The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt

360 Pages·2008·115.866 MB·English

by  Lotte H. Eisner, Roger Greaves

The Haunted Screen

The Haunted Screen
Expressionism in the German Cinema
and the Influence of Max Reinhardt
Lotte H. Eisner
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Thames and Hudson ·'London
L'Ecran Demoniaque
.tirst published in France 1952; rel'ised and reissued 1965
by Le Terrain Vaguc, 14 me de Vemeuil, Paris VII
© Le Terrain Vague 1965
Translated/rom the French by RO.llI'T Creal'l's
This translation .tirst published in Britain by
Thames and Hudson Limited, 30-34 Bloomsbury Street, LOlldon w.e.1.
Trallslarioll alld lIelll matl'rial © ThanH's & Hudson 1969
Primed i" Cn'at Britai" by Jarrold and SOliS Ltd, Norwich
500 50001 a
Contents
Foreword to the English language edition 7
1 The Predisposition towards Expressionism ~
2 The Beginnings of the Expressionist Film 17
The Cahillet of Dr Ca/(~ari; Cell II ill I' ; f '011 lUo/:~l'I1s his ;\1ifftTllachts; T{l/:~lIs;
Rasko/llikoll'
3 The Spell of Light: the Influence of Max Reinhardt 3~
The Stlldl'lIt (~r Pra.~lIc (1913); Max Reinhardt; The CO/clll (I ~20);
Die Chrollik 1'011 Cries/lll1ls; Vall ilia ; Carl Boese on the special etfects
for The CO/C/1/
4 Lubitsch and the Costume Film 7'5
A1adalllc Dllharry; SIII1I1I/'1II1; Alllla BO/l'YII; Dalltoll; Olhe//o; Pob Negri
5 The Stylized Fantastic H9
Der lvliidc Tod
6 The Symphonies of Horror Y5
:"'{l~'/l'ratll; the demoniac bourgeois; the swa y of the DOl'jJ('~~iillgtT
7 'Decorative' Expressionism 11'5
Wax/Forb; the concept of space; the obsession with corridors
and staircases; Paul Leni on set designing
8 The World of Shadows and Mirrors 129
Wamillg Shadoll's; the Expressionist actor
9 Studio Architecture and Landscape 1 '51
Die SihdllllgCII; gcometric grouping
10 The Expressionist Debut of a 'Realistic' Director 171
Der Schatz
'1
Kammerspielfilm and Stimmung 177
HilltcrfrcpjJc; Sd/crhcII; SY/I'estcr; Paul Czinner; Elisa beth Bergner; Stillllllllllg
12 Murnau and the Kammerspielfilm 207
The Last Lallgh; the mobile camera
13 The Handling of Crowds 223
Metropolis; the influence of the Expressionist choruses and Piscator
14 The Fritz Lang Thriller 237
Die Spinnen; Dr Mabuse der Spieler; Spione; Die Frau im Mond
15 Tragedies of the Street 251
Die Strasse; The Joyless Street; Asta Nielsen; Dirnentragodie;
the Absolute film; Asphalt
16 The Evolution of the Costume Film 269
TarttifJe
17 The Eye of the Camera in E. A. Dupont 275
Das Alte Gesetz; Variety
18 The Climax of the Chiaroscuro 285
Faust
19 Pabst and the Miracle of Louise Brooks 295
Pandora's Box; Diary C!fa Lost Girl; Censorship and Pabst's realism
20 The Decline of the German Film 309
The coming of sound; Die Dreigroschenoper; M; Das Testament
des Dr Mabl/se; Madchen in Uniform; the Ufa style; Leni Riefenstahl;
the post-Nazi era
Appendix: The Dreigroschenoper Lawsuit 343
Principal Works Mentioned in the Text 346
Selective Filmography. 1913--33 348
Index 355
Sources of Illustrations 360
Foreword to the English
language edition
The German film got off to a comparatively late start.
Any judgment on the period up to 1913-14 can only be
negative: the dull little moving snapshots turned out by
the pioneer Max Skladanowsky have nothing in common
with the lively topicalities being produced by Louis
Lumiere at the same time; in the work ofOskar Messter
there is nothing which even remotely recalls the gaiety
of the comic films of Pathc or Gaumont, the stylistic
perfection of the French .films d'art, or the poetic fantasies
of Georges Mclies. The kinds of patriotic panorama
made by Franz Porten - Kiilligill Lllise and Delltsclt/allds
Ruhmesfage 1870-71 (191 1-I2) - were still mere gropings
in the dark; so also were the films of Kurt Stark, whose
Liebesgl/~·ck dcr Blilldell (1911) was naturalism of the most
naIve and sentimental kind. The screens of the German
cinema were swamped by the melodramas of Max Mack,
Joe May, and Rudolf Meinert, and by simplistic comedies
such as those of Bolten-Beckers. Joe May and Rudolf
Meinert were later to direct adventure films, but for
anything to approach the charm of the films of Louis
Feuillade one has to wait until Fritz Lang's Die Spill/lell
(1919).
But on the eve of the First World War, with a few
prophetic works, the German cinema finall y got off the
mark, though it only really began to move once the war
was over; then followed the great period. This great
period was shortlived, and did not last much beyond 1925-
27. Despite a few later successes, the German cinema was
never to know another flowering like this one, stimu
lated, as it was, on the onc hand. by the thcatre of Max
7
Reinhardt and, on the other, by Expressionist art (it is
essential not to confuse these opposing styles). It is to
this brief period that this book is devoted. I have not
set out to write a history of the German cinema. Rather,
I have attempted to throw light on some of the intellectual,
artistic, and technical developments which the German
cinema underwent during these momentous years, the
last decade of the silent period. The German sound film
is only briefly discussed.
Some questions of terminology need to be mentioned
at the outset. The word demoniac (German diimol1isch) is
used in its Greek sense - as it was understood by Goethe
(and by Leopold Ziegler in the epigraph on the title
page of this book) - 'pertaining to the nature of super
natural power'; it is not used in its usual English sense of
'diabolical'. Familiar German expressions such as Weltan
schallJm~ are used without apology. Key expressions
such as KammerspirUilm (page 177), Stimmung (page 199),
and Umll'£'if (page 186) are discussed when they are first
introduced. The anglicized Italian word chiaroscuro,
which is central to the book and figures throughout,
stands, like the also inadequate clair-ol,swr, for German
H('lIdwlkt'l, and represents a sort of twilight of the German
soul, expressing itself in shadowy, enigmatic interiors,
or in misty. insubstantial landscapes. It is a concept dear
to Romantic authors and artists, and may be seen for
example in the sketches of Robert Hcrlth, Walter Rohrig,
or Walter Reimann.
As an historian of art I have also allowed myself the
licence of a few technical terms, such as .(!risaillc', a painting
in grey monotone to represent objects in relicf, and
sliwwrtl. a softness of shading or outline more delicatc than
the thinnest smoke. Throughout the book the expression
'titles' is used to describe the explanatory or dialogue
captions of the silt-nt film; the tcrm 'sub-titles', now
Ilormally used for the translation at the bottom of thc
screl'n of a foreign sound tilm. has been avoided.
For this first English language edition the text has bcen
revised and a number of ne\V illustrations added.
L. H. E.
1 The Predisposition towards Expressionism
· rhl' Ccrmmls arc odd pcople, The years immediately following the First World War
1111 rhe 5a1llC! ~V"a( II!ir" (1ll'ir were strange ones in Germany. The German mind had
JJr(~/(l/Illd (llollg/zu mid 111(' difficulty in adjusting itself to the collapse of the imperial
idcllS they a(('./(Jr(,I'('f pllr.\l/ill.~
dream; and in the early years of its short life the Weimar
I/Ild illlrodllcill.{! all (J1'£'r Ihe
Republic had the troublesome task of meeting outside
placl' , Ihey rcally do mal.:e lUi'
lOll hardj£>r tllemsffl'Cs. Oh, demands (the onerous terms imposed on Germany
1111 1'1' Ihe C(J1trl1.l!(' (0 yield (0 at Versailles) while at the same time maintaining equili
YOllr impressiolls ... alld do brium internally (the Spartacist revolt of [~ly, the
I/M IlIWd)'S tllillk lilal
unsuccessful Kapp Putsch OfI~20). In [~23, after Germany
t'l1('f}'IIII·II.~ that is 11M .10111('
had failed to pa y the war reparations laid dowll at V crsailles,
idea or alJSIraa (hollght HIIIS(
Frellch and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, and
hc I'aill.'
Goethe: Eckcrmann's inflation, which had always been a serious danger,
COIII'£'rsatio/lS I S27· could not be stopped. The material conditions which
1
resulted led to a general decline of values, and the
inner disquiet of the nation took on truly gigantic
proporttons.
Mysticism and magic. the dark forces to which Germans
have always been more than willing to commit them
selves, had flourished in the face of death on the battlc
fic1ds. The hecatombs of young men t~lllen in the flower
of their youth seemed to nourish the grim nostalgia
of the survivors. And the ghosts which had haunted
the German Romantics revived, like the shades of
Hades after draughts of blood. A new stimulus was
thus given to the eternal attraction towards all that is
obscure and undetermined, towards the kind of brooding
speculative reflection called Griihl'lci which culminated
in the apocalyptic doctrine of Expressionism. Poverty
and constant insecurity help to explain the enthusiasm
with which German artists embraced this movement
y
which, as early as 1910, had tended to sweep aside all
the principles which had formed the basis of art until
then.
Rather than give an account of Expressionism in
terms of sculpture or painting, we need, in order to
analyse the phenomenon in all its complexity and
ambiguity, to follow its track through the literature of
the period. This may appear paradoxical; the reason is
that, for the Germans, that 'race of thinkers and poets',
every manifestation in art is immediately transformed
into dogma: the systematic ideology of their Weltan
scllaurUJ,{! is wedded to a didactic interpretation of art.
But finding one's way through the tangled phrase
ology of the German Expressionists is not an easy task.
At first sight, their telegraphic style, exploding in short
phrases and exclamations, seems to have simplified the
labyrinthine syntax of classical German; but this apparent
clarity is misleading. Expressionist phraseology is ruled
by a desire to amplify the 'metaphysical' meaning of
words. Its exponents juggle with vague expressions,
strings of words which have little orthodox relationship
to each other, and invent mystical allegories which amount
to little once we attempt to translate them. This language
of symbols and metaphors is intentionally obscure,
designed to be intelligible only to the initiated.
As an example let us listen to the dithyramb intoned
in by a fervent theorist of this style. Kasimir
I'}I'}
Edschlllid, in his C/u" dell Expressionismus in der Literatur.
Here we may detect, more clearly than anywhere else,
the of the Expressionist conception.
ke\'~[onc
Exp~c:ssionism, Edschmid declared. is a reaction against
the atom-splitting of Impressionism, which reflects the
iridescent ambiguities. disquieting diversity. and ephemeral
hues of nature. At the sanlC time Expressionism sets
it,df ~l~ainst Naturalism with its Jnania for recording
mere t:~ct\. and its paltry aim of photographing nature
d;uly life. The world is thcrc for all to sec; it would
of
be ab'~lrd to reproduce it purely and simply as it is.
The EXpre\SIOnists also oppose the effclninacy of oeo-
Ihmuminsm. , .. ,
The ExpressIOnist docs not sec. he has VISIOns.
factorics.
Accordin~ to Edschmid. "thc chain of facts:
h · docs not
hOll'l·'. il~ lness, prostitutes. screams. unger
10