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GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM & DADAISM 6

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Lesson 2: German Expressionism & Dadaism

The expressionist form consists of a style of art, painting, literature and film that goes against the traditional rules of doing these art expressions. It is connected to modernism and emerged in the early twentieth century. In Germany, it spanned across art, literature, poetry and film. It was done by liberal-minded artists who wished to express themselves freely without being confined to the norms (Dube, 1983). It was an avenue to express one’s creativity with no restrictions or rules. One could create art in the way they wished.

The expressionist films had some striking qualities. It set itself in direct and intentional opposition to naturalism. Naturalism was where the artist tried to capture and present reality as it is in the film. The filmmakers abandoned that convention and instead decided to use psychic responses to embed their films. Their stage setting would create psychological responses that would help keep the audience hooked to and understand the story-line. It would evoke the emotional responses that the director wished the audience to hear.

They would use the indoor studios where with the aid of designers, actors, special effects, and props they would create an artificial environment and story line that defied all reality and created a fictitious world with its unique rules and was under the control of the director (Lasko, 2003). The special effects would allow the fictitious characters and world to come to existence. They would then interact with the audience, entertaining them while at the same time passing a hidden message.

The expressionist films favored Gothic and supernatural themes in the story-lines. The directors would use special effects to distort visual images and would ensure the stage setting gave an eerie of the supernatural theme, for example by use of shadows and precarious stage setting. In the World War I, the conflict between the individual and higher powers that exert control over people became a recurrent theme. They would depict the struggle of the war and the efforts of their country indirectly in their plays.

Wiene’s film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is an expressionist film. The setting in the film is made up of distorted objects and has no hint of reality. There are almost no perpendicular and parallel lines. The town where the events take place is made up of dark twisting back alleys of crumbling buildings which prevent the penetration of daylight. The use of light, shadows, and inanimate objects enhance the feeling of uneasiness in the audience. The setting showed the freedom of creativity that the director was accredited (Eisner, 1974).

The story-line is very supernatural. It is the story of a somnambulist known as Cesare who murders an innocent individual while under the hypnotic control of Dr. Caligari. This occurrence is impossible in the real world and creates an eerie of the mystery in the movie. The lighting, the use of shadows, the use of sharp pointed forms, oblique curving lines and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual styles gave it a Gothic and unnatural theme, further supporting the central theme of the film.

The film distorts the line between sanity and insanity. The story is told from the angle of an insane man. The audience does not know that the narrator is insane until the very end. This makes them discredit all the information that they have gotten from the narrator. There is, however, no normal world to compare the story to. The inclusion of the distorted objects in the frame story and the closing scene makes it ambiguous if the narrator or the doctor is insane, destroying the line between sanity and insanity (Washton-Long, 1993).

The mysterious story-line also has a hidden social-political message about the war. The somnambulist is used to represent the ordinary German citizen, and Dr. Caligari was used to represent the German imperial empire. Dr. Caligari is depicted to be an insane and cruel tyrant who used Cesare to kill people for no good reason. The doctor was symbolic of the brutal and irrational German authority that acted brutally in the pursuit of power (Kracauer & Quaresima, 2004). Kracauer argues that the use of Dr. Caligari was the representation of the subconscious need for a tyrant in the German society. The citizens were depicted as being mindlessly controlled by the Government to fight in the war. Cesare was used to represent the people who would only follow others, without having their opinion. Cesare was also used to represent the obedience of the German citizens to the Government, no matter how brutal and irrational the authority.

Kracauer in his book states that Dr. Caligari and Cesare are premonitions of Adolf Hitler and his rule over Germany. He managed to mobilize people to follow and support him and led them into yet another war. He was able to manipulate the weak willed to his cause. Kracauer believes that the addition of the frame story undermines the revolution impulse of the film. Depicting the narrator as the madman makes his claims unreliable and allows the authority to be in control once more. Without the frame story, there would have been a triumphant victory of the rebellion over the authority. The frame story, therefore, undermines the revolutionary impulse.

On the offshoot of the expressionism, Dadaism was on its peak. It was a form of artistic anarchy rising due to the disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. Although the Dada movement embraced elements music, poetry, dance and politics, fine arts was the major element. Various artists led by Hugo Ball and Hemmings opened the cabaret Voltaire where artists could meet. The works of several artist during that period were to indirectly ridicule the war state at the time.

Dada artists were against the war and as well as the other art movements. Coming from different warring countries like France and Germany, and meeting at the cabaret Voltaire, the various artists came up with artwork such as collages and poetry to ridicule the prevailing conditions in that time. The most outstanding Dada work was by German Kurt Schwitters, which he called Merz-art. He constructed montages from text, paper, objects and other material he identified. Although, considered by most people a movement with no sense at all, Dada artists believed strongly that works would greatly influence modernism (Kuenzli, 2006). Moreover, they were sure that it did help oppose the ongoing war. Although Dadaism didn’t last longer after the war, its effects were felt on different parts of the world. In Berlin for example, artists who had moved back from Zurich turned Dada into an art of political satire.

References

Eisner, L. (1974). The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dube, W. (1983). Expressionists and Expressionism. New York: Rizzoli International.

Lasko, P. (2003). The Expressionist Roots of Modernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Washton-Long, C. (1993). German Expressionism: Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism. New York: Twayne.

Kracauer, S. & Quaresima, L. (2004). From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of the German film. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

Kuenzli, R. (2006). Dada. London New York: Phaidon Press Ltd. Phaidon Press Inc.