Weimar Film: Shadows, Yes, but Also Light

[lsanderson]

By DAVE KEHR
Published: November 11, 2010

German cinema of the Weimar years has given us some of the most famous images in film history: Cesare the somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) loping through the crooked alleys of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” the proud hotel doorman (Emil Jannings) reduced to a quivering washroom attendant in “The Last Laugh,” the robot Maria (Brigitte Helm) coming to life circled by rising rings of electricity in “Metropolis.”

Yet these represent only a narrow sample of a vast national industry, which at its height was second only to Hollywood in the number of films it produced, some 200 to 500 a year. More

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. Deeply relevant to a fiction project I'm trying to decide if I'm going to pursue. Definitely a reference starting point I needed if so.

Excellent!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Have fun at the Magic Flute, and don't sweat the small stuff.