From Weimar to Film Noir

Common themes of the early Weimar films

• Irrationality – the environment reflects the individual’s interior anxieties

• The uncanny upsets the natural world – ghosts, vampires, etc

• The impact of industrial, capitalist society on human beings – particularly men

• The male individual feels alone and abandoned from the social world

• The doppelganger – ‘this is not the me I recognise’

• Society breaks down and evil is allowed to enter

• Psychological horror

George Grosz John the Sex Murderer. 1918

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Robert Wiene (1920)

Common themes of Classic 40s Film Noir

• Irrationality – the environment reflects the individual’s interior anxieties

• The impact of industrial, capitalist society on human beings – particularly men

• The male individual feels alone and abandoned from the social world

• A loss of self control - ‘this is not the me I recognise’

• Society breaks down and evil is allowed to enter

• Psychological depth – wrestling with conscience

Automat, 1927 by Edward Hopper

The Killers

Robert Siodmak

(1946)

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Robert Wiene (1920)

• Insanity and hysteria

• Authority is useless or corrupted

• Claustrophobic/paranoid atmosphere

• Chaos

• Narrative structure

Shell Shock Cinema – Anton Kaes (2009)

“The Weimar masterworks reveal a wounded nation in post-traumatic shock, reeling from a devastating defeat that it never officially acknowledged, let alone accepted.”

Coffins!

Male traumaNosferatu F.W. Murnau (1922)

The Street Film

• Artificial sets

• Strong use of lighting to create mood

• A generally dark and pessimistic atmosphere

• Depictions of strong emotion

• The central male character lost in events beyond his or her control

• The generally reductive portrayal of women

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

Attraction/repulsion

The Street Karl Grune (1923)

The Last Laugh F. W. Murnau, 1925

• Allegory of the national experience

• Masculinity brought low

Otto Dix Metropolis 1928

The domestic vsthe lure of thestreet

Asphalt Joe May (1929)

Fritz Lang’s M (1931)

The Nazi era

The cult of motherhood

Film Noir: genre or style?

Genre

Defined by narrative conventions:

• Plot structures

• Character archetypes

• Iconography

Style

Defined by cinematic technique

Particularly:

• Cinematography (esp. Lighting)

• Mise-en-scene

• Sound

Film Noir as style

High contrast lighting – not classic Hollywood soft focus

…straight from Weimar cinema

• Un-harmonious mise-en-scene –not harmonious

…straight from Weimar cinema

Irregular framing – not balanced composition

…straight from Weimar cinema

• Artificial sets used to carefully construct composition

• Strong use of lighting to create mood

• A generally dark and pessimistic atmosphere

• Depictions of strong emotion

• A solitary male character is lost in events beyond his control

• Women tend to be portrayed at extremes: femmes fatale or redeemers

“Rosie the Riveter,” by J. Howard Miller

The Production code

• Also known as the Hays Code

Conservative principles of the Hays

Code

Weimar cinematic technique

The wartime effect on the male psyche

Middle European mistrust of authority

Female aspirations

Hard-boiled pulp fiction

The collapse of the American Dream

Fascination with the eroticised female

B-Movie aesthetic

Stranger on the Third FloorBoris Ingster (1940)

• Direct visual influence of expressionism• Paranoia• Anxiety and the influence of the doppelganger• The monstrous outsider

• Flashback narrative structure

• Antihero as protagonist

• Expressionist influence in lighting, camera angles and mise-en-scene

Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941)

The Maltese Falcon – John Huston (1941)

• Pulp fiction adaptation• Character archetypes• Hard-boiled dialogue• Attraction/repulsion of gender relations• Assertion of male dominance at restoration of

equilibrium• ‘Cynical morality’

Double Indemnity – Billy Wilder (1944)

The opening shot

Double Indemnity – Billy Wilder (1944)

Pandora’s Box G. W. Pabst (1929)

The Lady from Shanghai Orson Welles (1946)