Page 40 - Studio International - January 1970

Expressionism another. It is significant that Der Sturm, which hieroglyphs. They expressed the structure of
began as a literary weekly in Berlin and the soul in terms of space.'
in the cinema Vienna, ended as an art gallery, theatre and Many of the directors of the period also had
backgrounds with a marked artistic bias.
publishing house. Artists associated with Der
Sturm also contributed a great deal to the new F. W. Murnau, director of Nosferatu (1922)
cinema. How could it have been otherwise ? and The Last Laugh (1924), was a qualified art
Frank Whitford Film was new and its language undeveloped. historian and had been a member of Rein-
There is no doubt that the quality of the hardt's company before beginning his film
German cinema from 1919 to 1925 was the career. Fritz Lang, responsible for Dr Mabuse
result of the intense and informed interest of (1922), Die Nibelungen (1922-24) and Metro-
Lotte Eisner's distinguished book The Haunted people who had proved themselves in other polis (1926), was an architect and amateur
Screen was recently published in England, and fields, and of the speed with which they recog- painter and Paul Leni, director of Waxworks
it is the most impressive study of the classic nized that their experience in writing and (1924), was an expressionist painter who had
German film since Siegfried Kracauer's From painting could extend the, at that time, limited also designed sets for Reinhardt.
Caligari to Hitler.' Unlike Dr. Kracauer, Lotte language of film. There were commercial All this having been said, it is not surprising
Eisner devotes much space to a discussion of considerations of course, but perhaps only in that the German films of the 'Golden Age',
the intimate relationship between the German Germany could the cinema of that time have films that have long since become classics,
cinema and the visual arts between 1919 and been brought directly into line with advanced should have made such a significant contri-
1925 and, in so doing, not only adds a new developments in the other arts and still be a bution to the expressionist movement as a
dimension to an appreciation of the period financial success. As Lotte Eisner remarks, it whole. They are concerned with the same
but also suggests a direction which some future was for this reason that 'apart from the subjects, share the same preoccupations and
discussion of film in general might profitably abstract film, the German silent cinema never attitudes as the painting and major literature
take. What follows is not a review of The had a proper avant-garde such as that found of the period. Lotte Eisner has shown how
Haunted Screen, nor is it a precis of it. It is in France. German industry immediately even individual images are the same. An
hoped that it will cast more light on some of latched on to anything of an artistic kind in obsession with the city, both as corrupting
those aspects of the subject which Lotte the belief that it was bound to bring in money influence and as the expression of modern
Eisner has brought into view. in the long run.' life, is as obvious in Mabuse as it is in Meidner's
Many of the successful German films of the and Kirchner's Berlin paintings, and the pessi-
FILM AND THE AVANT-GARDE period include in their credits the names of mistic lyrics of Heym and Trakl. The analysis
In 1914 an anthology of screenplays by fifteen eminent painters, writers and even architects. of evil and of the almost irresistible power of
advanced German authors was published Hans Poelzig, architect of Reinhardt's Grosses total depravity that is the theme of Nosferatu
under the title Das Kinobuch.2 In 1919 Carlo Schauspielhaus, created the sets for Wegener's and Mabuse recurs in many novels of the
Mierendorff, expressionist writer and co- remake of Der Golem. Ludwig Meidner, ex- time, and the frequent insistence on madness,
publisher of the journal Dachstube, wrote an pressionist painter and frequent exhibitor at that admittedly lapses into melodrama in
enthusiastic essay called Hitt' ich das Kino ! the Sturm gallery, was responsible for the sets many films, is a further characteristic of ex-
(If the Cinema were Mine!) which announced and costumes of Karl Grune's Die Strasse pressionist art, from Heckel's paintings of
the arrival of a powerful and classless art (1923). Cesar Klein, one of Berlin's most suc- lunatics to Benn's poems about a madhouse.
form. His friend Hans Schiebelhuth com- cessful painters and one of Reinhardt's Carl Mayer, the most gifted of all the
posed a poem in honour of the silent star Asta favourite stage designers, did the sets for screenwriters of the period, wrote scenarios
Nielsen around the same time, and Erich Genuine (1920) and Alfred Kubin, who ex- that read like pieces of expressionist poetry.
Heckel's portrait woodcut of the Scandi- hibited at many Blaue Reiter shows and was All of them show a rare visual sense and a
navian screen actress was but one of many the author of an unusual and powerful piece feeling for rhythm and imagery that are
similar tributes to similar figures. Schoenberg of fantasy fiction, Die Andere Seite (The Other matched only by poets. An extract from his
even wrote some film music which, inspired Side), was the first choice of the producers of screenplay to Murnau's Schloss Vogelöd (1921)
by his love of the cinema, was not intended to Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari (1919) who makes this clear :
accompany any particular production. The wanted a designer whose sets would parallel Night. The storm bellows. Rain in
architect Erich Mendelsohn devoted much the extreme fantasies of the screenplay. In Streams. And the trees bow low. But the
energy after the war to the problems of design- the event the job was given to three painters, door is
ing cinemas for he was also fascinated by the Warm, Riemann and Röhrig who were until Mute. Above, a bell is still
possibilities of the still relatively new medium. then best known for their contributions to For seconds. Yet ! Now : the peal is
When his Berlin Universum cinema was Sturm and New Secession exhibitions. Pealed. Once. Then completely still again.
opened in 1931 he even wrote a poem to com- The willingness of German film producers to But now : in the porter's window. A light
memorate the event.3 Nor are these isolated employ on one project talents eminent in burns....4
examples of an early interest in the cinema many fields led to an almost unique period The conception of the landscape as a living
among a younger generation of artists. Film in cinema history where the director was no entity with its own soul also comes out as
had captured the imagination of them all. more, and often less, important than his strongly in film as it does in painting. Origi-
It was an age of versatile talents in Germany. writer or designer. In most films the designer nally a Romantic notion, it is perhaps best
Klee was also a virtuoso violinist. Kokoschka was supreme, and he led the German film expressed in the empty, boundless landscapes
first made his name as a playwright. The away from its early reliance on theatrical of Caspar David Friedrich, the painter whose
sculptor Barlach wrote several important ex- conventions and made it follow those of the work was paraphrased by Lang in several
pressionist dramas. Schoenberg, associated visual arts. As Paul Rotha wrote in The Film films, imitated by Wegener in The Student of
with Der Blaue Reiter, was also a painter, and Till Now: 'It is of the utmost importance to Prague and alluded to by Murnau in his des-
Kandinsky wrote poetry and at least one play. grasp the significant part played by the archi- cription of the silent hills around the vampire's
Everywhere painters were writing poetry and tect in the development of the German castle in Nosferatu.
poets were experimenting with music and cinema', and Kracauer added: 'How could it Even the style of many of the films follows that
painting. Barriers were breaking down and be otherwise ? The architect's facades and of expressionist painting. The narrow streets,
one art form was borrowing wholesale from rooms were not merely backgrounds but angular houses and distorted space of Cali-