding a brush crosses it out.
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Michael (1924)
Michael (also known as Mikaël, Chained: The Story of the Third Sex, and Heart's Desire) was a silent film released in 1924, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, director of other notable silents such as The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Master of the House (1925), and Leaves From Satan's Book (1921).
Along with Different From the Others (1919) and Sex in Chains (1928), Michael is widely considered a landmark in gay silent cinema.
The film is based on Herman Bang's 1902 novel Mikaël. It is the second screen adaptation of the book, the first being The Wings, made eight years prior by director Mauritz Stiller. Michael, however, follows Bang's storyline much more closely than the earlier film version had done.
Plot Summary
In the film, a famous painter named Claude Zoret (Benjamin Christensen) falls in love with one of his models, Michael (Walter Slezak), and for a time the two live happily as partners.
Zoret is considerably older than Michael, and as they age, Michael begins to drift from him, although Zoret is completely blind to this. When a bankrupt countess (Nora Gregor) comes to Zoret, ostensibly to have a portrait made but with the real intent of seducing him and swindling his money, she finds Michael to be more receptive to her advances and, at her lead, the two are quickly a couple and she immediately begins using Michael to steal from Zoret. When he discovers what has been going on, Zoret is crushed and his work suffers terribly.
After Michael sells the painting of himself that Zoret made and gave to him as a gift, and after he steals and sells the sketches Zoret made of their time in Algiers, where they first fell in love, Zoret begins work on his masterpiece: a large-scale painting of a man lying on a beach, using Algiers as a background, depicting "a man who has lost everything", as one character put it on first sight of the work.
After completing the painting, Zoret falls ill. On his deathbed, Charles Switt (Robert Garrison) sits beside him. Switt had always loved Zoret, and has stayed with him throughout, never criticizing Michael as he knew Zoret loved Michael and to do so would hurt him.
Switt sends a message to Michael, telling him Zoret is dying and to come at once, but the Countess prevents him from getting it.
Zoret's last words, which also serve as the prologue to the film, are "Now I can die in peace, for I have seen true love."
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Sex in Chains (1928)
Sex in Chains (1928), original German title Geschlecht in Fesseln, is a silent film directed by William Dieterle.
Plot summary
The film opens with Franz Sommer (Dieterle) and his newlywed wife, Helene (Mary Johnson). They are going through hard times, and Sommer is without steady employment, partly due to his honest-to-a-fault nature. Helene takes a job selling cigars and cigarettes at a restaurant. When a patron advances on Helene and ignores Sommer's warning to leave her alone, Sommer pushes him away. He falls and hits his head, dying some days later. Sommer is arrested and sentenced three years in prison.
Sommer is kept in large cell with four other people, one of which, Steinau (Gunnar Tolnæs), is soon acquitted and promises Sommer to help his wife while he's incarcerated. This he does by giving her a better job at his business and offering her his friendship while they both work to get Sommer out.
For much of the remainder of the film, the men's sexual frustration from being separated from women is the focus, with scenes such as making nude sculptures from breadcrumbs and water and fighting for a woman's handkerchief smuggled in from visitation. At the same time, there is a strong homoerotic undercurrent throughout, though directly only hinted at.
The fifth act brings changes to both Helene and Sommer's stories. Helene, delirious from Sommer's absence, goes to Steinau one night after madly trying to gain entrance to the prison, and sleeps with him. Meanwhile, Sommer's relationship with fellow inmate Alfred Marquis (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) begins to move from subtext to foreground.
At the prison church service, Sommer and Marquis sit next to each other, and as the preacher tells them to "Yield not to temptation", Marquis is writing Franz and Alfred in the cover of his Bible. He shows it to Sommer, who does not respond. That night, Sommer, seeing Marquis completely absorbed in thought, asks him what he is thinking about. Marquis asks if his nonresponse means he hates him and holds out his hand. Sommer takes it, and begins moving into Marquis's bed as the scene fades to an exterior night shot of the prison.
The next day, Helene arranges with the warden for a private visit with Sommer, where she intends to tell him about Steinau, but she does not. Nor does Sommer say anything. The short meeting is awkward and distant. Later, Steinau makes his presentation calling for a penal system reform, but the representative is unswayed. Steinau asks Helene to divorce Sommer and marry him, but she refuses.
Marquis is released, and Sommer shortly after him. Marquis is briefly seen by the river with another man, happily commenting that Sommer got out today. The other man cynically responds that he could make a good deal of money if Sommer is rich, to which Marquis takes offense and walks away. Though not spelled out, the suggestion is that one could use Paragraph 175 (the then-German law against homosexual acts) to blackmail Sommer, in the a same way that it is used against Paul Körner in Different From the Others.
Sommer goes home, where his wife is happy to see him, and he is happy to be free, but confesses he no longer loves her. Helene thinks he has found out about Steinau, but when she mentions him, he knows nothing of it. It is at that point that there is a knock at the door and Helene opens it to find Marquis with a bouquet of flowers come to see Sommer. Helene then figures it all out. Sommer, now even more depressed, sends him away. He leaves the flowers on the newelpost in the hallway while offering his apologies to Helene, who sees him out.Going back inside, she sees Sommer eying the gas valve on the heater. He tells her he cannot go on living and urges her to leave, but she will not. He turns on the gas and together, they both die.
(en.wikipedia.org)
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