Germany and the Scandinavian Influence
Germany’s film industry was undoubtedly Hollywood ’s nearest rival in the 1920s. The decade saw outstanding commercial and artistic success at a time when the German economy was on its knees. Between 1914 and 1923 the German currency had fallen from 4 marks to the dollar to 6 billion marks to the dollar. Germans had to carry money around in wheelbarrows simply to buy basic foodstuffs, mainly due to punishing war reparation repayments drawn up under the Treaty of Versailles. Hyperinflation left savings valueless overnight so people were forced to spend their money as soon as they had it. German films were one of the few products readily available and cinemas showed little else because of a wartime ban on most foreign films that lasted until 1920 and the exorbitant cost of importing pictures after that date. The export of films thrived during this inflationary period due to the low cost of buying German films abroad. Furthermore, inflation forced production companies to spend any profits they made immediately, which resulted in German studios being the largest and best equipped in Europe .
Almost the only foreign films which were allowed into Germany between 1910 and 1920 were Scandinavian. Their ‘sombre’ themes and tone struck a chord with German audiences and, encouraged by growth in the German industry, a whole colony of Danish directors and actors was established in Berlin . These artists helped to import Scandinavian high production values, expressionist lighting, camera techniques and an interest in psychology and the conflict between good and evil (or the rational and irrational) in human actions. Many Scandinavian films also had a reputation for exploring sensational themes, often with explicit sexual content. According to Paolo Cherchi (1996) ‘Den Hvide Slavehandel’ (1910) aka ‘The White Slave Trade’ marked a turning point in the evolution of fiction films throughout the world inaugurating a new genre, the ‘sensational’ film, set in the world of crime, vice or the circus:
‘One important consequence of the move towards ‘sensational’ drama was the development of new techniques in lighting, in camera-positioning and in set design. The case of ‘Den Sorte Drøm’ (‘The Black Dream’), by Urban Gad (Fotorama, 1911), is particularly noteworthy in this regard. For the high anxiety of the most intense scenes, the reflectors were taken down from their usual stands and laid on the ground, so that the actors threw long, dark shadows on to the walls.’ (Cherchi 1996)
Cherchi also notes that Scandinavian (particularly Swedish and Danish) cinema had profited from their countries’ neutrality during the First World War by making an impact on the European market and, at least, attempting to challenge American supremacy. The Danes led the development of feature length films and, ‘the cultural legitimization of cinema, which was encouraged by the appearance of established actors and actresses from classical theatre’. But after the war Scandinavia lost its precarious privileged position and many of the most talented actors and filmmakers such as Sweden ’s famous Victor Sjostrom (who worked at MGM as ‘Seastrom’) moved to American or Germany .
‘Expressionist’ Cinema
Designer-director Urban Gad (of ‘The Black Dream’) was just one of number of Danes who moved to Berlin and helped famous German theatre directors and actors steer their national cinema in a serious, artistic direction. Until the First World War German films were, on the whole, poorly and cheaply executed for a largely working-class audience. The rapid development of the German film industry was primed, initially by the concerns of senior military figures. Ufa , a government-subsidised conglomerate was formed in 1917 on the orders of general Erich Ludendorff to counter Allied and anti-German propaganda films that were entering the country. By the 1920s Ufa was the largest and best equipped studio in Europe and was attracting foreign talent for what would be a brief ‘golden age’.
German productions generally took three forms. The first of these was costume drama. Low wages meant that German companies were able to mount historical epics that could compete with more expensive American productions. Costume spectacles like ‘Passion’ (1919), ‘Madame Dubarry’ (1919), ‘Anne Boleyn’ (1920) and ‘Danton’ (1921) proved popular both in the domestic market and abroad. But it was the international success of a very strange film ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ directed by Robert Wiene, that helped typecast many German films from this era as ‘Expressionist’. ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ is a story told by a madman of medieval witchcraft and of a sleepwalking killer. A devious lunatic who calls himself Dr Caligari is shown murdering the citizens of a small German town through mind control of his somnambulist assistant Cesare. The demented Dr Caligari, it seems, murders purely for pleasure; but towards the end of the film we discover that the narrator of this story is, in fact, a patient in an asylum where the homicidal doctor is the senior psychiatrist. The madness within the tale, and of the storyteller, is suggested in the crooked, stylised settings, deep shadows and nightmarish make-up, movement and characterisation. As Knight (1957) notes:
‘Even the furnishings are unrealistic. When the young man reports his friend’s murder to the town constable, he finds the official perched high on a six foot stool writing in a tremendous ledger - an eerie symbol of authority.’
The film won tremendous acclaim and its influence on other filmmakers, both within and outside Germany , was enormous. ‘Caligari’ was admired internationally by artists and intellectuals and helped to make film a more respectable medium within their ranks. They recognized the film’s Freudian overtones, avant garde design, cubist and expressionist references (that ranged from the painted sets designed by prominent Expressionist artists to the theatrical performance styles).
German studio heads such as Erich Pommer acknowledged the export potential of a distinctively German cinema. The highly distorted, anguished and brooding atmosphere of ‘Caligari’, with its fractured narrative and subjective mood offered total ‘product differentiation’ from standard Hollywood fare. If other films followed in the shadow of ‘Caligari’ by dealing with spiritual terror, and employing symbolic settings, bizarre lighting and non-realistic acting then the commercial motive played more than just a small role in that choice.
Certainly the horror genre derived many of its influences and practitioners from German Expressionism. ‘The Golem’ (1920), ‘Destiny’ (1921), F.W Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ (1921), Fritz Lang’s ‘Dr Mabuse’ (1922) and ‘Metropolis’ (1927) all employed highly stylised decor, gesture and lighting, much of which became the hallmarks of Hollywood’s horror and monster cycle, led by German emigre talent. In particular, ‘Nosferatu’, one of the classics of the German Expressionist movement, foreshadows Hollywood ’s obsession with vampires. Janet Bergstrom (1996) remarks that Nosferatu’s shadow ascending the stairs towards the woman who awaits him evokes the entire silent era and genre of filmmaking. Max Schreck, in the role of Nosferatu is a passive predator, the very icon of cinematic Expressionism:
‘Based on Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ is a ‘symphony of horror’ in which the unnatural penetrates the ordinary world, as when Nosferatu’s ship glides into the harbour with its freight of coffins, rats, sailors’ corpses, and plague.’ (Bergstrom 1996)
In two important critical works, Lotte Eisner’s “The Haunted Screen’ (1969) and Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘From Caligari to Hitler’ (1947) it was argued that the horror lying at the heart of German Expressionism was an indication, or a premonition of, the horror that would be unleased by Nazi Germany in the Third Reich. Thomas Elsaesser (1996) remarks that films influenced by Expressionism in this period have a remarkably similar narrative structure:
‘The ‘lack’ which, according to narratologists, drives all stories, centres in the Weimar cinema almost invariably on incomplete families, jealousies, over-powering father figures, absent mothers, and is often not remedied by an attainable or desirable object. If one takes a dozen or so of the films still remembered, one is struck by their explicitly Oedipal scenarios, by the recurring rivalry between friends, brothers or companions. Rebellion, as Kracauer has already pointed out, is followed by submission to the law of the fathers, but in such a way that the rebels are haunted by their shadow, their double, their phantom selves.’
However, while Expressionism was undoubtedly an influential movement in the history of International film, many critics argue that it had little lasting impact on German cinema.
‘Street Film’ and the Decline of German Art Cinema
As with French Impressionism, the style of German Expressionism became too familiar to remain avant garde and artists, perhaps stung by charges of complicity with Nationalist causes, began to look with what was described as ‘New Objectivity’ at the problems of contemporary Germany.
Aside then from costume dramas and Expressionist ‘art cinema’, the third, and final, form of Germany ’s ‘Golden Age’ was what Kracauer has termed ‘the Street Film’. Once again the Scandinavian influence was clear. Films such as ‘The Street’ (1923), ‘The Last Laugh’ (1924) ‘The Joyless Street’ (1925), ‘Tragedy of the Street’ (1927) and ‘Asphalt’ (1929) were expertly crafted explorations of current social problems: unemployment, poverty, crime, gambling and prostitution. This new realism with a socialistic flavour often concerned the stories of middle- class characters or families drawn down to the dangers and insecurities of ‘the street’ - the world of the poor. In this respect ‘New Objectivity’ reflected the anxiety of the German middle class in a period of economic and political uncertainty. What Hollywood’s talent spotters and producers admired was the fluid, moving camera work, innovative set design, photography and expert direction of these and other German pictures and they were soon buying up the best of the country’s talent.
As head of Ufa ’s three production companies at the giant studios of Neubabelsberg, Erich Pommer could do little to stop the haemorrhage of talent. Unlike the Hollywood studios they went to, Pommer gave each of his film units great creative and financial freedom to perform their artistic and technical experiments. This freedom resulted in beautifully crafted films that ran over budget and finally brought Ufa to the point of bankruptcy (Bock 1996). The absence of stars (who were bought up by Hollywood as soon as they became well known) and of strong plots with easily identifiable conflicts had resulted in German films underperforming in the international and, in particular, the US market. As the German economy and currency recovered, Erich Pommer’s creative production unit could no longer afford the luxury of small international audiences for their expensive films.
Following the Dawes plan of 1924 (which eased the payment reschedule of Germany ’s crippling war reparations) Hollywood took advantage of the stronger mark to flood Germany with American films and buy its independent theatre chains. Facing bankruptcy at the end of 1925 Ufa was baled out by a $4 million loan by MGM and Paramount , who demanded the use of German studios, cinemas and creative personnel. Under pressure from Ufa ’s major creditor, Deutsche Bank, a new director (Ludwig Klitzsch) was appointed in 1927 who reorganised the studio under the central producer system preferred by Hollywood . Ufa now developed a stable of stars (such as Marlene Dietrich) and introduced sound within a year. As Elsaesser (1996) concludes, the extraordinary creativity of German cinema in the 1920s ended due to the loss of the independent creative film unit and the drain of talent away to the wealth of Hollywood :
‘..it was only during the political upheavals of the Republic’s final years that the German film industry matured into a financially viable business. Elsewhere in Europe, too, the days of an innovative art cinema were strictly limited; what is remarkable about the German cinema is how long these days lasted right at the heart of a commercial enterprise, which by its very nature should not have been able to afford them at all.’
The predominant trend in German cinema in the late 1920s, as in Britain and France , remained a deliberate ‘Americanization’ of genres, styles and production techniques. This trend continued in the following decades and represented Europe’s recognition of Hollywood ’s command of the western film market.