Varieté Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Varieté Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 1, 2020

One of the odder things about the recently reviewed 1933 film The Sin of Nora Moran is how it told in flashback form the story of a murder that was bound up in the life of various folks involved in a carnival or circus. I'm wondering now if someone involved in the creation of that film may have seen a silent that in 1933 wouldn't have been all that old, namely this really interesting piece from 1925. Though this is probably centered more on a male than a female, Varieté plies much the same territory, even down to the same kind of framing device that sees a focal character recounting events from prison. Varieté is in its own way considerably more stylish than the later film, and it probably integrates circus and/or carnival life a bit better, as well.

Varieté had a 2017 release on Blu-ray for the Region A market by Kino Lorber, and for those wanting a bit more information on the film, as well as a chance to compare screenshots, I refer you to Brian Orndorf's Varieté Blu-ray review of that version.

Varieté Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Varieté is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka's Masters of Cinema imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. The original German version begins with the following text:

The film was restored in 2014/15 by the Freidrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Wiesbaden, Germany in cooperation with the Filmarchiv Austria in Vienna. The source material was an abridged nitrate copy for the US market provided by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The German intertitles and missing scenes stem from a nitrate copy from Filmarchiv Austria. Some shots were added from a duplicate copy from the Filmmuseum Munich and a duplicate negative from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Missing title cards were reconstructed on the basis of the censorship card and the typography of the Viennese copy's intertitles. They are marked by the abbreviation FWMS. The digital restoration in 2K definition was carried out by Filmarchiv Austria.

Since the German version runs over ten minutes longer than the American version (see the timings below in the Supplements section), I'm assuming based on the running length listed that Kino's release is of the American version (I haven't picked up the Kino version yet, though some of its supplements sound interesting). That said, the American version on this disc shows considerably more damage than the German version, and I'm kind of treating it as a supplement, in terms of a detailed analysis. In a nutshell it has unstable frames, rather significant emulsion damage at a couple of moments, and pretty ubiquitous scratches. The German version here does still have some intermittent signs of age related wear and tear, including quite a few nicks and scratches, and it's considerably darker overall than the Kino version (based solely on screenshots, for what that's worth). Detail levels are still quite impressive in close-ups, and the grain field resolves naturally throughout. Considering the fact that this was pieced together from so many different sources, as noted above, this has a surprisingly homogeneous appearance.

Varieté Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Variete features LPCM 2.0 tracks offering three different scores by the Tiger Lillies, Stephen Horne, and Johannes Contag. All three of these feature sterling fidelity and rather nicely wide dynamic range. The Tiger Lillies track has some talking and kinda sorta singing along with a somewhat quirky score that can feature elements like squeeze box and piano. Stephen Horne offers a somewhat more traditional track featuring prominent piano with additional instrumentation and percussion. The piano sections at least are redolent of what silent movie houses probably sounded like back in the day, with accompanists trying to match the emotion on the screen. The Johannes Contag also features piano, but in more of a chamber setting that features winds and strings. There's a somewhat "jazzy" ambience to some of the score in this version.

The American version (see below) features a 2015 organ score by Peer Kleinschmidt presented in DTS 2.0.

Varieté Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there are no supplements per se on the disc, this does come with three scores for the original version, as outlined above in the audio section. Additionally, both the German Version (1080p; 1:34:28) and the American Version (1080p; 1:23:14) are offered.

Varieté Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Variete is a kind of florid, hyperbolic silent, but stylistically it's fascinating, as if German Abstract Expressionism were being filtered through an almost David Lynch-ian prism. While this release doesn't have the supplements of the Kino Lorber release, it has three soundtracks on the German Version as well as the American Version. Recommended.