The Last Command

In Hollywood, a director picks an old Russian out of a pile of extras' photographs. The man was once a general in the Tsar's army. The director is a theatre man who was arrested in Russia before the revolution, and the two recognise each other. The film then goes back: revolution, betrayal, flight, and a general becoming an extra. The subject is not the revolution but performance becoming real. On set the old man puts on his own former uniform and is asked to give an order; at that moment he stops acting and genuinely commands. The whole weight of the film gathers in that final scene. The form belongs to the mature silent period: storytelling built on faces, crowd sequences, and the depth Sternberg builds with light. Emil Jannings won best actor at the first Academy Awards for his work here and in The Way of All Flesh, the first person to receive it; at the time an actor's several performances could be considered under one nomination. When sound arrived his American career ended and he returned to Germany. William Powell plays the director, before he was known. Josef von Sternberg directs; the story's starting point is the accounts of exiled Russian officers genuinely working as extras in Hollywood. Who it is for: viewers who like silent cinema and stories about cinema itself. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace; the film rests on a long flashback and its first section is slow.