German Expressionism (1919-1976)

                                                                                            

From the e-book Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
pages 447-450

What you’re about to read are just simply my notes from the said lesson. As a student who takes up Cinema class, it is my honor and pleasure to read this part of the book that tackles about the humble beginnings of film. I don’t take credit for mostly of the wordings used here, as these are mostly from the book mentioned above. It’s quite difficult to come up with something of my own especially when it’s about history. What I’m after here is the summarization of the lesson. Let’s see what we’ve got. J

“German Expressionism” is an artistic movement in Germany before the World War II (1920s). This is a form of art that shows emotions and experiences through theater, paintings, architectures, sculptures and films.

But since this is for a Cinema class, let’s talk about German Expressionism in films.

                                                                                            

At the start of World War I, the output of the German film industry was relatively small, though some impressive pictures had been made there. Most of the films being shown in German movie theaters are of French, American, Italian, and Danish in nature. To scrap the competition, as well as to create its own propaganda films, the German government began to support the film industry.

It was after the success of Russian Revolution in 1917 that rebellion tendencies increased, widespread strikes and antiwar petitions were organized. To promote pro-war films, the government, the Deutsche Bank, and large industrial concerns combined several small film firms to create the large company UFA (short for Universum Film Aktiengesellschafi) in late 1917 which was able to build the best equipped studios in Europe. Soon enough, these studios attract foreign filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock.

In 1918, German film industry concentrated on three genres. One of which was the internationally popular adventure serial detective film.

As an avant-garde movement, Expressionism had first been important in painting (starting about 1910) and had been quickly taken up in theater, then in literature and architecture. Apparently, consent was given so that Expressionism can be tried in the cinema, believing that this might be a selling point in the international market.

This belief was justified when the inexpensive film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) directed by Robert Weine created a sensation in Berlin and then in the United States, France, and other countries. Because of its success, other films in the Expressionist style soon followed. Hence, this resulted to a stylistic movement in cinema that lasted for several years.

Here is a trailer video, courtesy of YouTube, of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (If you feel like watching the film, I believe there's also an available full-length movie on YouTube. Cool, right? :)

In contrast to French Impressionism, which bases its style primarily on cinematography and editing, German Expressionism depends heavily on mise-en-scene.

• Shapes are distorted and exaggerated unrealistically for expressive purposes.
• Actors often wear heavy makeup and move in jerky or slow, graceful patterns.
• All of the elements of the mise-en-scene interact graphically to create an overall composition.
• Characters do not simply exist within a setting but rather form visual elements that merge with the setting.

photo from Film Art e-book

In Caligari, the Expressionist stylization functions to convey the distorted viewpoint of a madman. We see the world as the hero does. This narrative function of the settings becomes explicit at one point, when the hero enters an asylum in his pursuit of Caligari. As he pauses to look around, he stands at the center of a pattern of radiating black-and-white lines that run across the floor and up the walls. The world of the film is literally a projection of the hero's vision.

Nosferatu

Later on, as Expressionism became an accepted style, filmmakers didn't motivate Expressionist style as the narrative point of view of mad characters. Instead, Expressionism often functioned to create stylized situations for fantasy and horror stories such as with Waxworks, 1924; and Nosferatu, 1922; or historical epics as The Nibelungen, 1923-1924.

The rampant inflation of the early 1920s in Germany actually favored Expressionist filmmaking, partly by making it easy for German exporters to sell their films cheaply abroad.

In 1924, Expressionist film budgets, however, were climbing. The last major films of the movement, F. W. Murnau's Faust (1926) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1921), were costly epics that helped drive UFA deeper into financial difficulty. This led Erich Pommer to quit and try his luck briefly in America. Other personnel were lured away to Hollywood as well such as the major actors Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings; and cinematographers such as Karl Freund. Even Murnau and Lang left the country too.

Trying to counter the stiffer competition from imported Hollywood films after 1924, the Germans also began to imitate the American product. The resulting films, though sometimes impressive, diluted the unique qualities of the Expressionist style. Thus, by 1921, Expressionism as a movement had died out.

“An expressionist tendency lingered on in many of the German films of the late 1920s and even into such 1930s films as Lang's M (1930) and Testament of Dr Mabuse (1932). And because so many of the German filmmakers came to the United States, Hollywood films also displayed expressionist tendencies. Horror films, such as Son of Frankenstein (1939), and film noirs have strong expressionist touches in their settings and lighting. Although the German movement lasted only about seven years, expressionism has never entirely died out as a trend in film style.” – Georges Sadoul

(credits: photos from Google.com)