The German Expressionist movement in film started in 1920 with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and ended with Metropolis in 1927; its influence is still being felt. The Weimar Republic that was killing the German mark and paving the way for the nazis in World War II also produced the atmosphere for some of the greatest filmmakers ever to thrive and create some of the greatest films ever made. Many of them would be seduced by Hollywood and see a chance to escape an increasingly hostile political environment. Expressionism was already a movement in painting and on the stage. The Weimar Republic was causing incredible inflation and had shutdown the importing of foreign firms but was encouraging the export of German films. The mix of these three things produced an environment for genius to thrive. Were going to look at three of those filmmakers: Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau.
What would Lubitsch have done?
Ernst Lubitsch was born January 29, 1892 in Berlin. At the age of 16 he discovered a love for acting and the stage. He dropped out of school and started out as a bit player in stage productions. To make ends meet he took a handyman job at Bioscope film studios. He would soon be acting in films there. He found success playing the Jewish comic relief. He would soon give up acting, instead focusing on directing. Lubitsch's film would be hugely successful and ,as we'll see the trend goes, he would be beckoned by that Siren's call and head for Hollywood. The enchantress that beckoned him west was Mary Pickford, who contracted him to direct Rosita in 1922. The director and star clashed, but the film was a huge critical and commercial success. In Hollywood, Lubitsch would stay making such classics as The Marriage Circle, Trouble in Paradise, and To Be Or Not To Be. He would also serve as the head of Paramount studios. "What would Lubitsch have done?" hung on the wall of the director Billy Wilders' office. At Lubitsch's funeral Billy Wilder would say "No more Lubitsch." Fellow director, William Wyler, responded, "Worse than that. No more Lubitsch pictures."
Master of Darkness
The most prolific and powerful of these three German directors was not born in Germany, but in Vienna, Austria-Hungry December 5, 1890 (although Hitler disagreed, Austria = Germany). Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, known as Fritz Lang, was the second son of an architect father and Jewish mother, although they where devoutly Roman Catholic. Between 1910 and the out break of World War I he traveled through Europe, Africa and Asia. When the Great War started he volunteered for the Austrian army fighting on the eastern front in Romania and Russia, being injured three times. After being discharged from the army in 1918, he started acting for a brief period of time with the Viennese theater circuit before being hired as a writer for a German production company. He soon started directing. His films started becoming increasingly more popular. In 1918 he met writer Thea von Harbou. They not only became writing partners, but also began an affair. Von Harbou would divorce her husband in 1920 and they would marry upon the death of Lang's wife in 1922. She would cowrite all Lang's films from 1921 - 1933. During the 1920's Lang would make such classics as the over four hour Dr. Mabuse the Gambler in 1922, and the over five hour long Die Nibelungen in 1924. He would then travel to Hollywood, stopping by New York City along the way. The skyscrapers of New York City would inspire his next film and the film that would bookend German Expressionism, that film was Metropolis. Metropolis was the most expensive German film up to that point. It ultimately would not be a huge success and would sink the studio. Given the test of time it ultimately would be received as not only one of the greatest science fiction films of all times but one of the greatest films of all times. He would follow Metropolis up with another science fiction film Lady in the Moon and then Lang would make the first German sound film M in 1931. Lang considered this dramatic thrill about a child serial killer and mob rule his greatest work. His next film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse would be his last film in Germany. Upon completion of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse he was called into the office of the propaganda minister of the new nazi government, Joseph Goebbels, who informed him that his film was to be banned, but Hitler was a huge fan of his films, particularly Metropolis, and they wanted him to be head of the German studio UFA. Lang stated that during that meeting he decided to leave Germany. While Lang might make it sound like he cleaned out his accounts the next day and hopped the next train to Paris, it was more likely that he left a few weeks or months later. He made one film in France before leaving to America where he make his first American film, Fury, with Spencer Tracy in 1936. Lang would eventually return to German cinema making his final film, the Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, in 1960. He would also act as himself in Jean-Luc Godard's masterpiece, Contempt. Lang past away August 2, 1976 in Beverly Hills, Ca.
"Murnau, raised in the dark shadows of expressionism, pushed his images as far as he could, forced them upon us, haunted us with them." - Roger Ebert
The last director that we will be looking at is arguably the greatest and had the shortest career. He pushed the movement of the camera to new places, played with shadows and light, used special effects to forward his stories, and gave us some of the most memorable images ever put on film. His name, Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe. He was born December 28, 1888 in Bielefeld, Province of Westphalia, German Empire. He would take the name Murnau after the town Murnau am Staffelsee which he said had an icy, imperious disposition and an obsession with film. He would be known as F.W. Murnau. He was already well read and making plays at home by the age of 12. During World War I he fought in the German Air Force, surviving several crashes.
After World War I he started directing films, making The Boy in Blue in 1919 and Der Janus-Kopf in 1920, staring Béla Lugosi who ten years later would play Dracula. Ironically, F.W. Murnau could not get the rights to Bram Stoker's novel so instead altered the story slightly and made his expressionist masterpiece and most well known film, Nosferatu. He would be sued by Stoker's widow and lose the lawsuit. The court ordered that all prints be destroyed. Luckily, that didn't occur. Murnau would stretch the movement of the camera in his 1924 film The Last Laugh before making his last German film, a visual tour-de force, Faust. After that he, like Lubitsch and Lang, would make his way to Hollywood, being offered complete control. He would make one of the cinema's greatest masterworks, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Many of the exterior scenes were filmed in Lake Arrowhead, Ca. The film won the first ever Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production (the only time the award was given, it was like a second best picture category). In the latest Sights and Sounds top films poll (2012), Sunrise was voted the 5th greatest film of all time. He would make three more films in America, dying in a car accident in Santa Barbara California a week before his last film, Tabu, was released.
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