Expressionism in the Cinema

by Brill, Olaf; Rhodes, Gary D.

• ISBN13: 9781474403252
• ISBN10: 1474403255
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-03-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

One of the most visually striking traditions in cinema, for too long Expressionism has been a neglected critical category of research in film history and aesthetics. The fifteen essays in this anthology remedies this by revisiting key German films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), and also provide original critical research into more obscure titles like Nerven (1919) and The Phantom Carriage (1921), films that were produced in the silent and early sound era in countries ranging from France, Sweden and Hungary, to the United States and Mexico.

An innovative and wide-ranging collection, Expressionism in Cinema re-canonizes the classical Expressionist aesthetic, extending the critical and historical discussion beyond pre-existing scholarship into comparative and interdisciplinary areas of film research that reach across national boundaries.

Author Biography

Olaf Brill is a German-based freelance writer and editor for film institutes, museums and festivals, including the German Film Institute - DIF, Frankfurt, the Filmmuseum Berlin, and CineGraph, Hamburg.

Gary D. Rhodes currently serves as MA Convenor for Film Studies at The Queen's University in Belfast.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Editors' Introduction

Section I: Expressionism in German Cinema
1. Expressionist Cinema: Style and Design in Film History, Thomas Elsaesser
2. Of Nerves and Men: Postwar Delusion and Robert Reinert's Nerven, Steve Choe
3. Franjo Ledic: A Forgotten Pioneer of German Expressionism, Daniel Rafaelic
4. Expressionist Film and Gender: Genuine, A Tale of a Vampire (1920), Mirjam Kappes
5. 'The Secrets of Nature and Its Unifying Principles': Nosferatu (1922) and Jakob von Uexküll on Umwelt, Steve Choe
6. Raskolnikow (1923): Russian Literature as Impetus for German Expressionism, John T. Soister

Section II: Expressionism in Global Cinema
7. The Austrian Connection: The Frame Story and Insanity in Paul Czinner's Inferno (1919) and Fritz Freisler's The Mandarin (1918), Olaf Brill
8. 'The rewakening of French cinema': expression and innovation in Abel Gance's J'accuse! (1919), Paul Cuff
Here Among the Dead: The Phantom Carriage (1921) and the Cinema of the Occulted Taboo, Robert Guffey
9. Drakula halála (1921): The Cinema's First Dracula, Gary D. Rhodes
10. Le Brasier ardent (1923): Ivan Mosjoukine's clind' Doeil to German Expressionism, Bernard McCarron
11. Nietzsche's Fingerprints on The Hands of Orlac (1924), Phillip Sipiora
12. 'True, Nervous': American Expressionist Cinema and the Destabilized Male, Robert Singer
13. Dos monjes (1934) and the Tortured Search for Truth, David J. Hogan
14. Maya Deren in Person in Expressionism, Graeme Harper

Author Biographies
Index