1POPULAR CINEMA

man,” is clearly recognizable as petit bourgeois. And all stand for a type of
modern masculinity that, behind phrases like “the eternal boy” or “the big
child,” raises the question of sexual inadequacy. In today’s psychological idioms,
the imbalance between means and ends, and between intentions and
results, might be diagnosed as a symptom of low self-esteem, performance
anxiety, passive-aggressive behavior, or, in the most general way, as some
form of narcissistic disorder. To what degree these elements continue to
be enlisted in a national imaginary that seems to derive self-confidence
from the validation of the weak over the heroic, the flawed over the perfect,
and the ordinary over the extraordinary can be seen in a recent lexicon
entry that commemorates the deceased actor as “the eternally adolescent
German.” 7
The complete identity of actor, role, and type makes the Rühmann
screen persona appear authentic in the most diverse settings. This appearance
of authenticity has always been more important than his identification
with any particular social attributes or positions. As early as 1940, Florian
Kienzl noted: “Strange that we talk about him as if he were in person what
he represents in his roles. In his case, both lie so closely together.” 8 And in
the same year, another critic observed that Rühmann’s “art is identical with
his very being, and for that reason it will always be genuine, true to life, and
natural.” 9 Described in such highly charged terms, Rühmann played a pivotal
role in the alignment of the old star system with the new program of
film folklore, including its conciliatory fantasy of ordinary Germanness.
Through his performance of authenticity, the positive aspects of popularity
could be separated from the negative effects of celebrity, and the figure of
the star endowed with an aura of familiarity often missing from the more
synthetic products of the star system. Not surprisingly, Rühmann became
the only comic actor considered worthy of inclusion in more speculative
comments on the ideal body of Germanness, a “distinction” otherwise reserved
for dramatic actors like Hans Albers and Heinrich George. 10 Unlike
these symbols of male strength, Rühmann became identified with the “eternally
human” and “all too human” and, in so doing, he validated the ordinariness
of Germanness, as it were. His performances contributed to the
filmic codification of a national physiognomy that dissolved the boundaries
between the popular and the political and reduced the remaining conflicts
between individual and society, including its class- and gender-based manifestations,
to the “normal” problems of the “little” man dealing with the
“average” problems of “everyday” life.
90 Popular Cinema of the Third Reich