Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...
Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ... Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...
1.6 American Expressionism Every so often something happens in art, literature, and cinema that leaves a lasting impression and influences much of what comes after. Painting has seen impressionism and cubism; realism and surrealism have pulled the novel in opposite directions. And cinema has evolved through such artistic and cultural developments as expressionism, auteurism, and film noir. (House 1986:61) This chapter, which I have entitled “American Expressionism”, ends the Section on the cultural influences on film noir. Here I wish to reference the straightforward impression that German Expressionism made on a cycle of horror films produced by Universal Studios in the early thirties. I will also review the other major film studio, RKO - the perfect home for B-budget film noir - and mention some of the main names that are associated with the evolution of this type of film and how much they may have influenced noir stylistics. I hope that by the end of this chapter the characteristics identified throughout Section 1 will make it possible to understand the complex synthesis of both European and American cultural traditions that went into the making of film noir. One of the highest-grossing films of the 1930s emerging from Universal was The Black Cat (1934), expressionistically directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The Studio’s Germanborn boss Carl Laemmle was used to hiring Weimar talents, including Ulmer. The film was initially supposed to be based upon the novel by Edgar Allan Poe 35 (judging from the credit list at the end of the film: “a story suggested by the immortal Edgar Allan Poe classic”), who had many of his works transformed into film productions. However, this disturbing horror film was then worked on by Ulmer in collaboration with George Sims, and became one of the finest horror films of that time. The architectural settings with 35 Indeed, the plot initially combined Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat but the ending of the original screenplay by Peter Ruric was then transformed by Edgar G. Ulmer with some suggestions from the English Satanist Aleister Crowley, whose devil-worshipping stories were at that time causing furore in the newspapers. 122
peculiar expressionistic lighting and eccentric geometric forms all intensify the sordid subject matter of the film (fig. 27). Figure 27. The Black Cat The film opens with the Orient Express arriving in Budapest with Joan (Jacqueline Wells), a beautiful young lady, and Peter Allison (David Manners), a young mystery writer, recently married and honeymooning in Hungary, sharing the same train compartment with enigmatic Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi), who is on a journey from a Russian prison camp to the remains of a town he shielded and fought for before becoming a prisoner of war for fifteen years. They all disembark at the same station at Vizhegrad in the rain and board an unsteady bus which, on the way, crashes and skids off into a ravine, leaving Joan unconscious. The travellers find shelter in a fortress-like mansion, overlooking the site of Fort Marmorus, a bloody battlefield described as “the greatest graveyard in the world”. 36 They manage to reach the famous architect Hjalmar 36 The script actually runs like this: “All of this country was one of the greatest battlefields of the war. Ten of thousands of men died here. The ravine down there was piled twelve deep with dead and wounded man. The 123
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1.6 American Expressionism<br />
Every so often something happens in art, literature,<br />
and cinema that leaves a lasting impression and<br />
influences much of what comes after. Painting has<br />
seen impressionism and cubism; realism and<br />
surrealism have pulled the <strong>no</strong>vel in opposite<br />
directions. And cinema has evolved through such<br />
artistic and cultural developments as<br />
expressionism, auteurism, and film <strong>no</strong>ir. (House<br />
1986:61)<br />
This chapter, which I have entitled “American Expressionism”, ends the Section on<br />
the cultural influences on film <strong>no</strong>ir. Here I wish to reference the straightforward impression<br />
that German Expressionism made on a cycle of horror films produced by Universal Studios<br />
in the early thirties. I will also review the other major film studio, RKO - the perfect home<br />
for B-budget film <strong>no</strong>ir - and mention some of the main names that are associated with the<br />
evolution of this type of film and how much they may have influenced <strong>no</strong>ir stylistics. I<br />
hope that by the end of this chapter the characteristics identified throughout Section 1 will<br />
make it possible to understand the complex synthesis of both European and American<br />
cultural traditions that went into the making of film <strong>no</strong>ir.<br />
One of the highest-grossing films of the 1930s emerging from Universal was The<br />
Black Cat (1934), expressionistically directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The Studio’s Germanborn<br />
boss Carl Laemmle was used to hiring Weimar talents, including Ulmer. The film was<br />
initially supposed to be based upon the <strong>no</strong>vel by Edgar Allan Poe 35 (judging from the<br />
credit list at the end of the film: “a story suggested by the immortal Edgar Allan Poe<br />
classic”), who had many of his works transformed into film productions. However, this<br />
disturbing horror film was then worked on by Ulmer in collaboration with George Sims,<br />
and became one of the finest horror films of that time. The architectural settings with<br />
35 Indeed, the plot initially combined Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat but the ending<br />
of the original screenplay by Peter Ruric was then transformed by Edgar G. Ulmer with some suggestions<br />
from the English Satanist Aleister Crowley, whose devil-worshipping stories were at that time causing furore<br />
in the newspapers.<br />
122