Masters of European Formalist Cinema:

From German Expressionism

to Bergman

German Expressionism

• A film premiered in Berlin, late February, 1920.

• Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene

• Stylized sets with distorted buildings on canvas backdrops, crooked trees and lampposts, interiors in a theatrical manner.

• Completely non-realistic performance - jerky and dance-like movements

German Expressionism

• Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920)

• Thomas Eakins, The Champion Single Sculls (1871)• Realist painting: realistic representation of outward

appearance

• Photographic realism in painting – painter’s attempt to record reality as a camera does

• Thomas Eakins, Students at the Site of the “Swimming Hole” (Albumin print on paper, 1883)

• Thomas Eakins, Swimming (The Swimming Hole, 1885)

Claude Monet, La Cathédral de Rouen (Full Sunlight; Gold in Dull Weather; Harmony of Blue 1894)・ French impressionism - attempt to capture fleeting qualities of light.

Expressionism in Painting

• Abandonment of realistic representation and the expression of inner emotion through raw colours and distorted forms

• Large shapes of raw, unrealistic and symbolic colours expressing psychic condition.

Expressionism in Painting

• Anguish, anxiety, fear, vanity, pride and other invisible emotion and concepts represented by elongated figures and distorted faces

Expressionism in Painting

• Tilted, lean buildings, oddly angled streets, and distorted perspective express a state of mind, emotion and abstract idea.

Expressionism in Theatre

• Expressionist theatre

• Expressionistic stage design (Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weil, Drei groschen oper)

• Unnaturalistic performance

German Expressionism

• Actors and their performance fit to the composition of shots, set designs, costumes and lighting.

• ‘… the film image must become graphic art’ Herman Warm

German Expressionism‘If the décor has been conceived as having the same spiritual state as that which governs the character’s mentality, the actor will find in that décor a valuable aid in composing and living his part. He will blend himself into the represented milieu, and both of them will move in the same rhythm.’ Conrad Veight

German Expressionism

• Nosferatu: eine symphonie des grauns (Vampire: a symphony of horror, 1922)

• Directed by F.W. Murnau starring Max Schreck as Count Orlock (Count Dracula) based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula

• Albin Grau, art designer, costume designer and producer CLIP

European Art Films

• International avant-garde style - French, German, Soviet filmmaking as an alternative to American realist film style

• The epitome - Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

• The film depicting the trial and execution of Joan of Arc

European Avant-garde Films

• Great many close-ups, often decentered• Filmed against blank and grey background or

symbolic objects and signs (the sets designed by Hermann Warm, the designer of Caligari) The inquistion of Joan

European Avant-garde Films

• Close ups of the face of Joan of Arc (Italian comedienne Renée Falconetti) without make-ups - every emotional detail is shown.

• Dynamic low and high angle framings• Symbolic scenes juxtaposed in editing• Accelerated subjective editing (Soviet Montage

film)

・ Luis Buñuel (1900-1983 Spanish/Mexican)・ Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007 Sweden)・ Federico Fellini (1920-1993 Italy)・ Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007 Italy)・ Robert Bresson (1901-1999 France)・ Jacques Tati (1908-1982 France)