Wings (The)
- Director: Mauritz Stiller
- Writer: Herman Bang; Axel Esbensen
CGiii Comment
We watched the 50 minute print...a restoration, substituting titles and stills for the missing scenes.
With such omissions, it really is rather difficult to follow...
To make it easier to understand and to recognise the disguised homosexuality...watch Carl Theodor Dreyer's Mikael...made in 1924.
What makes Vingarne extraordinary is its structure...a film within a film, now for a medium still in its infancy, Stiller's inventiveness and imagination were as fertile as a Saharan oasis.
As a stand-alone film, it suffers from its neglect.
As a piece of cinematic history...it's vital, important and a breathtaking example of when filmmaking was a technical nightmare...and, without a shadow of doubt...when film was a genuine artform.
No trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Vingarne, the first film to deal more or less explicitly with a gay relationship. Though once thought lost—a fire at the Svensk Filmindustri archives in 1941 destroyed the negative—a portion of the work turned up at auction in 1987, and from these elements, along with stills housed at the Library of Congress, the present version of Vingarne was reconstructed.
Cast & Characters
Nils Asther as Aspiring actor;
Lili Bech as Lucia de Zamikow;
Egil Eide as Claude Zoret;
Julius Halsig as Zoret's Friend;
Lars Hanson as Eugene Mikael;
Julius Jaenzon as Cameraman;
Bertil Junggren as Friend of Claude Zoret;
Albin Laven as Charles Schwitt;
Mauritz Stiller as Director