I hope somebody out there is an expert on the “expressionist” movement in German culture. I understand this movement was active from around 1920 to 1935-and that the German cinema had many examples of it. First of all-what defines expressionism? And, Many years ago, I saw stills of a german film called “THE CHINESE MAGICIAN”. Anybody ever seen this and where can I get a videotape or disc of this movie?
Expressionism is art which distorts reality through exaggeration…in painting, it includes vigorous brushwork and strong color…in order to express the artist’s ideas or emotions.
In the cinema, Expressionism included extensive use of lighting and shading…tricks like casting a character’s face in shadow to indicate that he is lying. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI is considered a masterpiece of German Expressionist film…the sets are jagged and frightening and obviously manmade; no attempt is made to appear naturalistic. Most of the Ufa classics of the post-war, pre-Nazi period showed Expressionist influence…and they in turn influenced the Universal Studios horror films of the 1930s, and the film noir movement of the 1940s-50s.
The early 20th-century German Expressionists were united in the feeling that the Industrial City was a place of danger and immorality, that the First World War was a personal and international disaster, and that politics were corrupt. The movement was innately anti-Fascist, and was excoriated as “Degenerate Art” during the Third Reich.
Another big part of German Expressionism was the acting, which it got from expressionist theater. Motions and voices in that theater were extreme, trying to convey extremem emotions. German Expressionism adopted this, along with the look that characterizes a distorted reality.
One main aspect, though, that is a major part of many German Expressionist films, though, that is more unique is the idea that the whole film is subjective. That the film is throught the eyes of a certain character rather than the a stylized view of the director (though that was also common). The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is a good example of that. The majority of the film takes place in a mental patient’s mind. He sees his doctor as a killer, and everything is distorted into his mad world.
Though this was not the standard in all expressionist films, it was a major part of quite a few (I believe only a couple dozen are considered to be true German Expressionist films, and many others contain some elements of them). Anyway, this is the basic definition for expressionist films today: where the mise-en-scene (set, costumes, make-up) reflect the way a certain character or the author of the film sees the world, combined with the look. I’ve made an expressionist short film (not an easy task) and a major element of it was masks. The main character was unable to recognize anyone, and hence they all wore masks. It’s projecting the internal mind into literal terms.
For Christmas, I received an interesting videotape: “The Fall of the House of Usher/Devil’s Ball/Trip to the Moon.” Three short subjects; the first is an expressionistic version, no dialogue, of the Poe story, made in the Twenties (?). Fascinating.
Available from Sinister Cinema: http://www.sinistercinema.com/
Incidentally, the second is a spectacular stop-motion short, and the third is Melies’ famous short subject.
http://www.filmbak.com film izle