Now available for pre-order at Toys 'r' Us

It’s times like this that I’m especially glad I have a son…

Did I mention they sing? Oh yeah.

Thought to Be Lost Forever, 10 American Silent Films Come Home

Thought to Be Lost Forever, 10 American Silent Films Come Home

Friends don't let friends spray tan



Robin Williams in Old Dogs



George "First Bite" Hamilton



The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The American film remake that I chose for this blog is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which is a remake of the German film Münchhausen (1943). I found these films of particular interest because of the history behind the German version of the film. Münchhausen was filmed during World War II, when Joseph Goebbels was, under the Reich Film Chamber, “the sole authority on what could and could not be shown on the screen” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 153). In addition to the many propaganda films shot at this time, Goebbels also had an interest in genres such as comedy and fantasy, of which Münchhausen is a prime example (Dixon & Foster, pg. 154). Still, as any film shows signposts of the era in which it is made, I made an educated guess that Münchhausen might include some interesting tipoffs that it was made under the influence of the Nazi regime. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not have the best grasp of world history, and so I’m sure there may have been many indicators that I missed. However, a big one that I did see was a very cringe-worthy moment, indeed. There is a scene near the beginning of the film in which the baron wipes the mud from his hand across the side of his servant’s face. The character of the servant, Johann, is a black man, although it appeared to me that he was actually a white actor wearing vaudeville-type "blackface" makeup. (This would make sense, since I’m sure the Nazis weren’t too keen on using actual black actors.) The fact that the baron wipes the mud across Johann’s face, without hesitation, and without significant reaction from Johann, implies a couple of things about the race relations of that period. It is clear, that even though the baron is speaking to Johann as he would one of his peers, he still somehow views him as less than a person and more a piece of machinery. Johann’s lack of a response to this obvious insult also tells us that he is quite accustomed to this sort of treatment, and may not even mind. This becomes even clearer as he turns to polish the banister, and we see his content, smiling face, as if it is plastic – again, like a machine – with the baron’s fingerprints across his cheek. Obviously, this kind of racism was not present in the 1988 version of the film, nor was the original film’s objectivity of and violence against women that I won’t even go into here.

Münchhausen is replete with special effects and creative ideas that I’m sure were quite impressive in 1943. And it’s not even the baron himself that is magical, but the world itself is a place where the impossible becomes reality. A tonic for instantly growing hair, coats that attack and bark like dogs, a horn that plays itself, a ring that makes the wearer invisible for one hour, and a musket that allows the marksman to see and fire to what seem like infinite distances are just some of the amazing objects that can be found in this 17th century world. Actually, apart from the fact that the baron manages successfully to ride a cannonball and has a wish granted by the sheik that he will stay youthful until he chooses to grow old (a very discerning wish, I thought), he himself is really quite unremarkable. The baron reminds me of Batman, in the sense that, without his money and toys, he would just be an ordinary man. In Terry Gilliam’s remake, however, the baron is swallowed by a giant sea-monster, takes a trip to the moon, dances with Venus and escapes from the Grim Reaper, just to name a few of his adventures. I think this tells us one important thing about American audiences and their attention span. To me, the 1988 version is much more action-packed and fast-paced, whereas the German film goes more in-depth into relationships (those that the baron had with his, for lack of a better term, “women” [including Catherine the Great], as well as his friend, Christian), and ends with the baron’s own conclusion that relationships – not adventures – are what are really most fulfilling in life. This is in contrast to the end of Gilliam’s version, in which the baron rides off into the sunset, not with a woman, but with his horse alone.

Post-War Cinema

Postwar film saw many changes, and most were driven by a newly jaded America and Europe. Movies after World War II were starkly realistic, and at times even more pessimistic than that. To quote A Short History of Film, “Crime films became more bullet ridden, westerns more violent, and action thrillers added a new streak of sadism, to appeal to an audience that no longer believed in the Capraesque vision of small-town American life” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 167). It seems that we can attribute much of today’s violence in the movies to the neorealism movement. However, not all that came out of the postwar era was bad. In fact, one of my favorite lines from our text so far refers to director Vittorio De Sica’s refusal “to give the audience the artificial luxury of a happy ending” (pg. 169) in the 1948 film The Bicycle Thief. Some of my personal all-time favorite films defy what I like to call “the Hollywood ending.” Films like City of Angels, The Mist, The Butterfly Effect, The Road, (500) Days of Summer, pretty much any Robin Williams movie prior to 2006, and anything Johnny Depp did before he became a sell-out (oh yeah, I went there) give us that look at the world in a raw, un-sugarcoated way. Even if some of the premises of these films are a bit fantastical, the ways in which the plot unfolds and is handled by the characters is realistic, and for that reason, I think, more relatable. These films also do not give us those warm fuzzy feelings that, over time, become false expectations as we are indoctrinated into the culture of “happily ever after” endings.


Film noir was a reflection of two predominant social attitudes prevalent in postwar America. The first was the climate of mistrust and deception that came from the ambivalence surrounding the war and its outcome. Gender roles and the perception of women had also changed, and were illustrated in the genre with the use of strong, independent female characters (pgs. 174-176). Social problem films dealt with real-life issues such as alcoholism, life in prisons and mental institutions, anti-Semitism and racism (pg. 177).

During this time, technology was also moving along, and the film industry suddenly had competition, in the form of television. In order to contend, filmmakers began looking for new approaches to wow their audiences. New innovations such as CinemaScope, 3-D and Cinerama were introduced, but were only short-lived fads in the end (although 3-D keeps rearing its ugly head every few years, and IMAX, which is nothing but a refined version of Cinerama, is reasonably popular as a novelty medium). What really stuck around were color films, which had become nearly standard fare by the mid ‘60s, still lagging behind color television by over a decade.

Other changes and advances that occurred in postwar film were less technological and social movements than they were legal rulings. In 1947, the Supreme Court did away with the practice of block booking, essentially making “B” movies obsolete. Five years later, the Supreme Court’s “Miracle” Decision gave film as an art form the protection of the First Amendment (pgs. 171-172).

One of the happiest scenese in The Bicycle Theif... But still bittersweet...

Fritz Lang

Influenced by artists, authors and theorists, (Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Caspar David Friedrich, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud), Fritz Lang, born in Vienna in 1890, had aspirations to be an artist. However, that did not bode well with his father, and so he enlisted in the Austrian Army during WWI. In 1916, he was severely wounded, and two years later he was sent home, shell-shocked. After his military career, he returned to art, but in a different form.

Lang began directing films in 1919, the first of which was Halbblut (The Half-Breed), which unfortunately “has been lost due to neglect and nitrate decomposition” (Dixon & Foster, pg 81). With Die Spinnen (The Spiders, 1919), he was finding his style, but sticking with the safe action-adventure genre of the period. It would not be until1921 and the allegorical film, Die Müde Tod (Destiny) that he would start to break away from the mainstream. This film began Lang’s groundbreaking work in exploring entirely new genres, such as the idea of the “super-criminal” in Doktor Mabuse, Der Spieler (Dr Mabuse, the Gambler, 1922) and the “psycho-killer” in M (1931), his first sound film. Of course, Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece, Metropolis, which has been called the last of the German expressionist films, is one of his most influential, with homages and inspirations of that film showing up in everything from Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) to Star Wars (Gerorge Lucas, 1977) to Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). He has also been credited with influencing the work of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel and Orson Welles.

In 1933, after finishing Das Testament des Doktor Mabuse (The Last Will of Dr Mabuse), he was called in to talk with Reichsminister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and was simultaneously offered the position of studio head of the new Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) production company and told that the film he had just completed would be pulled from circulation, due to its “subversive content” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 83). This was thanks to his then-wife and Nazi sympathizer Thea Von Harbou (screenwriter on Destiny, Metropolis and M), who turned him in. With the Nazi’s newfound interest in him, Lang left everything behind and fled the country (according to Lang, that very day), citing, in part, his own Jewish heritage (on his mother’s side). Not surprisingly, Von Harbou remained in Berlin, divorcing Lang and becoming a “screenwriter and… director in service to Hitler’s Germany” (Dixon & Foster, pg 83).

After a brief detour in France, Lang moved on to Hollywood, and seemed to move out of his more melancholic period. In America, his films (for MGM) became slightly more optimistic and less mythical, centering on characters that the viewer could relate to and attracting such star power as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck, Tyrone Power, and Edward G. Robinson. In Hollywood he explored countless genres, including some, such as film noir, westerns, and musicals, which were new to his repertoire. But his departure from Hollywood was a bitter one, with his last two American films serving as political statements against the establishment.

Lang returned to Germany and his Nietzsche-esque style in 1958, once the Nazi threat was over, though he was never quite the same. His last film was Die Tausand Augen von Doktor Mabuse (The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, 1960). In 1976, he planned to make a film about the hippie culture, but, sadly that plan never came to fruition. Lang died in 1976 in Beverly Hills, leaving behind a legacy in film that is impossible to dismiss.



Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou



Sources:

http://www.blogger.com/goog_522908566

http://www.blogger.com/goog_522908566

www.imdb.com/name/nm0000485/bio

Dixon, Wheeler Winston, and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. A Short History of Film. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick NJ, 2008. Print.