This week we didn’t have an in person lecture, but a pre-recorded one from Henry.
German expressionism is something that I remember being taught about during my A-Level course, as well as its influences in later cinema movements. This was a good refresher for me as well as letting me learn about other directors and films that I hadn’t heard of before.
I went and supplemented the lecture with this online video that covered more of the content that I had remembered from school, like the Cabinet of Dr Caligari as well as how techniques created from this movement can be seen in film noir and Horror films. As well as highlighting certain reasons for the techniques and how that made the audience feel.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/german-expressionism-film/
History
In 1920s Hollywood was the leading film film factory in the world but it was German filmmakers that overcame them in Special Effects. The idea of Expressionism allowed the financial issues of the post war Germany to still produce films with a lower budget. It also was more effective in creating emotions, tension and tied into their love of fairy tale stories.
Then when German filmmakers decided to cross the water to escape the financial struggle, they ended up in America where they continued to develop their techniques in special effects and refine them further.
Techniques/Special Effects
The specific techniques that are most noticeable in German Expression are as follows:
High angles
Deep shadows/chiaroscuro lighting
Extreme camera tilting
Impossible sets
Also including other Mise-en-Scene elements like colour and painterly sets, deep eye make up (anything that distorts the frame in an unnatural way for effect).
Special effects started off being known as engineered effects, since it was up to the engineer to create them. This then evolved into Camera Effects, since it was how the camera was controlled that generated whatever the effect was. Finally, it was then known as special effects and Visual effects, with SFX being practical effects and VFX being made with CGI and such in post production.
Notable German Expressionist Filmmakers
Lang Fritz
Lang Fritz was known for creating Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1926). He was a major director of the UFA, Germany’s largest film studio.
Metropolis was Lang Fritz’s Masterpiece including animation, matte printing, and full-scale mechanical effects. This film broke away from the cheaper production element, and instead was more of an a creative indulgence of effects. The story is largely based on the loss of humanity which is portrayed through colour contrast and the frame composition.
When a specific character is not in focus, the camera is showing this idea of the machine: characters move in tandem and move mechanically which makes them lose their individuality and blending them into the parts of the world. When the camera is focussed on one character like with our protagonist, it focusses on the emotions and personality of the individual, the human qualities.
The camera movement also works towards this, when a member of the ‘machine’ is shown to be in pain the camera remains still throughout making it a cold hearted mechanical observer, yet when our protagonist reacts to this pain the camera has a subtle shake, that connects us to the character’s frightened mood which creates this empathetic quality to the observer (the camera).
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was known for creating (and having a lawsuit over) Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922).
The lawsuit over this was around Stoker’s Dracula, of which the story was larger inspired by. They weren’t given permission of the copyright to create this movie and this the court ruled in favour of the Stoker estate, ordering that all copies be destroyed but one made it overseas in the USA where Dracula was Public Domain (which is why we are able to have access to this film today). Nosferatu was this studios only release, as the Producer ended up filing for bankruptcy and closed down Prana Film Studios.
At an attempt to dodge this copyright, the film changed some elements of the film: Dracula’s name was changed to Orlok; The effect of sunlight on vampires; The vampire’s bite; The character’s appearance and personality; Replacing some characters. A lot of these elements have made it to our mainstream understanding of vampire lore.
Elements of note from Nosferatu include:
The use of colour to create the time of day: blue is used to create the idea of night, when vampires are most commonly about; red is used to represent dawn, also reflecting on the danger of the incoming sunlight; finally, yellow is used to signify the bright daylight.
The use of shadows show the action of the vampire when he isn’t in frame, leaning into this horror aspect
. Then we have when the sunlight hits the vampire, Orlok’s arm reaches out towards the sun and creates this parallel line with the roof top which then makes the foreground and background both come onto the same plane/layer also working to direct the sunlight and the audience’s eyes to the clutched hand on his heart (which mimics how in Dracula he was killed with the stake to the heart).
I feel like its a crime to not bring up The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari when discussing German Expressionism, as it pushes every technique of Mise-en-scene to create this wonderfully spooky atmosphere and distort the world it is in which in turn works as the whole story is revealed to be made up from our unreliable narrators perspective. The world is distorted so much because the story is entirely made up from distortions that this character has seen in real life.
What breaks this apart from the other films, is how the set and make up influences the characters and creates a tone. It is a lot more playful and breaks away from real life proportions and sets. The sets and characters both have these black lines that gives the set a really interesting illustrative appeal to them. The set themselves are almost caricatures of real life buildings that work to create these illusions of deep forests and dense buildings.
Elements from this movement of filmmaking are highly influential to Tim Burton’s style, particularly seen in Vincent: With the camera angles, Chiaroscuro Lighting and distortion throughout the short film.