G. W. Pabst and New Objectivity
1920-24
1)The production of Expressionist films was most intense between 1920 and 1924.
2)During the final years of the trend, only two such films were released,
3)both made by Ufa:
a)Murnau’s Faust and
b)Lang’s Metropolis.
4)The latter’s release in January 1927 marked the end of the movement.
5)Two major factors in Expressionism’s decline were
a)the excessive budgets of the later films and
b)the departure of the main Expressionist filmmakers to Hollywood.
Changing Cultural Climate
1)A further reason for the decline of Expressionism lies in the changing cultural climate
of Germany.
2)Most art historians date the end of the movement in painting around 1924.
3)The style had been current for about a decade and a half and had gradually filtered
into the popular arts and design.
4)It became too familiar to retain its status as an avant-garde style, and
5)artists turned in more vital directions.
New Objectivity
1)Many artists moved away from the contorted emotionalism of Expressionism
toward realism and cool-headed social criticism.
2)The trend was called “New Objectivity” (Neue Sachlichkeit).
3)The savage political caricatures of George Grosz and Otto Dix
are considered central to New Objectivity.
New Objectivity in Cinema
1)In the cinema, New Objectivity took various forms.
2)One trend usually linked to New Objectivity was the street film.
3)In such films, characters from sheltered middle-class backgrounds
are suddenly exposed to the environment of city streets,
where they encounter representatives of various social ills,
such as
a)prostitutes,
b)gamblers,
c)black marketeers, and
d)con men.
Street Films
1)Street films came to prominence in 1923 with the success of Karl Grune’s The Street.
2)It tells the simple story of a middle-aged man’s psychological crisis.
3) From the safety of his apartment, he sees visions of the excitement and romance that may
be awaiting him in the street.
4)Slipping away from his wife, he explores the city, only to be lured by a prostitute into a den
of cardsharps.
5)Eventually he returns home, but the ending leaves the sense that the denizens of the street
lurk threateningly nearby.
The Street (Karl Grune, 1923)
The man slips out and sees strange thingsThis lady is checking him out
He's looking at the big eye sign and getting scared - good shadows
People are going into this building - he follows - them or the woman not sure
The woman walks into her box seat - the band is playing on the 2nd balcony to the right, the people are dancing below
He's summoning up the courage to go inside He walks in - modestly dressed, others nicer. - to the left there is a barHe goes up to her box seat - looking for her?
The whole scene spins left and upside down then right upside down many timesHe can't handle it.
his vision is still spinning
He sees the lady - he's approaching her table
he just sits down.
he looks at her dress and raises his eyebrows
oh no, trouble from this guy
He stands up to shake their hands and they grab a chair instead
She puts her arms around both guys!
She looks him up and down and kind of laughs
This place is beautiful
The guy doesn't know what to do or how to socialize he's uncomfortable
Sooo many screen shots - but this place is beautiful - I'm sure it was all gone after wwii
Some other guys come to the table to make fun of himShe's trying to look past him to a rich guy drinking champagne and eating chocolate - he keeps moving his head to block her view
The rich guy comes over and sits at the table - the guy looks upset
He puts her back toward her -- she just laughs -- the guys all point to his wedding ring - the rich guy pulls his out of his pocket to show him where to keep it.
She's flirting with the rich guy putting his hands on his face
The guy takes off his ring and sees a vision of him and his wife
She starts backing out of the vision into the dark
He finally has regret
Just then she puts his arm around him and they all start toasting him.
End of clip
G.W. Pabst
1)The most celebrated German director of the mid-1920s, G. W. Pabst,
2)rose to fame when he made the second major street film, The Joyless Street.
3)Another major example was
Bruno Rahn’s Dirnentragödie (“Whore’s Tragedy,” aka Tragedy of the Street, 1928).
4) In it the enduring Danish star Asta Nielsen plays an aging prostitute who takes in a
rebellious middle-class runaway;
5)she dreams of a new life with him.
6)He returns to his parents, and she is arrested for murdering her pimp.
7)The film used dark studio sets,
a moving camera, and
close framings
8)to create the oppressive atmosphere of back streets and dingy apartments.
Pabst's Der Schatz
1)G. W. Pabst’s first feature was in the Expressionist style: Der Schatz (“The Treasure,”
1923).
2)His next, The Joyless Street (1925), remains the most widely seen of the street films.
3)Set in Vienna during the period of hyperinflation,
4)the film follows the fates of two women:
5)Greta, the middle-class daughter of a civil servant, and
6)Maria, a woman from a poverty-ridden home.
7)When Greta’s father loses his money, she is nearly prostituted,
8)while Maria becomes the mistress of a rich man.
9)The Joyless Street portrays the era’s financial chaos,
10)perhaps most vividly in the scenes of women lining up to buy meat from a callous butcher
who extorts sexual favors in exchange for food.
11)(Owing to the film’s controversial subject matter, it was often censored abroad, and
truncated versions still circulate.)
Pabst’s subsequent career was uneven.
1)He turned out some ordinary films, such as the conventional triangle melodrama
Crisis (1928).
2)However, his Secrets of a Soul (1926) was the first serious attempt to apply
the tenets of the new Freudian school of psychoanalysis in a film narrative.
3)This desire for a scientific approach to psychological problems
marks Secrets of a Soul as another variant of the New Objectivity.
Secrets of a Soul intro
1)It is virtually a case study, following a seemingly ordinary man who develops a knife
phobia and seeks treatment from a psychoanalyst.
2)Though the depiction of psychoanalysis is oversimplified,
3)the Expressionist style of some of the dream sequences adds considerable interest to the
film.
Secrets of a Soul (G. W. Pabst, 1926)
This guy is in a tree looking into a house
This guy comes out - he is sleep walking
or maybe not - he saw the guy in the tree and ran back inside
The door is locked
The tree guy gave him a huge evil smile
He's freaking out - good shadows
Evil man in tree is making come here! signs with hands - oh
a gun appears in his hand.
pj guy jumps surreally in mid-air
Now he's over a chess set - that's the pattern of his outside patio
He flies high into the sky and then is shot and comes crashing down.
Then he wakes up - no - he's having another nightmare
He walks through this tunnel - nice shot
Still in his pajamas
Now there's a latch that comes down and stops him
There great train scene happens
it starts like it's coming to him and then swirls and wraps around
The same mean guy takes off his hat and is waving at him through a train window
I don't know how they did this shot
The gate lifts up - he runs to this altar
She seems to shake her head at him
He grabs something out of his pocket
An intertitle says:
Sincerely
Your Cousin Hans
He throws the card - it turns into a fire and puff of smoke
He runs past the statue
Another vision of a train
Now he's dressed for work
A little town is springing up and growing like seeds to plants and a gazebo floats up in the middle spiraling-- rain tickle music
It keeps spiraling up into the sky
He runs up to it - great shot
He looks up and three church bells are clanging up at the top
The view changes from low looking up to a vertical view of bells
now the faces of the bells - turn into faces of strange women
He runs past the large tower - no - up the stairs - cool shot I love the shapes contrasting colors and shadows
repeating shot of this- then he reaches top to stop the bells from ringing
he does - he looks down to see this...
He starts yelling and banging his hands down - i've taken too many screen shots or i'd take it
The faces start to laugh at him
Screen blacks out - he's in bed again
His wife is sleeping on her side of the room
There is lightning flashing on and off in seconds each - here is one
The guy is twisting in his bed
nightmare again - he walks up to this murder scene or rape taking place
He keeps trying to stop it by banging his cane
He keeps banging his cane on the ledge. Camera view goes from close-up of the silhoutes and close up of his face
(NOT MANY INTERTITLES AT ALL)
He grabs the hand rails and they start growing and taking him up in the air
He is high above the house - holding onto the handrail.
He is right below the word "of"
Next is a front view of him holding onto the gate - trying to stay on.
The evil tree man comes in a vision and points down
Whoa - then this happened
In the middle under the drums - i think it's the clown Pierrot moving
Then - this happens
oh, back to the drums - he is the one standing in the back below the drums - i don't know for sure
Know this lady starts to do something strange to her head - when the puppet points to her
Now the puppet points to the guys on the left
and they walk up the guy under the drum - not the puppet - the sleeping guy and point at
his -- i love the distortion and shadows
Thank God, I think he's waking up - that was only 5:29 min of film
No - he falls back asleep
A speedy locomotive is coming right to him
Now it is daylight - dream - reality? It looks like a doctor's office
The but it's the guy - he stacks his books on the ground to see inside a cell - good shadows
There he sees lilly pads in water - Now back
shot to the guy freaking out
A boat comes up through the lilly pads
he's looking at it
I'm pretty sure it's the evil guy on the boat with his wife
A baby jumps out of the pond into her lap - or she pulled him out
she's cradling it and puts it up to her cheek - the bad guy has his arm around her
He takes the baby from her and cradles it -
shot back to the guy yelling from the cell window
They sail under him - smiling and waving
He runs back to the table and grabs a HUGE knife
Then a fairy or vision of a woman appears to talk to him
No - it's his wife waving from the boat - he keeps trying to stab her and she keeps on waving
NOW, he wakes up -- sits up quick in his bed and screams a lot
His wife runs in - puts her arms around him
INTERTITLE: "I dreamt things -- It was horrible -- !"
He lays his head on her lap and she pats his head
End of clip - That's the most screen shots I've ever taken - it was beautiful!
The real end of the film is him talking it over with a psychiatrist and the unlock the meanings
Pabst also made another major New Objectivity film,
1)The Love of Jeanne Ney, in 1928.
2)The film’s famous opening exemplifies what critics admired in his work.
3)Rather than showing the villain immediately, the sequence begins with a tightly framed
panning shot that builds a quick sense of his character through details.
4)The first shot of The Love of Jeanne Ney, moving from the villain’s worn shoes propped
carelessly against the woodwork,
5)to his hand searching the litter on a table for a cigarette butt, and to him lighting up,
6)with a liquor bottle prominent in the foreground.
The Love of Jeanne Ney (G. W. Pabst, 1928)
First shot as per notes above
2nd shot discussed above
3rd shot noted above
Cuts away to this nightclub
Lots of guys drinking in uniforms pans the room
at 0:54 a kosak smoking
Well this is interesting.
a bottle was passed up - it pans up as bottle is passed up
This woman's pose though
Very interesting how they changed camera positions now to top looking down
Close-ups again on the Kosak - Is he the villain from 1st scene? - no
The club is going wild - people standing on table..
The villain lives on the top floor and someone is delivering him booze -
He gives him his exotic pipe in exchange for bottle.
A woman without a bra slides down the banister
He pokes his head out from his room - note the interesting phone and mirror
He looks at the crowd and seems to get upset
A window cracks - did he throw something - the kosak is staring at him in broken glass
The thief guy smiles and closes his door - odd
Kosak is at his door - confronting him
Gives him the book on the phone - did he walk in his room?
End of clip
Decline of New Objectivity
1)Number of factors led to the decline of New Objectivity in the cinema.
2)For one thing, the increasing domination of German politics by extreme right-wing forces
in the late 1920s and early 1930s resulted in a wider split between conservative and
liberal factions.
3)Socialist and Communist groups made films that provided an outlet for strong social
criticism.
4)Moreover, the coming of sound combined with greater control over the film industry by
conservative forces to create an emphasis on light entertainment.
5)The operetta genre became one of the most prominent types of sound filmmaking,
6)and social realism became rare.
