Cinema
The Other
Der Andere
Max Mack · 1913
Synopsis
During a society evening, a doctor, a judge and the prosecutor Hallers discuss split personality; Hallers laughingly denies it exists. Soon afterwards, a fall from a horse leaves him subject to irresistible sleeps, from which he wakes as an “other”, with no memory of himself. Under this second identity he frequents the Berlin underworld and strikes a deal with a burglar, Dickert, for a theft in a villa that turns out to be his own.
Context
The film was shot in Berlin for Vitascope, from a screenplay by Paul Lindau drawn from his 1893 play, and was released on 31 January 1913 at the Mozartsaal in Berlin, after a press screening on the 21st. The production sought, on the model of the French film d'art, to win a cultivated audience for the cinema, and the arrival of Albert Bassermann, a great stage actor who had long refused even to be photographed, caused a sensation. The subject is a variation on Jekyll and Hyde. Only an incomplete 16 mm copy survives, without intertitles, made in 1940.
Who it is for
A silent film preserved in an incomplete copy without intertitles; everything rests on the double role played by Bassermann.
Prizes and reception
Hailed on its release as one of the very first German art films; it was remade three times in the thirties, in Germany, France and Italy.