Table Of Content

ReFocus: The Films of Paul Leni 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd ii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM ReFocus: The International Directors Series Series Editors: Robert Singer, Stefanie Van de Peer, and Gary D. Rhodes Board of Advisors: Lizelle Bisschoff (University of Glasgow) Stephanie Hemelryck Donald (University of Lincoln) Anna Misiak (Falmouth University) Des O’Rawe (Queen’s University Belfast) ReFocus is a series of contemporary methodological and theoretical approaches to the interdisciplinary analyses and interpretations of international film directors, from the celebrated to the ignored, in direct relationship to their respective culture—its myths, values, and historical precepts—and the broader parameters of international film history and theory. The series provides a forum for introducing a broad spectrum of directors, working in and establishing movements, trends, cycles and genres including those historical, currently popular, or emergent, and in need of critical assessment or reassessment. It ignores no director who created a historical space—either in or outside of the studio system—beginning with the origins of cinema and up to the present. ReFocus brings these film directors to a new audience of scholars and general readers of Film Studies. Titles in the series include: ReFocus: The Films of Susanne Bier Edited by Missy Molloy, Mimi Nielsen, and Meryl Shriver-Rice ReFocus: The Films of Francis Veber Keith Corson ReFocus: The Films of Jia Zhangke Maureen Turim and Ying Xiao ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan Edited by Andrée Lafontaine ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa: Producing and Consuming Contemporary Art Cinema Nuno Barradas Jorge ReFocus: The Films of Sohrab Shahid Saless: Exile, Displacement and the Stateless Moving Image Edited by Azadeh Fatehrad ReFocus: The Films of Pablo Larraín Edited by Laura Hatry ReFocus: The Films of Michel Gondry Edited by Marcelline Block and Jennifer Kirby ReFocus: The Films of Rachid Bouchareb Edited by Michael Gott and Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp ReFocus: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky Edited by Sergey Toymentsev ReFocus: The Films of Paul Leni Edited by Erica Tortolani and Martin F. Norden edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/refocint 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd iiii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM ReFocus: The Films of Paul Leni Edited by Erica Tortolani and Martin F. Norden 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd iiiiii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organization Erica Tortolani and Martin F. Norden, 2021 © the chapters their several authors, 2021 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhardt MT by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 5451 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 5453 7 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 5454 4 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd iivv 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM Contents List of Figures vii Notes on C ontributors ix Chronology xiii 1 Introduction 1 Erica Tortolani and Martin F. Norden 2 Exploding the Cosmopolitan and Treating the Foreigners’ Foreignness: Paul Leni’s The Diary of Dr. Hart 36 Jaimey Fisher 3 The Unnatural in the Natural: Leopold Jessner and Paul Leni’s Early Weimar Film Backstairs 52 Jason Doerre 4 Cinema Panopticum: Wax, Work, Waxworks 69 Erik Born 5 The Proto- Horror-Comedy: Waxworks 82 Joel Westerdale 6 Intersectional Avant-Garde: Paul Leni’s Rebus-Film Series and the Confluence of Experimental Visual Styles 97 Erica Tortolani 7 Bravura Beginnings: Paul Leni and the Art of the Prologue 116 Martin F. Norden 8 Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary: Adaptation into Genre 140 Rebecca M. Gordon 9 Specters of the Mind: Ghosts, Illusion, and Exposure in Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary 158 Simone Natale 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd vv 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM vi CONTENTS 10 Misfitting in America: Paul Leni, Conrad Veidt, and The Man Who Laughs 172 Gábor Gergely 11 Masculinity and Facial Disfigurement in The Man Who Laughs 189 Bruce Henderson 12 Cinematic Space and Set Design in Paul Leni’s The Last Warning 203 Bastian Heinsohn 13 The Last Warning: Uncertainty, Exploitation, and Horror 219 Shawn Shimpach Filmography 239 Index 254 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd vvii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM Figures 1.1 A signed Leni self-portrait from 1913, taken from a Berlin caricaturists’ club program of the same year 4 1.2 Leni’s cover design for a 1914 issue of Die Illustrierte für Gross-Berlin 5 1.3 Leni’s cover design for a special issue of Das Plakat, October 1920 7 1.4 Poster announcing The Gondola at Vienna’s Roland theater, September 1, 1923 15 2.1 Fireworks at spa anticipate the exploded world 42 2.2 Invaders create a public health emergency that Dr. Hart then has to confront 45 2.3 Windmill before, charming landmark tending to the landscape 46 2.4 Windmill after, now exploded 47 3.1 Henny Porten (Housekeeper) and Fritz Kortner (Postman) 54 3.2 Henny Porten (Housekeeper) in the back stairwell 62 5.1 Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) as a “living icon” 87 5.2 The flirtatious caliph (Emil Jannings) 92 6.1 Mr. Rebus (“Herr Rebus”) greeting the audience 101 6.2 One visual clue for “Paris” 108 7.1 Opening night for Outside the Law and “The Police Sergeant’s Story” 117 7.2 Berlin’s Palast-am-Zoo Theater 121 7.3 Leni’s design concept for the Varieté prologue 123 8.1 Laura La Plante as Annabelle West in the 1927 The Cat and the Canary 144 8.2 Paulette Goddard as Joyce Norman in the 1939 remake of The Cat and the Canary 154 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd vviiii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM viii FIGURES 10.1 Conrad Veidt, in Jack Pierce’s make-up, as Gwynplaine on stage 176 10.2 Olga Baclanova as Josiana drinking in Gwynplaine’s performance 182 12.1 Hidden corridors and trap doors 207 12.2 Character placements in confined spaces 210 13.1 A poster designed by Paul Leni, director of The Last Warning 226 13.2 A natural for exploitation 229 13.3 Jury ballot to be given to patrons 230 13.4 The look, the horror 234 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd vviiiiii 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM Notes on Contributors Erik Born is an Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies at Cornell University. His research and teaching focus on relations between old media and new media, and particularly on questions of mobility. Drawing on insights from the fields of media archaeology and the study of cultural tech- niques, his current book project examines the emergence of wireless technology in Germany around 1900. Erik is also the co-editor of a volume on the figure of the neighbor in German modernity, and he is the author of articles on medieval media theory, the pre-history of television, avant-garde film, and early German science fiction, as well as translations and book reviews on topics in film and media studies. Jason Doerre is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College in Hart- ford, Connecticut. While a PhD candidate, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany to complete research on the German naturalist author Hermann Sudermann that became the basis of his dissertation. He has authored publications that deal with nineteenth- and twentieth-century German film and literature. At Trinity College, Jason teaches a wide variety of courses on German culture and history and has recently focused on the films of the Weimar Republic. Jaimey Fisher is Professor of German and Cinema & Digital Media and director of the UC Davis Humanities Institute at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Treme (2019), Christian Petzold (2013), and Disci- plining German: Youth, Reeducation, and Reconstruction after the Second World War (2007). He edited the volume Generic Histories of German Cinema: Genre and its Deviations (2013) and has also co-edited The Berlin School and its Global 66667700__TToorrttoollaannii..iinndddd iixx 1100//0022//2211 44::4499 PPMM