Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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three-dimensionality and depriving spatial relations of their basis in physical reality.
Streaks of light and shadow, painted by the designer, are visible on the ground and on
the floor and against walls in defiance of any source of light”. 164 The film uses
chiaroscuro effects, which were according to Barlow, “favourite techniques of the
expressionists – cinematic equivalents of the bold bright forms and dark outlines of the
slightly earlier expressionist painters”. 165 Lotte Eisner identifies chiaroscuro lighting as
being a technique which “was to become one of the most easily recognizable
characteristics of the German film”, and explains how lighting was used to emphasize
the relief and outline of objects or the details of a set. “Sets were lit from the base,
accentuating the relief, deforming and transforming the shapes of things by means of a
mass of dazzling and unexpected lines. Another technique was the placing of enormous
spotlights to one side, at an angle, so as to flood the architecture with light and use the
projecting surfaces to produce strident effects of light and shade”. 166
She goes on to discuss, at length, the use of lighting to create Stimmung (“mood,
atmosphere”), which is one of the distinctive features of Expressionist film, and
comments that: “In any German film, the preoccupation with rendering Stimmung by
suggesting the ‘vibrations of the soul’ is linked to the use of light”. 167 John S. Titford
explains how this operates: “Precisely because light or the absence of light gives space
its reality, being what Germans call a Raumgestaltender Faktor, it can effect a
Hoffmanesque transformation of concrete into abstract, living into dead, or vice versa,
making us doubt our senses, and even our awareness of figure and ground
distinctions”. 168 It is undoubtedly primarily for the purpose of creating Stimmung that
night-time scenes have such an important function in Expressionist cinema, according
to Henri Agel. 169
Ward’s interest in Expressionist lighting is particularly evident in A State of Siege,
where most of the interior scenes use low-key lighting, and some shots, such as interior
close-ups on Malfred’s face, utilize chiaroscuro techniques. What is most striking,
however, is the way in which lighting is utilized to create Stimmung, in this case, a
164
Barlow, German Expressionist Film 39.
165
Barlow, German Expressionist Film Editor’s Forward.
166
Eisner, The Haunted Screen 92.
167
Eisner, The Haunted Screen 199.
168
John Titford, "Object-Subject Relationships in German Expressionist Cinema," Cinema Journal 11-
14.1 (1973): 21.
169
Cited by Michel Sandras, "M Le Maudit Et L'expressionnisme," Image et Son.169 (1964): 75.