Cinema in German During the Weimar Republic: 3D Gallery

Fritz Lang

In the unenlightened age of early Hollywood, lesbianism and homosexuality was kept secret from movie-goers but was, in some cases, encouraged by forward-thinking directors such as Josef von Sternberg who believed that same-sex (and particularly Sapphic) relationships lent emotional clarity, magnetic charm, and androgynous connotations to performances. Greta Garbo – one of the original ‘girl’s girls’ – called homosexual affairs ‘exciting secrets’ but then, according to Diana McLellan, went to great lengths to conceal some (but not all of them). According to McLellan, in Joyless street, Garbo Meet Dietrich for the first time. Dietrich is said to be an extra on the film and in a scene, Greta falls into her hands and it is said at that moment they fell in love and started their affair. While others said that it started in Hollywood at a party in 1956, due to the fact that must have not known each other as the extra role was never confirmed. However, Dietrich is not easily recognizable without her blonde hair but David Bret (Marlene's' long-time friend was told that the rumor was true on Marlene's deathbed by herself).

Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich

The Birth of Venus (Italian: Nascita di Venere) is a painting by Sandro Botticelli generally thought to have been painted in the mid 1480s. [more]

Robert Weine

Wiene was a film director of German silent cinema born in 1873. He is known for his best work of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) which had a deep of influence on the German Cinema at the time. The film exerted a strong influence on the atmospheric lighting techniques of film noir. Besides directing films, he also acted in some films and was also a screenwriter. He actually studied law at first in University of Berlin before starting to act in 1908, taking in some small parts on the stage. He died later in 1938 in France, ten days before the end of production of a spy film, Ultimatum, after having suffered from cancer. The film was later finished by Wiene's friend Robert Siodmak.

F.W Murnau’s “Nosferatu” (1922)

Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe also known as F.W Murau was a film director born in 1883. He revolutionized the art of cinematic expression by using the camera subjectively to interpret the emotional state of a character. Before becoming a film director, Murnau studied philosophy, art history, and literature at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin. Murnau also served in the German army and air force during World War I. After World War I ended, Murnau returned to Germany where he soon established his own film studio with actor Conrad Veidt. When working in Switzerland, he directed short propaganda films for the German embassy. For the next few years Murnau made films that were Expressionistic or supernatural in nature. His most famous work “Nosferatu” (Vampire) is a silent horror film and tells the story of a vampire that expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent.

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

Mr and Mrs Andrews is an oil on canvas portrait of about 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough, now in the National Gallery, London. [more]

Greta Garbo

On August 16 Greta Garbo traveled to Berlin. The journey took two days and for Greta, it was her first time abroad. The journey took the better part of two days. Berlin. Greta had never ventured beyond Sweden's tranquil borders, yet there was something familiar about the German capital to “an old soul” – even an eighteen-year-old one . “I will never forget when I came to Berlin. The smell of the city,” she reminisced in 1927 . “You can feel it in your breast, when it is coming. ... I could feel the smell long before we were really inside the city – it was as though I had smelled it before .. been there before ...”

The German press gave the picture amazing reviews. “The German people are wonderful they do not “touch” you but they have their arms around you – always", Greta told Photoplay in in 1927.

Gösta Berling was a great critical and commercial success in Germany, far more than Sweden. Trianon took in 750,000 marks in Berlin alone.

The Blue Angel

The Blue Angel is a 1930 German tragicomedy film directed by Josef von Sternberg. The film is based on Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat and is set in Weimar Germany. The Blue Angel tells the story of a tragic transformation of a respectable professor to a clown and his descent into madness. The film is actually the first feature-length German film with people talking in it. It had brought Dietrich international fame. It is also considered to be a classic of German cinema. The film was shot simultaneously in German and English-language versions, although the latter version was thought lost for many years. The German version is considered to be "obviously superior" as it is longer and not spoiled by actors struggling with their English pronunciation.

Fritz Lang

Lang's writing stint was brief, as he soon started to work as a director at the German film studio UFA, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building. In this first phase of his career, Lang alternated between films such as Der Müde Tod ("The Weary Death") and popular thrillers such as Die Spinnen ("The Spiders"), combining popular genres with Expressionist techniques to create an unprecedented synthesis of popular entertainment with art cinema.

In the films of his German period, Lang produced a coherent oeuvre that established the characteristics later attributed to film noir, with its recurring themes of psychological conflict, paranoia, fate and moral ambiguity.

Dr Mabuse

At the end of 1932, Lang started filming The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, and by March 30, the new regime banned it as an incitement to public disorder. Testament is sometimes deemed an anti-Nazi film as Lang had put phrases used by the Nazis into the mouth of the title character.

Lang was worried about the advent of the Nazi regime, partly because of his Jewish heritage,^[13] whereas his wife and screenwriter Thea von Harbou had started to sympathize with the Nazis in the early 1930s and joined the NSDAP in 1940. They soon divorced. Lang's fears would be realized following his departure from Austria, as under the Nuremberg Laws he would be identified as a Jew even though his mother was a converted Roman Catholic, and he was raised as such.

Metropolis

Probably the best-known German expressionist film, Metropolis is part-science fiction and part-social allegory. It depicts a future society where citizens have been split into two distinct classes: the elite, who enjoy lives of leisure in the sun, and the workers, who toil monotonously beneath the ground. The plot centres on two women: the compassionate Maria, who wants to reconcile the workers with the ruling class; and the robotic Hel, who is programmed to destroy the city. Metropolis was an incredibly ambitious project for its time.

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Cinema in German During the Weimar Republic

Fritz Lang

Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich

Robert Weine

F.W Murnau’s “Nosferatu” (1922)

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

Greta Garbo

The Blue Angel

Fritz Lang

Dr Mabuse

Metropolis

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