When I was a youngster, there used to be a showing of old horror movies on TV every Friday night at around midnight. I still remember the show was called Don’t Watch Alone. Luckily, my father was a Horror and Sci-Fi fan so he used to let me sit up with him to watch these movies. He used to joke that he had to let me stay up because it said in the screen not to watch it alone.
The slot was mostly filled with old Universal horror movies (which I still love watching to this day). But, in all honesty, once you get past the first two Frankenstein movies, Dracula and perhaps The Wolf Man and the Mummy, most of the others in this series were more like watching a WWE wrestling match as various combinations of monsters lined up to do battle with each other. Dracula’s Daughter, however, I think is a seriously underrated movie. Then, one night, something different came along. It was a movie called Nosferatu and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Even back then, I could see the very strong story similarities with Dracula (director F.W. Murnau had been refused the rights to film Dracula so simply rewrote the tale as Nosferatu). The story wasn’t what scared me; it was the very striking visual style (including Max Schreck’s portrayal of the vampire). I think this was also probably the first silent movie I can remember watching.
It was many years later before I discovered that Nosferatu had been one of a series of films that came under the collective title of German Expressionism. I’ve been a fan of that particular style ever since. Even today, the legacy of Expressionism can be seen in the work of moviemakers. Tim Burton and David Lynch being notable examples that have been heavily influenced by the style. Not only can Expressionist DNA be seen in the Universal horror pictures but also 1940s Film Noir is another cinematic style that evolved from Expressionism.
The movement itself only existed in its purest form for a short period of time (generally accepted to be 1919-1930). It’s already a hundred years old and there may be movie watchers unfamiliar or even unaware of its existence. So, what is German Expressionist Cinema?
In 1916, foreign movies were banned in Germany. This led to an increase in more home-produced movies within the Second Reich. The genre was already developing before this (from about 1913) but it wasn’t really until around 1919 that Expressionism really came into being – driven as it was by the madness, chaos and hunger caused by the Great War. It was probably inevitable that some German filmmakers would reflect these wounds inflicted on the German population in their work. We see a similar phenomenon happening in post WW2 Italy when movies like Rome: Open City and The Bicycle Thieves heralded the beginnings of Italian Neorealism, or even in Godzilla, the metaphorical nuclear weapon monster reflecting the traumatised post-atomic psyche of the Japanese nation post WW2.
The Allied powers had also banned German movies during the war period and, when it was finally lifted in 1922, Germany unleashed these movies on to an unsuspecting world and quickly became a major creative player in cinema at this time.
Stylistically, Expressionism is very striking. The actors use extreme gestures and exaggerated expressions (nothing unusual in a silent film medium). But, combine this with the carefully crafted use of light and shadow along with sets and props purposely built off-kilter and you get something both memorable and new. Everything from the acting, through lighting to the building of slanted and twisted sets is designed to express the madness and inner turmoil of the human mind. Little wonder then, that horror found a home in this new genre.
And so, on to the first of three movies I’ve decided to revisit.
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1919)
A travelling fair comes to town. Amongst the exhibits is Cesare the Somnambulist hosted by one Doctor Caligari. A series of murders suddenly hits the town and, eventually, the finger of suspicion points to the fair. There’s a twist in the plot too. By the end of the movie, we are left asking ourselves who is the true madman here?
The visuals are the real stars here. So slanted and twisted are some of the scenes that it really does feel like you have entered a painting by Bosch or Dali perhaps. The internal scenes are intensely claustrophobic with ceilings narrowing to a point, often giving the actors hardly any room to move. In one scene, as Caligari waits for a clerk to write up his permit, we see the clerk perched on a stool so high, he has to climb down rather than just step off it. Doors are wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, slanted to somewhere near forty-five degrees from the vertical. Windows are the same. Internal walls are painted with strange trails and abstract markings, as if we are entering a twisted imagination of some unknown and unrecognised controller of worlds. It all feels like somebody has taken a camera to a stage play and just let it roll. Perhaps this is how they actually meant it to feel when they filmed it? Cinema still didn’t really know where it was going and maybe it tried to emulate a more ‘credible’ art form.
The plot, by today’s standards, could be seen as somewhat predictable and the twist may even be seen as clichéd. But clichés don’t start that way. They become so through over-use. It may well be that way back then, the story was seen as fresh, exciting and horrific. It’s very easy to judge by holding a movie like this up against the more sophisticated storylines of today’s movies. It has to be remembered that this was cinematic story telling still in its infancy. It had hardly learned to walk and, here it was, trying to run. That is something that should be respected.
The slot was mostly filled with old Universal horror movies (which I still love watching to this day). But, in all honesty, once you get past the first two Frankenstein movies, Dracula and perhaps The Wolf Man and the Mummy, most of the others in this series were more like watching a WWE wrestling match as various combinations of monsters lined up to do battle with each other. Dracula’s Daughter, however, I think is a seriously underrated movie. Then, one night, something different came along. It was a movie called Nosferatu and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Even back then, I could see the very strong story similarities with Dracula (director F.W. Murnau had been refused the rights to film Dracula so simply rewrote the tale as Nosferatu). The story wasn’t what scared me; it was the very striking visual style (including Max Schreck’s portrayal of the vampire). I think this was also probably the first silent movie I can remember watching.
It was many years later before I discovered that Nosferatu had been one of a series of films that came under the collective title of German Expressionism. I’ve been a fan of that particular style ever since. Even today, the legacy of Expressionism can be seen in the work of moviemakers. Tim Burton and David Lynch being notable examples that have been heavily influenced by the style. Not only can Expressionist DNA be seen in the Universal horror pictures but also 1940s Film Noir is another cinematic style that evolved from Expressionism.
The movement itself only existed in its purest form for a short period of time (generally accepted to be 1919-1930). It’s already a hundred years old and there may be movie watchers unfamiliar or even unaware of its existence. So, what is German Expressionist Cinema?
In 1916, foreign movies were banned in Germany. This led to an increase in more home-produced movies within the Second Reich. The genre was already developing before this (from about 1913) but it wasn’t really until around 1919 that Expressionism really came into being – driven as it was by the madness, chaos and hunger caused by the Great War. It was probably inevitable that some German filmmakers would reflect these wounds inflicted on the German population in their work. We see a similar phenomenon happening in post WW2 Italy when movies like Rome: Open City and The Bicycle Thieves heralded the beginnings of Italian Neorealism, or even in Godzilla, the metaphorical nuclear weapon monster reflecting the traumatised post-atomic psyche of the Japanese nation post WW2.
The Allied powers had also banned German movies during the war period and, when it was finally lifted in 1922, Germany unleashed these movies on to an unsuspecting world and quickly became a major creative player in cinema at this time.
Stylistically, Expressionism is very striking. The actors use extreme gestures and exaggerated expressions (nothing unusual in a silent film medium). But, combine this with the carefully crafted use of light and shadow along with sets and props purposely built off-kilter and you get something both memorable and new. Everything from the acting, through lighting to the building of slanted and twisted sets is designed to express the madness and inner turmoil of the human mind. Little wonder then, that horror found a home in this new genre.
And so, on to the first of three movies I’ve decided to revisit.
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1919)
A travelling fair comes to town. Amongst the exhibits is Cesare the Somnambulist hosted by one Doctor Caligari. A series of murders suddenly hits the town and, eventually, the finger of suspicion points to the fair. There’s a twist in the plot too. By the end of the movie, we are left asking ourselves who is the true madman here?
The visuals are the real stars here. So slanted and twisted are some of the scenes that it really does feel like you have entered a painting by Bosch or Dali perhaps. The internal scenes are intensely claustrophobic with ceilings narrowing to a point, often giving the actors hardly any room to move. In one scene, as Caligari waits for a clerk to write up his permit, we see the clerk perched on a stool so high, he has to climb down rather than just step off it. Doors are wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, slanted to somewhere near forty-five degrees from the vertical. Windows are the same. Internal walls are painted with strange trails and abstract markings, as if we are entering a twisted imagination of some unknown and unrecognised controller of worlds. It all feels like somebody has taken a camera to a stage play and just let it roll. Perhaps this is how they actually meant it to feel when they filmed it? Cinema still didn’t really know where it was going and maybe it tried to emulate a more ‘credible’ art form.
The plot, by today’s standards, could be seen as somewhat predictable and the twist may even be seen as clichéd. But clichés don’t start that way. They become so through over-use. It may well be that way back then, the story was seen as fresh, exciting and horrific. It’s very easy to judge by holding a movie like this up against the more sophisticated storylines of today’s movies. It has to be remembered that this was cinematic story telling still in its infancy. It had hardly learned to walk and, here it was, trying to run. That is something that should be respected.
