1POPULAR CINEMA

esentation of the idea in the symbol could aspire to such stature. Yet he was
one of the few to offer some suggestions for moving from a mere reflection
to a creative vision, namely through formal techniques strangely reminiscent
of montage:
Film is distinguished from reality only in that it deletes what is irrelevant
to the visualization of the inner truth, that it combines elements
of the real in a unique way, that it joins the multitude of realities
to that organic symbolic unity that constitutes the essence of
artistic creation. 27
All of these programmatic statements confronted a fundamental obstacle
in what Georg Herzberg called “the double illusion” of film. 28 Unlike
the theater, Herzberg argued, the cinema produced a semblance of reality
through its heavy reliance on mimetic principles. At the same time, all good
films moved beyond the limitations of verisimilitude and reached into the
realm of the imagination. Here a workable compromise had to be found. By
creating an artificial, but nonetheless believable, external reality while anchoring
its meaning in the internal reality of emotions, Herzberg concluded,
the new realism could help to overcome the cult of surface phenomena
identified with mechanical reproduction. Hermann Wanderscheck
expressed similar sentiments when he declared that “film turns from a massproduced
product into an authentic filmic experience only where there is
spiritual and ethical substance.” 29 As implied by terms like “authentic,”
“sincere,” and “truthful,” these new requirements effortlessly transcended
the boundaries of conventional aesthetic judgment; the only valid criterion
now was “the category of inner truthfulness.” 30 Of course, this meant abandoning
earlier views, realized in movement films like the ill-fated SA-Mann
Brand (SA Man Brand, 1933), about film as the manifestation of a specific
worldview. At last, ideological functions and effects no longer had to be limited
to a particular form or content but could be realized across the popular
and political divide. When screenwriter Gerhard Menzel explained that
a political drama, for instance, required a different approach to editing and
camerawork from a love story or a thriller, 31 he not only validated the eclecticism
practiced by most directors but also offered an explanation for the
lack of a discernible style in the cinema of the Third Reich.
As filmic means became less important to the advancement of realistic
tendencies, terms like mood and atmosphere assumed a central role in the
The Power of Thought 181