Lola Lola Analysis

The representation of Lola Lola is, as suggested above, a new incarnation of woman. Thus, she does not fit into the classic manipulative/sexual female role of a femme fatale and, instead, occupies a much more dimensional character within the film. As Anton Kaes proposes “Lola Lola personified not only the vamp, but also a nurturing mother who strokes the beard of the starry-eyed professor and prepares breakfast for him after their first night together”. Her ability to move between both of these extreme and opposite paradigms of different types of women is exactly what earns Lola the classification of a new kind of female figure. Lola exhibits these two characterizations throughout the film and it isn’t uncommon that, in a given scene, she …show more content…
However, the following morning, Lola acts in a manner that contradicts her earlier, sexually enticing ways. She takes Rath’s jacket to hang for him, brushes his unruly hair, and scratches his chin while asking, very maternally, if everything is okay. Later on in the film, she shows this tenderness again during the wedding scene. When the magician and manager of “The Blue Angel” presents them with an egg after performing a trick during a wedding speech, Lola lovingly clucks at Rath. Playing along with her romantic jokes, he begins to make a “crkcrkcrk” rooster sound in response. The newly-weds gaze into eachother’s eyes as the rest of the wedding party laughs at their sweet display of love. However, her maternal and nurturing ways are quickly reversed, and serve as acts to manipulate Rath without him being able to notice what is happening in the moment. Ultimately, it is this ability to present such a duality between mother and mistress that allows her to gain excessive control over …show more content…
Firstly, the clucking sounds from the wedding scene come full circle to represent her manipulation as it reappears towards the end, when his downfall occurs. While, as mentioned above, the clucking first appeared in a way that highlighted the loving kindness between Rath and Lola, its second appearance comes under a much different context. After Rath has become embarrassingly dependent on Lola, he is forced to degrade himself by playing the clown in the magician’s act. When the magician forces him to make the “crkcrkcrk” sound, which was once a sound he associated with his love for Lola, he becomes irate and, spotting Lola offstage in the arms of another man, leaves the performance to go attack her. All the while, he makes the “crkcrkcrk” sound, emphasizing the manipulative effect that Lola has had on him and how remarkably their relationship has changed. Later that night, Rath makes his way to his old classroom, a space that used to be completely controlled by him. The classroom, just like the “crkcrkcrk” sound, is another reappearing thing in the film that demonstrates the dominating and destructive effect Lola has had on Rath over the course of their relationship. Early on in the film, Rath is shown sitting in the front of his classroom, where he clearly possesses a commanding effect-- even just a slight look at his students