German Expressionism

[@jlovebirch]

Sorry, kiddo, but horror movies go back to the 1900s with several adaptations of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (in the US and Europe). In Germany, horror began with The Other (1912), The Strange Girl (1913), The Student of Prague (1913), The Golem (1914), and Homunculus (1916). Caligari was just the first Expressionist film. Expressionism is based on creating an artificial, theatrical, dreamlike setting for expressing powerful inner emotions. Nosferatu, for example, is the opposite with its naturalistic style, practical locations, and 19th-century style romanticism. Sadly, today Expressionism has lost its original meaning and is now a generic term for any highly stylized film with moody shadows and oblique camera angles.

[@traveltheworld106]

Thanks for you comment. I know there are many earlier horror films such as The House of the Devil (1896) directed by Georges Méliès however many film historians cite The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as being the earliest "modern horror film". Also the only known copy of Méliès film was bought at a junk shop in New Zealand before the WWII and wasn't "rediscovered" until 1985. A lot of these early examples of what could be considered horror films are thought to be lost or are being made available for the first time. The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari from all of my research is the first film that there is a general consensus of being a modern horror film with a lot of the plot structure you would expect to go along with that. I agree that Expressionism has been diluted and that anything that remotely resembles Expressionism is just called that with little understand of the word or its meaning. What I attempted in this presentation was to highlight the philosophical implications of Expressionism and explore how it continues to impact art and life today. I don't necessarily agree with some of the modern filmmakers and artists being labeled Expressionist however I wanted to mention some examples other people are drawing so that everyone can come to their own conclusion about how much a given filmmaker for instance is or is not Expressionist. It is not my job to tell people exactly what it can look like in modern day. You may have already heard of this book but I recommend you read From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film by Siegfried Kracauer if you are very into early German cinema and Expressionism. They also made a documentary titled From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses back in 2014. I hope you still felt you got something out of my presentation!

[@jlovebirch]

@@traveltheworld106 Méliès cranked out short, experimental featurettes, not full-length films. "Modern" is a relative term with a brief shelf-life. When the first version of "The Student of Prague", based on Poe and Faust, was released in 1913, it was a modern (Gothic) horror film -- that greatly influenced German cinema. Caligari is "modernist", in terms of set design -- based on a then-current art trend that only lasted a few years. After Destiny and Metropolis, German filmmakers turned to grim street realism and crime dramas. I've seen the Caligari to Hitler documentary and have read "The Haunted Screen", the definitive book on the subject. And I have an extensive article on early German cinema in the current issue (#132) of Scary Monsters magazine.