FIL 1031 - History of Film I UNIT TWO: German Expressionism: Before amazing explosions, CGI, and even color, early filmmakers were using what they had to create illusions and emotions. During the silent film era, German filmmakers were big into horror genres, using the contrast of light and shadow to create frighteningly supernatural effects, all before the use of sound and color in film could help them out. This genre of film was known as German Expressionist film and came out of the German Expressionist art movement, which peaked in the 1920s and spanned artistic genres from art to music to film to architecture and theater. Perhaps the most famous expressionist artwork is "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, or the paintings of Franz Marc.
Even though it has been somewhat "neglected" (or slighted) at times in the telling of the history of film, German expressionism did lead to some of the greatest film genres, film aesthetic techniques, and directorial minds we still praise to this day. Expressionist films were highly experimental with lavish sets, incorporating artistry, non-real, and absurd sets that often did not fit in with concepts of geometry. Subjects of these films were largely intellectual, with focus on deep-seated subjects such as insanity, betrayal, love, and romance. Some incorporated historical aspects and culture into the films. Many of these films were horror, monster, or science fiction based as far as theme. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is often considered the first German Expressionist film, made in 1920 (although some film texts suggest, The Student of Prague (1913) is the earliest example). In the film, the arrival of the mysterious magician Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) occurs right as savage murders take place in a small town. Francis (Friedrich Feher) retells the story of his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) and his fiancee Jane (Lil Dagover) and how they were affected by Cesare (Conrad Veidt), a sleepwalker that had been taken to Dr. Caligari to cure. The final twist ending is something you would never expect and the film is artfully made.
German Expressionist Influence: Horror Films Many modern films demonstrate the influence of German expressionism, particularly horror films. The style of German expressionism is ideal for portraying macabre subject matters. Devices such as low key lighting are used to convey mystery, and monsters lurking in shadows. Distortion is also commonly used in both expressionism and later horror films, employed through make-up, camera angles, costumes and strange backdrops. F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu is an iconic and enduring figure in horror films. Adapted remotely and without permission from Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu combined surreal angular shots and elaborate lighting with normal, realistic settings. This technique (of using normal settings) is widely used in horror to undermine the audience and their perception of the film as it's only a movie. Normal locations add to the realism and make horror films even scarier. Murnau went on to make Sunrise in America; a Hollywood expressionist film. Sunrise used enormous sets to create a hyper-real fairy tale world setting for its characters. The art direction in expressionist films always helps to tell the story, and mirrors the psychological tensions of the characters.
Science Fiction German master-director Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a stylistically avant garde science fiction film. It features an archetypal mad scientist character who creates a robot doppleganger of the film's heroine Maria. The evil robot defies her master, ultimately leading to the destruction of the city. Sounds like about every Science Fiction film ever made, right? Film Noir The story lines of German expressionist films matched the visuals in terms of darkness and disillusionment. Often somber in mood and featuring characters from a corrupt underworld of crime, the films' dramatic effects produced motifs of claustrophobia and paranoia. The same words could be used to describe 1940s Hollywood film noir, a genre hugely influenced by German expressionism. German director Fritz Lang is the Godfather of psychologically well rounded characters, providing believable, multi-faceted (anti) heroes (see his classic, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler), prophetic in many ways of Humphrey Bogart's screen persona (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep). Fritz Lang himself also went on to make notable film noirs such as Fury, You Only Live Once, andthe Big Heat). And more Fritz Lang - Fritz Lang's late expressionist classic M (1931), uses techniques that exaggerate reality and provide visual clues for the audience as to the psychology of the characters. M is about a horrific child killer, portrayed by the superb Peter Lorre. Lang emphasizes his character's deranged mind by using close up shots of Lorre's expressive eyes. He also provides the character with a theme song Greig's "In the Hall of the Mountain King " which he whistles, creating an eerie, suspenseful effect. Since M, children's songs have often provided sinister overtones in horror films, such as Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street for instance.
German Expressionism has had a considerable impact on modern cinema, with many of the techniques associated with the genre seamlessly absorbed into mainstream films to this day. References: Jensen, Paul M. The Cinema of Fritz Lang, The International Film Guide Series. A.S. Barnes & Co, 1969. Eisner, Lotte H. Murnau Le Terrain Vague, Paris, 1964, English translation, revised and enlarged. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, 1973 Cook, Pam. The Cinema Book. BFI, 1985 Portions of this text were written by, Michelle Strozykowski (all rights reserved) Some Things to Remember: The roots of expressionism can be found in Germany's painting and theatre beginning around 1908. Traits of Expressionist Painting - Stayed away from realism and instead used large bright shapes, unrealistic colors with dark cartoon outlines. Characters may have grotesque expressions, buildings lean, ground tilted, all in defiance of traditional perspective. Traits of Expressionist Theatre - Sets painted in a style much like paintings. Actors shouted, screamed, gestured broadly and moved in choreographed motion across the stage. The goal was to express feelings in the most direct and extreme way fashionable. Traits of Expressionist Cinema - Similar to those of theatre. Films used stylized sets; actors didn't always attempt realistic performances, but instead, moved through scenes in jerky motions, or with dance-like movements. Ended in 1927 with the release of Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
Soviet Cinema (Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov) Sergei Eisenstein Along with D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein was considered the other pioneering genius of the modern cinema. Eisenstein was a contemporary Marxist intellectual. Griffith was a sentimentalist whose values were those of the Victorian middle class. Griffith had discovered in editing, the fundamental narrative structure of cinema, and used it conservatively to tell 19th century tales. Eisenstein formulated a self-consciously modernist theory of editing, allegedly based on the psychology of perception and the Marxist historical dialectic, which made it possible for the cinema to communicate on its own terms for the first time, without borrowing either matter or form from other media. Eisenstein started out as a young engineer in the Red Army. Joined the Moscow Proletkult Theatre in 1920 first as a set designer and then as a director. The Proletkult Theatre served as a clearing house for avant-garde experiment and modernist ideas. Directors Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Actor/Director Mikhail Chekhov all worked with the theatre. Strike (Stachka, 1924) was Eisenstein s directorial debut. Like the Griffith-Bitzer team, Eisenstein teamed with the best cinematographer, Eduard Tisse. Strike was a revolutionary assault upon bourgeois cinema, i.e., the narrative cinema as practiced in the West. It abandoned a traditional hero for a collective one (striking workers against oppressive factory system). It also engaged in creating uniquely cinematic metaphors through the juxtaposition of two (or more) images to suggest a meaning different from and greater than what each image suggest separately --- the first stages of what was to be called, montage. The purpose was to agitate the audience into identifying with the striking workers. Strike inaugurated the classic period of Soviet silent cinema when the West had nearly reached it s peak. i.e., Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, von Stroheim. German cinema was also passing from German Expressionism to the new realism (Murnau, Lubitsch and Lang). French avant-garde cinema had reached it s height (Dulac, Delluc, Epstein, L Herbier, Feyder and Clair). Leger Italian cinema had peaked with super spectacles and Sweden was enjoying the twilight of it s great masters, Sjostrom and Stiller. Along with Birth of a Nation (Griffith 1915), Citizen Kane (Welles 1941), Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein 1925) is one of the most important films ever made. Like Griffith, Eisenstein was obsessed with historical accuracy but was also capable of distorting historical events to suit a specific set of ideological assumptions. (Soviet realism a cinema of political propaganda and indoctrination. Marxism Russian Cinema ). Like Griffith, Eisenstein used editing to manipulate time. In the Odessa Steps sequence, Eisenstein used editing to expand and compress time to create certain aesthetic and emotional effects. The Odessa Steps sequence is probably the single greatest and most influential montage sequence in the history of cinema the depiction of the Odessa citizens massacre by tsarists troops on the stone steps leading down to the harbor.
Eisenstein believed in a theory of Dialectical Montage based on Marxist dialect as opposed to traditional narrative editing. A montage cell (thesis) when placed next to another shot of opposing visual content (antithesis) produces a synthesis (a new synthetic idea or impression) which then becomes the thesis for the next shot. Critics and film theorist believed that dialectical montage substitutes artificial and contrived spatial relationships for natural ones. It s lack of dependence upon real or natural spatial relationships which renders dialectic montage a symbolic or metaphoric and, therefore, a poetic language rather than a narrative one (David Cook, A History of Narrative Film). However, the limited success of Eisenstein's next film, October proved that dialectical montage only works when it is set against a dramatic or narrative context. Potemkin was given a gala opening January 18, 1926, but it s run on the screen lasted only a few weeks and was replaced by more commercially slanted entertainment films. It was eventually re-released after success in the Western World where it became quite popular. When Stalin came into power in 1927 he believed cinema was the greatest medium of mass agitation. Socialist realism imposed in 1933 led to the decline of cinema since anything unique, personal or experimental was explicitly forbidden to appear on screen. Eisenstein traveled to the US and worked at Paramount but his scripts were considered too controversial and were never put into production under his guidance. (i.e., Sutter s Gold the story of German immigrant Augustus Sutter who found gold, built an empire on his wealth, but ultimately became a Communist). Eisenstein resigned to writing and teaching. Essays: A Dialectical Approach to Film Form (1929), The Structure of Film (1939) Some Final Notes Regarding Eisenstein and the development of MONTAGE The idea of juxtaposing one shot with another came to Eisenstein from the Japanese language in which a word followed by another often means something completely different from either of the two words (knife + heart = sorrow, for example). Eisenstein aimed to construct films not from shots or scenes but from the ideas implanted into the minds of his audience from his
shots juxtaposition with one-another. There are numerous instances of Eisenstein s montage theory at work in his masterpiece, Battleship Potemkin (1925). Rough seas foretell mutiny, maggots mirror scurrying men, three lion statues shown in succession represent the rising rage of the Tsar. There are ingenious montage decisions made in nearly every shot of Potemkin, the prorevolution epic which came to be hailed as the best film ever made. It s astonishing how dense each scene is. [Potemkin] ran eighty-six minutes and contained 1,346 shots.[2] Birth of a Nation, with a running time of 195 minutes, contained only 1,375 shots. It s with all those cuts that Eisenstein was able to shape the audience s perception into what he wanted (or later in his career what the State wanted.) What Eisenstein began, many emulated and soon Russian film was known for its dramatic use of editing. One of the more prominent films to fully utilize Soviet montage was Dziga Vertov s Man with a Movie Camera (1929).
Eisenstein s idea of intellectual montage the juxtaposition of two shots to produce an idea was as important if not more important to the development of the cinema as D. W. Griffith s development of invisible editing and narrative structure. Whereas Griffith s ideas served Hollywood-style productions, Eisenstein s theories fueled a more intellectual view on life and a more complex execution of that view in film. Soviet montage films did not simply define a film movement but they paved the way for improvisation, reinterpretation and improvement on the techniques of montage. Man with a Movie Camera, for example, almost directly inspired Godfrey Reggio s 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi. Bombarding the audience with image after image, these films shape the audience, instilling ideas and creating others seemingly from nothing. Eisenstein pioneered this technique but was soon censored by Stalin and a government that had become too paranoid and omnipresent to appreciate the ideals of the revolution. But Eisenstein s innovations stand even today as landmarks in the history of cinema. Not only did he hope to get a certain emotional response via his montage, he designed the length and position of his shots relative to each other to get an identical emotional response from every member of the audience. Nothing was left to interpretation but nothing was overt. Eisenstein s syntheses transcended the frame and worked their way into the minds of the audience, enraging them, making them afraid and holding them captive. [1] Cook, pg. 170 [2] Cook, pg. 148 Dziga Vertov The work of Dziga Vertov (born Denis Kaufman) was diametrically opposed to that of Eisenstein, but is just as rewarding and challenging. Suspicious of "unreal" staged fiction, Vertov called a for a radical film language that apotheosized the camera lens (the "cine-eye") as superior to the human eye in capturing a cinematic reality. Perhaps not entirely consistent, he claimed his work as objective documentary while using extreme stylization in composition, special effects, and editing. Although later eclipsed by accusations of formalism in his own country, Vertov's interest in everyday life would go on to influence cinéma vérité, Direct Cinema, and the French New Wave. Vertov, whose pseudonym translates as "whizzing top," started his film career in news reels, reporting from the front of the Civil War and also screening his works in the agit-trains. Trained in psycho-neurology in the field of perception, Vertov was able to use his background to experiment with montage techniques. Throughout the early 1920s, he published a slew of manifestos and theoretical papers on cinema while at the same time producing a series of features that sought to present "life caught unawares." The culmination of this came in 1929 with his magnus opus Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom), one of a series of otherwise unrelated productions at the time that were "symphonies" to the great cities of Europe. In Vertov's case, the city was a composite one, including scenes from Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, but the point was to capture general Soviet reality not that of an individual place. As the title suggests, the film follows a
filmmaker who is shooting a documentary about life in the city. Not only is the whole premise of the film exceedingly self-referential, it also contains an unusually prescient subtext that shows cinema as a medium of manipulation and casts doubt on its own veracity. Vertov went on to experiment with sound in films such as Three Songs of Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine, 1934). The adulation of the European avant garde and a steady stream of awards protected Vertov's position at first. But it was not to last, and Vertov eventually went back to editing newsreels. Bibliography A History of Narrative Film by David Cook - 4th Edition. WW Norton & Company. 2004 Film, An International History of the Medium by Robert Sklar - 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall 2002 An Introduction to World Cinema by Aristides Gazetas - McFarland & Company, Inc 2000 Film, form, and Culture by Robert Kolker - 2nd Edition McGraw-Hill 2002 END OF UNIT TWO Note: Handouts will be supplied during class-time for the Unit Two Key Points (German/Russian Cinema).