The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt

 

The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt by Lotte H. Eisner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know where or when my fascination with silent movies began. Definitely not as a child. I couldn't stand the things back then. I think it might have been after I discovered The Dark Side of the Rainbow and realized that the same technique of watching one piece of visual media while listening to another piece of aural media could easily be applied to silent movies. Suddenly, these often-campy, over-acted films could become something sublime or something sinister, with the right music. Eisner's book was grist for that mill in enough volume to last me the rest of my life. Though I was very familiar with a few of these films and had already tried the trick of using two tabs of Youtube in a web-browser - one (the film) set on mute and the other (the music) with volume UP - I found several other good combinations and a couple of great ones. I will continue exploring this way.

If you'd like to give it a try, look up The Student of Prague (1913) or Waxworks on Youtube. Mute that tab. Now open another tab, go to Youtube, then play something like Ligeti's "Lontano" or Penderecki's "Symphony No. 1" (or, for real ambience, play it on vinyl!) with the volume UP. Or, perhaps you'd like to go another route and listen to some more . . . modern music? I have a few suggestions linked here.

I suggest watching without subtitles turned on, if you can. just enjoy the visual and auditory experience. It's a stark contrast from watching the movie alone, even when, or especially when, someone has attached an old-timey organ soundtrack to the movie. It's your experience - make it yours!

Incidentally, because of this book, I understand why sub-titles are called sub-titles. Only took 52 years to be enlightened. "Titles" was the term originally used in silent movies for the words that flashed up on the screen, in the absence of spoken dialogue. "Subtitles" appear, as the name implies beneath the titles. These are, as you know, most often translations from the original language into another.

52 years.

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Speaking of new tricks, the early years of cinema were a sort of wild west, when it came to creative innovation, especially when constraints brought on by conflict interfered with the procurement of some materials. Interestingly, the lack of materials in the last years of World War I led to playwrights and cinematic directors using light and shadow, rather than elaborate sets, as they used to use, to give depth to the settings and to indicate the passage of time. A happy accident for early German movies.

The recollections of Carl Boese on how the special effects were done for Der Golem (1920) were absolutely fascinating. These practical effects were very dangerous, so volunteers were asked to try them out. The first stunt-men, perhaps. Knowing this has given me an excuse to watch the movie again. Of course, I will also have to reread Gustav Meyrinks novel, which has little to do with the movie, but hey, a good excuse is okay. After all, the book and the movie were both highly influential on one of my own creative works.

And, speaking of old dogs . . .

Eisner has a fixation on the melancholy and gloom inherit in the German soul, as he sees it. I tend to agree to some extent, but when I see this was first published in 1952, I wonder if some of the hyperbole isn't post-holocaust apologetics or manifestations of guilt. There's a bit too much of "Germans are brooding, dark-minded people as a whole" for me. It's overstated and I wonder why?

It is reasonable to argue that the German cinema is a development of German Romanticism, and that modern technique merely lends visible form to Romantic fancies.

These generalizations of German people as a brooding bunch keep coming up again and again. I don't fully disagree, but frankly (and I don't mean "in the manner of the French"), it got a little, well, old.

But if you can ignore the repeated caricature of an entire nation as, well, goths, there is much to be enjoyed about this work. I would also recommend (whether you read the book or not) following the Pagan Hollywood instagram or twitter account. Sometimes NSFW, you'll want to maneuver carefully, but if you want to catch the glamor of early cinema (and much more) in still photos, that's a great place to start. There's also a great interview with Pagan Hollywood's founder, Charles Lieurance over on Youtube, while you're at it.

I must note that the early text on Doctor Caligari instructed "see frontispiece". I turned to the front of the book, and noted the ragged edges where that key marker had been torn out of the book.

Was that a sign that I should not have entered the realm of the torn page?

Maybe I should have heeded it.

But I'm glad I didn't.



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