Anna Boleyn (1920)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Film Review

The enormous worldwide success of Madame Du Barry (1919) established Ernst Lubitsch's international reputation and earned him the epithet of Germany's D.W. Griffith.  With the German film studio UFA happy to write the very large cheques, Lubitsch would turn out another four equally impressive historical blockbusters, before crossing the Atlantic to begin an even more successful career in America.  The director made such an impact in Hollywood that his German films were soon overlooked and it is only comparatively recently that they have begin to earn the critical attention they deserve.

One of these lavish early German productions is Anna Boleyn, an ambitious and visually arresting account of the tragic life and death of Henry Tudor's second wife, the mother of Elizabeth I and one of the most ill-used women in history.  It is incredible to think that the film was made during a period of extreme economic hardship in Germany, so grand is the film in its scale, so sumptuous are the sets and costumes, and so crammed with activity and people are the bustling crowd scenes.  The wedding sequence, in which seemingly thousands of ordinary folk throng and cheer at Anna Boleyn's marriage to Henry, is one of the most extravagant to appear in any of Lubitsch's films.

The director's keen visual sense and his attention to detail are perhaps nowhere more evident than in this film.  Every shot is composed with the eye of a consummate artist.  The camera is used not just to tell the story but to convey the interior mood of the protagonists, a technique that underpinned German expressionist filmmaking and one that would form the basis for subsequent cinema, notably film noir.  The subtly stylised sets and some daring iris effects create a sense of mounting oppression, conveying the impression that Anne's world is fast closing in on her, and we see her not as an autonomous entity but rather as a mere pawn in a mechanical game of court politics.

Henny Porten has been criticised for her emotionally restrained performance, yet it is her restraint which makes her portrayal of the doomed Anne Boleyn so powerful, particularly in the final sequences.  By contrast, no one could accuse Emil Jannings of restraint in his interpretation of King Henry, and this is also to the film's advantage.  Jannings' Henry is a childlike tyrant who is completely at the mercy of his highly developed earthly passions, governed by a not unreasonable desire to obtain a male heir, but all too easily manipulated by his courtiers.  Anne, with her emotional deficit, and Henry, the impulsive hyperactive hedonist, are a tragically ill-matched couple, and Lubitsch's real achievement is not to give us a grand spectacle but to wring our hearts by acquainting us with the brutal pathos of this ill-fated mesalliance.

Film Synopsis

England in the early 1500s. Her education in France now finally over, Anne Boleyn is appointed lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, the queen of King Henry VIII.  By this time, Henry has grown tired of his queen and resents the fact that she has not yet supplied him with a son and heir to the English throne. His intention is to divorce Catherine and find himself another wife. With her youth and beauty, Anne quickly finds favour with the king and it isn't long before he offers her a proposal of marriage. How awkward it is that Anne has already fallen in love - with Sir Henry Norris. Pope Clement VII's refusal to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine incenses the king. He immediately breaks of all ties with Rome and makes himself the head of the newly established Church of England. Now nothing can prevent Henry from ridding himself of the queen he despises and putting his beloved Anne in her place. The king is certain that Anne will provide him with a male heir so that his dynasty will continue - but fate decides otherwise...