{"id":1178,"date":"2012-09-16T03:16:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T03:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2013-02-12T02:56:46","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T02:56:46","slug":"after-the-crash-european-film-ca-1929-1930","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"After the Crash: European Film ca. 1929-1930"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In this conference various members of the Yale Film Studies faculty, their friends and graduate students get together to look at a group of films made in different European countries at roughly the same time.\u00a0 What do they share?\u00a0 In general, this year was remarkably coherent, although there was one rather odd outlier: Esfir Shub\u2019s K.Sh.E.<\/em> (Komsomol \u2013 Sponsor of Electrification) <\/em>(1932).\u00a0 The discussion was\u2014as usual\u2014provocative and helpful.<\/p>\n

I often provide a version of my panel remarks in the \u201cShort Pieces\u201d section of my website.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t quite work this time around since our panel tried to discuss Ivens\u2019s Rain<\/em> (1929), Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer\u2019s People on Sunday <\/em>(1930) and Esfir Shub\u2019s K.Sh.E.<\/em> (Komsomol \u2013 Sponsor of Electrification) <\/em>(1932) in relationship to each other.\u00a0 The results were awkward on my end.\u00a0 Instead, I offer a few post-conference thoughts, indebted certainly to the weekend’s discussion:<\/p>\n

AFTER THE CRASH<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Joris Ivens’s Rain<\/em> (1929)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hammid’s Aimless Walk<\/em> (1930)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Regen (Rain)<\/em><\/strong> (Joris Ivens and Mannus Franken, 1929, the Netherlands, 14 mins.)<\/p>\n

Bez\u00fac\u030celn\u00e1 proch\u00e1zka (Aimless Walk) <\/em><\/strong>(Alexandr Hackenschmied, 1930, Czechoslovakia, 8mins)<\/p>\n

The screenings were bookended by two films that have much in common: Joris Ivens\u2019s Rain (1929) and Alexandr Hackenschmied (Hammid)\u2019s Aimless Walk <\/em>(1930).\u00a0 They are part of a rich web of city symphony films and can be profitably connected with Jay Leyda\u2019s A Bronx Morning<\/em> (1930\/1) to constitute a triology.\u00a0 (Since Leyda was an American, we didn\u2019t show his film but there is a close connection.) All inevitably reacted to Walter Ruttman\u2019s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City<\/em> (1927).\u00a0 Ivens apparently started work on Rain in 1927 and did not complete it until late 1929\u2014perhaps under the pressure of Vertov\u2019s Man with a Movie Camera<\/em> (1929).\u00a0 In tts opening shots of roof-tops and a departing ocean liner, Rain<\/em> seemed to gesture quietly towards another avant-garde city film\u2013\u2013Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand\u2019s Manhatta <\/em>(1921). As a short, Manhatta <\/em>provides the model for depicting a more geographically limited area of the city.[1]<\/a> Its representations of New York hold in tension the relationship between the metropolis and nature, between the large-scale city and individual people.\u00a0 These binaries\u2014like the tension between movement and stasis in the film\u2013\u2013are purposefully unresolved.<\/p>\n

I have always seen Ruttman\u2019s portrait of Berlin<\/em> as a remarkable articulation of the urban life as analyzed by Georg Simmel in his famous essay \u201cMetropolis and Mental Life.\u201d Its density and scale generates an alienation that makes the city highly impersonal and indifferent (the woman who suicides) but also allows for diversity and idiosyncrosy among its inhabitants.\u00a0 Rain<\/em> offers a counterpoint.\u00a0 The city of Amsterdam and nature are much more in tune with each other.\u00a0 Ivens often films from low angles\u2014the cobble stones, the raindrops in contrast to high angle shots of the streets looking down.\u00a0 If Berlin\u2013\u2013<\/em>like other city symphony films\u2014structures its shots around the arc of a single day\u2014from morning to night, Rain <\/em>is structured around the principle of a single rain storm\u2014a relatively brief, composite shower.\u00a0 Ivens\u2019 decision to shoot in the rain is already an inversion of previously city symphony films for its predecessors are filmed (at least primarily) on days when the light is good\u2014and there is no rain.\u00a0 This allows for a sharper image and greater depth of field.\u00a0 Rain<\/em> thus suggests a tripartite form of represetations.\u00a0 There is, of course, the city itself\u2014which Ivens sees every day and now shows us in filmic form.\u00a0 Through camera lens and editing, it is already once or twice removed\u2014a representation of the city.\u00a0 However, by filming in the rain and with his frequent shots of pools of water and the canals, there is this third view of the city\u2014its watery reflection.\u00a0 If cinema is a window onto the world, we also see it through Ivens\u2019 bedroom window as rain hits the panes of glass.\u00a0 The view of the roof tiles across the courtyard simmer like a watery mirage.\u00a0 The city is in some sense a cinematic city avant la lettre \u2013not because it is a concentrated nexus of 20th<\/sup> century modernity of which cinema has a synechdocal relationship, but because it is a city of reflection and refraction\u2014and (implictly) of Chritian Huygens\u2019 magic lantern.<\/p>\n

Jay Leyda\u2019s A Bronx Morning<\/em> (1930) is worth mentioning here.\u00a0 Leyda, born in 1910 and 12 years younger than Ivens, met and worked with Ivens in the Soviet Union.\u00a0 A Bronx Morning<\/em> won the prize that got\u00a0\u00a0 Leyda there.\u00a0 Leyda\u2019s film seems in dialogue with both Ruttman\u2019s Berlin<\/em> and Manhatta<\/em>.\u00a0 Berlin opens as the train takes the viewer into the center of Berlin.\u00a0 A Bronx Morning<\/em> opens as the subway, a more pelbian and quotidian form of transportation, takes use away from city center to the Bronx\u2014one of New York\u2019s outer boroughs.\u00a0 It focuses on a geographically limited area, like Manhatta<\/em>, but one that is again ordinary.\u00a0 One can only imagine the affinity that these two filmmakers felt when the met and saw each others films.\u00a0 Both were committed Marxists\u2014though Leyda would never would say as much in print or in public\u2014and both had made short city films that lacked overt political content.\u00a0 They could come under attack from more militant critics.\u00a0\u00a0 Ivens, to be sure, made films with Communist idelology on prominent display but he also made documentaries such as When the Seine Encounters Paris <\/em>(1956), which is very much in the tradition of Rain. <\/em><\/p>\n

Leyda, who also would work with Vertov (briefly\u2014he was not a Vertov fan) and Eisenstein (a relationship that lasted until Eisenstein died\u2014and beyond), had an uncanny ability to connect with artists of (often future) prominence.\u00a0 He was, after all, Walker Evans\u2019 roommate.\u00a0 He assisted Ivens on Borinage<\/em> while they were both in the Soviet Union \u2013and also worked on his \u201cautobiography\u201d The Camera and I<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Did Hackenschmied see Rain<\/em> before making his film Aimless Walk<\/em>?\u00a0 An interesting question and one worth pursuing.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t do that here.\u00a0 Hackenschmied, born in 1907, was closer to Leyda in age.\u00a0 His film, apparently filmed in the summer of 1930, perhaps owes some small element of inspiraiton to Rein Que Les Heurs <\/em>(1926) and People on Sunday<\/em> (1930).\u00a0 By this I simply mean that Hackenschmied introduces a male character who is somewhat dishevealed and quietly reflective if not depressed. He could be unemployed as if the city has spit him out. \u00a0Thus he looks at the city rather than works in it.\u00a0 As he moves about the city, he serves as a stand in for the filmmaker himself.\u00a0 Hammid sometimes shows us what he sees\u2014even from his point of view.\u00a0 Aimless Walk<\/em> is well underway before he is introduced.\u00a0 The film opens in a way that is within the well-established terms of the city film and encounters its protagonist, as if by chance, on the tramway.\u00a0 If he is Hackenschmied\u2019s avatar within this film, this character encounters his double inside the diegesis\u2014whom he witnesses in the park as he walks away.\u00a0\u00a0 Here then is another tripartite structure (like Rain<\/em>): the filmmaker\u2014his avatar\/protagonist, and the avatar\u2019s own double.\u00a0 One cannot help but think that Hackenschmied is evoking another film about his chosen city: The Student of Prague<\/em> (1913; 1926), in which the student is confronted with his proliferating double.<\/p>\n

K.Sh.E.<\/em><\/strong> (Komsomol \u2013 Sponsor of Electrification)<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>(Esfir Shub, USSR, 1932) 54 mins.<\/p>\n

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The outlier in this weekend of screenings was Shub\u2019s K.Sh.E<\/em> which was released in late 1932: its penultimate scene \u2013ceremonies surround the opening of the hydro-electric damn\u2014was shot in October 1932.\u00a0 It counterpart was not Joris Ivens\u2019 <\/em>Rain (1929) but Song of Heroes<\/em> (Komsomol) (<\/em>1932\/3).\u00a0 Scenes in Ivens film conform much more to a combination of narrative progression and idelogocial rhetoric. Shub\u2019s film is more open in that the scenes are more loosely organized.\u00a0 There is a scene, for instance, in which the Americans working on the project are relaxing by the waterside on a Sunday (presumably)\u2014in bathing suits, playing a record.\u00a0 How are we to analyze the film?\u00a0 Six American engineers working on the project would receive the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.\u00a0 One of them, Hugh Cooper, gave a speech that is delivered during the opening ceremonies.\u00a0 Is it satiric or just documenting the presence of these international allies who were ready to work for the Soviets before the US recognized the Soviet government.\u00a0 Likewise the concluding scene shows a scientist demonstrating problems with high voltage electricity.\u00a0 Shub\u2019s film is a collection of interesting moments\u2014documents of this effort.\u00a0 It is filled with Stalinistic slogans and represents them in the manner of a collage.\u00a0 The Ivens fim seem as a mode of representation seems closer to what Stalinist culture would want, though even here it has a roughness that may not have been entirely pleasing.\u00a0 Now, as the Shub and Ivens Komsomol films become more available, comparing their stylistics and their reception should be fruitful.\u00a0 Certainly Shub\u2019s effort strikes one as more experimental.<\/p>\n

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Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) <\/em><\/strong>(Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer,1930)<\/p>\n

Prix de beaut\u00e9\/Beauty Prize\/Miss Europe <\/em><\/strong>(Augusto Genina,1930)<\/p>\n

Ze soboty na ne\u0306deli\/From Saturday to Sunday <\/em><\/strong>(Gustav Machat\u00fd, 1931)<\/p>\n

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There was another provocative trilogy of films that was part of this weekend\u2019s program\u2014and three holes in my knowledge.\u00a0 \u00a0The starting point was Siodmak and Ulmer\u2019s People on Sunday, <\/em>which premiered in Februray 1930 and was a hit.\u00a0 In a clear reference to Vertov\u2019s Man with a Movie Camera<\/em>. it claims to be a film \u201cwithout actors.\u201d They are supposed to be nonactors though one of the women is a movie extra\u2014and another a model.\u00a0 Their performances are highly credible and the women (as well as the men for that matter) look like young, attractive actresses.\u00a0 (a few appeared in\u00a0 another movie or two associated with the behind the screen talent but IMDb suggests that none had sustained careers).\u00a0 There are sections of the film that are nonfiction in a way consistent with Berlin: Symphony of a Great City <\/em>or Vertov.\u00a0 In a way, the decision to probe more deeply into the pysche of youthful Berliners is operative reason to create this narrative of any old Sunday when little\u2014or quite a lot\u2014happens.\u00a0 Between the actuality sequences of the city and the neo-realist-like scenes with the five unknown actors, there is a third group of scenes and characters \u2013people are are treated like the unknown actors for a scene or so but are not part of the film\u2019s narrative.\u00a0 These include the schoolboys playing a spanking game and the Vertov-evoking scene of the photographer taking photos of people (including Valeska Gert, who did have a career as a performer in cabaret.\u00a0 These intermediate figures are important for smoothing the disjunction between actuality and fiction.<\/p>\n

The disturbing element of this film\u2014and a central issue in the other two\u2014is the misogyny of these lower-middle class men, which is directed at the two youngish women.\u00a0 Christi for all her claims to be an extra is taken aback by Wolf\u2019s phyiscality as he forces a kiss from her as they swim.\u00a0 He then turns to her best friend, Brigitte Borchert, who is more accommodating.\u00a0 She lets him chase her into the woods, where making out turns into full-throtle sex.\u00a0 The camera pans off the couple to a debris-littered field and Wolf leaves the encounter with a badly torn shirt.\u00a0 Brigitte seems ready to make the best of it and hopes it might be something more than a one-off encounter.\u00a0 She asks for a date the following Sunday.\u00a0 Wolf seems to agree but then quietly acknowledge plans to go to a football game with his best friend, instead.\u00a0 These men are on the make and not particuarly attractive.\u00a0 Erwin, the taxi driver, leaves his girlfriend at home: they had had a fight over how she wore her hat.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t like what she did with the brim and so they stayed home.\u00a0 They seem stuck in a destructive relationship neither can quite escape.<\/p>\n

Sean Axmaker, writing for Turner Classic movies, remarks that \u201cUnder the bubbly surface of innocent flirtations and breezy fun is the story of budding romance and a portrait of life at the end of Weimar era. There is no political subtext to the film\u2026\u201d\u00a0 But is this true?\u00a0 If so, then the film would seem to revel in the men\u2019s treatment of these women.\u00a0 Or perhaps the film is aware of something darker under the \u201cbreezy fun.\u201d\u00a0 If so, these filmmakers (including Billy Wilder) already are concerned with issues they would explore in film noir.<\/p>\n

Genina\u2019s Prix de Beaut\u00e9<\/em> (1930) would seem to move further and perhaps more critically in this direction.\u00a0 Andr\u00e9 adores his girfriend Lucienne (Louise Brooks) but is jealous and controlling.\u00a0 This begins to spin out of control when Lucienne enters a beauty contest and wins.\u00a0 Although she abandoning media attention and an interesting life to make Andre happy, she becomes isolated and miserable cooped up in her apartment all day.\u00a0 When she tries to reclaim her glory by going into the movie business\u2014he kills her.\u00a0\u00a0 Andre is typesetter for a newspaper.\u00a0 So once again we have a working-class\/lower middle-class guy who is abusive towards women\u2014particularly the woman he wants to serve as a simple complement to his needy ego.\u00a0 (Actually, he is quite abusive to his best friend Antonin as well.)\u00a0 The double meaning of the title is lost in the two English-language titles.\u00a0 Is her death \u201cthe price of beauty\u201d?\u00a0 Or is it the price she paid for not seeing more clearly the demented jealousy and insistence of male control that drove him to this act.\u00a0 He cannot cope with a woman who succeeds and experience adventure in ways that he cannot\u2014even though she is ready to bring him along for the ride.<\/p>\n

It is hard not to see Gustav Machat\u00fd\u2019s From Saturday to Sunday<\/em> as a response to these two earlier films.\u00a0 The gesture towards People on Sunday<\/em> is obvious.\u00a0 Prix de Beaut\u00e9 <\/em>opened August 1, 1930.\u00a0 From Saturday to Sunday<\/em> opened May 1, 1931.\u00a0 The two young women are not exactly svelte, elegant movie stars.\u00a0 Although one had an acting career, the main female lead did not.\u00a0 Nany clearly has a number of male friends for whom she trades sex for an evening\u2019s fun and some extra cash.\u00a0 She virtually forces her friend Mana to accompany her on a date.\u00a0 When the men escort the girls to the hotel, Mana flees\u2014into a rainstorm and into the arms of Karel\u2014a typesetter.\u00a0 Karel ultimately charms and seduces.\u00a0 They end up in bed and It seems that they are destined for each other.\u00a0 A misunderstanding\u2014a note from Nany leads Karel to believe Mana is a prostitute\u2013\u2013leads to rejection and Mana\u2019s decision to kill herself. Reflects on the situation, Karel is able to overcome his wounded pride and masculinist jealousy.\u00a0 He returns to her apartment, rescuing her from her attempted suicide using gas.\u00a0 Its movement between classes and various types of entertainment venues, as well as its carefully wrought portraits of these people, make it an uplifting film\u2014suggesting elements of hope which somehow I allign with films such as Rain <\/em>and A Bronx Morning<\/em>.<\/p>\n


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[1]<\/a> Of course Ivens\u2019s The Bridge <\/em>(1928) had already dealt with a circumscribed space of the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  In this conference various members of the Yale Film Studies faculty, their friends and graduate students get together to look at a group of films made in different European countries at roughly the same time.\u00a0 What do they share?\u00a0 In general, this year was remarkably coherent, although there was one rather odd outlier: Esfir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[79,78,83,77,256,80,74,76,73,81,75,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1183,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}