Michael (1924)

Not Recommended

Germany

Feature Film

Director: Carl Th. Dreyer

Writers: Carl Th. Dreyer, Thea von Harbou, Herman Bang

Cinematographers: Karl Freund, Rudolph Maté

Composer: Pierre Oser (1993)

Cast: Benjamin Christensen, Walter Slezak, Nora Gregor, Robert Garrison, Max Auzinger

A near destitute Russian countess comes between a renowned middle-aged painter and his muse, the eponymous aspiring artist, when she persuades the old master to paint her portrait, which at first inspires feelings of jealousy in Michael, before he falls for her himself and they leave the old man all alone to paint his magnum opus, in Dreyer’s strangely uninvolving melodrama, which lacks the light touch of his later masterpieces. Iain.Stott