By Mark Peikert
Considering its far-reaching effects, the films made in Germany during the Weimar Republic are surprisingly little known. Film buffs can name-check Fritz Lang (M, Metropolis) and F.W. Murnau (The Last Laugh), or conjure memories of stills from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or of Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, but how many people know that Blake Edwards’ 1982 Viktor/Victoria was based on Viktor und Viktoria, a 1933 German film? The Museum of Modern Art’s upcoming exhibition, Weimar Cinema, 1919-1933: Daydreams and Nightmares, will, if nothing else, prove that there was more going on in German films of the time than expressionism.
Viktor und Viktoria
One of the reasons for MoMA holding this particular exhibit, curated in part by Laurence Kardish, is to rectify a mistake earlier perpetrated by the museum. “There is somewhat of a misconception of the films made in Germany between 1919 and 1933,” Kardish says, “based in part from a book written here, From Caligari to Hitler. Which is an excellent book but argues that, basically, the films of the period are all about madmen, evil geniuses and people taking over other people’s souls. But in fact, there were an equal number of films that were musicals or comedies and much brighter works. And I wanted to be able to give a fuller and more comprehensive image.”
Until recently, however, that fuller picture would have been almost impossible to create. After the Russians liberated Berlin at the end of World War II, they took most of the films made pre-Hitler or during Hitler’s rise to power. During the 1950s, some of the films were sent back to Berlin because the USSR had no interest in promoting the work of a capitalist country; it wasn’t until the reunification of Germany that a full view of how many films still existed was possible to achieve. Which means, as Kardish points out, that of the 85 films being show between Nov. 17 and Mar. 7, 2011, about 65 haven’t been seen in decades—if ever in America.
“There are some films that have never been seen here,” Kardish says. “For instance, Eugene Schüfftan’s Into the Blue from 1931. It was secured by the national film archives of France from a collector of films from Holland. When the archive opened the can and looked at it, it turned out to be the only film directed by the great cinematographer Eugene Schüfftan, who was cinematographer on Metropolis. It captures the free-spirited essence of Weimar, as opposed to the heavy, grotesque and macabre.”
But Into the Blue is as close as Weimar Cinema will come to screening Metropolis, arguably one of the best-known films of the Weimar Republic. “I have kind of a grudge against it because it was the film that bankrupted UFA [the principal film studio in Germany at the time],” Kardish admits. “UFA was then taken over by Alfred Hugenberg, who was the head of the right wing party that was very supportive of Hitler. On the other hand, I do think Lang is a terrific filmmaker.”
