Der deutsche Film 1919 - 1929
If you look at the series Berlin Babylon and develop an interest in the Berlin of the 1920s, you have to imagine the time of the Weimar Republic as follows (with regard to the film industry): The legendary boom of the German film industry after the First World War was mainly due to the devaluation of the Mark. The profit alone that a German film made in Switzerland was enough to amortize the production costs. At that time, there were a number of financially weak companies (and of course a myriad of speculators) in addition to the big film corporations. The UFA, founded in 1917, fell completely into the hands of the Deutsche Bank after the end of the war. Next to it, the Decla-Bioscop, Emelka, Terra and Phoebus were able to hold their own - even if only for a short time. One could speak of a sham blossoming of German film, at least in economic terms. In 1922 there were produced 470 movies in Germany. Only the USA managed more. But already in the following year the Mark should stabilize. This affected the economy and normalized the production conditions. There were voices that one couldn't cope with the foreign competition anymore; the Reich government tried to limit the import of foreign movies. It was the time of the decline of Ufa which was finally swallowed by the notorious Hugenberg concern. From now on the UFA functioned less artistically but more politically journalistically. It should become the perfect propaganda instrument of the National Socialists. Many who watch the series Berlin Babylon like to make comparisons to the Here & Now (including terrible premonitions...). And won't Berlin 2020 also see Mumblecore productions for 5000 Euro produced by labels like "Darling Berlin"? In the 1920s, people believed in the equation that times of crisis offer greater opportunities for artistic activity. That is exactly what we see in the series. Social misery + flourishing nightlife. The rise and fall of the German film boom was accompanied by economic development. Between 1919 and 1923, the extraordinary circumstances of resourceful production heads such as the great Erich Pommer of the Decla-Bioscop made it possible to dare artistic experiments without major economic risk. After the stabilization of the Mark "art" was rather represented by representative films - which by the way also became true film classics. If one were to look for "indie" films with our current perspective, one would have to come to the following conclusion: Smaller experimental films should be produced in the second half of the decade by outsiders like Nero or Prometheus. Often with foreign capital. But certainly not by Hugenberg's UFA, which from then on produced economically. A customer who writes screenplays asked me what film genres were available in Germany during this period. An interesting question regarding the series Berlin Babylon, which not only re-enacts a time. How would it be if the 20s series were also staged according to the principles of German genre films of the time? In any case, the German genres of the 20s don't correspond at all to those we are used to today. Not the Hollywood genre brand and certainly not the German genres. The most popular genre at UFA was the historical feature film. From the beginning, the historical feature film was supposed to be a commercial genre (later also one that was misused for journalistic purposes). The model for these "big films" was the contemporary theatre of Max Reinhardt. Works like Danton (1920) or Othello (1922) by Dimitri Buchowetzki may have been forgotten today. But not those of Ernst Lubitsch. After the war Lubitsch specialized in funny folk plays like "Schuhsalon Pinkus" (1916). After the foundation of the UFA Lubitsch was entrusted with "big movies" like "Madame Dubarry" (1919), "Anna Boleyn" (1921) or "Das Weib des Pharao" (1922). If you take a look at our Lubitsch box of his Babelsberg years, you also come across fantastic movies like "The Mountain Cat" (1921) and even Dadaistic comedies in stylized decorations. As different as these films are, Lubitsch was recognized early on in all his works. Lubitsch's feature films shone in monumental decor, but above all they demonstrated typical human weaknesses. His great theme. Jealousies and erotic piquancy - basically, "The Wife of the Pharaoh" is about love and personal revenge. In it a tyrant appears who is nothing more than a petty bourgeois cuckold. Only by the means of a tyrant. Lubitsch prefers to mock the rulers, as he did later in "To Be Or Not To Be". For what is left for the than to play a trick on the oppressor? In 1922, Lubitsch left Babelsberg. There was no successor for the genre of the feature film. Or would anyone suggest Veit Harlan? The most important genre of the time, the expressionism, developed in the years of revolts, coups, inflation and misery. The years between 1919 and 1924. German film was certainly considered a pioneering force worldwide at that time. The works of Expressionism were supposed to show "inner-soul" processes. These are shown symbolically on the screen. Paul Wegener worked with romantic, fairy-tale like motifs. In "The Student of Prague" (1913) a magician depicts the student's mirror image. This leads to a split of identity and suicide. The mirror image stands for "the other self", for the "it" or even the evil of one's own soul. In "The Golem" (1915), construction workers dig up a medieval being made of clay. Using magic formulas, they bring it to life and unleash unknown powers. This is followed by films like Otto Rippert's "Homunculus" series (1916), in which an art being is created. One first experienced Expressionist decorations in "House without doors and windows" (1914) by Stellan Rye. The "classical period" of Expressionism begins with the appearance of the screenplay author Carl Mayer. He wrote "Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari" (1920) by Robert Wiene. Then it went one after the other. Mayer wrote the scripts for Wiene's "Genuine" (1920), Arthur von Gerlach's "Vanina" (1922), Fritz Wendhausen's "Chronik der Grieshuus" (1925) and of course Friedrich Wilhelem Murnau's "Schloss Vogelöd" (1921), "Tartuffe" (1925) and "Sunrise" (1927). If you read more about Mayer you will learn that his scripts already contained technical details like the camera work. "Dr. Caligari" is about the director of a mental hospital who is identical with a showman. By means of hypnosis he entices his patients into a series of murders. Robbed of his power, he himself falls into madness. Quite a few saw in it a parable of the omnipotence of the state. But the setting of the film reminds us more of a bad dream than a political parable. Triangles, painted on the floor, serve as signposts. The sky represents an empty, pale surface. Bizarre bare trees stand out in front of it. Not only with "Genuine", but also with "Raskolnikoff" (1923) and "Orlacs Hände" (1924) Wiene tried to copy himself. Just like Karl Heinz Martin's "Von Morgen bis Mitternacht" (1922), Hans Kolbe's "Torgus" (1920), Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler" (1922) or Paul Leni's "Das Wachsfigurenkabinett" (1924). All these Caligari successors create artificial worlds. They look built, not three-dimensional. Later, the painted shadows from Caligari returned as real shadows. What remained of Caligari? It is the attempt to perceive the environment as an expression of the soul. Many German films after Caligari were fascinated by similar superhumans. In politically insecure times, the image of tyrants whose rule seems like a nightmare was drawn. Murnaus "Vampyr" or Lang's "Mabuse" are tyrants. Just like the figures in Leni's "Wax Museum". There is always a violence that stands over man. Hanging ceilings, labyrinthine corridors and diffuse lighting create the atmosphere of a nightmare. Like in times of tyranny. But if you look closer, you notice that not a single German film directly depicts social or political realities. Always only as the irrational "evil" of the soul. Basically, the stylistic code of Expressionism also made it possible for less talented directors to make artistic films. Authors in full rank (except Lubtisch, who left Germany early) were only Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Fritz Lang. In "Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror" (1922) Murnau's greatness becomes visible for the first time in every setting. The uncanny results less from what is shown than from the way it is depicted: landscapes, buildings, people, everything seems unreal and uncanny. Until the appearance of Nosferatu. He moves as if in slow motion and grows into the gigantic by attacking his victims. He often appears from the frog's perspective. "The Last Man" (1924) can be regarded as the completion of the German film classic. The magnificent porter UNIFORM was the man's pride and joy. She raised him above the other employees - until they took him. As long as he feels powerful, he is filmed from below and all others appear like dwarfs. Later Murnau succeeded with "Faust" (1926) once again to make the fantastic seem real and the real seem fantastic. Lucifer lies over a medieval city like a thundercloud. In 1927 Murnau emigrated to Hollywood and staged "Sunrise" (1927), based on the book by Carl Mayer. A city woman ensnares a farmer, seduces him to murder. But good wins. The village scenes look like fairy tale pictures. The town, on the other hand, appears demonic and eerie. But the present is always veiled as in a dream. Munrua's "racing camera" became most famous, to suggest vastness and narrowness. No one mastered these means so perfectly after his death, which is why there were hardly any imitators. Fritz Lang also led the German film beyond his role models in art and painting. In "Der müde Tod" (1921) architectural structures dominated, less graphic ones. Unlike Murnau, Lang focuses less on movement than on buildings. In the blockbuster "The Nibelungs" (1923-24), which you strangely never ask for in our video store, the actors act almost motionlessly in the overall architectural order. A symmetrical composition, almost a still image. In "Metropolis" (1926) the world is even more frozen into a picture. The enslaved people drag stone blocks in lockstep. A factory turns into a juggernaut. The human is subjected to abstract compositions. When Lang went into emigration, the Nazis appropriated his films for themselves. P.S. "Metropolis" became a tremendous failure, so that Lang was forced afterwards to shoot smaller movies like "Spies" (1928) and "The Woman in the Moon" (1928). Ideological film critics accused Lang of being close to fascism. I think he was a picture director. He would later find many imitators, from "Blade Runner" to "The Matrix".
The chamber film can be seen as a departure from Expressionism. The departure from the Caligari style. Leopold Jessner's "Hintertreppe" (1921), Lupu Pick's "Scherben" (1921), "Sylvester" (1923) and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's "Der letzte Mann" (1924) are considered the completion of the "Kammerspielfilm", which can also be described as a petty bourgeois and servant drama. In "Hintertreppe" we experience the suicide of a maid, in "Scherben" a trackkeeper kills his boss and in "Sylvester" the owner of a coffee house takes his own life because he feels suffocated by his mother. In "The Last Man" a doorman breaks down when he is demoted to toilet attendant. It is not about fate or the work of a supernatural power, although the world in the chamber films looks similar to that in the expressionist films. In "Hintertreppe" we are allowed to admire winding staircases and in "Sylvester" the mother also casts an eerie shadow. But the decorations as well as the actors look more natural. There are even outdoor shots! Action, time and place are one. Beyond that there is no fate. No hope. In almost all of these films, clocks play an important role, because time is running out unstoppably. People appear and they are called "the track guard" or "the mother". They are allegorical representatives of the human species.
As a sub-genre of the "Kammerspielfilme" are "street films", which are especially interesting if you look at Berlin Babylon. The sub-genre begins with Karl Grune's "The Street" (1923). A petty bourgeois escapes the monotonous world of his home and follows the temptations of the street. Just like Charlotte Ritter in Berlin Babylon. The petty bourgeois ends up in a nightclub, where a murder is committed and he is blamed for it. The happy ending works like this: "Cured" of his secret desires, he returns home. The street with its light advertising, the dark house entrances and cloudy lanterns is dangerous. It is supposed to remain a negative utopia in later films.
The genre of the avant-garde took place outside of the commercial film business. Initially, abstract animated films were made in Germany. Viking Eggeling created the "Diagonale Symphonie" (1919) full of bent lines and parallel straight lines. Walter Ruttmann works in "Opus I" (1919) with surfaces which work against each other. Ruttmann also created the "Falkentraum" in Fritz Lang's "Nibelungen. In "Rhythmus 21" by Hans Richter, rectangles grow and shrink at a fixed pace. However, no happy revolt follows from all this. In contrast to other countries, the experimental film in Germany withdrew from the outside world into geometrical forms.
What began with Expressionism andet with the "Neue Sachlichkeit". After 1924 the social and political conditions became more solid. This inhibited the world of art; people devoted themselves to more commercial projects. Fritz Lang and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau were engaged in big productions, Lubtisch and Buchowetzki left Berlin for Hollywood in 1922, followed by Murnau, Pick and Leni. In the film the "Neue Sachlichkeit" spread. A new generation. Just as Carl Mayer was the outstanding personality of the Expressionism, it should be Georg Wilhelm Pabst for the second half of the decade. Pabst's debut "Der Schatz" (1924), which still looks like an expressionistic film. With "Die freudlose Gasse" (1925) he found his own style. It followed "Secrets of a Soul" (1926) and "The Love of Jeanne Ney" (1927). His last silent movies were called "Die Büchse der Pandore" (1929) and "Tagebuch einer Verlorenen" (1929). In these movies nothing points beyond the scenes. Everything appears present. Everything seems authentic. Pabst tells stories of fallen girls in "The Diary of a Lost Girl" or of true men of honour who put decency above everything in "The Joyless Alley". It may seem corny, but it doesn't have to be. Few filmmakers were socially critical of that. Most clearly the milieu descriptions of Gerhard Lamprecht "Die Verrufenen" (1925) and Piel Jutzis "Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück" (1929), who also tried montages based on the Russian model. What is basically missing, however, is a left-wing intellectual movement that can also deal with the politics of the 1920s in film.
The most famous sub-genre of the "New Objectivity" are the "mountain films. The most famous representative was Arnold Franck, his most famous films "Der berg des Schicksals" (1924), "Der heilige Berg" (1926) or "Die weisse Hölle von Piz Palü" (1932). Primeval powers and supernatural powers work in the mountains. Franck's pupil Leni Riefenstahl was to bring his legacy into propaganda films.
What Pabst began on the individual ended in "cross-section films" that only looked at the collective. A multitude of impressions is captured by a constantly mobile camera. As in Walter Ruttmann's "Berlin, Symphony of a Big City" (1927), the prototype of the "cross-section film". It follows the course of a spring day in Berlin. Full of analogies, which, however, do not carry any closer meaning. Above all, the impression of haste in the big city remains. In "Melody of the World" (1929) Ruttmann transfers the principle to the whole world. Only a few years later Ruttmann was to shoot Nazi propaganda. The counterpart to "Berlin, Symphony of the Big City" is "Menschen am Sonntag", a joint work by the young amateurs Robert Siodmark, Fred Zinnemann, Billy Wilder and Edgar Ullmer. Just as Ruttmann depicts the working day, they portray a Berlin Sunday in a documentary style to which the plot adapts.
