Vor aller Augen - Alex Cross 9 -: Thriller (German Edition)

Dark - Alex Cross 18 -

---

This gesture-recurrent in many German films-is symptomatic of the desire to return to the maternal womb From the Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive Asta Nielsen in one of the roles in which she discards social conventions in her abundance of love ix From the Museum of Modern Art Film Library What once denoted chaos is now simply part of the record-a fact among facts From the Museum of Modern Art Film Library A close-up of the gutter illustrates the harshness of mechanized life From the BFI Collections A symbolic scene which glorifies vitality From the collection of Herman G.

The nightmarish workings of bureaucracy The group of criminals, beggars and street women sitting in judgment on the child-murderer From the BFI Collections To prepare the audience for this scene, the staircase is featured throughout the film From the Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive Glass screens transform the crowded and smoky cafe into a confusing maze From the BFI Collections German miners in the shower room-the audience is let into one of the arcana of everyday life From the BFI Collections Young athletes at the Red sports festival which glorifies collective life Emphasis on cloud conglomerations indicates the ultimate fusion of the mountain and Hitler cults xi From the Film Museum of Berlin Emphasis on cloud conglomerations indicates the ultimate fusion of the mountain and Hitler cults From the Museum of Modern Art Film Library No alterations have been made to the text.

The "Structural Analysis" section of the edition has been omitted. The bibliography originally compiled by Kracauer has been revised and updated, and a short section has been added listing the main studies on Weimar and Wilhelmine cinema to appear after the publication of Caligari to Hitler. The name index excludes names mentioned only in the footnotes. Since the original illustrations do not reproduce well, they have been replaced with pictures 4, 28, 31, 34 and 59 have new pictures been utilized. Karsten Witte's German edition of the book Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, ; 2nd rev. Alessandra Raengo helped me to research the American titles of films and other matters, for which she deserves a special thank you.

An affectionate thank you to Luisa Bettiga. American scholar Thomas Y. Levin prepared an all but definitive bibliography of Kracauer's writings. Bille Bibliographic seiller Schriften Marbach am Neckar: Deutsches Literaturarchiv, ;! Ingrid Belke and Irina Renz] , no. Adorno Archiv Marbach am Neckar: V of Schriften, ed. Inka Miilder-Bach Frankfurt a. Suhrkamp, ; Bcrlillcr IIcbencillalldcr: AlIsgcJPiibltc Fmillletolls, , ed.

Johns Hopkins University Press, II Riscatto del Materiale Genova: Enzo Traverso, Siegfried Kmcaller: Fmgmeme eiller Al'chaologie d,,' Modeme Sinzheim: RowohIt Taschenbuch Verlag, Harvard University Press, , pp. The Redemption ofPhysical Reality rpt. Princeton University Press, , pp. Hansen also wrote a long essay entitled "America, Paris and the Alps: Jeremy Gaines Princeton, N.

Princeton University Press, A Psychological History of the German Film all the more puzzling. Rightly or wrongly it is the work most closely associated with Kracauer's name over the years. In many of the editions, translations and critical works cited, some of which are remarkable for their depth and novel approach, there is no specific analysis of the work. Some scholars have openly declared their reservations. Barnouw, for example, calls From Caligari to Hitler "the most widely known and, on the whole, least satisfYing work.

English, and then only in an abridged and bowdlerized version that tried to mitigate or even alter the original approach, which was evidently thought to reflect a dangerously Marxist bias.

In a famous commentary Enno Patalas wrote: Thomas Elsaesser played a special role in the early s with his reflections on Kracauer in the following two articles and essay: References to the historical and political situation of Weimar were suppressed and the most explicit Marxist categories,such as "class," were concealed.

The need for an aesthetic approach to film criticism has become imperative. First translated in , after the edition was issued it would remain out of print for years. MAkS, ; this book is an expansion of a dissertation defended at the University of Cologne in Die Rezeption von Lotte H. Lindau, , with a new critical apparatus that I prepared, including a collection of Kracauer's film reviews from the Weimar period. University of Texas Press, ' , pp.

Editions de la Maison des Sciences de I'Honune, In June John E. With the outbreak of war, Kracauer's life was rocked by a chain of tragic events. He was with Walter Benjamin from August until shortly before the latter's suicide in late September, a step Kracauer also contemplated following his friend's death.

Kracauer buried himself in a systematic study of the films and books on Weimar cinema which he found full of inaccuracies and errors and on the "social, political and artistic situation of postwar Germany. Eyewitnesses remember him always surrounded by books in the library or holed up in the screening room.

Levin, February 28, , quoted in Belke and Renz, eds. The lettcr to Schufftan can also be found in Helmut G. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, , pp. The task was completed in the spring of The book was published in April 1 by Princeton University Press, the publisher that Erwin Panofsky had originally recommended to Kracauer. This is important material since it unequivocally refutes the oft-cited opinion that his work was based mainly on an analysis of film plots. The way he formulates his judgments sometimes reflects this situation, such as cases where his analysis does not go beyond a certain level or include important films that would have enriched his argument.

Kracauer the scholar was greatly aided by his background as a critic. In a "Preliminary Report" that he wrote to summarize the work he had done so far and to explain why it would be impossible to meet the deadline, there is a rare mention of his reviews from the s and 1 s. He states that his book "will refer to the articles I published in the Fmnlifitl'tel' Zeitzmg," and that "the conclusions at which they arrived corroborate to some extent my present ones. This required an exhausting extra effort: He consequently quoted only two of his articles from the s: There are far fewer instances in which his judgment as a historian enriched his original critique and possibly lowered its polemical tone.

Nevertheless, in some cases he completely changed or even reversed his judgment. Akademie Verlag, , p. Here he saw the bond between man and nature not so tents-he reserved a warmer and more positive judgment for much as a caricature or exaggeration of romantic concepts but rather in more neutral terms, situated in the sports world and associated solely with athletic prowess. Kracauer the film critic ultimately praised Fanck's cloud motifs for their expressive technique and visual appeal: The summaries of the project that he wrote during successive drafts help us to understand the guiding ideas and how they evolved.

This is where, in effect, Kracauer explicitly laid out his agenda and his premises. He worked on this chapter till the end, as his many corrections to the proofs attest. But the path he follows is not always linear and "automatic. The follmving are the texts to which I will refer: II; both reviews are in the appendix to the new Italian edition.

As he complained to one correspondent: Obviously the ultimate reference is the book itself, which clearly and unequivocally reveals Kracauer's working methods. The "Ideenskizze zu meinem Buch tiber den Film," a work of primarily historical value, already provides valuable insight into his method.

He refers to the "the interaction between the unique structure offilm and various social factors" p. He also adopts a phenomenological approach: By referring to a specific stage in the author's formation, this sentence anticipates one of the most characteristic features of the approach Kracauer would ultimately talce. The "Notes on the Planned History of the German Film" is the first text to reveal the structure of the work in an advanced state and the complexity and diversity of its sources. The portrait presented of a subject appearing on the postwar German scene as an "unhappy, homeless soul [moving] lilce a stranger through the world of normal reality," a "free-wandering soul [who imagines] madmen, somnambulists, vampires and murderers" p.

Of fCllbacl; and tbc Paris of His Timc, trans. Quotations from this book are from the translation by Thomas Y. Levin, 77;e l1,fass OmamCllt: This formulation owes more to Simmel than to any other author. The most trivial event leads down into the shafts of the soul. The essay "The Mass Ornament" opens ,vith a justly celebrated first sentence: One of his most recent applications of it had been in "Die 36 Die Allgestelltm was first published as a series of articles starting in in the Fm.

Rodney Livingston et aI. The reviews written during the s which he vindicates in his next work, the "Preliminary Report" also describe "the German Screen as a symptom of the domestic situation" p. However, the relationship between film and reality is also built upon soci" Cf. Barnouw's opinion in Cl'iticnl Realism, pp. Adorno, "Der wunderliche Realist" , in Noten zm' Litemtm', vol. Suhrkamp, , p.

Bela Balazs should also be included among the author's forebears. Del' siebtbare Mellseh rpt. In Kracauer's review of the book, he criticized Balazs's faith in a "new of the physical man," blaming it on the "false reasoning of capitalistic thinking"; "Bucher vom Film," Mensch, pp. Suhrkamp, , a second collection of Kracauer's Weimar articles that he assembled after the war. Kracauer actually adopts two models: At the same time point to the background from which they emerge" p.

Directors, according to Kracauer, tend to "portray. Aesthetic issues, by contrast, are completely ignored. Kracauer makes no mention of issues connected with "auteur" film. The average film had been the focus of one of his most original and successful works during the Weimar era, "The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies" Other models are then projected onto them. Furthermore, the subject-the "German collective dispositions" p. The typescript of the introduction also mentions the "German soul" and the "German multitude" p. The final text of the introduction reiterates Kracauer's rejection of any notion of a "national character pattern allegedly elevated above history": The "Preliminary Report" reinforces the psychoanalytic model: It plays down the mirroring model, instead highlighting the dislocation between the "inner dispositions" of the middle classes and the "outer conditions of life" p.

A new perspective emerges from the "Preliminary Report" that will be greatly developed in the final draft of the introduction: The outcome Nazism and Nazism in power becomes retroactive, as if history could bend backward. And, even more directly, "Films are permeable to unconscious characteristics" p. By bringing to the fore innumerable surface phenomena of life, the cinema makes transparent motivations in the depths of the soul" p.

Cinema's special aptitude for making reality and history visible emerges as a key theme, while the privileged position of German film starts to wane. He also points to film's ability to fulfill the wishes of the masses, primarily through its technical resources. While his treatment of these two issues is here still very tentative, he formulates them more articulately and assertively in the final text where they would provoke considerable criticism.

Finally, the text discloses an iconographic approach: This version highlights the importance of the "persistent reiteration" not only of narrative but also of figurative motifs p. Despite its crucial role, this is one of tlle least analyzed aspects of FI'om Caligm'i to Hitler. The psychoanalytic approach operates on two levels. On one level film is a primarily social "symptom": In short, "Cinema [is] a social testimony because it captures the unobserved and the recurrent.

Its horizon is a culture's unconscious. Clearly the terminology already has a high degree of mobility and ambiguity, and the system to which it refers is wholly undefined. This is a crucial point. It is no accident that the subtitle of the book refers to a "psychological history of the German film.

He specifically mentions Horkheimer's essay. These are points to which Kracauer will return. A careful reading of the book reveals a few surprises. A specific social class with defined characteristics-the German middle class-is Kracauer's first point of reference, explicitly or implicitly.

Kracauer uses vague terminology derived from Geistesgeschichte when talking about "the soul of a people," the "German mind" and the "collective soul," but he always refers to a specific social group. This text was originally published in The text has been reprinted Liineburg: Dietrich zu K1ampen, He judges individual features associated with middle-class social life in the same way: The psychological sphere is anchored to a specific context.

From this point of view the text of the book itself is more advanced than the introduction. Karsten Witte is right to note that "the staunch opponents of this [psychological] thesis often never read beyond the introduction. The argument confirms tlle central importance of analyzing the processes of the psychic apparatus, its mechanisms compensation, projection, etc. Columbia University Press, , p. Kracauer, e Salnl'ied lYlasses, p. The limits of this approach are that it is being applied to a collective subject-the middle class-without adequate support tllrough research. This trend ultimately proposed an "absolute" subjectivity "without a subject" that dispenses with physical intermediaries.

He estab57 Letter to Hermann Hesse, February 2, Among tllcm I put not only titleless narration and camera mobility, but also the incorporation of objects into the course of action," KN, DLA. Rather than construct a specific model, h e prefers a free, mobile system of relations made more complex by his psychoanalytic and phenomenological influ ences. Every thematic and linguistic component, every choice in the staging of a film discloses its meaning by referring to historical and social events. Herem lies the novelty, the original contribution and appeal of Kracauer's work.

What is strilcing appealing is the coherence of the whole: Comparisons are one of the author's greatest resources: Everything holds together and each part of the book seems to support the other parts. One of the most frequent criticisms of From Caligari to Hitle1' is that its interconnections and organic unity are so tight and pervasive that they seem to depend more on a priori assumptions than on empirical reading. Routledge, , p. However, his "selectivity" owes more to the choices of the cinema institution and, consequently, to the critical discourse.

The mms that he analyzed were those that the cinema institution had imposed as most representative of the s and s and that the critical discourse had most appreciated. Within this corpus, Elsaesser adds, Kracauer privileged "auteur" mms over genre mms p. But auteur mm is a slippery notion: The openness of these works stands in contrast to the narrow perspective of Fro11t Caligm"i to Hitler. Polyphony gives way to monody. Mass configurations in tl1e Tiller Girl and Alfred Jackson Girl music-hall shows are seen as agents by which the "Voile" is transformed into a "mass," as the effect of a loss of the individual dimension, analogous to the effects of the productive processes of capitalism.

Martin Jay is right to point out this aspect, although he does so within the context of his criticism of the New Objectivity. What now distinguishes them is an indistinct humanism, rooted in a precapitalist era, which has lost the novelty, complex65 Kracauer, "The Mass Ornament," p. Witte highlights the sources for tillS modelranging from Hegel to Weber-in his "Nachwort," p. Kracauer always explains the relationship of a film to a historical situation, social trend or psychological condition not just thematically but also in terms of specific forms and visual figures. The connection between various texts is assured by the continuity of iconological motifs.

Kracauer's identification of certain motifs-feet separated from the human figure, a policeman helping someone cross the street or a man sinking his head into a woman's lap-contributed to their becoming icons of Weimar cinema. Harry Zohn New York: Schocken Books, , pp.

Even in the trickiest passages, in which Kracauer deploys his "anticipation" model, the symbolic meaning of iconographic elements plays a pivotal role: The introduction makes direct reference to Panofsky and pays affectionate tribute to his "Style and Medium in the Moving Pictures.

From Caligary to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film

The long friendship between the two scholars is well known. It is always as if you were looking through a hole in the wall at an immense landscape. This is in addition to Levin's contribution in the previously mentioned study. Letter to Panofsky, December 17, , in BricjiPcchscl, pp. From Caligari to Hitler is the most advanced and documented result of this convergence.

The United States wanted to know its enemy better in order to be better prepared to fight it. Anton Kaes has described those years: A flood of books and articles written by Americans and German exiles between and 8 1. Letter to PanofSky, April 9, , in Bl"icjrvcchsel, p. Being of German origin was suddenly perceived as a sickness in need of a cure-a curious and paradoxical reversal of the troubling anti-Semitic stereotyping in Nazi propaganda.

It became a national obsession to subject tl1e Germans to pop ulation psychology and speculate on cures for their constitutional character flaws. Circumstances external to the historiographic method thus gave rise to the book's method of retrospective interpretation. This approach is undoubtedly the book's weakest point. But he did not develop this rather frail point. History is read backward and forced to follow in its own footsteps.

The mountain films together with the "tyrant" films are one area in which this model is most explicitly deployed: Kracauer has to be read carefully. Even in this case, many of the passages contain convenient phrases that have no real methodological relevance. Payot, , pp. The process proposed is one of de1"ivation: Elements are analyzed in films from the Nazi period that are derived from previous films-including Soviet films pp. But there is always great ambiguity. The line separating tlle two sides is narrow and, in all frankness, the discussion often moves more in the direction of a "retroactive" historicism.

The book's final passages summarize this ambiguity more openly. With the coming of Hitler, "Germany. Battles roared and victory followed victory. It all was as it had been on the screen" p. Elsewhere I have emphasized the fallacy of "anticipationist" hypotheses and of notions such as "pre-Fascism" and "proto-Nazism" not to mention premonition or vision.

La Nuova Italia, , pp. Criticism in the United States and Germany covered a wide spectrum, from unconditional approval to radical rejection, but it always began with an appreciation of Kracauer's vast research and documentation an important recognition of his long, hard work. The most positive reviews came from Paul Rotha, Herman G. Weinberg and Iris Barry. Rotha considered it "a book which must at once be placed alongside the half-dozen most important works on the cinema; personally, I place it within the first three.

Farrar Straus Giroux, Niirnberg's article can also be found in Asper, ed. Its "error" was seen, clearly and explicitly, in "the extension of Freudian dynamics to social groups. One pointed out the "naivete" of connecting the iconographic motifs in the mountain films to Nazi cinema, while another remarked on the inconclusiveness of an approach that started out by presenting its conclusions as established fact. Iris Barry and Paul Rotha praised the manner in which the book structured the relationship between film and society. Rolf Niirnberg fully supported the idea that German cinema foreshadowed German history.

Some of the works Kracauer discusses through indirect sources are now in the public domain and are available in critical editions. The very notion of "film history" boasts a methodological awareness that Kracauer's work might have inaugurated but certainly did not fully enjoy.

The reasons are many: Moreover, his work is based on detailed research into source material that had often been gathered by Kracauer himself such as the testimony of protagonists ofWeimar cinema. Weinberg, "The Film and Humanity," p. One glaring exception is the preliminary chapters on the so-called archaic period, from film's origins to 1 9 1 8. The only exceptions concern the two films positioned at either end of his trajectory: Kracauer claims that the film betrayed and normalized their origi-.

Most of these works were published in the past decade. The Story of a Famous Story. Parts of it were published in Mike Budd, ed. Since, their findings have become common knowledge. First, Mayer and Janowitz's original script already had a frame story. The story begins on a "grosse vornehme Terrasse eines Landhauses," the large, fashionable terrace of a villa, where Francis and his "rife, Jane, are conversing with some friends. In frame twenty-two of the last act Francis and Jane appear in the town square where the tents of the fair had been pitched.

Peace to his victims-Peace to him! The City of Holstenwall. The script then announces: But at this point the story stops-at least in the extant coPy of the script, which is missing the last page or pages. See also Budd, ed. II Gabilletto del dottor Caligm'i Torino: Lindau, , To this list I would add my own essay, "Wer war Alland? It is more likely that it would have returned to the scene on the terrace. The notion that the story's original structure emphasized its subversive and revolutionary quality is also a matter of opinion. The script gathers the events back into the fold of a private experience, specifically into the shelter of bourgeois interiors the villa and the elegant environment that surrounds the protagonists.

This device ultimately reinforces the narrative's mood of ambiguity and indecisiveness, which is further enhanced by the final frame, a close-up of Caligari: The script's solution has thus rightly been called more regressive than the director's, and certainly much weaker.

In fact, the contract clearly authorizes the company to make any changes "that sooner or later we might deem necessary. Independently of the two thousand francs they received to seal the agreement, it is hard to imagine that the two authors would have agreed if they had truly been at odds with the producers' final dispositions on the frame story. But Janowitz as Cited by Kracuaer claims that they had responded with violent protests and indignation. Caiig wi also made this claim. An analysis of the critical reception of the film confirms that Kracauer was right to emphasize that this association defuses the film's subversiveness, at least at the stylistic level.

Janowitz claimed credit for and Kracauer acknowledged the stylized-if not expressionist-look of the film. The script shows a clear awareness of the technical specifications as well as the needs and resources of film language. It is descriptive and functional. It does not give in to literary indulgences except in rare instances. It bears no trace of expressionist writing, either in its narration of the events in a strategy possibly intended to evoke various atmospheres in the film or in the prose of the intertitles.

The script builds an "unreal, symbolic" and disturbing universe, which it accomplishes through different strategies. Calligari" according to the script already announces a similar Mayer protestiert," Lichtbild-Biilmc December 1 6, , no. Synema, , p. According to the Licbtbild-Biilme article, "He objected to the Caligari film as its author. The text utilizes processes that tend to transform reality into a ghostly world through various means: The film is based on a tale told by a character, but after Franzis' prologue and narrative promise, it takes the form of an objective account, abandoning any semblance of mediation, and completely suppressing the protagonist's voice.

The script instead holds rigidly to the initial perspective: There is, however, no historical basis for this judgment. The primary issue is not whether the director was helped or hindered during filming. Riefenstahl never had a problem arguing her case on this point: Shirer, who attended the Reichsparteitag in 1 The scholar knew these sources and admitted tllat the mass troversy. Her position was thus that she had been a "witness" to the events rather than an inside protagonist and a direct agent of their propagation.

Mosse on these phenomena. On the other hand, Meyer Schapiro pointed out the weakness of the contrast "pseudo-reality and propaganda vs. Kracauer saw Germany and its films from afar: I have reason to believe that the use made here of films as a medium of research can profitably be extended to studies of current mass behavior in the United States and elsewhere. I am most indebted to Miss Iris Barry, Curator of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, New York, to whom my book literally owes its existence; she not only suggested this study, but assisted generously and in many ways towards its realization.

I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation, which enabled me to embark upon my enterprise, and to Mr. John Marshall of that office for his continued interest in its progress. I wish to express my deep gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which honored me twice with a fellowship, and to Mr. Bernard Karpel, and the members of the Library staff; they patiently and expertly lent me a helping hand whenever I needed it and made me feel at home in this Library, li Iii PREFACE with its invaluable facilities for studies of the film.

Finally, I wish to thank my wife, though whatever I may say to thank her is insufficient. As always, she has helped me in the preparation of this book, and as always I have benefited greatly from her faculty of perceiving the essential and penetrating to its core. It leaves a taste of cinders in the mouth. With the passage of time the German movies changed themes and modes of representation. But despite all changes they preserved certain traits typical of their sensational start-even after , a year considered the beginning of a long period of decline. In the appraisal of these traits complete unanimity has been reached among American and European observers.

Connoisseurs also appreciate the conspicuous part played in German films by a camera which the Germans were the first to render completely mobile. In addition, there is no expert who would not acknowledge the organizational power operative in these films-a collective discipline which accounts for the unity of 1 Lubitsch's historical costume film PASsION-the first German production to be brought to this country-was shown at New York late in France, too, proved susceptible to screen manners on the other side of the Rhine.

And the classic Russian films benefited by the German science of lighting. But this literature, essentially aesthetic, deals with films as if they were autonomous structures. For example, the question as to why it was in Germany that the camera first reached complete mobility has not even been raised.

Nor has the evolution of the German cinema been grasped. Paul Rotha, who along with the collaborators of the English film magazine Close Up early recognized the artistic merits of German films, confines himself to a merely chronological scheme. Firstly, the theatrical costume picture ; secondly, the big middle period of the studio art films ; and thirdly, the decline of the German film in order to fall into line with the American 'picture-sense' output.

Attributing the decline after to the exodus of important German film people and American interference in German film business, most authors dispose of the German pictures of the time by qualifying them as "Americanized" or "international4 Rotha, Film Till Now, pp. And, in general, it will be seen that the technique, the story content, and the evolution of the films of a nation are fully understandable only in relation to the actual psychological pattern of this nation. IT The films of a nation reflect its mentality in a more direct way than other artistic media for two reasons: First, films are never the product of an individuaL The Russian film director Pudovkin emphasizes the collective character of film production by identifying it with industrial production: Team work is that which makes every, even the most insignificant, task a part of the living work and organically connects it to the general task.

Watching the shooting of a film directed by G. Pabst in the French Joinville studios, I noticed that he readily followed the suggestions of his technicians as to details of the settings and the distribution of lights. Pabst told me that he considered contributions of that kind invaluable. Since any film production unit embodies a mixture of heterogeneous interests and inclinations, teamwork in this field tends to exclude arbitrary handling of screen material, suppressing individual peculiarities in favor of traits common to many people.

Storm - Alex Cross 16 - by James Patterson on Apple Books

Popular films--or, to be more precise, popular screen motifs-can therefore be supposed to satisfy existing mass desires. It has occasionally been remarked that Hollywood manages to sell films which do not give. Hollywood cannot afford to ignore spontaneity on the part of the public. But the medium of the screen exceeds these sources in inclusiveness. Owing to diverse camera activities, cutting and many special devices, films are able, and therefore obliged, to scan the whole visible world.

This effort results in what Erwin Panofsky in a memorable lecture defined as the "dynamization of space": Aesthetically, he is in permanent motion, as his eye identifies itself with the lens of the camera which permanently shifts in distance and direction. And the space presented to the spectator is as movable as the spectator is himself. This led to a diversity of products, which intensified the reflective function of the German screen.

As a matter of fact, the screen shows itself particularly concerned with the unobtrusive, the normally neglected. In recording the visible world-whether current reality or an imaginary universe -: Kallen points to the revealing function of close-ups: And permeating both the stories and the visuals, the "unseen dynamics of human relations" are more or less characteristic of the inner life of the nation from which the fi4ns emerge.

But a hit may cater only to one of many coexisting demands, and not even to a very specific one. In her paper on -the methods of selection of: Kallen, Art and Freedom, II, And they obviously carry most symptomatic weight when they occur in both popular and unpopular films, in grade B pictures as well as in superproductions. This history of the German screen is a history of motifs pervading films of all levels.

IV To speak of the peculiar mentality of a nation by no means implies the concept of a' fixed national character. The interest here lies exclusively in such collective dispositions or tendencies as prevail within a nation at a certain stage of its development. What fears and hopes swept Germany iIn: Questions of this kind are legitimate because of their limited range ; incidentally, they are the only ones which can be answered by an appropriate analysis of the films of the time.

There is no lack of studies covering the political, social, economic and cultural history of the great nations. I propose to add to these well-known types that of a psychological history. It is always possible that certain screen motifs are relevant only to part of the nation, but caution in this respect should not prejudice one against the existence of tendencies affecting the nation as a whole. Exposition of a Method," Library of Oongress Quarterly, , p. It would be easy to show that under the influence of analogous circumstances a similar collective paralysis occurs-and has occurred-in other countries as well.

In the course of its history every nation develops dispositions which survive their primary causes and undergo a metamorphosis of their own. We are all human beings, if sometimes in different ways. These collective dispositions gain momentum in cases of extreme political change. And yet the dimensions of event, milieu and ideology have 18 Of course, such similarities never amount to more than surface resemblances. External circumstances are nowhere strictly identical, and whatever psychological tendency they entail comes true within a texture of other tendencies which color its meaning.

It is also known how hard the young Republic was pressed by the political consequences of the defeat and the stratagems of the leading German industrialists and financiers who unrestrainedly upheld inflation, impoverishing the old middle class. It was in the ruins of "the system" which had never been a true structure that the Nazi spirit flourished.

In a study published in I pointed out the pronounced "white-collar" pretensions of the bulk of German employees, whose economic and social status in reality bordered on that of the workers, or was even inferior to it. The consequence was mental forlornness: The conduct of the petty bourgeoisie prop er was particularly striking. Their surrender to the Nazis was based on emotional fixations rather than on any facing of facts. The disclosure of these dispositions through the medium of the German screen may help in the understanding of Hitler's ascent and ascendancy.

Its history up to that time was prehistory, an archaic period insignificant in itself. Theoretically speaking, the German Cinema commenced in , when, almost two months before LuIniere's first public performance, the Brothers Skladanovsky showed their "Bioscop" in the Berlin Wintergarten-bits of scenes shot and proj ected with apparatus they had built. Owing to such improvements, these years were marked by the opening of many new theaters and the advent of German film distributors. He possessed the eagerness of a pioneer to experiment, to try every innovation.

At a time in which close-ups were still unusual, one of his early comedies intermingled with long shots of several female cyclists a close shot of their fidgeting legs-a procedure anticipating a favorite German camera usage. Sound films of this kind had already been exhibited during the Paris World's Fair of , but proved too expensive and intricate to be continued. During that whole era the film had the traits of a young street arab ; it was an uneducated creature running wild among the lower strata of society.

Many people enticed by the movies had never attended artistic spectacles before ; others were lured from the stage to the screen. About the theater of the provincial town of Hildesheim reported having lost 50 per cent of those customers who previously frequented the three cheapest categories of seats. Variety and circus shows complained of similar setbacks. Sometimes a crazy intellectual would stray into one. Licot's cross-section film, Quarante Ans de Oinema. See also Messter, Mein Weg, p. Then, after , in response to a movement which started in France, that freedom vanished.

The same thing happened in Germany. The upper world of stage directors, actors and writers began to show interest in the cinema after having despised it as an inferior medium. Their change of mind must be traced, in part, to the missionary zeal of Paul Davidson, the great promoter of the early German film, who, under the spell of the new Danish film actress Asta Nielsen, firmly proclaimed the cinema's artistic future. He headed the Proj ektion-A.

Union, which steadily extended its ownership of movie theaters and turned to producing films of its own even before the war. Young actors from the Berlin stages were not unwilling to make a little extra money in the studios. Stage directors for their part profited by reducing the wages of these actors ; moreover, they realized, not without satisfaction, that the theaters could now appeal to moviegoers anxious to adore their screen favorites in the fleshY Admission of films into the realm of the officially sanctioned arts went hand in hand with the evolution of a native film industry.

Max Reinhardt himself was engaged in directing motion pictures.

From Arthur Schnitzler's comedy Liebelei to Richard Voss's obsolete middle-class novel Eva, few reputable works were being overlooked by the screen. But this elevation of the film to literary high life proved, as might be expected, a blunder. Traditionally attached to the ways of the theater, the stage people were incapable of grasping the different laws of the new cinematic mediUm. Their behavior towards the movies was condescending. They welcomed them as a means of emphasizing the art of the actor, and moreover, as a wonderful opportunity to popularize theatrical productions.

What the screen meant to them was simply the stage again. In the summer of , Reinhardt's pantomime Sumurwn was made into a film which bored its audience by wasting 2, meters on an exact duplication of the original stage performance. The so-called film reformers Kinoreformbewegung , including teacher associations, Catholic societies and all kinds of Vereine in pursuit of cultural aims, exerted an analogous influence. The resemblance to the American Puritan leagues is obvious. In the eyes of the film reformers this was a crime.

For any "literary" film had but one duty: Was it for the sake of art that these spokesmen of the educated middle class shielded Schiller so ardently? In all cases where a German film has been shown in the United States under an English title accepted by the trade, this title will be used in the text. If no American trade title exists, the translation appearing in parentheses is the author's own. TIle date given with a title always refers to the year of release.

Fortunately, all efforts to ennoble the film by dragging it into the sphere of stage and literature aroused the scepticism of film experts and encountered the salutary indifference of the masses. The film version of Swmurun was reproached by its audiences for a complete lack of details and close-ups offered by even the average filrri.

Of most films of the time only the titles and perhaps a few stills remain to us ; but it can be presumed that they somewhat resembled the exercises of a student who has not yet learned to express himself with facility. In the detective film emerged, a genre obviously inspired by the French cine-romans, which were adopted in America during the war. I5 The first German master-detective to be serialized was Ernst Reicher as eagle-eyed Stuart Webbs, who, with the peaked cap and the inevitable shag pipe, had all the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes.

Since he enj oyed an immense popularity, he was soon followed by competitors vainly trying to outdo him. He, the single-handed sleuth who makes reason destroy the spider webs of irrational powers and decency triumph over dark instincts, is the predestined hero of a civilized world which believes in the blessings of enlightenment and individual freedom. Lnst, I, Role intellectuel du Oinema, p. Their deep-founded susceptibilities to life abroad enabled them, nevertheless, to enjoy the lovely myth of the English detective.

Greatly indebted to Asta Nielsen, they appealed to German audiences by focusing upon psychological conflicts unfolded in natural settings.

Broncho Bill and Tom Mix conquered the hearts of the young German generation, which had devoured, volume after volume, the novels of Karl May-novels set in an imaginary Far West and full of fabulous events involving Indian tribes, covered wagons, traders, hunters, tramps and adventurers. To staid and settled adults the spell this shoddy stuff exerted on boys in the early teens was inexplicable ; but youngsters would shed tears of delight when the noble Indian chief Winnetou, having become a Christian, died in the arms of his friend Old Shatterhand, a righter of wrongs, and a German, of course.

By their simple manner and untroubled outlook, their ceaseless activity and heroic exploits, the American screen cowboys also attracted many German intellectuals suffering from lack of purpose. Because they were mentally tossed about, the intelligentsia welcomed the simplifications of the Westerns, the life in which the hero has but one course to follow. In the same fashion, at the outbreak of the war, numerous students enthusiastically rushed to volunteer in the army. They were drawn not so much by patriotism as by a passionate desire to escape from vain freedom into a life under compelling pressure.

They wished to serve. Besides the Westerns, short comedies featuring Max Linder, Fatty and Tontolini were the vogue of those years. All strata of Ger"Zahlen sehen uns an," 25 Jahre Kinematograph, p. The Germans liked that sort of visual fun. As early as , a German writer stated plainly that the Germans were short of comical film ideas-a domain which, he admitted, the French and after them the Americans had learned to explore with mastery. The hero--a sweet, rather helpless individual who would never harm anyone--pulled through in a world governed by chance. The comedy adjusted itself in this way to the specific conditions of the screen ; for more than any other medium the film is able to point up the contingencies of life.

It was a truly cinematic type of comedy. Had it a moral to impart? It sided with the little pigs against the big bad wolf by making luck the natural ally of its heroes. That such comedy founded on chance and a naIve desire for happiness should prove inaccessible to the Germans arises from their traditional ideology, which tends to discredit the notion of luck in favor of that of fate.

The Germans have developed a native. Such dispositions were of course incompatible with the attitudes underlying the performances of a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. There exists, moreover, a close interrelationship between intellectual habits and bodily movements.

The German actors may have felt that, owing to their credos, they were hardly the type for gags and gestures similar to those of the American film comedians. Not only part of the German youth, but also the clan of the filIn reformers firmly believed that it would imbue their 19 Mollhauseo, "Aufstieg des Films," Ufar-Bliitter.

Dated September , it extols the war as a sure means of realizing the noble designs of the film reformers, and finally turns into one of those bellicose dithyrambs not at all unusual then. May it allow us to live again, and make us eager to risk our lives in deeds such as this hour commands.

Peace had become insupportable. Peace, to be sure, had seen the German film industry caught in a crisis. The domestic output was far too insignificant to compete with the foreign films crowding the movie theaters, which had seemed to increase for - the sole purpose of absorbing the influx from abroad.

Products of Pathe Freres and Gaumont inundated the German market. After the frontiers had been shut, Germany belonged to the German film producers, faced now with the task of satisfying on their own all internal demands. In addition to the regular movie theaters numerous military ones spreading behind the front lines demanded a permanent supply of fresh films.

It was lucky for the film-makers that just before the war large and modern studio plants had been completed. According to a seemingly reliable survey, the number of these companies rose from 28 in in Movie theaters also flourished and grew more and more luxurious. It was a period of abundant dividends. The middle to class began to pay some attention to the cinema. One would think that under such auspicious circumstances Germany might have succeeded in creating a cinema of her own, of truly national character. During Hiifker, Der Kino und die Gebildeten, p.

Boehmer and Reitz, Film in Wirtschaft und Recht, p. Deutsche Filmkunst, I, Griffith, Chaplin and Cecil B. But the German evolution was not similar. From October on, Messter substituted for the prewar newsreels of Pathe Freres, Gaumont and Eclair weekly film reports which pictured diverse war events with the help of documentary shots. Disseminated among the neutrals as well as in the fatherland, these illustrated bulletins were supplemented by staged propaganda films in which extras put into British uniforms surrendered to valiant German troops.

The design was to obtain impressive pictorial material which would also serve as an historic record. The French had nearly the same ideas about the utility of war documentaries, and realized them with no less determination. When, about the middle of , it became obvious that the gay war of movement had changed into a stationary war of uncertain issues, the moviegoers apparently refused to swallow the patriotic sweets any longer. A marked shift in entertainment themes occurred. By resuming part of their normal interests, people adjusted themselves to the stabilized war. A multitude of comedies emerged, transferring to the screen popular B erlin stage comedians in proved theatrical plays.

They laid hold of such stereotyped figures as the Prussian lieutenant or the adolescent girl, and, in the main, indulged in wanton sex fun. Not content with minor stage roles in classic dramas, he, the Reinhardt actor, found an outlet for his nimble wit and ingenuity by 23 Rohde, "German Propaganda Movies," American Cinematographer, Jan. One of them features him as a J ewish apprentice in a Berlin shop who, always on the verge of being fired, ends as the son-in-law of his boss.

He soon took pleasure in directing, himself, such one-reel comedies. Occasionally, a sure instinct seized upon a story that later would be picked up again and again. Sudermann's outmoded novels and theatrically effective plays were first translated to the screen during that p eriod. Although this development lacked strong impulses and striking results, it nevertheless established traditions that facilitated the final breakthrough. The decisive contribution of the war and prewar years was the preparation of a generation of actors, cameramen, directors and technicians for the tasks of the future.

Kalbus deals extensively with the German war output; cf. They learned b y their own mistakes. Emil Jannings-he, too, subsequently prominent in Nazi Germany-writes about his debut as a film actor during the war: Did I really look as stupid as that? They all were later to build up a sort of repertory company. Indeed, the cast of every film to be released in Germany would include members of this "guild," which, in spite of continually acquiring new recruits, kept its old guard intact.

While Hollywood cultivates stars rather than ensemble effects, and the Russian cinema often uses laymen as film figures, the German film is founded upon a permanent body of players-highly disciplined professionals who adjust themselves to all changes in style and fashion. Not the predecessors of Werner Krauss or Albert Bassermann, but they themselves passed across the screen during the first World War -figures irrevocably separated from the present day.

From about on, this ingenious blonde, much praised as the ideal type of German woman, maintained herself in the favor of the public, playing with equal ease comic and tragic parts, vulgar farmer's wives and sensitive ladies. When he showed up in evening attire, he epitomized an immature girl's daydream of a perfect gentleman, and the boyish charm he radiated was as sweet as the colored sugar-sticks which, in European fairs, are the delight of children and blase aesthetes.

His films were in the black-and-white style of the dime novels rather than the shadings of psychological conflicts ; they superseded tragic issues with happy endings, and, on the whole, presented a German variation of the Anglo-American thriller. This bright and pleasing trash stands isolated against a mass of somber "artistic" products. The most fascinating personality of the primitive era was the Danish actress Asta Nielsen. She agreed, settled in Berlin, and there, about , began to appear in films which during the war stirred French as well as German soldiers to adorn their dugouts with her photograph.

She is the vision of the drinker and the dream of the lonely man. She laughs like a girl completely happy, and her eye knows of things so tender and shy that one could not speak of them," and so forth. At a time when most actors still clung to stage devices, Asta Nielsen developed an innate film sense which could not but inspire her partners.

Diaz, her early biographer, wondered at the confusion of futile obj ects piled up in her home--a collection including semielegant articles of men's clothing, optical instruments, little walking sticks, distorted hats and impossible wrappers. And I like to form so detailed an idea of my characters that I know them down to the last externals, which consist precisely of all these many bagatelles. For the Apollinaire quotation, see Diaz, p. Three of them mirrored fantastic worlds full of chimerical creatures ; this was in harmony with the progressive German film theories of the time.

Hermann Hafker-he who praised war as the salvation from the evils of peace -advised film poets to interweave real and unreal elements. The war enthusiast fond of fairy tales: Similarly, Georg Lukacs, who was later to change from a bourgeois a. To download from the iTunes Store, get iTunes now. Bloody Christmas, Alex Cross! Doch schon am Heiligabend erreicht ihn ein dringender Notruf: Die Situation droht zu eskalieren.

Und dies ist nicht die einzige Hiobsbotschaft: Overview Music Video Charts. Opening the iTunes Store. If iTunes doesn't open, click the iTunes application icon in your Dock or on your Windows desktop. If Apple Books doesn't open, click the Books app in your Dock.

MAINTENANCE

Click I Have iTunes to open it now. View More by This Author. Description Bloody Christmas, Alex Cross! Other Books in This Series.

• Pentagon Possessed: A Neocon Horror Story
• Nadjas Prüfung (German Edition)
• Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in World Literature (Libraries Unli
• Incubus Master: Captured 1
• Oceans and Human Health: Risks and Remedies from the Seas
• The Twits: Plays for Children