post WWI, the Weimar Republic emerged in Germany. The government subsidized the Universum-Film AG (UFA) to make films that could compete with other countries. This led to the golden age of German cinema, which lasted 1919 to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933. German expressionism was it's most important contribution to world cinema.
Expressionism was a broader artistic movement in Germany early 20th century. It was in all of the arts, and the opposite of Impressionism (surface reality) and sees the world through the filters of human perception and emotion. It's use of heavy stylisation and shadowy lighting are widely admired and imitated.
MOMA German Expressionism collection
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Street, Berlin (1913) |
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Woman buttoning her shoe (1912-13) |
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Judas (from Umbra Vitae,1924) |
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| Kathe Kollwitz Self-Portrait, hand at the forehead (1910) |
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| Kathe Kollwitz Death Seizes a Woman (1934) |
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| Kathe Kollwitz The People (1922) |
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| Egon Schiele Shaw or the Irony (1910-12) |
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| Egon Schiele Squatting Woman (1914) |
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| Egon Schiele Poster for the 49th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession (1918) |
Cinematic Style: German expressionism uses stylised worlds with artificial sets, elaborate costuming and unnatural makeup. Cinematography emphasises bold contrasts of dark shadows and bright highlights. Chief characteristics are distorted and exaggerated settings, compositions of unnatural space, use of oblique angles and nonparallel lines, moving and subjective camera, highly stylized acting. protagonists have extreme psychological states which reflect their strange environments.
key themes: madness, fractured identity.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920): most famous of the style
story of fantasy and horror told by a madman.
influenced film noir and horror movies in Hollywood
First vampire film came out of this movement: Nosferatu, a symphony of Horror (1922) by F. W. Murnau
the first of many adaptations of the Dracula story
Metropolis by Fritz Lang, one of the most influential science fiction movies of all time
vast sets, thousand sof extras and special effects, the most expensive film in Germany at the time and almost bankrupted UFA
also notable
The Golem (1920), last laugh, M, Faust
Tim Burton's movies are heavily influenced by German Expressionism
Vincent (1982)
Other filmmaker's that have been influenced by German Expressionism
Alfred Hitchcock (according to The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred hitchcock by Steven Jacobs
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| Still from "Vertigo" (1958) |
Nosferatu's influence continues to be felt widely. Werner Herzog remade it in 1979 and his star Klaus Kinski's febrile intensity was similar to Schreck's. In 2000, Willem Dafoe starred as Schreck in the self-reflexive Shadow of the Vampire, a fictional film about the making of Nosferatu.
Metropolis' influence on Star Wars
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| Maria's robot double |
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| C3PO The Nasty Girl (1990) |
A German film which explores what happens to a woman who decides to investigate her town's Nazi past. In one scene, the protagonist goes to the library. She and hte actor playing hte librarian stand next to a photocopier and a projected image of a giant library. Other "flat" sets are used to great effect in the film.
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