3.1 German Expressionism
3.1 German Expressionism
German Expressionism reflects the inner conflicts of its 1920s German audience
by giving their woes an inescapably external presence.
By rejecting cinematic realism, expressionist films showcase dramatic, revolutionary interpretations of the human condition.
- Movements in Film
That dark stylish beauty synonymous with directors like Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton has its roots in Germany during the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. Here, realism is done away with in favor of the distorted and the surreal. Mirrors, large shadows, and optical effects are abundant. Strange worlds are created through a purely subjective eye. This is German Expressionism…
That dark, stylish beauty, synonymous with directors like Guilermo del Toro, Tim Burton, has its roots in Germany. In the 19 Tens, 20s and 30s.
Here realism is done away with in favor of the distorted and the surreal.
Mirrors, large shadows and optical effects are abundant. Strange Worlds are created through a purely subjective eye. This is German expressionism.
Despite German Expressionism never officially being a film movement, it pertained to other kinds of art forms as well. You may have seen this painting, titled the Scream by Edvard Munch, or read the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Both of these works take subjectivity to the extreme. In the films that distorted scenery. The canted angles put us in the minds of the characters. We see the world as they see it.
A different approach to art was being taken as a result of Germany's isolation during World War One. During that time, Germany banned all imports, which included foreign made films.
So the demand by the German film going public caused a massive influx of German films being made. The country went from producing 24 films in 1914, to 130 films in 1918.
As a result, artists use fantasy and exaggerated visuals to workout the feelings of the German mindset in the wake of the First World War, something large was looming just overhead. And if you look closely, it isn't hard to see that thematic connections between some of the most important of these films and what was going on in Germany during that time.
For example, a Fritz Lang film titled Dr. Mabuse and the gambler. Follows a hypnotist uses mind control to force others to commit crimes for him. He's eventually imprisoned in a mental hospital, but in the sequel titled The Testament of Doctor Mabuse, the Doctor continues to use his powers to manipulate others to commit crimes outside the prison walls. The testament of Doctor Mabuse was scheduled to be released in Germany shortly after Adolf Hitler's rise to power in January 1933.
Hitler had been in prison himself for a short time in the 20s where he had written his own testament titled Mein Kampf or my struggle which would pave the way for the Nazi party's rise and manipulation of the German people. Nazi propagandist Joseph Gerble saw the film and despite disliking it, offered Lang the position of the head of the biggest German film studio UFA.
Instead, Lang fled Germany and went to Paris and then the United States. Interestingly enough, mind control and manipulation found its way into several of the movement's biggest films, including perhaps the most famous The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, in which a hypnotist manipulates a man in a dreamlike state to commit a series of murders.
The themes of authority and conformity in The cabinet of Doctor Caligari are both a reflection on post World War One Germany. The disturbing foreshadowing of what was to come. expressionism made its way to Hollywood after many in the German film industry fled to EU S during the rise of the Nazi Party.
But the influence of Expressionism was not merely confined to the films that these German artists worked on the newer genre of the 40s and 50s was heavily influenced by expressionist style,
mainly in its use of shadows and many horror films. Also adopted the aesthetic created by the German expressionist movement.
Even though the movement was born out of a need of German artists to process what happened during the First World War, its influence continues to impact contemporary films.
I'll be at this impact is mainly exclusive to style.
Many film makers continue to be inspired by the look of expressionist films
for their surreal and highly stylized imagery.
Sharp and dynamic shadows in distorted reality.
And if you keep a rather peculiar eye out, you'll notice the strange darkness creeping in.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE
Hollywood played host to an influx of German expatriates in the Twenties and Thirties, and these filmmakers and technicians had, for the most part, integrated themselves into the American film establishment. Hollywood never experienced the "Germanization" some civic-minded natives feared, and there is danger of over-emphasizing the German influence in Hollywood.
But when, in the late Forties, Hollywood decided to paint it black,
there were no greater masters of chiaroscuro than the Germans.
The influence of expressionist lighting has always been just beneath the surface of Hollywood films, and it is not surprising, in film noir, to find it bursting to find a larger number of Germans and East Europeans working in film noir: Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Franz Waxman, Otto Preminger, John Brahm, Anatole Litvak, Karl Freund, Max Ophuls, John Alton, Douglas Sirk, Fred Zinnemann, William Dieterle, Max Steiner, Edgar G. Ulmer, Curtis Bernhardt, Rudolph Mate.
Film Noir Reader, pg. 55
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