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.
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