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German expressionism and the types and characteristics of german expressionism
Essay of German expressionism
German expressionism and the types and characteristics of german expressionism
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A Critique of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and The Last Laugh
Both The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, produced by Robert Wiene, and The Last Laugh, produced by F.W. Murnau, are excellent examples of films created in the golden age of German cinema. These two films make use of the camera in order to see inside a character's mind, a technique greatly refined throughout German Expressionism. The ideas, feelings, thoughts, and dreams of a character are carefully shown in a first-person view, and the tone and mood of the characters and plot are mirrored in the surrounding environment. The German films of this time, as well as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Last Laugh, were either fantasy or psychological type films. The fantasy type of film was distinguished by the revolving of action around the strange and bizarre, as was portrayed by Wiene. The psychological film's action, on the other hand, revolves around the particulars of the characters, such as the importance of the doorman's job and his status in Murnau's film. A discussion of these two films and their place in German
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Caligari, released in 1919, is unrefined to say the least, but yet it is considered to be a stellar example of German fantasy filmmaking. The reason for this is due to the fact that the film leaves an eerie impression on the viewer, due to the disturbing scenery and plot. The set was constructed in an upsetting manner; that is, the doors and windows and even walls of houses are crooked and skewed from all others, nothing stands quite straight up, the actors wore excessive makeup, and shadows filled the streets with ominous presence. The audience may notice this oddity, but it does not fully sink in as to why the scenes were arranged this way until it is realized that an insane man has told the entire story, and that it is all a fabrication of his mind that has been shown through his eyes by the
script, the viewer needs another way to interpret the film. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu
The first movie I would like to concentrate on is the film that is considered to have started the development of the genre – M by Fritz Lang (1931). Born in Germany and originally starting his career there, Fritz Lang shot this film in Germany as well, before moving to the U.S. later in life. This film was also later translated in the United States in 1933 (Garncarz 219-25). Although, earlier in the 20th century Hollywood had already produced a number of films that had similar features to “film noir” (among them are Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise (1927)), but which still were shot more in the stylistic traditions of horror (Wexman 49). This film (M (1931)) was also the first one to start a whole line of black and white movies with similar characteristics and techniques used in them. Although color movies have already taken their established place in the film industry, the decision to shoot films in black and white was a creative technique that provided films with a certain atmosphere and allowed using more denominated shadows and light accents. Everything in this film, from complex, maze-like narrative which includes crime, police and court and leitmotif as a background music to the shadows on the columns and in the windows and simple shots that presuppose something horrifying. Lang also explores an unsavory subject in his work which is now considered one of the features of “film noir” (Brégent‐Heald 125-38). M’s plot and narrative shifts from protagonist’s to antagonist’s point of view (the viewpoint of Hans and the cops trying to catch him), blurring the boundary between
Revolutionary forms of art have dominated much of Germany, apparently as a reaction to the First World War. The era in which the First World War took place – throughout the 1910s, featured artists coming together against what they think the pointless aggression said major conflict brought. German artists, in particular, protested against the social structures prevalent during the 1910s, within which the social structures of the Second Reich were prevalent. German society initially saw film, in particular, as quite an inelegant alternative to the bourgeoisie-associated theater. Such is due to the inability of the domestic film industry in Germany to develop films due to two reasons – the mass importation of foreign films from other nations with more advanced film industries and the consequent notion that films are associated with the lower classes (Kellner 3-39). Such impressions, however, changed with the rise of German expressionist film, with the seminal example being The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari by Robert Wiene.
Suspense is a 1913 film that portrays the story of a tramp intruding into a family’s home, where a mother takes care of her child while her husband is away. The plot is a common one that had been used previous times before the film’s release, such as in The Lonely Villa (1909). However, through taking advantage of the single frame shot, the filmmakers were able to create a masterful aesthetic of two separate stories that turn a basic plot into a complex story. The film created an inventive way of illustrating stories within cinema by allowing the audience the chance to consume more narrative in less time within just one take.
The purpose with this paper is to study and compare two different directors, and to compare and contrast the two different works. How are they working with their movies and how do they use mise-en-scene? By studying two different directors that uses different techniques when making movies, we are going to find out how important mise en scene really is, and how it affects the movie.
The film illustrates the common social and sexual anxieties that the Germans were undergoing at that period of time. It also employs cinematic aesthetics alongside with new technology to create what would be considered as one of Germany’s first sound-supported films. Furthermore, it was the film that popularized its star Marlene Dietrich. The film is also known for combining elements of earlier expressionist works into its setting without becoming an expressionist film itself. It is important also to point out that the visual element has helped to balance the film easily against the backdrop the nightclub lifestyle that Lola leads the professor to fall into.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920’s German silent-horror film. Robert Weine, the director, collaborated with the German cinematographer, Willy Hameister to create this German Expressionist masterpiece. The idea was taken from the screenplay written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Meyer. It is also considered one of the greatest horror films during the silent period. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and its historical context in terms of the German Expressionist movement will be discussed further in the essay.
An obvious difference in these films is that the 1931 version played to a Depression audience and that the Coppola version played to a modern audience. (I am being extremely careful because, obviously, the 1931 audience was modern in 1931; however, we like to think of ourselves as being more modern than past generations. There are differences in the audiences which viewed the respective versions in their time, and I hope to prove this point as the paper unfolds.)
German Cinema since Unification. Edited by David Clarke. Continuum, in association with University of Birmingham Press. 2006
Horror is one of the major genres for silent movie produced under Hollywood studio system during 1920s. American filmmakers had gone on exploring the classical Hollywood style, linking technique to clear storytelling because many foreign audiences had been cut off from the Hollywood product during the war (Thompson 58). The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) exemplifies the classical Hollywood style and represents the class differences characterized by a beautiful woman and an ugly “phantom” in the movie. In this paper, I will particularly analyze one of the famous scenes from the phantom of The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) – the “unmasking” scene.
Today, most movie goers categorize ‘silent films’ into one genre and discard the stark differences that make Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, The Great Train Robbery, and Broken Blossoms vastly dissimilar. In my opinion, these films clearly illustrate the evolution from silent film projection on a cafe wall to the birth of the hollywood that we know today. The profound contrast is most apparent in their stories, their performances, and the emotional response each film invokes. Collectively these films provide viewers with a clear perspective on how early film progressed from silent stills into what we call today, The Classical hollywood “silent” film era.
...both suggested that lighting and the style of chiaroscuro is probably the single most important element of cinematic Expressionism. However Dietrich Scheunemann disagrees claiming that many of the first films to claim to be expressionist pieces are simply not, and no amount of lighting will make them so. Scheunemann criticises the cinematography of the film 'The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari' stating that it is distinctively unimpressive He instead suggests that it is through the curved walls, oblique windows, slanting doors and strange radical patterns on the floor that the film establishes it's nightmarish atmosphere. In light of Schunemann's views on the visual representation of Expressionism, I hope to analyse the impact Expressionism had on other genres and how contemporary filmmaker Tim Burton has evolved these visual techniques to relate to a modern day audience.
The expressionist movement in German art and cinema was very sensitive to the current state of the country after a huge worldwide conflict. Prior to the rise of the next Nazi Regime, German filmmakers incorporated many aspects to their films that had never been used together before this period of time. M is no exception to
Analysis of an aspect of visual form in the film ‘Repulsion’ In the 1964/65 film ‘Repulsion’ by Roman Polanski, the story is about the conflict between reality and fantasy or sanity and insanity inside the main character’s mind – Carol played by Catherine Deneuve. Therefore the narrative technique of symbolism is used to display visually to the film’s audience what happens to Carol’s mind. In this particular instance, the degeneration of Carol’s state of mind is symbolised.