German Expressionism

or the topic within the film? Although the genre is flooded with gore and jump-scares, the films that are based in mystery and ideas can be equally as scary to the viewer. Considering horror films is rooted heavily in the German Expressionist movement, and specifically The…

German film industry prior to the events of World War I was small compared to the American and other European cinemas. They would often screen features from America and France. (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008). However, the aftermath of their defeat in 1918, led the Germans to approach the world in a dysfunctional manner, which subsequently led to the birth of German Expressionism. German Expressionism was essentially a cultural movement designed to get away from the real world and to satisfy the…

German Expressionism’s goal was to express feelings in the most extreme and straightforward fashion and used distortion to show an emotion rather then a facial appearance. Soviet Dialecticism used film “montage” to show collisions of different elements. The Dialecticism goal was to convey characteristics and sensations in the most direct fashion. German Expressionism’s narrative structure was formed from legends and the actions of the supernatural, while Soviet Dialecticism’s narrative…

things from the beginning of the semester I enjoyed learning about and am still extremely interested in are Orson Welles, the Lumiere Brothers, Silent film and the German expressionist movement. I find Orson Welles interesting due to his life, his three career transitions, and how he had so much talent that was wasted because of his ego. Welles’s life is extremely incredible seeing he had three incredible careers. His start in the theater is interesting because he obviously was talented, but…

German Expressionism and Soviet Montage are two styles of filmmaking that emerged in the early 1920’s. German Expressionism can be seen as a reactionary art movement to the poverty stricken Germany in the wake of a crushing defeat in WWI. Its stylistic techniques as well as subject matter embodied the tone of the German masses in the post war era. Soviet Montage was also stylized by the current state of the Soviet Union that created it, it was popularly used as a form of propaganda and the…

Of some of the many early films, Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), can be noted for its impact on film history as being one of the first films of its kind. This new genre of film inspired many more films to come in the Universal Hollywood film era. One distinguished area of Frankenstein is its strong ties to German Expressionism, which called for a new ways of cinema. This new wave of Cinema was noted for its “great burst of artistic activity” (TEXTBOOK). In Frankenstein the use of this…

the overall feeling of the German people following World War I and their bitterness of the wartime government during this time. The director, Wiene and the writers of the film, Janowitz and Mayer, used a new form of art called expressionism in the film to show how to German people were experiencing great physical and psychological hardships after the War. Siegfried Kracauer explains that the film depicts a revolutionary story in which Janowitz and Mayer show how the German authorities during…

I remember reading in the article about German Expressionism that “shapes are distorted and exaggerated to reflect emotional states”, also that often times characters “move in jerky or slow sinuous patterns” (471). I saw this happening in the scene right after Neo takes the red pill and he stares into the mirror (31:10). The mirror distorted to reflect Neo’s world and viewpoint being changed, and when he sticks his finger into it and pulls it out even though he starts making well defined slow…

Universal Studios dubbed the “Universal Monster Movies” made their way into theaters and began to shape the Horror genre in America. These films, which were based on classic literature, featured foreign stars, had low budgets, and saw influence from German Expressionism, were met with financial success and audience approval. The Universal Monster Movies display a significant era in film history where a genre was shaped, not necessarily through intention, but as a result of a financial crisis. …

Expressionism was a modernist movement that originated in Germany during the early twentieth century. The expressionist movement was highly recognized in art, architecture, literature, and films that aimed to reflected specific concerns dominating public life in Germany. This paper discusses the qualities that define three classical German Expressionist films, including Friedrich Wilhem Murnau’s film Nosferatu- A Symphony of Terror, Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis, and Robert Wiene’s film The…