German expressionist cinema

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German expressionist cinema
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Conrad Veidt.png
Conrad Veidt in Robert Wiene's 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Years active1910s–1930s
LocationGermany
Major figures
Influences WWI's traumatic aftermath and the slowly dread-inducing Weimar Republic
Influenced

German expressionist cinema was a part of several related creative movements in Germany in the early 20th century that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture and cinema.

Contents

Characteristics

German Expressionism was an artistic movement in the early 20th century that emphasized the artist's inner emotions rather than attempting to replicate reality. [1] German Expressionist films rejected cinematic realism and used visual distortions and hyper-expressive performances to reflect inner conflicts. [2]

History

Paul Wegener als Student von Prag, Filmplakat 1913.jpg
Paul Wegener as The Student of Prague in a 1913 poster
Golem 1920 Poster.jpg
A poster for the 1920 silent film The Golem: How He Came into the World , starring and co-directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese
Wismar Markt Nosferatu 01.jpg
A commemorative plaque for the 1922 silent film Nosferatu in the market square of Wismar, Germany where some of it was filmed
Schatten1923.jpg
A frame from director Arthur Robison's 1923 silent film Schatten – Eine nächtliche Halluzination (a.k.a., Warning Shadows )

The German Expressionist movement was initially confined to Germany due to the country's isolation during World War I. In 1916, the government banned foreign films, creating a sharp increase in the demand for domestic film production, from 24 films in 1914 to 130 films in 1918. With inflation also on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's value was constantly diminishing. [3]

International audiences and appreciation for German cinema began to grow as anti-German sentiment decreased following the end of World War I. By the time its 1916 ban on imports on foreign film was lifted, Germany had become a part of the international film industry. [3]

Among the first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague [4] (1913), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), From Morn to Midnight (1920), The Golem: How He Came into the World [4] (1920), Genuine (1920), Destiny (1921), Nosferatu [4] (1922), Phantom (1922), and Schatten (1923) were highly symbolic and stylized.

European societies of the 1920s embraced an ethic of change and a willingness to look to the future by experimenting with bold new ideas and artistic styles. The first Expressionist films, which lacked a generous budget, used set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd angles, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal and other "intellectual" topics triggered by the experiences of World War I (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films). Later films often categorized as part of the brief history of German Expressionism include Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), both directed by Fritz Lang. This trend was a reaction against realism. Its practitioners used extreme distortions in expression to show an inner emotional reality rather than what was on the surface. [5]

The extreme anti-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. The themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light, etc., to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of filmmaking was brought to the United States when the Nazis gained power and many German film makers emigrated to Hollywood. Several German directors and cameramen flourished in Hollywood, producing a repertoire of films that had a profound effect. [6]

Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had produced horror films of the silent era, such as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera . German film makers such as Karl Freund (the cinematographer for Dracula in 1931) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Carol Reed and Michael Curtiz introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1930s and 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.

Influence and legacy

German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of Hollywood during the same period. [7] Cinema outside Germany benefited both from the emigration of German film makers and from German expressionist developments in style and technique that were apparent on the screen. The new look and techniques impressed other contemporary film makers, artists and cinematographers, and they began to incorporate the new style into their work.

In 1924, Alfred Hitchcock was sent by Gainsborough Pictures to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA owned Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam near Berlin on the film The Blackguard . [7] The immediate effect of the working environment in Germany can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for that film. Hitchcock later said he "acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios". [7]

German Expressionism would continue to influence Hitchcock throughout his career. In his third film, The Lodger , Hitchcock introduced expressionist set designs, lighting techniques, and trick camera work to the British public against the wishes of his studio. His visual experimentation included the use of an image of a man walking across a glass floor shot from below, a concept representing someone pacing upstairs. [7]

Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht was a tribute to F. W. Murnau's 1922 film. The film uses expressionist techniques of highly symbolic acting and symbolic events to tell its story. [8] The 1998 film Dark City used stark contrast, rigid movements, and fantastic elements. [9] [10]

Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are common today in films that need not reference contemporary realism, such as science fiction films (for example, Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner , which was itself influenced by Metropolis ). [11] Woody Allen's 1991 film Shadows and Fog is an homage to German and Austrian Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, Georg Wilhelm Pabst and F. W. Murnau. [12] The extreme angles of set decor and associated lighting were parodied by Ken Hughes in his Berlin spy school segment for the 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale.

Set designs

Many critics see a direct tie between cinema and architecture of the time, stating that the sets and scene artwork of Expressionist films often reveal buildings of sharp angles, great heights, and crowded environments, such as the frequently shown Tower of Babel in Fritz Lang's Metropolis . [13]

Strong elements of monumentalism and Modernism appear throughout the canon of German Expressionism. An excellent example of this is Metropolis, as evidenced by the enormous power plant and glimpses of the massive yet pristine "upper" city.

German Expressionist painters rejected the naturalistic depiction of objective reality, often portraying distorted figures, buildings, and landscapes in a disorienting manner that disregarded the conventions of perspective and proportion. This approach, combined with jagged, stylized shapes and harsh, unnatural colors, were used to convey subjective emotions.

A number of artists and craftsmen working in the Berlin theater brought the Expressionist visual style to the design of stage sets. This, in turn, had an eventual influence on films dealing with fantasy and horror.

The prime example is Robert Wiene's dream-like film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) which is universally recognized as an early classic of Expressionist cinema. Hermann Warm, the film's art director, worked with painters and stage designers Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig to create fantastic, nightmarish sets with twisted structures and landscapes with sharp-pointed forms and oblique, curving lines. Some of these designs were constructions, others were painted directly onto canvases.

German Expressionist films produced in the Weimar Republic immediately following the First World War not only encapsulate the sociopolitical contexts in which they were created, but also rework the intrinsically modern problems of self-reflexivity, spectacle and identity.

According to Siegfried Kracauer and Lotte Eisner, German Expressionist cinema operates as a kind of collective consciousness and a symptomatic manifestation of what they polemically claim to be inherent cultural tendencies of the German nation. Expressionism has also been described as focusing on the "power of spectacles" [14] and offering audiences "a kind of metonymic image of their own situation". [14]

American newspaper ad for the German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) from the Goldwyn Pictures press book Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) - American Ad 1921.jpg
American newspaper ad for the German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) from the Goldwyn Pictures press book

This film movement paralleled Expressionist painting and theater in rejecting realism. The creators in the Weimar Period sought to convey inner, subjective experience through external, objective means. Their films were characterized by highly stylized sets and acting; they used a new visual style which embodied high contrast and simple editing. The films were shot in studios where they could employ deliberately exaggerated and dramatic lighting and camera angles to emphasize some particular affect – fear, horror, pain. Aspects of Expressionist techniques were later adapted by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles and were incorporated into many American gangster and horror films. Some of the major filmmakers of this time were F. W. Murnau, Erich Pommer, and Fritz Lang. The movement ended after the currency stabilized, making it cheaper to buy movies abroad. The UFA financially collapsed and German studios began to deal with Italian studios which led to their influence in style of horror and films noirs. The American influence on the film industry would also lead some film makers to continue their career in the US. The UFA's last film was Der blaue Engel (1930), considered a masterpiece of German Expressionism.

Interpretation

The two most comprehensive studies of German Expressionist film are Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen and Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler . [15] Kracauer examines German cinema from the Silent/Golden Era to support the (controversial) conclusion that German films made prior to Hitler's takeover and the rise of the Third Reich all hint at the inevitability of Nazi Germany. For Eisner, similarly, German Expressionist cinema is a visual manifestation of Romantic ideals turned to dark and proto-totalitarian ends. More recent German Expressionist scholars examine historical elements influencing German Expressionism, such as the Weimar economy, UFA, Erich Pommer, Nordisk, and Hollywood. [16]

See also

For additional examples of films made in the German Expressionist style, see:

For more on German Expressionism's most singularly important producer and director, see Leopold Jessner (1878–1945). For more on the period's most important production company and distributor, see Universum Film AG , popularly known as UFA.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Germany</span>

The film industry in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema made major technical and artistic contributions to early film, broadcasting and television technology. Babelsberg became a household synonym for the early 20th century film industry in Europe, similar to Hollywood later. Early German and German-speaking filmmakers and actors heavily contributed to early Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Lang</span> Filmmaker (1890–1976)

Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian-US-German film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.

<i>Metropolis</i> (1927 film) German silent science-fiction film

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name. It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 at a cost of more than five million Reichsmarks, or the equivalent of about €21 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">F. W. Murnau</span> German film director (1888–1931)

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in the silent era.

<i>Nosferatu</i> 1922 silent film by F. W. Murnau

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent and brings the plague to their town.

<i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</i> 1920 film by Robert Wiene

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist who uses a brainwashed somnambulist to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.

UFA GmbH, shortened to UFA, is a film and television production company that unites all production activities of the media conglomerate Bertelsmann in Germany. The original UFA was established as Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft on December 18, 1917, as a direct response to foreign competition in film and propaganda. UFA was founded by a consortium headed by Emil Georg von Stauß, a former Deutsche Bank board member. In March 1927, Alfred Hugenberg, an influential German media entrepreneur and later Minister of the Economy and Minister of Agriculture and Nutrition in Adolf Hitler's cabinet, purchased UFA and transferred ownership of it to the Nazi Party in 1933.

<i>The Testament of Dr. Mabuse</i> 1933 film by Fritz Lang

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, also called The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse, is a 1933 German crime-thriller film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a sequel to Lang's silent film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and features many cast and crew members from Lang's previous films. Dr. Mabuse is in an insane asylum where he is found frantically writing his crime plans. When Mabuse's criminal plans begin to be implemented, Inspector Lohmann tries to find the solution with clues from gangster Thomas Kent, the institutionalized Hofmeister and Professor Baum who becomes obsessed with Dr. Mabuse.

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The Cat and the Canary is a 1927 American silent comedy horror film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. An adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black-comedy play of the same name, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charlie Wilder, and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Paul's uncle, and the reading of his will twenty years later. Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion, they are stalked by a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, a lunatic mainly known as the Cat escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.

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References

  1. ↑ "German expressionism". Tate . Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  2. ↑ "What is German Expressionism? A beginner's guide". Movements In Film. Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  3. 1 2 Thompson, Kristin; Bordwell, David (2010). Film History: An Introduction (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill. p. 87.
  4. 1 2 3 Roger Manvell. Henrik Galeen – Films as writer:, Other films. Film Reference. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  5. ↑ Thompson & Bordwell 2010, p. 91.
  6. ↑ Dickos, Andrew (2002). Street with No Name: A History of the Classic Film Noir. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. ISBN   0-8131-2243-0, pp. 9–34.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock, BBC Television 2009, broadcast 28 February 2009
  8. ↑ Nosferatu: The Vampyre. Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2009. Stark, symbolic cinematography and intensely stylized performances
  9. ↑ Don Kornits (2 June 1999). "Alex Proyas – Director, Dark City". eFilmCritic. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
  10. ↑ Rob Blackwelder (13 February 1998). "Vision of Strangers Dance in His Head". SPLICEDwire. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
  11. ↑ "Blade Runner vs. Metropolis". 13 April 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  12. ↑ Steffen, James. "Shadows and Fog". Turner Classic Movies: Film Article. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  13. ↑ "An Introduction to German Expressionist Films". artnet News . 26 December 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  14. 1 2 Telotte, J.P. "German Expressionism: A Cinematic/ Cultural Problem" in Traditions in World Cinema. (ed. Badley, et al.), 2006, p.21
  15. ↑ Kracauer, Siegfried. "Caligari" in From Caligari to Hitler. Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1947] 2004. 61–76.
  16. ↑ Eisner, Lotte (2008). The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt (1st ed.). University of California Press. ISBN   978-0520257900.
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