settima

germany

M​ [M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder] (Fritz Lang, 1931)

Sep

5

Jury Rights Day

M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931)

Schränker (Gustaf Gründgens) and his kangaroo court. Under his clenched fist a photograph of one of the murdered girls. DP: Fritz Arno Wagner.

“Just you wait, it won't be long, The man in black will soon be here, With his cleaver's blade so true, He'll make mincemeat out of you!”

– children singing

Michael [Mikaël / Chained: The Story of the Third Sex / Heart's Desire] (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1924)

Aug

3

National Michael Day

Michael (1924)

Art critic Switt (Robert Garrison) with muse Michael (Walter Slezak). DPs: Karl Freund & Rudolph Maté.

Considered one of the earliest positive cinematic depictions of (male) homosexuality, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael tells the story of lonely artist Zoret (director Benjamin Christensen), his bright young muse and model Michael (Walter Slezak), and the more mature art critic Switt (Robert Garrison). Though it's mostly suggested – there's a female temptress (Nora Gregor) assuming a heterosexual perspective – its motif of the spoken and unspoken relationship between the men is definitely one of love, much in the same way Charles Vidor's Gilda (1946) is.

“Now I may die content, for I have seen great love.”

– opening title card

Michael is the second book adaption of Herman Bang's Mikaël (1902) after Vingarne [The Wings] (Mauritz Stiller, 1916).

Mädchen in Uniform [Girls in Uniform] (Leontine Sagan + Carl Froelich, 1931)

May

9

Teacher Appreciation Day

Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

Manuela (Hertha Thiele) in her Don Carlos costume with her beloved teacher, Frl. Von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). Note the similarity with Garbo vehicle Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933). DPs: Reimar Kuntze & Franz Weihmayr.

A goodnight #kiss on the lips was all it takes for 14-year old Manuela to fall for her teacher, Fräulein Von Bernburg. Then, while celebrating her rousing performance as the male lead in the play Don Carlos, Manuela gaily blurts out that yes, she indeed is in love with her teacher! This lack of discipline can't go unpunished, with devastating results.

“What you call sin, I call the great spirit of love, which takes a thousand forms.”

– Fräulein Von Bernburg

Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit [Ways to Strength and Beauty] (Wilhelm Prager + Nicholas Kaufmann, 1925)

Apr

18

National Exercise Day

Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit - Ein Film über moderne Körperkultur (1925)

A young woman with a pageboy cut and a black bathing suit is suspended from a tree with the back of her neck. An instructor, a bald man with a moustache and tan jodhpurs, pushes her as if she's on a swing set. DPs: Eugen Herich, Friedrich Paulmann & Friedrich Weinmann.

Europeans are not too worried about certain things. Having a body for instance is something good. Instead of shame, you take care for it with regular exercise and plenty of fresh air. Preferably both. In Germany this is called #Freikörperkultur, sometimes confused with nudism.

 

Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit is a display of the human in various stages of exercise and undress. We see sportspeople – including future-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller and then-movie mountaineer Leni Riefenstahl – world leaders (Rockefeller and Mussolini, though the latter was cut from re-releases) and dancers such as Josephine Baker, Baku Ishii, and the scandalous Anita Berber. The film was mostly aimed at women, who by then were part of the workforce, sitting at desks in modern Metropolises. So modern it was that people were encouraged to complete their Wege-collection of trading cards, which came with their cigarettes. Good thing they're all #outdoors.

Der ewige Jude [The Eternal Jew] (Fritz Hippler, 1940)

Apr

4

World Rat Day

Der ewige Jude (1940)

Nazi propaganda postcard advertising an exhibition in the library of the Deutsche Museum in Munich called Der ewige Jude: Große politische Schau (“The Eternal Jew: Great Political Exhibition”). The front of the card is a reproduction of the film poster. The card is dated 1937, which is at odds with the information in this blogpost. DPs: A. Endrejat, Anton Haffner, R. Hartmann, F.C. Heeve, Heinz Kluth, Erich Stoll & H. Winterfeld.

I took a long time considering what to nominate for today's topic. This is not an easy one. And frankly, barely qualifies as as film.

 

 

In 1939, the faux #documentary Der ewige Jude, directed by the leader of Goebbels' #propaganda film department Fritz Hippler, started production. Scenes shot in Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland were intercut with real, but out-of-context documentary footage, giving it a false sense of authenticity./

“Where rats turn up, they spread diseases and carry extermination into the land. They are cunning, cowardly and cruel, they travel in large packs, exactly the way the Jews infect the races of the world.”

– narrator

Germania anno zero [Germany Year Zero] (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)

Feb

6

National Sickie Day

Germania anno zero (1948)

Edmund (Edmund Köhler) walking through rubble in a post-apocalyptic Berlin. DP: Robert Juillard.

Twelve-year-old Edmund – the oldest kid to survive – works to support his whole family including his sick bedridden father while the remains of what was a thousand-year empire lies in rubbles around them.

– I don't go to school anymore.

– Why not? You don't like the new teachers?

– I have to work now.

Following Roma città aperta (1945) and Paisà (1946) of #Rossellini's unofficial war trilogy.