German Expressionism was a major artistic movement at the turn of the 20th century. It emphasized the artist's inner emotional struggles, prioritizing feeling instead of realism. German Expressionism outright rejected real-life situations, using over-the-top, close-up expressions and heightened emotional reactions. The movement peaked during the 1920s in the last years of the Silent Era. Many of the most famous silent films come from German Expressionism, courtesy of directors like Robert Wiene and F. W. Murnau. Any self-respecting film lover must understand German Expressionism to appreciate the Silent Era fully; luckily, there are several films widely considered the all-time best productions from this famous artistic movement. German expressionism is one of the most recognisable styles of silent cinema, although it can sometimes be slippery to define. Expressionism is an artistic mode that first appeared in poetry and the visual arts at the beginning of the 20th century, before moving into fields such as theatre, architecture and cinema following the First World War. Offering a subjective representation of the world, expressionism descends partly from German Romanticism and reveals the angst of its human figures through their distorted, nightmarish surroundings.
Robert Wiene's 1924 Austrian body horror silent film, The Hands of Orlac, is a remarkable exponent of German Expressionism. The plot centers on a renowned pianist who receives a murderer's hands as a transplant after he loses his own during an accident. However, the procedure has unexpected consequences. Chilling and eerie, The Hands of Orlac is the perfect example of why German Expressionism lent itself so well to the horror genre. Conrad Veidt's intense, near-demented performance is incredible, taking the film into an oneiric state and creating a nightmarish experience that will surely stay with the audience after the credits roll. In this traumatic body-horror tale, a concert pianist called Paul Orlac is given a hand transplant after he is caught in a train accident. The revelation that his new hands once belonged to a killer called Vasseur destroys his life. As well as no longer being able to play the piano, he fears that he will be drawn to violence, and he is too terrified to caress his wife. Conrad Veidt gives a riveting performance as the traumatised pianist, in the tormented, monstrous expressionist mode, as a man frightened of his own capacity for evil, while a leering Fritz Kortner plays Nera, a threatening associate of Vasseur’s from the criminal underworld, and memorably appears as a disembodied head looming over Orlac’s bed. Günther Krampf’s Helldunkel photography enhances the atmosphere of moral murk as an innocent man absorbs the guilt of a murderer. The Hands of Orlac has been remade twice and inspired even more films, though few can match its mood of sustained menace and self-disgust.
Paul Leni's anthology film Waxworks juggles several genres throughout its three episodes. The plot follows a writer tasked with writing stories about the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible, and Jack the Ripper, exhibited as waxworks at a museum. Waxworks uses its terrible real-life figures to tell an intense, almost delirious story linked by a nameless figure serving as the audience's stand-in. Powered by the larger-than-life shadows cast by its notoriously evil characters, Waxworks is an underrated entry into the German Expressionism movement that deserves a wider audience. Described in the opening credits as “the tragedy of an acrobat”, Variety is a melodrama with expressionist touches, far removed from the Grand Guignol flavouring of the expressionist horror cycle. In a story somewhat reminiscent of From Morn to Midnight, former acrobat Boss (Jannings) abandons his wife and child after succumbing to the seductive advances of a younger woman, Berta-Marie (Lya De Putti). Driven both by lust and the desire to reclaim his former glory, Boss quickly develops a trapeze routine with his new flame, but their relationship is complicated when their act – and Berta-Marie in particular – catches the attention of professional acrobat Artinelli (Warwick Ward). Today, the film is perhaps most famous for perfecting the dazzling ‘unchained’ camera movement that cinematographer Karl Freund had pioneered a year earlier on Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) – but the film never becomes style over substance, and the virtuoso camerawork is always used to support the emotional underpinning of the film’s gripping and involving story.
The last movie F. W. Murnau made in Germany before moving to Hollywood, Faust is a silent adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's seminal play. The film tells the classic story of the doomed Dr. Faust, who makes a deal with the demon Mephisto and sells his soul in the process. Faust is widely regarded as a classic of German Expressionism and silent film. Stylized, carefully constructed, and suitably augmented, Faust is an uneven yet fascinating adaptation of Goethe's masterpiece. More a wicked fairytale than an outright tragedy, Faust is beautiful and haunting, a prime example of everything German Expressionism came to be. F. W. Murnau was passionate when it came in motivating his actors to create the right mood for important scenes. Actress Camilla Horn had appeared on the screen only once before, that as a body double, in the director’s previous movie. On a hunch she could convincingly play the role, Murnau selected Horn for the lead in his October 1926’s “Faust.” As Gretchen, whom Faust had fallen head-over-heels for, Horn was preparing for an emotional scene that required coaching from the director. Once she nailed the dramatic sequence and filming wrapped for the day, Horn fell into a chair and cried her eyes out, her body shaking with every audible sob. People near her tried to comfort her, to no avail. Finally, after several minutes, Horn admitted that in rehearsing her, Murnau described a series of powerful universal melancholy events she could relate to, setting off an uncontrollable welling of emotion personally affecting her. Thus was the magic of Murnau, who had just been awarded by Germany’s largest film studio, Ufa, the luxury to direct any subject he wanted to with an unlimited budget. The executives at Ufa had given the director this very unusual carte blanc because of the tremendous success of his earlier 1925 “The Last Laugh.” Murnau turned to Goethe’s classic 1808 ‘Faust’ as the basis of what became the most expensive silent movie up until that time. The story shows how the devil bets with an Archangel that he can corrupt a man’s soul and destroy him by a succession of temptations. If he wins, then he gets to dominate over earth for eternity. The guinea pig in this case is an old alchemist, whose futile attempts to stop people from dying during the plague sends him into deep remorse, until the devil arrives with an offer Faust can’t resist. Murnau’s version called for a series of highly effective, yet costly special effects never seen on the screen before. In the opening minutes of the movie, the devil is seen spreading his wings over a large city, darkening the skies to introduce the plague to its inhabitants. Walt Disney was inspired so much by that image he duplicated the scene in his 1940 “Fantasia,” in the ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ episode. Adding to the intense six-months shooting schedule was the fact the studio wanted to make it relatable to both German and international viewers by filming at least five separate versions. The additional footage, much captured by two cameras in different positions, gave Murnau the ability to choose multiple angles for editing. This was the first instance a movie was contoured by alternate takes to make it palatable for several countries’ audiences. This practice continued in the early talkies when actors were required to speak several languages in repetitive scenes. Even today, Hollywood movies produce several versions, especially for the Chinese market, to address sensitive situations that may offend those cultures. Murnau originally wanted Lillian Gish to play the Gretchen character. But the American actress said she would act the part only if her favorite cinematographer, Charles Rosher, was assigned director of photography. Murnau refused, and cast Camilla Horn instead. Lillian was probably thankful she didn’t get the part since in the pivotal scene, where Gretchen is caught in a snowstorm with her baby, Murnau used salt to look like snow. With fans blowing hundreds of pounds of salt for hours on Horn, the actress is plainly seen suffering from the sting of the mineral ripping into her skin. Musician Bruce Springsteen, so taken by her performance, wrote a song about Horn in 1972 before he signed with a record label. The unreleased song emerged in a bootleg album called ‘Early Years.’ Fortunately for Murnau, studio boss William Fox had offered him to come to Hollywood to produce his next film, which turned out to be “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.” Murnau accepted Fox’s offer. While he was filming “Sunrise,” Ufa released “Faust” in Germany. The movie flopped in his native country, while in the United States “Faust” met with just a lukewarm reception. Ufa made up only half of the expenses spent on the film. But the following years have been very kind to “Faust,” earning praise from the likes of the New York Times in 2006, claiming it as "one of the most astonishing visual experiences the silent cinema has to offer,” a common modern-day assessment of the 1926 film. “Faust” proved to be the last silent movie Murnau directed since technically his next film, “Sunrise,” contains an audio track with music and sound effects.
Paul Leni's melodrama The Man Who Laughs stars Conrad Veidt and Mary Philbin. Based on Victor Hugo's eponymous 1869 novel, the plot centers on Gwynplaine, a man disfigured as a child and forced to work as the star of a traveling freak show. The Man Who Laughs blends several genres — drama, romance, a rather bleak comedy, and unexpected adventure. However, its depiction of Gwynplaine is so heightened and expressive that it comes across as profoundly unsettling and horrific. The Man Who Laughs famously inspired the Joker; more importantly, it's a crucial entry into German Expressionism and one of the most striking films of the Silent Era. Anton Bitel describes the film as never reaching the same horror as Leni's other features, Waxworks and The Cat and the Canary, despite its sometimes grisly subject matter, likening it to "a sentimental romance and a political satire, with just a smidgin of rooftop swashbuckling thrown in near the end." He praised Veidt's ability to portray a full emotional range without being able to move "one of the face's most expressive parts," and called the theatricality and transgression of social norms within the film "carnivalesque," embodied most completely by Gwynplaine, "a man who is his mask". Bob Baker called the film "a riot of Expressionist detail in Leni's forceful handling" anchored by Veidt's "sensitive rendering" of Gwynplaine. Baker credits Leni's "pictorial genius" as marking the film as "one of the most exhilarating of late silent cinema." The Joker, nemesis to DC Comics's Batman, owes his appearance to Veidt's portrayal of Gwynplaine in the film. Director Paul Leni had been hired by Universal following his internationally acclaimed Waxworks, and had already proven himself to the company with The Cat and the Canary. Countryman Conrad Veidt was cast in the Gwynplaine role that was previously intended for Chaney. Veidt had worked with Leni for Waxworks and several other German films, and was well known for his role as Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. American actress Mary Philbin, who had played Christine Daaé opposite Chaney in Phantom, was cast as Dea. Leni was provided with a skilled crew. Charles D. Hall was chosen to design the sets. He had previously adapted Ben Carré's stage sets to film for Phantom and had worked with Leni for The Cat and the Canary. Jack Pierce became the head makeup artist at Universal in 1926, and was responsible for crafting Gwynplaine's appearance. During the sequence where Gwynplaine is presented to the House of Lords, the extras were so moved by Veidt's performance that they burst into applause. Universal put over $1,000,000 into The Man Who Laughs, an extremely high budget for an American film of the time.
Often considered the German Expressionist film by excellence, The Golem: How He Came Into the World is among the first of the movement's efforts. Directed by and starring Paul Wegener, the film adapts the iconic story from Jewish folklore about a Rabbi who creates a golem out of clay in 16th-century Prague. The Golem: How He Came Into the World might be the first prequel in cinema, following Wegener's 1915 film The Golem. It imbues the classic folk tale with a palpable sense of dread, elevated by Wegener's firm subscription to Expressionist techniques, resulting in an unforgettable monster film that became one of the pillars upon which modern horror stands. The third and only surviving part of Paul Wegener’s Golem trilogy, the 16th-century-set The Golem: How He Came into the World was a prequel to the previous, contemporary-set instalments and, as such, cleaves more closely to the traditional Jewish legend. In the Prague ghetto, Rabbi Löw (Albert Steinrück) moulds a Golem (Wegener) from clay, intent on protecting his community from a terrible tragedy that he has seen foretold in the stars. Löw then summons forth the spirit Astaroth, desperate to learn from him the magic word that will bring the Golem to life. Much like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem was to leave a lasting impact. In its innovative depiction of Astaroth’s invocation, and in its portrayal of the peaceful interaction between the ‘monster’ and a young girl, the film anticipates a number of later works, including both Weimar-era classics like F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926) and future Hollywood productions like James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931).
The most famous and acclaimed horror film of the Silent Era, Nosferatu is F. W. Murnau's timeless masterpiece. Based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, the film stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who imprisons his estate agent and terrorizes the man's wife. One of the most significant horror films in history, Nosferatu is a triumph of German Expressionism. Schreck's now-iconic performance as Orlok is a masterclass of Expressionism acting, with the film defining the borders under which the horror genre would operate for the next decades. Nosferatu was a game-changer, with its Gothic and disturbing imagery becoming synonymous with the Silent Era, German Expressionism, and the cinematic medium as a whole. 'The film... seems to really believe in vampires,' shivered Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, words that neatly capture the unshakeable atmosphere of dreamlike dread cast by F.W Murnau's silent masterpiece. At the film's dark heart is Max Schreck's Graf Orlok, his thin, pale, angular face, rodent teeth and splayed talons familiar to millions unfamiliar with the film. 'Schreck`, in German, means 'terror', but this was no publicity stunt - it was his real name, and meant to be, for Orlok dominates the film despite appearing for less than nine minutes, So heart-freezing is Orlok's visage and upright, petrified gait, rumours spread that Schreck was in fact a real vampire a phenomenon that gave rise to the movie Shadow of the Vampire (2000), starring Willem Dafoe as Schreck. An illegal adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu was hunted down, all known prints destroyed in a lawsuit settlement. But you can't kill Orlok that easily - he rose from the grave in second-reel generations. Ebert put Nosferatu on his greatest-films list. Hell, so did the Vatican. And Werner Herzog, who conjured an excellent reimagining in 1979 starring Klaus Kinski in the farous make-up, declared it the greatest German film ever made. Nosferatu turns 101 years old this month. It still infects the blood. Watch it, and you'll believe in vampires too. Something of an anomaly within expressionist cinema, Nosferatu makes extensive use of real-world locations, rather than recreating its world solely within a studio. As such, it harks back to expressionism’s roots in German Romanticism, and there is a lyrical, pastoral beauty to its early scenes. But, as the film progresses, the images become increasingly tinged with dread, and Murnau makes the familiar seem strange, imbuing his real-life locations with eerie expressionist touches and slowly moving us from reality to nightmare. An unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu relocates the novel’s action from 1890s London to 1830s Germany, and transforms the eponymous vampire into a rat-toothed embodiment of a preternatural force that symbolises the inevitability and inescapability of death. Stoker’s widow sued over the unlawful use of the text, and the courts decreed that all prints of the film should be destroyed – but, thankfully, copies had already spread far and wide, and the film survived its attempted annihilation.
Fritz Lang is often considered one of the most influential directors in science fiction, thanks to his 1927 masterpiece Metropolis. Set in a seemingly utopian world unfairly divided between a ruling class and a long-suffering working force, the plot follows a privileged young man who falls for a teacher and joins a revolution to shift the societal balance. Metropolis is among the first purely sci-fi films in cinema, famous for its Art Deco imagery and bold and ahead-of-their-time concepts. Metropolis is also one of the few sci-fi German Expressionist films, with Lang's palpable anger prompting a scathing critique of technology that greatly benefited from Expressionistic techniques. One of the most famous of all German silent films, Metropolis mingles traces of expressionist style with gothic style and a futurist aesthetic that is frequently echoed in contemporary science-fiction cinema. Its extreme vision of a society utterly riven by class, with the rich breathing the fresh air in the bright light at the top of the city and the workers toiling below in the dark, is an expressionist rendering of the economic imbalances in Weimar Germany, following hyperinflation and the industrial disputes of the early 1920s. The use of Helldunkel here expresses not just emotional angst but also social critique. In Metropolis the crowd itself is a key part of the film’s expressionist design. The workers move in symmetrical, jerky patterns, as mechanical as the giant machines they serve, and the mob follows the robot Maria as helplessly as Cesare sleepwalks at the command of Caligari.
If there's one German Expressionist film most audiences know, it's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Starring Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt, and follows Dr. Caligari, a deranged hypnotist who manipulates a somnambule man into committing crimes. Famous for its distinctive visual style, gloomy atmosphere, and instantly iconic imagery, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari might be the ideal example of a German Expressionist film. The movie heavily influenced future Expressionistic films, shaping the movement and establishing its major visual and narrative themes. Caligari is a thought-provoking horror movie that ranks among the most important films of the Silent Era, and its influence can still be felt today. Undoubtedly one of the most iconic and influential films of all time, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is justly famed for the skewed, anxiety-inducing angles of its painted backdrops, and for the nightmarish tension of its macabre storyline, in which Francis (Friedrich Feher) attempts to solve a series of murders that he suspects to be the work of an insane carnival hypnotist, Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss), and his somnambulist sideshow attraction, Cesare (Conrad Veidt). The film has often been read as an allegorical response to the First World War, with Cesare representing the innocent soldiers who were driven to murder under the instructions of an abusive authoritarian government (represented by Caligari), though the film’s unsympathetic portrayal of all its figures of authority, including the ineffective police and rude town clerk, perhaps points towards a wider, less specific social critique of the postwar world. The script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World War I. The film makes use of a frame story, with a prologue and epilogue combined with a twist ending. Janowitz said this device was forced upon the writers against their will. The film's design was handled by Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig, who recommended a fantastic, graphic style over a naturalistic one. The film thematises brutal and irrational authority. Writers and scholars have argued the film reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, and is an example of Germany's obedience to authority and unwillingness to rebel against deranged authority. Some critics have interpreted Caligari as representing the German war government, with Cesare symbolic of the common man conditioned, like soldiers, to kill. Other themes of the film include the destabilised contrast between insanity and sanity, the subjective perception of reality, and the duality of human nature. Another deviation from the script comes when Caligari first awakens Cesare, one of the most famous moments in the film. The script called for Cesare to gasp and struggle for air, then shake violently and collapse in Caligari's arms. As it was filmed, there is no such physical struggling, and instead the camera zooms in on Cesare's face as he gradually opens his eyes. The original title cards for Caligari featured stylised, misshapen lettering with excessive underlinings, exclamation points and occasionally archaic spellings. The bizarre style, which matches that of the film as a whole, mimics the lettering of Expressionistic posters at the time. The original title cards were tinted in green, steely-blue and brown. Many modern prints of the film do not preserve the original lettering. The visual style of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is dark, twisted and bizarre; radical and deliberate distortions in perspective, form, dimension and scale create a chaotic and unhinged appearance. The sets are dominated by sharp-pointed forms and oblique and curving lines, with narrow and spiralling streets, and structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, giving the impression they could collapse or explode at any given moment. Film critic Roger Ebert described it as "a jagged landscape of sharp angles and tilted walls and windows, staircases climbing crazy diagonals, trees with spiky leaves, grass that looks like knives". The sets are characterised by strokes of bold, black paint. The landscape of Holstenwall is painted on canvas, as opposed to a constructed set, and shadows and streaks of light are painted directly onto the sets, further distorting the viewer's sense of perspective and three-dimensionality. Buildings are clustered and interconnected in a cubist-like architecture, surrounded by dark and twisted back alleys. The style of German Expressionism allowed the filmmakers to experiment with filmic technology and special effects and to explore the twisted realm of repressed desires, unconscious fears, and deranged fixations". The visual style of Caligari conveys a sense of anxiety and terror to the viewer, giving the impression of a nightmare or deranged sensibility, or a place transformed by evil, in a more effective way than realistic locations or conventional design concepts could. Siegfried Kracauer wrote that the settings "amounted to a perfect transformation of material objects into emotional ornaments". The majority of the film's story and scenes are memories recalled by an insane narrator, and as a result the distorted visual style takes on the quality of his mental breakdown, giving the viewers the impression that they are inside the mind of a madman.
The Student of Prague (1925) was inspired by several works, the film follows a young man who makes a deal with a sorcerer to earn the love of a young woman whom he's become obsessed with. The Student of Prague is a crucial film in understanding both German and film history. The film uses Expressionism's trademarks to capture the bleak atmosphere of the then-struggling Weimar Republic, with Wegener delivering one of the most committed and memorable performances of German silent cinema. The Student of Prague was released in 1925 the same year as F.W. Murnau’s magnificent Faust, both films about students making fateful pacts with the Devil. Here, it’s Balduin (Veidt), the eponymous student who meets the enigmatic Scapinelli (Werner Krauss) while on a visit to a small country in with his classmates. Scapinelli offers him great wealth and at first Balduin dismisses him as a money lender. Balduin later sees Scapinelli atop a cliff overlooking a hunt which he seems to manipulating by supernatural means, causing the horse ridden by the Countess Margit von Schwarzenberg (Agnes Esterhazy) to bolt. Balduin saves her and she rewards him with a crucifix necklace. Intimidated by her family’s wealth Balduin again meets Scarpinelli and this time takes him up on his offer. Balduin is offered 600,000 florin and Scapinelli demands just one thing of his choosing from the room they are in. Thinking it a good deal, Balduin agrees but is horrified when Scapinelli takes his prize – Balduin’s reflection from the mirror. Balduin briefly enjoys the wealth he’s come into but his doppelganger is soon loose and stalking him, and wreaking havoc in the town. Visually, The Student of Prague is a pleasing mix of the naturalistic (the scenes set in the countryside) and the expressionistic (the twisted streets of Prague). Beautifully photographed by Günther Krampf and an uncredited Erich Nitzschmann it’s chock full of outstanding images – Scapinelli striking an unlikely pose on a clifftop while mysteriously orchestrating the boar hunt; Balduin’s image stepping out of the mirror; Scapinelli’s unfeasibly long shadow creeping up on Balduin and Margit like some primal, malignant force (a tip of the hat, perhaps, the shadow play in Nosferatu). There are also some eye-catching moments of shaky handheld photography (inspired by the “entfesselte Kamera” developed by Karl Freund that encouraging photographers to free themselves from the camera mount and pitch their cameras dizzyingly straight into the action) which, in tandem with the innovative editing, add woozy realism to the drunken revelry in the local tavern.Henrik Galeen’s take on the Faust legend is a remake of the 1913 film of the same name, based on an Edgar Allen Poe story. With sets designed by Hermann Warm and ethereal cinematography by Günther Krampf, The Student of Prague typifies the expressionist look in cinema, and the film once more reunites two of the actors most associated with the movement: Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt. Veidt plays Balduin, a student who signs on for a loan from a mysterious stranger (Krauss) who takes his reflection in return – the implication being that the hero has lost his soul in the bargain. Balduin’s doppelganger, which haunts him throughout the film, is both an illustration of his conflicted self and a harbinger of his own death. In The Student of Prague’s design, the exterior world, including stormy skies and blasted trees, reflects Balduin’s interior struggles, with the Stimmung (or atmosphere of dread) mounting in intensity until Balduin’s – and the film’s – final crisis.
The 1926 Secrets Of A Soul, from the silent era, a striking German-made depiction of psychoanalysis, notable for its unforgettably surreal dream/hallucination scenes. In the film, a noted chemistry professor leaves his home to discover that a woman residing next door has been murdered with a straight razor—a razor very much like the one the professor just used to shave himself. Later that night the professor has a dream involving a man in a tree with a gun, a living statue, peoples’ heads ringing church bells, giant bars obscuring the silhouette of copulating lovers, and a demonic drummer. The movie was inspired by the theories of Sigmund Freud, and the producers sought his input in the production. Initially reluctant to have anything to do with the film, Freud ended up giving it a partial endorsement. The production actually caused a riff in the psychiatric community, precipitated by its technical advisors Karl Abraham and Hanns Sachs, both members of Freud’s inner circle (Abraham actually provided periodic progress reports on the filming to Mr. Freud). The controversy dissipated, though, once this film was released to great acclaim. The film’s claims to fame are its starkly expressionistic hallucination sequences, designed by Erno Metzner and photographed by Guido Seeber. Of them, the lengthy dream that occurs early on is compellingly nonlinear and sexually suggestive, anticipating the erotically tinged surrealism.
Destiny (1921) by Fritz Lang, was not a success in Germany on its initial release, with many complaining that the film wasn’t ‘German’ enough (none of the film’s sequences are actually set in Germany). It found success though in other territories, and, watching it now, it’s easy to see the influence the film had on those that came after it. Its depiction of Death instantly recalls the even more iconic image of Death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, 1957, and there’s evidence to suggest that Bergman was, indeed, influenced by Lang’s creation. The use of shadow play is similar to techniques used by Dreyer, while the visual effects are a precursor to the kind used by Murnau in Faust, (1926). Luis Buñuel even cited Destiny as the reason he became a filmmaker, taken in by its moral conundrums and magic realism. DESTINY is regarded as Fritz Lang's early masterpiece for good reason. The central themes of his poetic movie are love and death, fate and victimhood. A young woman wants her dead lover back. The folksong-like parable about love that is stronger than death can be seen as a reflection on the traumas of the First World War. The American distribution title DESTINY (the movie is called “Tired Death”, in German) appears almost programmatic. Lang later described the individual's struggle with fate as a continuous motif of his work. The continuing relevance of his films can be explained by the visionary fixation and craftsmanship of their makers. Lang's cooperation with Erich Pommer, who brought him to Ufa and is the only producer whom Lang truly held in high regard, is an essential basis. In Fritz Lang's films, the best of the best in their respective fields worked together: The camera work, set-building and special effects set standards that are impressive even today.
The Eyes Of The Mummy (1922) Albert Wendland, a young painter studying in Egypt, overhears Prince Hohenfels' plans to visit the mysterious tomb of Queen Ma. Albert is intrigued when he hears a local legend: anyone who enters the crypt meets with disaster. Ignoring the warning, Endland journeys to the forbidden burial chamber and finds not a mummy but a beautiful woman, Mara, who is held prisoner by the evil Adu. Albert rescues Mara and takes her to his European home where they are soon married. Provided with beautiful clothes, she becomes acquainted with the ways of polite society. Meanwhile, Radu has sworn revenge upon Mara. The tragic curse of the mummy hangs over her head! The Eyes of the Mummy was produced by the prolific German UFA studio and boasts a who's who of movie legends. The film was directed by a young Ernst Lubitsch, who would gain worldwide acclaim for films such as The Love Parade and Heaven Can Wait. Emil Jannings, star of such classics as The Last Laugh and The Blue Angel, stars as Radu. Polish femme fatale Pola Negri stars as the doomed Mara. Negri made many films in Germany with Lubitsch before immigrating to Hollywood where her love affairs garnered more attention than her acting.
Journey Into the Night (1921) directed by F.W Murnau is about Dr. Egil Börne, an eminent physician, comes under the spell of an unscrupulous cabaret dancer and deserts his fiancée. The plot finds echoes throughout the Weimar period, including Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. Conrad Veidt appears in a supporting role as a sinister blind painter, whose entrance eerily presages Murnau’s Nosferatu. Der Gang in die Nacht, the earliest surviving film by F. W. Murnau, is also, paradoxically, the only Murnau film for which the original camera negative exists. This was already Murnau's seventh film, it's very much the work of an experienced director, with some beautifully staged shots. It also features excellent location shooting with many scenic shots other directors wouldn't even think of including. Overall, Murnau's film has better cinematography than many 1920s Hollywood productions. The restored version looks beautiful, bringing all those details out very well. Der Gang in die Nacht is a very good production, with an excellent cast which also includes Conrad Veidt in a supporting role, his eerie performance being one of the film's highlights. While the story is peculiar at times, as well as overly melodramatic, and the actors fall back to dreaded 'silent movie overacting' when emotions are running high, there's something strangely hypnotic and mesmerizing about it all, in a way only silent movies could accomplish.
Mabuse first appeared in the 1921 German novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler ("Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler") by Norbert Jacques. The novel benefitted from unprecedented publicity and quickly became a best-seller. Fritz Lang, already an accomplished director, worked with his wife Thea von Harbou on a revision of the novel to bring it to the screen, where it also became a great success. The film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), with a playing time of more than four hours, was released in two sections: The Great Gambler: An Image of the Time and Inferno: A Game for the People of our Age. Despite the success of the novel and the film, it was almost a decade before anything more was done with the character. Jacques had been working on a sequel to the novel, named Mabuse's Colony, in which Mabuse has died and a group of his devotees are starting an island colony, based on the principles described by Mabuse's manifesto. However, the novel was unfinished. After conversations with Lang and von Harbou, Jacques agreed to discontinue the novel and the sequel instead became the 1933 movie The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in which the Mabuse of 1922 – played again by Rudolf Klein-Rogge – is an inmate in an insane asylum but has for some time been obsessively writing meticulous plans for crime and terrorism, plans that are being performed by a gang of criminals outside the asylum, who receive their orders from a person who has identified himself to them only as Dr. Mabuse. Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise and telepathic hypnosis known to employ body transference, most often through demonic possession, but sometimes utilizing object technologies such as television or phonograph machines, to build a "society of crime". Mabuse rarely commits his crimes in person, instead operating primarily through a network of agents enacting his schemes, thus remaining a shadowy figure.Mabuse's agents range from career criminals working for him, to innocents blackmailed or hypnotized into cooperation, to dupes manipulated so successfully that they do not realize that they are doing exactly what Mabuse planned for them to do. Mabuse's identity often changes; one "Dr. Mabuse" may be defeated and sent to an asylum, jail or the grave, only for a new "Dr. Mabuse" to later appear, as depicted in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. The replacement invariably has the same methods, the same powers of hypnosis and the same criminal genius. There are even suggestions in some installments of the series that the "real" Mabuse is some sort of spirit that possesses a series of hosts. Mabuse is not a name in the normal sense, more a codename, or an ideology.[1] Mabuse has had a number of nemeses, with the main ones including Prosecutor (or Chief Inspector) von Wenk in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (played by Bernhard Goetzke) and Kommissar Karl Lohmann (played variously by Otto Wernicke and Gert Fröbe as "Inspector Carl Lohemann").
Waxworks is a 1924 German silent anthology film directed by Paul Leni. Its stories are linked by a plot thread about a writer (William Dieterle) who accepts a job from a waxworks proprietor to write a series of stories about the exhibits of Caliph of Baghdad (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss) in order to boost business. Waxworks was shot between June and September 1923. It was initially going to include a fourth story of Rinaldo Rinaldini based on the character from Christian August Vulpius.'s novel. The character was to be played by William Dieterle and he would be portrayed as the hero of the story. These sequences were set to be shot on location in Italy in 1923 A young nameless poet (Dieterle) enters a wax museum where the proprietor works in the company of his daughter Eva (Olga Belajeff [de]). The proprietor hires the poet to write a back-story for his wax models of Harun al-Rashid (Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Veidt), and Jack the Ripper (Krauss) in order to draw an audience to the museum. With his daughter by his side, the poet notices that the arm of Harun al-Rashid is missing and writes a story incorporating the missing arm. General consensus of Waxworks is that it was primarily a prototype of the horror film.[4] Joel Westerdale discussed this The German Quarterly, Westerdale wrote that despite the bleak synopsis, the film had substantial comedic material such as the Baghdad themed film which was the longest in running time compared to the more grim Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper sequences.[5] Westerdale concluded that the film predominantly attempts to provoke laughter over fear.[6] Contemporary reviews noted the humorous elements in the film as well, with one critic noting its different stories gave the film a Bric-à-brac feeling.
Danton is a 1921 German silent historical film directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki and starring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Ossip Runitsch. The film was shot at the Johannisthal Studios in Berlin. It premiered at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in the city on 4 May 1921.[1] It was based on the 1835 play Danton's Death by Georg Büchner. At the height of the Reign of Terror, Maximilien Robespierre orchestrates the trial and execution of several of his fellow leading French revolutionaries including Georges Danton. This adaptation of Büchner's play, which fictionalizes the French Revolutionary power struggle between Danton and Robespierre, is competently made, but is empty. The film isn't particularly interesting, nor did it involve me deeply. I feel rather indifferent towards the entire production, which I think odd considering the film's source and that it's star driven, featuring Emil Jannings and Werner Krauss in the main roles. Director Dimitri Buchowetzki gives it a quick pacing, but that's noticeable rather than salient. The following year, Buchowetzki adapted "Othello" with the same two stars, and in that film, they shine. "Danton", an empty film, may be seen as a trial run in this respect.
Tartuffe is a German silent film released in 1926. It was directed by F. W. Murnau, a young man shows his millionaire grandfather a film based on Molière’s play “Tartuffe” in order to expose the old man’s hypocritical governess who covets the young man’s inheritance.
From Morn to Midnight (1920) still shocking even today, From Morn to Midnight remains one of the boldest examples of German expressionist cinema. Based on a play by one of the era’s most respected expressionist writers, Georg Kaiser, the story centres on a bank cashier (Ernst Deutsch) who steals money after becoming enraptured by an elegant customer (Erna Morena). Driven by lust, he begs the customer to come away with him, but she laughs in his face. Distraught at having to return home to his drab family life, the cashier goes on the run, determined to seek out the pleasure and passion he has been missing. But he is continually haunted by visions of death, and his relationship with the stolen money soon sours. Martin had previously directed the text on stage, where he had attempted to disconnect the work from reality – something he took even further with the film, using a minimalist, sketch-like style to move it towards the subjective emotions of the cashier’s point of view. The film uses stylized distorted sets, designed by Robert Neppach, which are even more avant-garde than those of the 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The film was produced in 1920 by theatre director Karlheinz Martin, a few months after the release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He had already directed on stage the 1912 eponymous play by Georg Kaiser before World War I. The stage-like painted sets, the costumes and the performance of the actors form an artistic unity and are characteristic of Expressionism. From Morn to Midnight is one of the first German films that address the lure of "the great world" and "the street". It can be considered as a forerunner of the so-called street films (Straßenfilme), such as Karl Grune's Die Straße (1923) and Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Joyless Street (1925). The world première of the film in Germany was not recorded. It was probably only shown in a few cinemas or in private screenings. The film was however screened with some success in Japan in 1922. It was long considered lost until 1959 when a copy was found at the Tokyo National Film Center in Japan. It was acquired by the National Film Archive of the German Democratic Republic and was screened for the first time in Germany in East Berlin in 1963.
Spies is a 1928 German silent espionage thriller directed by Fritz Lang and co-written with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who also wrote a novel of the same name, published a year later. An international espionage ring led by a wheelchair-bound megalomaniac uses technology, threats, and murder to steal government secrets. A secret agent sets out to stop them, but in the process, he falls in love with a brash young spy. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film and the first for his own production company. Lang was having an affair with Maurus during filming, even as his wife Thea von Harbou was involved writing the screenplay. Lang had earlier stolen the affections of Harbou from her first husband, Klein-Rogge, who played Haghi. In spite of this, Klein-Rogge worked with Lang and Harbou on various notable films, including Destiny (1921), Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927). Spies was the screen debut for young Dutch actress Lien Deyers, who caught Lang's attention after winning a screening contest in Vienna. During the shooting of the movie, Lang developed a strong dislike for Deyers. Regarding the casting of Agent 326, Lang surprisingly went for the upcoming teenage idol Willy Fritsch, whom he had seen in one of his by then typical juvenile lover parts in the silent film The Last Waltz (1927). Fritsch, who had just achieved some international success especially in the US by Parufamet distributed films, took the chance to escape from his image and was able to gain his final breakthrough with this film. It begins like any good spy thriller should, with a fast-paced action-filled set up, here done in a style so clipped and cryptic it leaves us breathless. That there’s a confession in the first few minutes only adds to the intrigue. We might know the culprit, but the harried good guys on screen are bewildered to the point of hysteria. With Ufa’s promotional help, Spies had a splashy premiere, the Ufa-Palast am Zoo’s marquee tricked out with a gigantic eyeball backlit with strobes. Hans Wollenberg at Lichtbild-Bühne couldn’t say enough good about the film and hailed the long anticipated return of the German suspense film. It was the hit everyone needed and Lang did seem to go on rather as he had before, making the final silent spectacle, Woman in the Moon (1929), and a two-part sound continuation of Dr. Mabuse (1932–33). But sometimes dastardly plans for world domination are real, and economy would have to be Lang’s new watchword going forward. Even as he cast about in America and complained, he put it to exceptional use, for the most part, exploring the inner darkness that upends smaller spheres rather than tries to overthrow the whole world. As demonstrated by his masterfully done first sound film, M (1931), he’d practice with that too. With Lang’s career in more than a bit of disrepair after the titanic-sized financial failure of his 1927 now-acknowledged masterpiece Metropolis (seems a matter of course, doesn’t it – show me a cinematic masterwork and I’ll show you a film that got shat on upon its initial release), the maniacal whirlwind director was forced to considerably pare back his production costs for his next one… yet with nary a hint of temperance to his (nor his great screenwriter collaborator — and wife – Thea Von Harbou’s) creativity, as this action spy thriller’s narrative canvas remains as ambitious in narrative scale as his (and their) earlier brilliant quasi-expressionistic crime film Dr Mabuse: The Gambler from 1922, if more judicious in execution. Instead of staggering costs in production (which achieved monumental brilliance, if not always great box office results), Lang cleverly approached his production execution, with a lot of often frenzied close ups and mediums to create an impression of larger events happening rather than always showing us and an evocative modern style to the production design.
