The Scarlet Empress is the first film I’ve seen by Josef von Sternberg, and I’m impressed. I found out that not only did he do the cinematography on many of his films – he also edited, did costumes and arranged the music as well. Not bad. ‘The Scarlet Empress’ is so self-confident in its highly stylized nightmare presentation of the 19th century Russian Royal Court, it reminded me of Eisenstein’s ‘Ivan The Terrible’ films. These films share and master quite well such cinematic devices as rapid montage (russian people in hysteria) and (majestic and intense) close-ups of royal personalities. I think Sternberg differs from Eisenstein when it comes to light, as the close-ups of Marlene Dietrich (Catherine The Great), John Lodge (Capt. Alexi) and Sam Jaffe (Grand Duke Peter) are often glowing with overexposed light and shot with layers of textures (veils, curtains, nets and windows) rather than left in the dark (as partially as the rest of his horrifying set pieces). Eisenstein’s story of Ivan is perhaps wider in scope and a darker one. His use of space is more vast and his shadow play are much more complicated than displayed in Sternberg’s Russian affair.

When I come to think of it, I’ve almost never seen Marlene Dietrich in a film before (only in a small part of ‘Touch of Evil’).
She is without doubt, a very talented actress playing vastly contrasted sides of the same ‘innocent’ princess in some of the most beautiful close-ups I’ve seen of a woman. After being forced to marry the Russian Duke across the border, Sophia of Germany becomes Catherine, wife of a disgusting, possessive, power-hungry lunatic whose nothing of the sort she had in mind. Sam Jaffe’s charachter is truly repulsive, as opposed to John Lodge’s masculine Capt. Alexi (with many great pick-up lines btw) who becomes so desperate after Catherine, this is really the most intriguing thing about the film.

I like that the staging of the film constantly mixes innocence with bestiality. Its sometimes very apparent, but it works! There’s a scene where Alexi tries to seduce Cathrine in a barn. Alexi and Catherine shares a tight mastershot together, each of them using up the half of the frame. Alexi is dressed in his dark military costume facing her in a white dress. When he finally can’t wait any longer, he embraces her – his broad back blocking her completely from us. We don’t know how she will react, since up to this point, she’s been rejecting him constantly. Forbidden love? Of course, she can’t resist him anymore, as her slender arm slowly starts to glide across his back ‘till she’s in profile again, giving in to his seduction. I think Sternberg’s timing in this scene (which is not interrupted by any cuts) is elegantly well executed. The scene ends with Catherine running out in fear of being caught, but this game between a boy and a girl is not finished.

I think the film owes a lot to the gothic, grotesque and bombastic scenography of the castle where most of the story is set.
The atmosphere is eerie, something is not right for the most part. Catherine is in many ways trapped in her royal position, surrounded by enormous doors, devilish statues of tormented Christ-figures and big burning dripping candles. The Grand Duke’s psychopathic mother have spies all over the place so that privacy is almost impossible. Each shot of the castle’s huge interiors bears this prison-like intensity, and throughout the first half of the film, both human and sexual repression is apparently all over the place treated with great effect by Sternberg. After having watched the film, I remember how the vivid opening sequence ends with a shocking brutal torture montage that spins away the disillusion of a spoiled young woman (the maid reads her Ivan The Terrible). Luckily, The Scarlet Empress came out before the Code sensor was applied in Hollywood.