Gregori Chmara

Ukrainian-born actor Gregori Chmara (1882-1970) has sometimes been referred to as the Ivan Mozzhukhin of German cinema. He is best remembered as the star of Robert Wiene's expressionistic classic Raskolnikow (1923) and as Asta Nielsen's co-star and lover in the 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1005/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Oertel, Berlin. Publicity still for Raskolnikow (Robert Wiene, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 580/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Art Film. Asta Nielsen and Gregori Chmara in Der Absturz/Downfall (Ludwig Wolff, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 666/3. Photo: Neumann. Gregori Chmara as Jesus Christ in the Biblical film I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).

The Duse of the silent film

Gregori Chmara, a.k.a. Grigori Chmara, Grigori Khamara and Grégory Chmara, was born in Poltava, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), in 1882 (according to IMDb in 1893). In 1910 he debuted at the Moscow Art Theatre, getting lead roles from 1912 on.

He made his film debut in the Russian production Sverchok na pechi (Boris Sushkevich, Aleksandr Uralsky, 1915), an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'The Cricket on the Hearth'. Chmara played opposite Maria Ouspenskaya and Michail Chekhov, a nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov, and both pupils of innovative theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski. Chmara next played in Yevgeni Bauer's Koroleva ekrana/Queen of the Screen (1916) and some films of Joseph Soiffer.

After the Russian Revolution, he moved to Germany, probably around 1921. Chmara became a popular star in Berlin with his gipsy songs, accompanying himself on the guitar. During one of these music nights, he conquered Asta Nielsen, the Duse of the silent film. They became lovers and stayed together for years without ever marrying. In 1922 Nielsen provided Chmara his first German film role in Der Absturz/Downfall (Ludwig Wolff, 1923), a film produced by Nielsen herself. It was the start of a very productive period in Chmara's career.

In the expressionistic classic Rasknolnikow (Robert Wiene, 1923), he played the title role, surrounded by an all-Russian cast. The film was an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. In I.N.R.I./Crown of Thorns (Robert Wiene, 1923), he played Jesus opposite Asta Nielsen as Maria Magdalena and Henny Porten as Mary. Remarkable casting while Nielsen and Porten were rival stars in the 1910s. After this, seven more films followed with Asta Nielsen, culminating in a small part in Die Freudlose Gasse/The Joyless Street (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1925). Chmara then did not appear in films for a few years.

When he restarted in 1928 it was not opposite Nielsen anymore. This could be the result of a boycott against Nielsen in 1925-1927 because of her critique of the film industry. The right-wing reaction against Die Freudlose Gasse might have been another motive for his absence. Hugo Bettauer, the author of the novel on which Die Freudlose Gasse was based, was murdered during the shooting of the film. Several countries forbade the film. Critics of the left heralded it instead. When exactly Nielsen and Chmara split is unknown. After 1927 Nielsen returned to the stage where she successfully acted for years, apart from her only sound film, Unmögliche Liebe/Crown of Thorns (Erich Waschneck, 1932).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 667/3. Photo: Neumann. Gregori Chmara as Jesus Christ at the Last Supper in the Biblical film I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923). Foreground right, looking up is Alexander Granach as Judas.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1005/3, 1927-1928. Photo: A. Schein. Publicity still for Hedda Gabler (Franz Eckstein, 1925).

Rasputin

In 1928 Gregori Chmara appeared in three German films. In the historical drama Dornenweg einer Fürstin/The Difficult Path of a Princess (Nikolai Larin, Boris Nevolin, 1929), he played Rasputin, the Russian mystic largely responsible for the 1917 collapse of the Romanov dynasty. Chmara did one film in Poland, the crime mystery Mocny czlowiek/A Strong Man (Henryk Szaro, 1929), in which he had the leading role, and then he moved back to Germany to start making sound films.

He played in both the French and the German versions of L'homme qui assassina/Der Mann der den Mord beging/The Man Who Committed the Murder (Curtis Bernhardt, 1930) starring Conrad Veidt.

Films followed like the comedy Peter Voss, der Millionendieb/Peter Voss, the Thief of Millions (Ewald André Dupont, 1932) starring Willi Forst, and Der Diamant des Zaren/The Diamond of the Czar (Max Neufeld, 1932) with Liane Haid. In the same period, Chmara travelled around with the so-called Group of Prague, which consisted of fled Russian actors. In 1929 for instance they performed in 'Raskolnikow' in Belgrade.

In 1933 Chmara met Lila Kedrova in Paris, during one of his theatre tours and she became his new lover until 1940. He introduced her to the Stanislavski Method. Chmara himself though was handicapped because he refused to learn French, and he thus survived singing in Russian cabarets.

In 1940 he met Vera Volmane, a Russian film journalist, and they became a couple. During and after the war, she wrote sketches for him and adaptations of plays. Because of his strong accent, Chmara's roles in post-war cinema and theatre were limited to exotic characters, though he also played the classic Russian and Scandinavian authors on stage.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1005/1, 1927-1928. Photo: A. Schein.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 162/2. Photo: Ufa. Conrad Veidt, Grigori Chmara and Wolf Albach-Retty in Der schwarze Husar (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1932).

The Stanislavski method

In post-war cinema, Gregori Chmara had small roles or even bit parts, from Un ami viendra ce soir/A Friend Will Come Tonight (Raymond Bernard, 1946) and Jo-la-Romance (Gilles Grangier, 1949) starring Georges Guétary to the Sartre adaptation Les mains sales/Dirty Hands (Fernand Rivers, Simone Berriau, 1951).

He played Elena's domestic in Elena et les hommes/Paris Does Strange Things (Jean Renoir, 1956) with Ingrid Bergman. He also had a bit part in the Swiss film Die Vier im Jeep/Four in a Jeep (Leopold Lindtberg, 1951), a drama about post-war Vienna, that won the Golden Bear at the first Berlin International Film Festival.

In the 1950s, Chmara was considered as one of the true heirs and pupils of Stanislavski. He gave acting lessons, e.g. to Pierre Brice.

Chmara had occasionally small film roles during the 1960s. These films included Arsène Lupin contre Arsene Lupin/Arsene Lupin vs. Arsene Lupin (Edouard Molinaro, 1962). His last role was a return to Raskolnikow when he had a small role in Crime et châtiment/Crime and Punishment (Stellio Lorenzi, 1971), a French TV version of Dostoyevsky's classic novel.

Before it aired, Gregory Chmara died in Paris in 1970. In 1979 Vera Volmane and film critic Charles Ford published 'Grégory Chmara, l'homme expressif'. In 1980 Volmane and Ford introduced the Prix Grégory Chmara, for the best theatre or film actor and actress in a certain role of that year.


A tipsy Prince Cernuwicz played by Gregori Chmara in Der Mann, der den Mord beging/The Man Who Committed the Murder (1930), with Heinrich George and Conrad Veidt. Source: Parysia 77 (YouTube).


Another scene from Der Mann, der den Mord beging/The Man Who Committed the Murder (1930) with Gregori Chmara, Heinrich George and Conrad Veidt. Source: Parysia 77 (YouTube).

Source: IMDb, Wikipedia (Danish) and Russie-europe (French).

This post was last updated on 24 September 2023.

I.N.R.I. (1923)

The German silent film I.N.R.I. (1923), directed by Robert Wiene, was one of the first big-screen adaptations of the Passion of Christ. The film retells the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. The Ukrainian born actor Gregori Chmara played Jesus Christ, Henny Porten the Virgin Mary and Alexander Granach Judas. Asta Nielsen also appeared as Maria Magdalen. I.N.R.I. was reissued in 1933 in the United States with an added music track and narration as Crown of Thorns.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 666/1. Photo: Neumann. Henny Porten as Mary in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 666/3. Photo: Neumann. Gregori Chmara as Jesus Christ in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 666/4. Photo: Neumann. Alexander Granach as Judas in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).

Judas as a social revolutionary 

I.N.R.I. (1923) was made by Robert Wiene, who had revolutionised the German cinema with his expressionist film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). He just had made Raskolnikow/Crime and Punishment (1923), also starring Gregori Chmara and the Moscow Art Theatre players.

Wiene had based I.N.R.I. on a 1905 novel by Peter Rosegger and he embedded the Passion of Christ in a contemporary story. The film is generally conventional in its treatment of the story except for the character of Judas Iscariot (Alexander Granach).

Wiene portrays Judas as a social revolutionary who wants Jesus (Gregori Chmara) to become the leader of a Jewish uprising against the Roman army of occupation. Judas' eventual betrayal of Jesus comes from political disillusionment rather than money. The Judas role is very important to the film as it was conceived by Wiene, because it links the biblical story to the framing story.

The framing story is set in modern Russia. An anarchist shoots the prime minister of his country out of political conviction. He is sentenced to death. A few hours before the execution, he starts doubting the meaning of his death and he decides to write down the Passion of Christ.

It is believed that Wiene intended the framing story to give the Biblical story an anti-Bolshevist propaganda function. However, the modern scenes provoked opposition from the censors, and the film was generally shown without them

IMDb suggests it was added without the knowledge of the actors in the Passion story, who included some of the major stars of the period: Asta Nielsen as the seductive Mary Magdalene, Henny Porten as Jesus' mother Mary, and Werner Krauss as Pontius Pilate. Krauss played the titular Dr Caligari in Wiene's famous film.


German postcard by Ross Verlag , Berlin, no. 666/5, 1919-1924. Photo: Neumann. Werner Krauss as Pontius Pilate in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 666/6. Photo: Neumann. Theodor Becker as the Roman captain in I.N.R.I./Crown of Thorns (Robert Wiene, 1923).



German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 667/1. Photo: Neumann. The Nativity Scene with Henny Porten as Mary in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).

Expensive sets and hundreds of extras

I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923) was shot over 90 days between May and September 1923 at the Staaken Studios in Berlin. The film was produced by Hans Neumann and Hans von Wolzogen for Neumann-Filmproduktion

I.N.R.I. was the first biblical epic made in Germany and it was made with expensive sets and hundreds of extras for the mass scenes. In scale and length, it was the largest film directed by Robert Wiene during his career. He had Ernö Metzner for the film's art direction and had three cinematographers to film his epic: Axel Graatkjær, Reimar Kuntze and Ludwig Lippert.

Edgar Mauricio, at his blog Stone Movie Spree, is impressed: "As for the staging, the work done by the expressionist master is impeccable, his setting is impeccable, the costumes, the decorations, without excessive ornaments or mannerisms, but a simplicity that leads to a more intimate closeness to what is portrayed, and it contrasts with the reloading efforts of representation that can be seen in these days, so artificial and pastiche that they end up eliminating a genuine approach to those days.

I.N.R.I. premiered in Berlin on Christmas Day 1925. The film received mixed reviews in the German newspapers and soon disappeared from the cinema screens.

For a long time I.N.R.I. was believed to be lost, but a surviving complete copy, a 16mm print, was discovered in the archives of the Cineteca del Friuli in Italy in October 1999. Since the film lacked opening credits, it had been labelled as an unknown film. Another copy was found in Japan and screened at National Film Center, Tokyo at February 2006. Although it looks like some scenes are missing, it is 35mm tinted print with English intertitles.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 667/2. Photo: Neumann. Gregori Chmara as Jesus Christ and Henny Porten as Mary in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 667/3. Photo: Neumann. Gregori Chmara as Jesus Christ at the Last Supper in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923). Foreground right, looking up is Alexander Granach as Judas.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 667/4. Photo: Neumann. Asta Nielsen as Mary Magdalen and Henny Porten as the Virgin Mary in I.N.R.I. (Robert Wiene, 1923).

Sources: Edgar Mauricio (Stone Movies Spree),  Ed Meza (Variety), Wikipedia and IMDb.