“This score, composed of contrasts as the film itself, and moving from Romantic lyricism to sombre Expressionist tonalities, does retain nonetheless a truly French colouring, as a due homage to Victor Hugo… The score excludes the vocal element, being written for a silent film; the music tries to lead us where words cannot reach”.

(Gabriel Thibaudeau)

“Before restoring a film it is necessary to carry out a research study in order to identify and collect all film and non film materials available. In the case of Leni’s film this work has enabled us to find eight different prints. However, only two were first generation nitrate prints: one in black and white held by the National Film and Television Archive, with English intertitles, and the other Fondazione Cineteca Italiana in Milan. The two prints, corresponding to the versions for English and Italian distribution, were printed in different periods from the same negative.

As far as the intertitles are concerned, the ones from the Italian version differed from the English ones in style, content and type layout (which is much more elaborate and includes also different drawings for every intertitle). […] We have also taken from the English version and included in the restored version all the shots which had an English text in the image (edicts, billboard, letters, signs on the theatre curtain, etc.) which in the Italian print had been replaced by a corresponding text in Italian. From a photographic perspective, the two prints are surprisingly similar as a proof of the extreme regularity reached by developing labs in the late twenties. Inevitable discrepancies in contrast and density found in the two copies have been corrected during the duplication stage, which would also convey at its best the tonal contrasts and the full range of the original black and white: we can’t forget that photography and lighting by Gilbert Warrenton strongly contributed to make The Man who Laughs one of the top examples of the finest American cinema production at the end of the silent era”.

(Gian Luca Farinelli e Nicola Mazzanti, How to Restore “The Man who Laughs”, in AAVV., The Man who Laughs, Ancona, Transeuropa, 1998)

“The virtuosity of the camera, the inventions in the scenes, the sharpness of acting (in particular by Conrad Veidt and Olga Baclanova, whose matching on the scene is rather daring), the attention to décor, certainly derived from the director’s rich Expressionist experience, are common features pervading Leni’s style. He pays homage to Hugo by bringing to life a continuously animated and enthralling narration, which however lacks a lyrical intensity in the intimate scenes and a more critical and accurate vision of society at the time.

‘The 17th century is very Bizantine in its traits’, said Hugo, ‘it has known corrupted naivety and kind fierceness, an odd variation of civilisation’. Here we still move within the realm of feuilleton, although with such inspired images imbued with great artistic value, even feuilleton is worthy of respect”.

(Jacques Lourcelles, L’homme qui rit, in AAVV., The Man Who Laughs, Ancona, Transeuropa, 1998)