Candice Benfield
European Cinema Minutes
January 28, 2004

            Class was not held on January 26, 2004 due to snow.  The class opened and Dr. Reimer told us that we would be talking about early German sound films.  The first sound film was entitled The Jazz Singer and was American.
            In 1929, the UFA decided to bring in a Hollywood director, Joseph Sternberg, who hired Emil Jannings, A German he had worked with in Hollywood, and Marlene Dietrich, an unknown German actor to make The Blue Angel.  This film made Dietrich a German icon, although it was her only German film in which she had a major role, and she went back to Hollywood immediately following the production.  The film was made in German and English, with the actors taping scenes as identically as possible in the two different languages.  In summary, the film is about a professor of English who goes to a cabaret that he’s heard all his students are attending.  Supposedly, the songstress is seducing all of his students so he goes to investigate.  Instead of confronting the songstress, he’s mesmerized and falls in love with her.  Trials ensue as he loses his job to be with the cabaret songstress, Lola, and eventually she becomes his wife.  Lola cannot escape her past, and starts gallivanting around with other men.  In the end, Lola is the catalyst that drives the professor to his demise.  Sternberg highlights the fact that he’s made a sound film.  Visually, the film is a silent movie, but Lola’s songs make commentary on the story.
            The class then watched the German clip of The Blue Angel.  It revealed the same amount of expressionism as in typical German film.  Streets were heavily in shadow, houses looked crooked or askew.  The cabaret itself was crowed, smoky, and festooned with nets that seem to capture the professor.  This is reinforced in the scene when Lola shines a spotlight on the professor, also capturing him.
            A clip of the film M (1931), directed by Fritz Lang, was shown.  This film had a big influence on our perception of film thrillers.  Peter Lorre played the lead role, the part of child serial killer.  His career was made by the film and also made him a German icon.  He becomes attached to the persona he played in this film, reprising it throughout his career.
            Nazi films (1933-1945) were then the topic of discussion.  This particular film industry made about 1100 films, because the Nazi party realized the amount of money the film industry could bring into (or keep from leaving) Germany.  The Nazis wanted Marlene Dietrich to come back to German to be the star of their films, but she refused and worked for the allies.  When she wouldn’t return, they found actress, Zarah Leander, from Scandinavia as a substitute femme fatale and songstress.  Most of the 1000 films were not propaganda, but some were.
            Triumph of the Will (1935), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, was one of these propaganda films, made of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg.  We watched a small clip of Hitler talking to the servicemen.  In it we see a workers’ corps, who also act as chorus in this scene, emphasizing that Germany is a country filled with people from many different regions.  Riefenstahl steadfastly refused throughout her life that she put propaganda into the film. One could argue that she never got her career back because of the continued denial.  The purpose of the film was to introduce Hitler at home and abroad and to sell the Nazi party to the general public.  Remember they had only been in power under twos when the rally was held.
            We then watched a small musical clip of Lucky Kids (1936), directed by Paul Martin.  The film was a remake of sorts of It Happened One Night.
            The last clip shown was of Woman of My Dreams, a musical (1944), directed by Georg Jacoby.  The film starred Hungarian actress, Marika Rokk, an athletic style dancer.