Michael

Ageing painter Claude Zoret is in love with his model, Michael. He adopts the young man and makes him his heir. But then an indigent Russian princess draws Michael under her spell. Although his model deceives and even defrauds him, Zoret clings to his love … Set around 1900, subjects that cannot be openly addressed in this film are manifested masterfully by the paintings. They depict Michael as a desirable, naked stripling, and the artist as Job, “a person who has lost everything”. “Michael” is the collective product of a Danish trio. It was directed by the exceptional Carl Theodor Dreyer, while the unhappy painter is played by Benjamin Christensen, known for directing classic horror films (“Häxan”, NFL 2012). And the novel on which the screenplay was based was written by Herman Bang (1857 – 1912), an openly homosexual writer shunned by Denmark’s cultural mainstream. Writer Klaus Mann was a fan who called the book “the saddest love story of all time”. – Restored version with music by Pierre Oser (1994). The film is part of the holdings of the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden.