Adam Whitman

German Film

Minutes Sep 13^th 2004

Start Time: 2:07p.m.

Ø      Film on Wednesday “Blue Angel” assignment #2 handouts on film.

Ø      Have Questions typed before next class.

Ø      5 questions on second to last page of handout (due Monday) discuss on the questions a week from today.

Blue Angel

Ø      Black and white primitive

Ø      Discuss early sound period

Ø      Ufa specialized in art films, especially horror films early on.  But they also did prestige dramas and melodramas of which the Blue Angel is one.

Ø      Films that deal with emotions (melancholy)

Ø      Directed by Joseph von Sternberg.  Based on the novel Professor Unrath by Heinrich Mann.  Starring Marlene Diet Rich and Emil Jannings.  Major films pre-1933

Ø      In the film the students call Professor Rath Unrath which means Garbage..

The Last Laugh

Ø      The original screenplay did not have a happy ending so it was changed to please Amrican audiences and a coda was added.

Ø      In the changed version, a man broken in spirit after losing his job and being humiliated becomes rich and gets the “last Laugh.”

 

Westfront 1918

Ø      Antiwar film comparable to All Quiet on the Western Front.  Based on the novel Vier von der Infanterie noted for grisly battle scenes.  Bleak portrayal of homefront

Threepenny Opera

Ø      1931

Ø      Directed by G.W. Pabst based on the play by Bertolt Brecht

Ø      Brecht distanced himself from this movie.

Ø      Play: deconstructs romantic illusions, has a contrived happy end

Ø      Pabst Film: Romantic, boy meets girl, motivated happy ending.  Music by Kurt Weill/Starring Lotte Lenya

Kuhle Wampe

Ø      1931

Ø      Screenplay by Bertot Brecht

Ø      Brecht’s chance to bring theories of theatre to film.  Socialist Lehrstück (pedagogical play) Utilizes estrangement distancing, agit-prop to make political statements and persuade to political actions

Clip

Ø      Lots of men riding bikes on the streets, then walking off to get pieces of paper.

Ø      Young men trying to find jobs but cannot

Ø      Eventually frustrated with failure they leave to go home

Ø      Shows the desperation of trying to find a job

Ø      The agitated music ties in well with the constant running around.

Ø      Eventually leads to one young man jumping out of a window.

Ø      Puts his watch on the table before he jumps so his family will have something to pawn for money.

Ø      Ends with a youth sports rally (a mini-olympics) emphasizing the power of youth in the hymn “Forward and never forget”

Ø      Banned by Nazi’s

M

Ø      Directed by Fritz Long and starring Peter Lorre

Ø      Social political statement but primarily a virtuoso performance by a gifted director

Ø      Hitchcock –like suspense before Hitchcock

Clip

Ø      Based on a child murderer in the 1920’s

Ø      Equate police force and the underground through parallel editing sequences

Ø      The police and criminals go off and find the murderer

Ø      Criminals find the murderer and trail him

Ø      He tells the criminals he has to kill that he cannot help it

Ø      The criminals still want to kill him

Ø      His defense lawyer speaks up and says he is sick and cannot be guilty of that

Ø      The argument does not convince the criminals

Ø      By that time the cops show up and stop everything.

Congress Dances

Ø      Women going to the mansion

Ø      She kept chanting was “this opportunity will not come again”

Homework

Ø      Read through “Blue Angel” handout