Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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for the emotional states of its inhabitants. 177 The weather too, interacts with the moods
of the characters, an example being the storm that seems to reflect Toss’s feelings when
she looks at the apocalyptic visions in the family Bible. Of course, many dramatic films
use landscape expressively, but few with the same mysterious intensity as Ward’s films.
Film historians Kirsten Thompson and David Bordwell go so far as to say that “German
Expressionism is distinctive primarily for its use of mise-en-scène”. 178 What has often
been pointed out about the mise-en-scène of Dr Caligari, for example, is the way in
which it seems to reflect the distorted perception of the film’s mad protagonist. While
the mise-en-scène of A State of Siege and Vigil is not as “excessive and transgressive”
as that of Dr Caligari, it does bear some comparison in that it dramatically reflects the
inner state of the characters. In Vigil, as Helen Martin has pointed out, “the self is
mirrored in external objects” for example, “Toss in tutu and gumboots”. 179 When we
speak of “mirrored” or “reflected”, however, we need to acknowledge that the
correlative does not have a simple, one-to-one relationship (as in a straight-forward
allegory) – the interplay of inner and outer can be complex and mysterious.
Thomas Elsaesser has commented on the strategies of narration and the narrative
structure in Weimar cinema which he describes as being “much looser and [more]
disjointed” than the classical realist text. “As a consequence, the narration gives few
clues and circumstantial detail about the characters’ motives”. In his view, this explains
why “(especially American) critics have often complained about German films being
‘slow’ and lacking suspense; judgements that confirm the comparative indifference to
the action codes.” 180 In addition, according to Coates: “If narrative can be described as
a process of mediation between opposites, then expressionism’s focus on the isolated
individual may seem to render it antinarrative, apparently antidialectical. 181 Both of
these comments shed light on the kind of criticisms that have been made of Ward’s
177 The most famous use of the term ‘correlative’ in English, is of course, T.S.Eliot’s discussion of
Hamlet, where he speaks of Shakespeare failing to create a sufficiently clear ‘objective correlative’ for
Hamlet’s state of mind. T.S. Eliot, Selected Prose (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1953) 107. From an
Expressionist viewpoint, however, some excess of mood and feeling is not necessarily a bad thing. The
very mystery and intensity of Ward’s films may make them vulnerable to Eliot’s type of criticism of
Hamlet, but I use ‘correlative’ rather in a Stimmung or Expressionist sense.
178 Thompson and Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction 111.
179 Helen Martin, "Vincent's Vigil," Alternative Cinema Magazine 12.3 & 4 (1984-5): 17.
180 Elsaesser, Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historic Imaginary 81.
181 Coates, The Gorgon's Gaze: German Cinema, Expressionism, and the Image of Horror 156.