9/17/01

Class Minutes

GERM 3160

Today, we discussed the answers to Discussion Questions for the film, Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). The comments of students are as follows:

#1

Evidence of early sound film:

-     Clarity and volume of sound faded in and out

- Sound didn't quite match lip movements

- Two very long silences with no background music or sounds

Showing off new technology:

- They could make a clock chime without having to show the actual clock (same with bird's singing, bell ringing, and girls' singing

- Closing and opening a door or window makes sound more obvious when it stops completely

- Song and dance scenes

#2

Prevalent symbols in the film:

- Clown - the professor's Doppelgaenger (mirror image - evil/bad)

- Dead bird in beginning - when the professor is not with Lola the bird is dead and when he is with her, it is alive

- Bells - sounded like wedding bells the morning after the professor stayed with Lola, but they were actually the school bells

- Spotlight - on the professor when Lola sings, "I need a man, an ordinary man", and is also on him when he dies in the end

- Calendar - passing of time

- Egg - the professor's humiliation, he was being cuckolded (i.e. visual imagery that she is cheating on him

There is a lot of expressionism in the sets, lots of symbolism, and the Nosferatu shadows, all of which were borrowed by Sternberg from earlier German films.

#3

Tragic structure:

- Follows the structure of classic Greek tragedies

o Nice guy with one fatal flaw - leading to his demise

o Magician personifies his fatal flaw - arrogance and too strict/a tyrant

- Starts out light and funny, which makes the ending that much more tragic

#4

Music in film:

- The songs are saying, "Beware of me. If you fall for me, you will regret it." She tells this directly to the professor, but he doesn't listen.