Word: expressionistic
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...BECKMANN: MEMORIES OF A FRIENDSHIP by Stephan Lackner. 126 pages. University of Miami. $7.95. The life of the German Expressionist painter presented in a sometimes dull, always informative reminiscence...
...films of the period, though, don't reflect it. Even Birth of a Nation, which was changing everyone's ideas of what films could be even while Intolerance was in production, dealt with members of two families in a historical context, tracing individuals' emotions through a war. The Expressionist practice of basing films on myths about existence postulates Intolerance by a few years, and Eisenstein's theory that films are the interplay of ideas cannot be found in the period before Intolerance -the period Eisenstein regarded as "prehistory." Finally, the embodiment of abstract themes in specific characters-the narrative feature...
...canary is part of the film's smooth flow, a dramatic event quietly noted and celebrated (in the bird's cremation). The theme of a box-like object or set whose dark exterior contains a bright space inside returns later in exteriors of the cafe which seem Expressionist: the hero wanders through the shadow-filled darkness barred from light, warmth, security. But the stove, like the stage at the end, gives the light a different meaning. Light is the core of the Romantic being, whether sexual (Dietrich, whose skin and hair shine) or metaphysical (the fire in the stove). Janning...
...terrifying long shot of the stage, rectangle of light, surrounded by the darkened hall and crowd. Despite the weight of this darkness, our attention is riveted to the personal drama on the bright stage. This finally proves the ideal and Romantic basis of Sternberg's drama as against its Expressionist surroundings...
...kill her; her flight is shot in high-angle, expressing the degree of freedom in even Jannings' most desperate action. Indeed, Sternberg cuts away to a doorway rather than showing Jannings being strait-jacketed. Later released, he returns to his old school desk to die the death of all Expressionist heroes. But Sternberg ends the film with shots of Dietrich, the burning Romantic figure and object, so that even in the person of the protagonists Sternberg's system triumphs over the Expressionistic scheme...