German expressionist cinema: from Caligari to Metropolis

After the First World War and until the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, Germany was the cradle of a new cinematographic style based on the stylistic features of the Expressionist movement such as the use of chiaroscuro, dreamlike atmospheres, and exaggerated angles and angles. . compositions. The exact date of birth of this movement must be placed at the end of 1917, when the German government and army founded the Universum Film AG (UFA).

There are many in-depth studies on this movement in books, magazines, and even on the WWW, but this little essay is just my original and personal reflection on the movies that I had the opportunity to see and love.

Caligari! CALIGARI !!

Directed in 1919 by Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the most paradigmatic film of early German Expressionism.

Brief synopsis: a traveling fair visits a small German town. The main attraction of that fair is the booth of Dr. Caligari, where a sleepwalker named Cesare (Conrad Veidt) is advertised. One of the visitors asks the sleepwalker an extremely clever question: “How long will I live?” The monster responds: “You will die tomorrow …” Interestingly, the man – instead of laughing – seems very concerned about the prediction of the sleepwalker. Even more interesting, he dies the next day …

The art direction was directed by Walter Reimann and Walter Roehrig, members of the “Der Sturm group”, an expressionist art group from Berlin, featuring world-famous artists such as Bruno Taut and Herwarth Walden. They created an original and fantastic makeup that fills the film with images of delirium and emphasizes the protagonist’s own psychodestruction.

Caligari’s brutal dominance over half-sleepwalker / half-zombie Cesare is easily interpreted as a metaphor for the fascist and authoritarian governments that emerged in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, as Siegfried Kracauer explains in his famous book From Caligari to Hitler. .

Nosferatu of Murnau

Don’t ask me how, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to get a copy of Friedrich Murnau’s first surviving film, Schloß Vogeloed (The Haunted Castle, 1921). I wasn’t very excited about it, but the beauty of the makeup, the strange and haunting ending, and the dazzling use of chiaroscuro were enough to get me into Murnau’s light / dark universe, which will reach its zenith in the movie I Will Now Review.

A year after filming Schloß Vogeloed, Murnau was ready to film his undisclosed masterpiece: Nosferatu, eine symphonie des grauens is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, but a lawsuit with the writer’s widow forced Murnau to change some aspects. of the film, such as the title or the name of the protagonist (Count Orlok) However, it was not enough and due to the demand, almost all copies of the film were destroyed. Deutsche Film Production was able to save one of them, and the film was finally released in the US in 1929.

The incredible portrayal of Max Schreck as the sinister Count Orlok (extremely thin, pale, rat-like teeth, crow’s nose, as a Transylvanian version of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons), the charm and painting of his landscapes, and the lyrical beauty of The texts place the film at the top of the horror genre. Nosferatu is the most cryptic and necrophilous film, but also dreamlike and romantic based on the Transylvanian vampire, a true masterpiece that neither Tod Browning, Terence Fisher or Francis Ford Coppola have ever surpassed.

Metropolis

Along with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is considered the heyday of then-called science fiction cinema. The influence in both subsequent films is evident: Blade Runner’s opening sequences from dark, futuristic, neo-industrial LA seem to pay homage to the astonishing cityscapes of Metropolis (see image left), while in Kubrick’s masterpiece the Tribute is even in the title: The History of Metropolis takes place in the year 2000, and Kubrick places his film a year later as a tribute.

But while the Blade Runner and 2001 predictions had been pretty wrong (I haven’t seen any replicants out there, and Saturn is still a bit elusive), Metropolis’ fatalistic working-class vision is a cruel metaphor that remains. valid in our times. Almost 40 years later, and without direct relation to this film, Julio Cortázar wrote a phrase that takes up the tragic message of Metropolis by itself: “… humanity will begin to be worthy of its name the day when the exploitation of being human for human stop “