Die 3 Groschen-Oper

G.W. Pabst , based on Brecht - 1931
The first half's probably a disaster. Pabst's camera reminds one of a drunk; lloking for somehting while trying to get from one end of the room to another, but it's forgotten what. For no discernible reason it likes looking at stomachs, and the tracks and pans are unsteady, just lacking direction.
The real problem here is the editing. It is way, way too slow; there is a complete lack of directness (I need Lang!). Trying to give psychological depth, as I'll explain, with lingering shots, is a disastorous choice. The cut-aways in the middle of dialogues pretty much loses any of the power of fleshiness Brecht is based on. There are so many unnecessary reframing cuts and moves around, that frankly baffle me. Maybe someone can explain a logic in Pabst's cuts, mathematical or sensual. Please.
Saying that, there is occasionally used one effective technique. Short scenes and quick crosscutting gives a nice sense of the confusion and double relations, giving us some distance.
The soubd design here also seems key; or rather, its lack. There is just no track for most of what ;should' be there; this adds to the abstract feel, a kind of emptiness. It divorces from realism, interferes with a sense of place. Is it Brechtian? Perhaps, but seems strangely inadequate considering the rest of the mis-en-scene is pretty sensually created (which is of course un Brechtian).
Largely, Brecht's formal brilliance is destroyed. The introductions seem no less modernist that Hawks' opening narrations. The acting style, though a few occassional moments of distantiation, is way too normal, there is no focus on the gesture (Eisenstein's 'Ivans' are way more Brechtian). There isn't that distancing. Nor is there a sense of plasticity; Pabst is the least plastic director I can think of. Shadows on faces and no backlighting. No real physicality that transferring Brecht's theatrical moves could help (is it possible?).
With all this, there are some beguiling moments. Brecht's confusing, strange, work still shines through. The songs, the backs of sets of ships, the kind of supposed ambivalence in the social comment; in a way, they are here (though I dislike Pabst's change of the ending; that horse is my favourite bit of the play).
Von Arbou clearly was no genius; Brecht is. Why does Lang stride all over this as a film (obviously, in a way, this has 'more to say'. But Spiones has 'more to be', let me say). Lang is sharper, must cinema be? The best parts here are the beggar king, the second half, in other words, the action bits. This seems a weak rule. But there is something seriously poor and wrong with this film. Yet is still has Brecht, and for that it is endlessly brilliant.