Christophe Colomb

"Christophe Colomb" was an early French-Spanish silent film co production (the French directed the film, Herr Emile Bourgueois, conceived the principal characters and wrote the story and the Spaniards did the rest, that is to say, the dirty work). The movie depicted the hazardous life of Chistophe Colombus, an Italian navigator who boasted of having discovered Amerika, that exotic and far away Continent. The naked true is that when he came there already there were many people of different cultures with terrible food habits (potatoes, tobacco, coffee) and horrible customs (jogging, voting Republican) that unfortunately were very soon were exported to the old continent.

This film production was a very expensive one for the time. The budget spent can be seen on the screen in the form of careful and special art design (meticulous showings of the Spanish court in historical surroundings with a lot of extras… no matter the historical accurate because after all this is fiction). Depicted in a prologue and five episodes are different periods of the Italian navigator's life… from his childhood, his financial relationship with the Castilian Kings to the injustices he suffered until his death.

The most important aspect of this film it is that despite being a kind of biographical film, it is not a hagiographic one. It shows the dreams, contradictions and doubts of that important and historical celebrity as performed by a histrionic French actor named Georges Wague. He did the best he could. But for this German Count, it did not compensate for primitive direction, glaring room for some special effects and the need for some slight camera movements.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must discover the unknown and dangerous world beyond the Schloss.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/