Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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Both the early films listed by Huaco, and the unproduced film scripts written by
contemporary writers and compiled by drama critic Kurt Pinthus in his Kinobuch (“The
Cinema Book”, 1913) provide evidence of the link between Romanticism and the
Expressionist sensibility. As J.D. Barlow has noted:
Many of the collected screenplays in Das Kinobuch are expressionistic in
character, while nearly all of them betray elements of fantasy and dream. As an
historical document, Das Kinobuch testifies to the importance of the fantastic
and dreamlike to the beginnings of the German cinema […]. These early
German film artists wanted to continue the introspective tradition of German
Romanticism. They also recognized the similarities between dream narrative
and film narrative in the ability of both to transcend space and time and to
represent psychological conflicts with visual immediacy. And it was primarily
in the manipulation of light and shadow that they attempted to penetrate this
inner space. 161
Despite these precursors, it is generally accepted that German Expressionist cinema
reached its full flowering with the production of Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari in 1919.
When the film premiered in Berlin in 1920, it was instantly recognized as something
new in the cinema, due to its “stylized sets, with strange distorted buildings painted on
canvas backdrops and flats in a theatrical manner”. In addition, the style of acting of
some (but not all) of the characters differed from the relatively naturalistic style used in
films up to this point in time. 162 The significance of the film lay not merely in the
stylized sets, which were influenced by Expressionist art, nor in the acting style, but in
the fact that, according to Paul Rotha, “it was the first significant attempt at the
expression of a creative mind in the new medium of cinematography. It broke with
realism on the screen: it suggested that a film, instead of being a reality, might be a
possible reality; and it brought into play the mental psychology of the audience”. 163
Dr Caligari displays many of the other stylistic features that came to be associated with
Expressionist cinema. The most significant is the striking lighting in the film, which is
characterized by “its frequent absence: in this world without daylight, streaks of light
and shadow are painted on the set, distorting the viewer’s sense of perspective and
161 Barlow, German Expressionist Film 65-66.
162 Thompson and Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction 108.
163 Paul Rotha, The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema (London: Spring Books, 1967) 256.