Read PDF A Culture of Light: Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany

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Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany

Guerin then goes on to state that the rise of German cinema was indelibly connected to the use of electric light for film production in the s, ten years after the electrification of American studios, a statement that simply does not hold water By , the German cameraman Helmar Lerski was not only creating expressive lighting techniques for directors William Wauer and Robert Reinert, but also pioneering the use of artificial light for night time location shooting.

And while the author specifically states that she hopes to overcome the often implied dichotomy between Wilhelmine and Weimar cinema, she too discusses her examples as precursors to the more sophisticated lighting of the s.

A Culture of Light

In the street films, abstract lighting designs in the cityscapes become tropes for discontinuities in reality, while in the latter film abstract lighting infiltrates the interior spaces of the country folk, while evenly lighted, deep focus spaces characterize the natural environment torn asunder by war. Imbricated in this discourse is a notion of the external world in moral chaos, to the extent that even happy endings must necessarily be over-determined, unable to suture the fissures the narratives have torn open: Indeed, in her conclusion Guerin states that the uniqueness of Weimar German cinema is grounded in its refusal to gloss over inherent conflicts between aesthetic experiment and linear narrative, its depth of social commitment, its discourse on technological modernity, and its lack of conformity to classical Hollywood narrative.

In other words, Weimar cinema, like all forms of modernist art, demands an active and engaged reader. Yet, while this seems logical and true, this reader finds that the trees have often obscured the forest, so that, for example, instances of overt social commitment seem to have gotten lost in the exclusive focus on light and lighting. And, unfortunately, despite admirable and in-depth research, this volume is marred by mistakes and omissions. Boleslas Matuszewski was a Polish filmmaker, not a French publicist.

Technology and Culture

Guerin's period specific analyses employ certain novel film-critical distinctions—between, for instance, representations of gas and electric light, or of natural sunlight and sunlight filtered, reflected, or otherwise technically manipulated. Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet, Muenster, Germany. A groundbreaking exploration of German expressionist cinema and technology. The second chapter examines German films made before World War I in which the use of light as both metaphor and structuring principle prefigures that in the decade to follow. Her story of how the

Cinema and Technology in s Germany. University of Minnesota, A Culture of Light is among a number of recent books offering novel re-examinations of technology's importance for film history.

A Culture of Light. Cinema and Technology in s Germany.
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The book's argument centers on analyses of eleven films made in Germany during the s, which Guerin sees as symptomatic of Germany's "culture of light" at the time. The approach to film-technology history is mainly film-interpretive, with socio-technological contexts delineated for the purpose of close, case-study analyses of select films. The analyses center on moments of spectacular, light-enhanced technological display—in scenes featuring circus trapeze acts, nightclub musical revues, magical human-into-light-wave transformations, illuminated city centers, and fireworks displays—and how such moments trouble the films' melodramatic or fantastic narratives.

Modernism/modernity

In Frances Guerin's history of German silent cinema of the s, the use of light is the pivot around which a new national cinema and culture emerges. Guer. In Frances Guerin's compelling history of German silent cinema of the s, the innovative use of light is the pivot around which a new conception of a national.

The author offers a novel account of film's potential, via film-lighting manipulation, for representing or simulating facets of a social world transformed during the s through Germany's [End Page ] emergence as a world leader in electric power. Germany's entry into "technological modernity" occurred later than that of other major Western countries, and was further interrupted by the First World War, a belatedness which, Guerin argues, endowed artificial illumination in s Germany with strong cultural significance.

Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany

As postwar Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and other cities electrified on a large scale, industrial light became a thrilling urban spectacle in itself, and a sign of Germany's status as a major industrial power. Guerin mobilizes examples from a range of socio-cultural domains—including architecture, city planning, urban zoning policy, advertising regulations, popular theater, and film—to show how electric light's spectacular effects were cultivated in extraordinarily inventive ways in s Berlin.

Here the author provides a detailed account of historical and artistic connections between film's articulation of light and lighting and those in other media. This foundational section places s German film within the development of a Modernist aesthetic in Europe. In Chapter 2, Guerin introduces a number of films from the s, which provides some continuity between pre- and post-World War I projects.

Against this background, she is also able to speak of technological modernity in Germany and to demonstrate the roots of themes later explored in depth by s filmmakers. Her argument here is that films such as Und das Lict Erlosch foreground manipulations in light and lighting within the framed composition, narrative structure and fulcrum around which thematic issues turn.

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Chapters are the meat of the study. Analyzing the use of light in 11 films, the author moves, in each case, from a discussion of the filmic use of light and lighting for compositional purposes through the unfolding of the story to the engagement with transformations in social and cultural life that resulted from technological modernity in Germany. I was fascinated by Guerin's ability to make me envision how the culture evolved and how deftly she paired the films and the events that marked the period.

Algol and Schatten use light and lighting in self-conscious ways. Referencing these projects, she opens a discussion of the kinds of transformations that are brought to visual representation with the invention of electrical lighting and other If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution that supports Shibboleth authentication or have your own login and password to Project MUSE, click 'Authenticate'.

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