Customer Reviews

Brigitte Helm: From Metropolis to Gold. A portrait of a goddess

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Brigitte Helm. From Metropolis to Gold. This book is very disappointing. First, it is difficult to read because of the font used. The lower bar of the 'e' is not very distinct and gives the text a faded appearance at all times. The book is full of typos. Mispellings that are obvious, hyphens in the wrong place, etc. occur every couple of pages. It is written in an unsophisticated style, as if written in German and then translated into English by someone who was not himself a writer. Second, it is not an in-depth biography of Brigitte Helm. It deals with her films, and her impressions making the films, culled from magazine articles. There is a smattering of biography - but everything ends after she made her last film. The rest of her life is dealt with in a couple of paragraphs. I did not get the impression that the authors, Herzog & Vazzana, had ever talked with Helm. It is also very short, less than a hundred pages, so the coverage of the films is also not as in-depth as it might be. There are several photographs (which fill out the book to above a hundred pages)- and these are the best part of the whole book, and make it worth its purchase price. Photos of Metropolis and most of her other films, as well as publicity shots.

The introduction states that this book was inspired by the "recent" restoration of _Metropolis_ by Giorgio Moroder. Moroder made his version in 1984, and this book was published in 1994. It sounds like it would be worth the wait, but it is very poorly done.

I am not sure what audience the book was intended for. It often reads like a biography written for elementary-age readers, and then Herzog and Vazzana drop in thousand dollar words like "obfuscate" and bits of film studies terminology. The book is loaded with typos ("classis," "os" for "of," "Atrhur") many of which could have been caught with a spellcheck, no less, and the "e"s often look like "c". At one point he has several quotations from "Arnheim, a critic." He is never fully identified nor cited, and this further suggests the approach of a children's biography. The book has a bibliography, but no actual citations for its quotations.

The font size, which is also suggestive of a children's book, is indicative of just how padded this book is. There are two interviews with Helm that were originally published in 1930s magazines, and even further padding with a complete transcription of the Moroder version of Metropolis--its intertitles and subtitles (not the Pete Belotte lyrics) and some descriptions I didn't bother to read since the rest of the writing her is so amateurish.

The book is utterly confusing in its approach. The Herzog biography on the jacket flap says that Helm is Herzog's favorite actress and that she represents the apex of film stardom. However, that is certainly not the message that one gets from this book. In numerous cases, he tells of films where she was panned, sometimes agreeing, sometimes waxing poetic about her performances and still agreeing, sometimes challenging, but not often. Worst of all is that sometimes his detailings of the negative reactions to her films seem totally out of balance when one encounters a paragraph like this:

"_Spione am Werk_ (1932) had a long run at the Gloria Palast in Berlin and when it was shown in New York City, _Variety_ (April, 1993) praised the acting and the photography in it."

No further mention or description of _Spione am Werk_ is given. If it's a lost film, say so. After film after film where her acting was faulted, you come to one where she was praised and gloss over it? Was the copywriter of the jacket flap mistaken?

The editing of this book is so poor that there are two papragraphs about _The Contess of Monte Christo_ on page 46 and 49. The first is stuck in at the end of Chapter V, while the second is embedded in Chapter 6, and is written as though it is introducing the film to the reader for the first time. A reader of the copy I read (belonging to the New York Public Library) was prompted to add some details on page 46 that were on page 49, apparently thinking that some important info was dropped off before they read ahead to find it! Again, I say, ten years to produce a book this disorganized?

The last page of the book proper is only page 58. Its last paragraph starts with "In 1935 Helm was a great success in the role of a young girl." No mention of what film this is, and what else would she be playing? An old lady? Yes, she played a robot, as the photos clearly show, and a vamps not young girls? That's a vague term. Was she playing a child or adolescent? Perhaps the film referred to is _An Ideal Husband_, (Herzog is inconsistent about the article; "an" is consistent with the German "Ein" in the film's original title) as the last sentence of the book reads, "One of her last films, _The Ideal Husband_, proved once and for all that Helm was truly a great film actress of the time." Where is the support? In the middle of the paragraph, he talks about Karl Hartl's ability to direct her. According to the filmography, Hartl had not directed her in a film since 1933, so he's not trying to lead up to it in a clumsy attempt at dramatic writing. The last film Hartl directed her in was _Gold_, which, as the title indicates, is the last film that Herzog and Vazzana want to discuss, so they slap on a mess that tries to be a conclusion?

As to the value of the supplements? The filmography does not include the documentary that was mentioned several times that Helm supposedly appeared in and considers _Metropolis_ her first film. Helm's name is also presented in boldface in the filmography, as if we didn't know that her credit in the film was a given. There are 56 tipped-in plates with one or more photographs on each. Some are very revealing, such as Helm in the robot suit with the helmet off getting a drink. Of the twenty still photographs of _Metropolis_, most of them are very commonly reproduced, some of which do not even show Helm. Seven of these I absolutely guarantee you have seen.

I was not familiar with Helm's work other than _Metropolis_ when I read this, though I had some awareness of her further career from IMDb. The book does not really compel me to seek out more of her work. I probably will, anyway, since she intrigues me enough that I read the book to begin with, but the impression one is left with is that Helm was a mediocre actor who happened to be in a landmark film classic and left acting after only ten years to get married and raise a family. Certainly, as a defense of her acting ability, the book fails, but considering how much of a failure the book is on so many levels, that isn't surprising. The subtitle is supported only by the numerous references saying that she looks like she could be a Greek goddess.

For Helm completists only.

....just wanted to tell the authors that your efforts are appreciated... I love the book. I'm confident that more people will rediscover the work of Brigitte Helm with this unique book.