In a scene, a doorman attends to the entrance of a luxurious hotel; dignified in gesture, alert and ready to serve every guest. A very friendly figure among the hustling hotel guests. At one time, two ladies are exiting. It’s a little rainy when they head to hail a cab. They retreat to the hotel’s entryway to avoid rain. The doorman, being ever sympathetic to hotel guests, come to help and call out a cab for the ladies. With his polite manners he ushers the ladies to their cab with an umbrella. The two ladies respond to his good manners by taking his hand. They seem to be very pleased with his service. A man, another guest, suddenly appears and joins the ladies to ride the cab. The doorman elegantly makes way for him. The man responds to the doorman’s service with equivalent elegance. These series of scenes are visualized in a silent film. Yet each sign and idea of the doorman’s humility and charisma is clearly captured in the scenes without explanatory text, not even dialogue subtitling just as commonly provided in most silent films. This is one of the strengths of Murnau’s silent film, Der Letzte Mann (its American version is entitled The Last Laugh), made in 1924. An undertaking of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, where cinema tried to gain independence from the influence of theatre that was commonly used as an element in films during the era. Parallel juxtaposition of two contrasting characters in one visual becomes the strength of the images Murnau took. The doorman along two wealthy ladies, the doorman’s friendly gestures among the busy hotel guests; those are Murnau’s attempt to eliminate the use of text in silent cinema. What Murnau did in Der Letzte Mann is his consistency in dictating visual independence by co-displaying two antagonistic ideas.

Considering the silent era as the dialectical visual context in which Der Letzte Mann is made, it has brilliantly eluded the use of text to explain each scene. In most silent films, text often intervened to explain the scene or to describe the characters’ dialogue. Der Letzte Mann, on the contrary, utilizes visual description of its characters and setting as a strongpoint of independent cinema. One of the visual independence that Murnau developed is shown from his depiction of the doorman as a respected individual in his neighborhood, also as a dignified personality in the community. That idea of the doorman’s character is seen in a scene where he comes home from work. The doorman’s immediate environment is well pictured through Murnau’s visualization of the life in urban working class neighborhood. Small flats and low, working class neighborhood are captured in wide shot, with some scenes depicting activities in the community. Murnau makes use of the doorman’s character by putting him on screen in his uniform, an outfit he’s very proud of. Murnau thoroughly utilizes this uniform, making it the character’s focal point as well as the story’s central force in Der Letzte Mann. The contrasting image of slum neighborhood against the doorman’s proud uniform emphasizes a symbolization of a character. Visuals therefore speak independently by capturing the doorman’s character, his uniform, and a background contrasting the symbolization of an elegant and dignified figure donning a proud uniform, wrapped in top-notch acting skill.

Emil Jannings’ astute acting skill in playing the role of the doorman prevails to create scenes to highlight the character as a self-respecting person as well as his psychological state of being on the verge of losing his identity. In several shots, as seen in one of the scenes, the doorman is considered too old to attend the door, a reason why the hotel owner decides to relocate him as a janitor. The scene shot moves from outside the hotel owner’s office. From the glass on the office door, the doorman is seen reading his relocation letter, then the camera zooms in on him. Camera shifts penetrating the glass door, zooms in, and stops at a close-up, focusing on the doorman’s face. The camerawork becomes relevant to create a sense of shock by inflicting a psychological ambience resulting from the unchained camera technique. The revelation upon the character’s psychological state through camerawork is Murnau’s attempt to remain consistent within the boundaries of visual independence, to liberate silent cinema from the use of text or explanatory narration in each storyline. His approach to stress on psychological profile of a character is considered as a form of kammerspiel, a style influenced by chamber play theatre (chamber drama) and focuses on psychological character. In Der Letzte Mann, Murnau executed it splendidly. Moreover, his accomplishment in visual independence is achieved with the right combination of actor’s character, background setting, and camera technique.

To note, in Der Letzte Mann, Murnau invented many camera movement styles to visualize ideas and narratives in film. With cinematographer Karl Fruend, Der Letzte Mann discovered many camera techniques for silent era. One can see other than its opening scene, how camera narrates the atmosphere inside the hotel then shifts to picture the atmosphere outside through the hotel’s revolving door. Static shots intensify images on the space to emphasize social context visualized in the film. As a consequence, lighting and background setting become the ultimate attempt and inevitable intensity. In scenes taken in the slum, for instance, lighting technique is thickly used to visualize psychological state of modern suburban community. While D. W. Griffith used close-ups, Murnau, at the other hand, utilized static shots to form image. But Murnau didn’t seem to intensify the force of image through static shots as Orson Welles did several decades later. Murnau was developing psychological force in visual image through static shots by making use of lighting technique and setting. In a static shot where the doorman peeks outside from a hallway at the side of the hotel, psychological ambience and character formed from a balance of intermittently bright and dark backgrounds of a grand city setting. Narrative on modern city and panoptic moral are conveyed by the mixture of lighting, background setting, and the actor’s expression. To Murnau, there is always a motive and reason behind every act. In Der Letzte Mann, there is always a psychological background behind each set and lighting for the actor’s every stroke. The stark contrast between the dignity of a doorman who takes pride in his uniform and the background setting and lighting fills many scenes in Der Letzte Mann.

In this film, Murnau was actually narrating Germany’s social political entity where symbolism has significant impact in politics. The post-WW I era marked the moral decline in society’s social condition. The pride one takes in his uniform as an entity and social morality is actualized in the doorman character, who reminds us of Nazi’s esprit de corps. Der Letzte Mann is a typical German tale, set in urban society with all its artistic kammerspiel, the characteristics of its background setting, and the ability of its actors to substitute the power of dialogue. ‘Doorman’ morality may be considered as German’s ethics where a typical working class job is regarded as a pride and a lifetime dedication. The moral in Der Letzte Mann is German’s yearning of romanticism, as one can derive from the scene where the doorman recalls his prime time in a dream. The romanticism of a doorman who relies on his physicality, dignity, and—not to mention—the respect he gains in his community.

Der Letzte Mann is a visual history to reinforce the essence of cinema in its time, i.e. a style that represents a theme and vice versa; a synthesis of scenario, actors, background setting, and camera technique as an organic unity that complement each other to be a single, solid entity. Murnau tried to develop a visual independence for the silent era, where visual is able to speak in its own language without having to be supported completely by theatrical elements. Der Letzte Mann is nearly free of text in every dialogue as well as in plot throughout the film, save for the last scene where Murnau inserted text to smoothen a switch in the narration to the character’s imaginary subject. Murnau has definitely utilized visual as an independent language by treating the camera as eyes that capture the setting and characters of each role. During Murnau’s time in the 1920s, cinema mainly consisted of comedy films highly influenced by theatre plays. In his hands, Der Letzte Mann has secured German cinema as a unique movement. Germany’s social political context during Weimar’s republic was post-war circumstances that gave birth to an aesthetics based on social psychology. Thus kammerspiel became a relevant style besides German expressionism.

The context in which Der Letzte Mann is made may be an era of cinema filled with comedy performances and other entertainment films. German enthusiasm is European enthusiasm to transform cinema into something literary. Murnau has done it visually through Der Letzte Mann where cinema liberated itself from the influence of other art forms, especially theatre. As Murnau once uttered his dream: “a time will come when the moving-picture patron will become addicted to one grade of picture and will not patronize a theatre that shows cheap comedies one week and classic productions another week.”

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