Website design By BotEap.comAfter World War I and until the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, Germany was the birthplace of a new style of cinema based on the stylistic traits of the Expressionist movement such as the use of chiaroscuro, dreamlike atmospheres, and exaggerated angles. . and compositions. The exact date of birth of this movement must be placed at the end of 1917, when the German government and army founded Universum Film AG (UFA).

Website design By BotEap.comThere are many in-depth studies of this movement in books, magazines, and even on the WWW, but this little essay is just my personal and original reflection on the movies I’ve had the chance to see and love.

Website design By BotEap.comCaligari! CALIGARI!!

Website design By BotEap.comDirected in 1919 by Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the most paradigmatic film of early German expressionism.

Website design By BotEap.comBrief Synopsis: A traveling fair visits a small German town. The main attraction of that fair is Dr. Caligari’s booth, where a sleepwalker named Cesare (Conrad Veidt) is advertised. One of the visitors asks the sleepwalker a very intelligent question: “How long will I live?” The weirdo replies: “You will die tomorrow…” Interestingly, the man -instead of laughing- seems very concerned about the sleepwalker’s prediction. Even more interesting, he dies the next day…

Website design By BotEap.comArt direction was provided by Walter Reimann and Walter Roehrig, members of the “Der Sturm Group”, an expressionist art group from Berlin, with world-famous artists such as Bruno Taut and Herwarth Walden. They created an original and fantastic makeup that fills the film with delirious imagery and emphasizes the protagonist’s own psychodestruction.

Website design By BotEap.comCaligari’s brutal dominance over the half-sleepwalking/half-zombie Cesare is easily interpreted as a metaphor for the fascist and authoritarian governments that emerged in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, as Siegfried Kracauer explains in his famous book From Caligari to Hitler.

Website design By BotEap.comMurnau’s Nosferatu

Website design By BotEap.comDon’t ask me how, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to get a copy of Friedrich Murnau’s oldest film, Schloß Vogeloed (The Haunted Castle, 1921). I wasn’t too thrilled, but the beauty of the makeup, the strange and haunting ending, and the surprising use of chiaroscuro were enough to draw me into Murnau’s light/dark universe, which will reach its zenith in the film I. I’ll review now.

Website design By BotEap.comA year after filming Schloß Vogeloed, Murnau was set to film his unrevealed masterpiece: Nosferatu, eine symphonie des grauens is based on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, but a lawsuit with the writer’s widow forced Murnau to change some aspects. of the film, such as the title or the name of the protagonist (Count Orlok). However, it was not enough and, due to the lawsuit, almost all copies of the film were destroyed. Deutsche Film Production was able to save one of them, and the film was finally released in the United States in 1929.

Website design By BotEap.comThe incredible performance of Max Schreck as the sinister Count Orlok (extremely thin, pale, rat teeth, raven nose, like a Transylvanian version of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons), the charm and painterly of his landscapes, and the beauty Lyrics of the The texts place the film at the pinnacle of the horror genre. Nosferatu is the most cryptic and necrophilous film, but also oneiric and romantic, based on the Transylvanian vampire, an authentic masterpiece that neither Tod Browning, nor Terence Fisher nor Francis Ford Coppola have ever surpassed.

Website design By BotEap.comMetropolis

Website design By BotEap.comAlong with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is considered the pinnacle of what was then called science fiction cinema. The influence on both later films is evident: Blade Runner’s opening sequences of dark, futuristic, neo-industrial Los Angeles seem to pay homage to the jaw-dropping cityscapes of Metropolis (see image left), while in Kubrick’s masterpiece the tribute is even in the title: Metropolis. The plot takes place in the year 2000, and Kubrick places his film a year later as a tribute.

Website design By BotEap.comBut while Blade Runner’s and 2001’s predictions had been pretty wrong (I haven’t seen any replicants out there, and Saturn is still a bit elusive), Metropolis’ doomed vision of the working class is a cruel metaphor that lives on today. Our times. Almost 40 years later, and without direct relation to this film, Julio Cortázar wrote a phrase that sums up the tragic message of Metropolis by itself: “…humanity will begin to be worthy of its name the day that the exploitation of beings human by human being stop”