Introduced by Yuri Tsevian Bruce Loeb on Piano Please see introduction, sidebar, this page. Daydreams (Grezy). (Yevgeny Bauer, Russia, 1915): A man pursues and marries a woman who is his dead wife's double, then is distressed when she does not live up to the image in his memory. "Among the surviving works of Bauer, this is perhaps his best, a masterful balance between subject, technique and narrative development. The tension in the plot (the story reminds one of Hitchcock's Vertigo) reaches its climax in the extraordinary tracking shot during which the camera quite literally follows the leading character along an almost deserted street, stops when he stops, then tracks back slowly, when he retraces his route. Necrophilia, mysticism and abstraction are the major ingredients of a tale with an astonishing and eerie finale." (Paolo Cherchi Usai, Silent Witnesses). Written by M. Basov, Valentin Turkin, based on the novel Bruges la Morte by Georges Rodenbach. Photographed by Boris Zavelev. With Aleksandr Vyrubov, N. Chernobaeva. (c. 40 mins) The Twilight of a Woman's Soul (Sumerki Zhenskoi Dushi). (Yevgeny Bauer, Russia, 1913). Bauer's debut film traces the repercussions when a bored noblewoman occupied with charitable work is raped by one of her protegés who had begun to figure in her dreams. She stabs him to death, and he continues to haunt her dreams. "More remarkable than the erotic and social overtones of the story is the visual style...mise-en-scène such as only Bauer could devise. Gauzy curtains divide the depth of (a) scene into planes, in which glamorous figures flit about...The realistic slum scenes, both exterior and interior, are in sharp contrast." (D. Robinson, Sight and Sound). Written by V. Demert. Photographed by Nikolai Kozlovskii. With Nina Chernova, A. Ugryumov, V. Demert. (c. 45 mins. Note: This film is missing the third reel) Silent Witnesses (Nemye Svideteli). (Yevgeny Bauer, Russia, 1914). "Upstairs-Downstairs" set in a Moscow mansion. "Richer in decorative elements than other Bauer melodramas, this film attacks the hypocrisy and cynicism of the dominant class towards its servants. Among the elegant stylistic motifs one notes with admiration the use of split screen and subjective visions." (Lorenzo Codelli, Silent Witnesses) (c.65 mins)