Silent Film with Live Music: »The Woman That One Longs For«

A year before Marlene Dietrich became world-famous with the »The Blue Angel« in 1930, she played the femme fatale in Kurt Bernhardt’s silent movie melodrama »The Woman That One Longs For«. In her first lead role, the later icon of style shines as a vamp with a mysterious erotic aura, her gaze showing ambivalence between seduction and despair, longing and hope. In the dramatic story of a love triangle that ends with death, set in the milieu of bankrupt industrialists and dark criminality, the prevailing mood is claustrophobic. The Luxemburg vibes player Pascal Schumacher and the chamber ensemble United Instruments of Lucilin accentuate with all manner of details the film’s dramatic moments. Schumacher’s many solo passages bring unusual timbres to the score, whose jazzy, often minimalistic approach sets it apart from the typical silent film music of the day.