#Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928)

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Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) [The Fate of those of Habsburg]

This one was very interesting but I kind of struggle to really say anything about it. I can tell you that I had a better time with it than with Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) though.

This was a silent film about the slow death of the austrian imperial family and monarchy, starting with Rudolf's engagement and subsequent suicide all the way through to Emperor Karl's forced departure from Vienna after WWI. Honestly, it kind of had the same issue as Elisabeth von Österreich where I couldnt get emotionally invested at all, but I think I was less bothered by it because I realized pretty quickly that this film was basically just running through the all important events without really trying for emotional investment, if that makes sense. Like, this movie spends most of its time with Rudolf and arguably fleshes his 'fate' out the most, but then obviously it keeps going after his death, and after that was when I really got this feeling that it was essentially just listing a bunch of historical events involving the Habsburgs + the way they died with accompanying visuals, but that feeling was already there during Rudolf's section of the film, it just got more blatant as it went on.

I guess Im maybe a little disappointed because the title of the film made me think it was going to be more about how this family or the whole system of monarchy was doomed from the start, maybe looking at the whole thing with a sense of tragic inevitability kinda like Elisabeth: das Musical sorry I keep bringing it up, but it wasnt that. And that's not the film's fault, I just assumed stuff based on nothing but the title and again, it became clear to me what it was actually doing very quickly, so it wasnt a big deal.

I dont have much to say in the way of pacing and editing which means its pretty alright, but I will say that there was something kind of mesmerizing about it. A lot of it might just be the fact that this was only my second silent movie so my brain still registers it as 'very interesting' by default, but I know a big part of it was definitely the damaged film. When this movie was restored there were bits that had no completely undamaged film available so they had to use film that was already decaying, and now there's parts of the movie that are framed by this white rot on either side, and I just think it looks beautiful. I seriously wonder why decaying film effects arent as common in art as glitch effects or fuzzy vcr effects when theyre so evocative. Also, if Im already talking about technical stuff, the version that I watched was completely silent and didnt have any kind of score, and I thought silent films usually had scores that would then be the audio playing over them whenever they got restored. Is that actually the case and is this film meant to have a score, or am I getting my silent film facts wrong here? I mean, the fact that there wasnt a score didnt bother me too much, it was pretty unusual watching a movie without any kind of sound, but thats about it.

Anyway, I realize that saying "what I like about this movie is that time passed and it was partially destroyed but that partial destruction looks really cool" sounds like a real backhanded compliment, so now Im gonna talk about the other two things that stuck out to me in a positive way. Oh man, that also sounds like a backhanded compliment doesnt it. Listen, these arent the only things that I liked in film I otherwise find bad, these are just the only things I liked in a film that I otherwise dont feel very strongly about. Those things being—

Erna Morena as Elisabeth. I really liked her performance. Unfortunately I cant really articulate why, I think she had a weariness about her that enjoyed and I liked the way she carried herself.

That scene where Rudolf kisses Franz Joseph's hand. The context is, Franz Joseph is telling Rudolf that Mary is gonna leave Vienna so that she cant interfere with him and Stephanie, and that he is to be locked in his room or in the palace until she's gone, but Rudolf begs him to atleast let him see her one last time time so he's like "Fine, but you have to promise me that it really will be the last time you two see each other" and holds out his hand. Rudolf shakes it after a long moment moment of hesitation and then he kisses his hand before laying his cheek against it, and the Franz Joseph puts his hand on the back of his hand in a kindof embrace. oughhhhhhhhh. Its definitely because Ive had a real fascination with masculinity and specifically father-son relationships lately, but that scene is gonna live rent free in my head for a while

So yeah. In conclusion: it was an interesting watch but mostly by virtue of being a very old silent film. It ocurred to me after briefly skimming the wikipedia page that I would have probably found the actual film more interesting (or atleast had more interesting things to say about it) if it didnt deliberately avoid having any kind of political lean, but that doesnt change my opinion of the film so whatever

And now here's three small things that I noticed that I couldnt mention elsewhere before you go:

The makeup and costuming was so 1920s. I have previously said that I am not a history person, and Im not, but I do know some basic stuff about historical fashion and it was honestly really distracting. That was kinda the case with the costuming in Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) as well (although there it was mostly the hair and makeup) but this was a whole other level

There's this scene where Rudolf and Mary first meet and theres this instant chemistry and they start dancing together and then Rudolf just GRIPS her neck and pulls her into a kiss, it was so forceful. I dont think it was supposed to read as aggressive, I'm pretty sure it was just meant to be passionate but idk, it was weird. They dont have any other weird interactions here, for the rest of the film its just pretty standard, old-timey man-woman interactions. And then obviously the suicide, which felt only slightly less sudden than it did in Elisabeth von Österreich

I dont remember at what point in the film this was, I wanna say about a third of the way through, but I was thinking a little about Stephanie and how she was portayed here vs how she was portrayed in Rudolf: Affaire Mayerling, the only other piece of media I have seen so far where she gets focused on quite a bit. I noted that she was a lot more sympathetic whereas the musical portrayed her as a lot more antagonistic, and just as I finished that thought, Stephanie arrives in Mayerling after she heard that Rudolf went there with a certain baroness instead of coming to her, sees Mary sitting outside with Rudolf and some friends of theirs, walks up to her and hits her with either her fan or maybe some kind of stick, I dont remember. so that was kinda funny

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Im about to watch Sissi (1955) but before I do, I want to talk about it a little because I actually saw part of this movie before. Basically, my mom and I were going on a small roadtrip to see a musical in abother city and I brought my Elisabeth 2001 CD and we listened to it and I explained the context of the songs to her because it only had 16 of them on it, it was very nice. But it made her mistakenly believe that I was interested in historical or Sissi-media in general, so when we were in our hotel room and we had some time, she suggested that we watch Sissi (1955) and again, I wasnt really interested, but I agreed and we ended up watching the first 20 or so minutes before we had to leave, we severely overestimated how much time we had lol. But I feel like not a lot happened in those 20 minutes, all I remember is Franz Joseph is very busy, Elisabeth is homesick, Sophie does NOT like her, there was this guard-guy who had a very sillygoofy crush on her, and when we left it was at the start of her hungarian lesson, she was like "ach, something about hungary just speaks to me" and thats it. I also remember getting this post-war-country-reminiscing-about-its-"glory days"-vibe from this film, although Im not sure if that actually has anything to do with the filmitself, or if me knowing that it was made in the 1950s colored my perception of it, so Im curious if seeing it again and in full will be any different. I also ended up telling that anecdote to my therapist recently and she told me she grew up with the trilogy and apparently it is pretty kitschy, but I hope it'll be a kind of kitschy I can enjoy. Oh, also I told her that I was kinda interested in seeing them but also not because Ive found all the 50s movies Ive seen pretty boring so far (this was wayyyy before I decided to do this whole thing), and she recommended that I watch the films Audrey Hepburn did and it just so happens that I have one of those on my list, so Im curious about that one too

Also, this isnt related to anything I just said, but Ive been thinking about this since yesterday. When I wrote that line in my Ludwig II — Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955) review where I was like "It was refreshing seeing a film about a different genre of mentally ill man", obviously referring to Rudolf only, I was originally going write smth like "royal" instead of "man" there, but then I looked back on my list and I remembered all the previous movies Ive seen and I realized that not only do they not portray Elisabeth's mental issues or suffering beyond being like "shes sad :( for reasons :((", these movies have really not been about her. I mean, Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (1921) was but that one was like 30 seconds long. After that we had Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) which was mostly about Rudolf, then Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) which, idk if I would say that one was mostly about Rudolf but it was certainly about him a lot for a film named after her, then we had Sissy (1932), The King Steps Out (1936) and L'Aigle à deux Têtes (1948) which were all obviously inspired by her but theyre mostly just made up bullshit, and then inbetween that we also had Erzsébet királyné (1940) where she was a supporting character

And thats interesting to me because when I started this project, I was expecting the romantic image we have of Sissi to be more 'built up' in cinema, if the way Im phrasing that makes any sense, but thats really not the case and it really seems like that image that would be regurgitated and then subverted by media that's more "real" only comes from this one movie, or rather movie trilogy, and idk, I just think thats interesting

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Mayerling (1936)

This one was really good, I absolutely loved it, but I do have one pretty big issue with it, that shall go into detail about a bit later.

This film starts off with Rudolf getting arrested at a student protest and hanging out a bunch with Seps while Taafe and the head of the secret police are trying to prove that theyre in cahoots, which excited me because although some of the previous ones did focus on Rudolf a lot, they didnt really focus on his politics in favor of showing us his always-strangely boring affair with Mary Vetsera, but then Seps' newspaper gets shut down and he has to flee and then we never hear from him again and the only political stuff in the rest of the movie is just like "oh, the baroness is cheating with the archduke whos already married, much scandal". So that was disappointing, but it's not the big issue I have with the film, and I was ultimately able to get invested in the relationship between Rudolf and Mary.

That's mainly because I thought Rudolf was very interesting. An issue that I had with both Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) and Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) was that Rudolf seemed like a fairly normal, well-adjusted guy which made his suicide feel very weird and kind of confusing. Like, I think if I had seen either of those films without knowing the actual history, during those scenes where he approached Mary to be like "my request for a divorce didnt go through. you know what we have to do now in order to be together", I wouldve thought that he was talking about running away together or something, like what people do when theyre crazy and in love but still, yknow, relatively mentally healthy. In those movies, there wasnt really any buildup to the suicide or to Mary wanting to die with him, but I think here they did a good job at portraying Rudolf as this complicated and tormented guy, I really liked Charles Boyer's performance.

Unfortunately, I cant say the same for Mary, who, like in the previous films, was just kinda portrayed as a very normal woman, even though willingly being in an affair with the heir to the throne of austria and then being willing to follow him when he commits suicide is pretty wild, at least in my humble opinion. This is the big issue I have: she came across as just this one-dimensional ingenue who didnt have any thoughts about what she was doing or her relationship with Rudolf beyond like "everything is all right because our love is pure", but I didnt really feel like the film made me understand why she would love him as deeply as she does. I can certainly understand why Rudolf loves her like that, she's this comforting, bright prescence in his dark dark life, but what does this sheltered 17 year old see in this weird, unstable, unfaithful manwhore? The only thing that's ever said is that she sees the sadness and the pain in his eyes, but idk. call me cynical, but that just isn't enough for me. But even beyond that, again, I really dislike how she has no inner life and doesnt seem to ever self-reflect and never expresses any opinion about Rudolf beyond like, after her second time meeting him she tells her governess that he's handsome.

There's this scene that's really emblematic of the issues I have with her characterization while also being one of my favorite scenes in the whole film. Basically, Mary's mother finds out about her daughter being in an affair with an unnamed man through an anonymous letter and when she refuses to tell her who it is, she sends her away to live with her uncle for 6 weeks. We hear that during those weeks, Rudolf has constantly been drunk and sleeping with a bunch of women and we see him at a brothel having.... not a bad time per se, but he's clearly not all there. When he looks in a mirror, he doesnt recognize himself and starts yelling at his own reflection before pulling out a gun and shooting it several times. Then someone approaches him to tell him that a pretty woman is waiting for him at the entrance and leads him there. The pretty woman is Mary, who just returned from her uncle's place and managed to escape her mother because she wanted to see him as soon as possible, and Rudolf immediately takes her to a private room because he doesnt want anyone to see her. There, Mary notices what she thinks is blood on his neck and gets concerened, but he tells her that its just lipstick from a prostitute. She doesnt say anything in response, but Rudolf starts ranting at her about how yes, he kissed prostitutes and he's allowed to do that if he wants because he hasnt tied himself down to Mary so it doesnt matter, while she just stays silent and expressionless. He gets increasingly more upset as he rants and ends up grabbing Mary by the shoulders and yelling at her that, if she doesnt say anything now, he never wants to see her again. I forgot what exactly she told him, but I think it was just something along the lines of "I'll love you no matter what". Then Rudolf calms down a bit and basically repeats "I dont know how you can love me, you can't actually love me when Im like this" while she assures him that she does love him.

This scene really demonstrates the duality of their relationship as presented in this film; Rudolf is this complicated and tormented mess of a person while Mary is just a doll looking at him with her beautiful blank face. Like, I cannot stresss enough how little emotion she shows during that scene and many others. And I dont think its because she's played by a bad actress, I actually really liked Danielle Darrieux's performance and I think she could have portrayed Mary with a lot of depth, if only she had any.

But with my big issue out of the way, I'd like to talk about all the things that made me love this movie regardless

I already talked about how I liked Rudolf, but I absolutely LOVED Gabrielle Dorziat as Elisabeth here despite her having a very minor role. Theres this small scene where she wants to see Rudolf but finds Mary instead and they talk for a moment that I think gave her a lot of depth, again, despite the fact that she only had a few small appearances in less than a handful of scenes.

The pacing and editing were on-point, like The King Steps Out (1936) this movie felt like it was longer than 90 minutes in a good way, and I adored the score, it added so much to the wonderful atmosphere of this whole thing. Or, well, maybe 'wonderful' isnt the right word here, this is a fairly dark film, but it was very well-executed. Places like the opera in the ballet gala scene or the ball at the end have this beautiful grandness about them, while the brothel Rudolf visits and even the fair where he and Mary first meet are dingy and kind of grimy, and the ending at Mayerling is so dark and melancholic and tense, my heart was racing with this horrible anticipation for basically the last 10-20 minutes, it was so good. I was gonna talk about it in more detail but honestly, I dont want to spoil it too much, you should definitely watch it for yourself when you can. I found it (and most of the movies I will review) on ok.ru, its a french movie but I was able to find it with english subtitles on there.

So yeah, all in all, its a good movie, I wish the creators had cared more about Mary but that's it.

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Im gonna watch Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) in a bit but right now Im just hangin out on here while watching a video rebuffing Lily Orchard's horrible steven universe video and like, Ive already seen this so I knew how bad and kind of insane it was, but watching it again right before Im gonna watch a fucking 1920s serious silent movie really highlights how stupid it is. And like, a lot of people talk about how a lot of her takes are clearly the takes of someone who doesnt watch anything other than children's shows and how literally just watching something thats actually just for adults, not kids media or family media like star wars or the MCU, would do her so much good, and that is true but also, idk. I almost exclusively consumed media for kids well into my late teens, (I really only started getting into adult stuff around last october when I watched a bunch of dracula movies, and since then Ive been watching more adult stuff and mostly engaging kids stuff from an analytical perspective instead of just passively watching it for entertainment) and Im not like this, ive never thought anything like this, I dont know why Lily Orchard is like this ???

But yeah, watching more adult media would probably help. Personally, I would recommend Metropolis (1927), and Im not just saying that because it would be really funny or even because she keeps doing this insufferable thing where she calls Rebecca Sugar the scum of the earth for writing "nazi apologia" while also implying that she didnt actually know the implications of what she was writing and she just did that on accident, which Im pretty sure is what actually happened with Metropolis, it wasnt meant to validate the beliefs of fascists but it did and the Nazis really loved it, Im saying that because Metropolis, like a lot of kids media and unlike a lot of adult media, has a clearly stated moral message its trying to impart onto the audience, so she wouldnt be stepping too far out of her comfort zone