Spione and German Expressionism Flashcards
Cinematography
Close ups are used to convey information clearly, Whenever a character picks up something or does something important the camera switches to a close up. I.E, Closeup of the gloved hands opening the safe in the opening
The Closeup of Haghi at the start helps to show his power and his presence in a single shot.
Stylised angles are used, with a low angle being used for the shot of the motorcyclist and the radio towers showing their power.
Lighting
The use of Chiaroscuro helps to create a bizarre and surreal feel to the setting of spione, With locations having harsh shadows to stand out within the limited colour pallet.
Political Context
Polarisation between left and right culminated with Hitler winning the election in 1933, a few years after Spione released
Historical Context
The weimar republic had replaced the empire in 1919 after Germany’s defeat in WW1 and the German Revolution of 1918-1919. In the mid 1920s there was a centre right coalition government and a relatively stabilised currency.
Technological Context
Germans where among the inventors and pioneers in photographic technology. Film-makers were keen to experiment with cinema as the medium
Characters
Lang is more invested in the antagonists rather than his protagonists, Haghi is more so the focus of Spione, more so than 326, the protagonist.
It is described as “there is only pure sensation, character development doesn’t exists” a good summary of the lack of story and focus on visuals
Production Context
Spione was more of a passion project for Lang since he nearly bankrupted the studio when he made Metropolis, leading to him having to pay for a large amount of it himself.
Spione was fairly fast in production, it only took 15 weeks to make.
Editing
Opening scene makes use of a montage of quick cuts and a series of parallel actions - robbery, murder, chaos, spies, technology and other things that are all key themes that reappear thought the film.
Mise en Scene
Haghi’s lair is littered with gadgets and technological items that helped build the spy genre in modern times.
Unable to tell if Haghi’s lair is a prison, hospital or any other structure.
What is German Expressionism
“German Expressionism is a cultural movement that is challenging to define as it is not distinguished by a singular style or method of creation, but rather is better described by both the mindset of the artist creating the work and the generation he or she lived in.”
“The German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of Hollywood during the same period. The cinema outside Germany benefited both from the emigration of German film makers and from German expressionist developments in style and technique that were apparent on the screen”
It created a mood and feeling rather than a reality, relied heavily on mise en scene to create this mood.
Key features of Fritz Lang Films
- His protagonists are frequently hateful, violent but ultimately sympathetic figures
- His films are dark (both visually and in tone)
Characters
- protagonist = No.326
- antagonis = Haghi
- femme fatale = Kitty
- love interest = Sonya
- other noteworty characters = Masimoto
Silent Cinema
“A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (and in particular, no spoken dialogue). In silent films for entertainment, dialogue is conveyed by the use of muted gestures and mime in conjunction with title cards, written indications of the plot and key dialogue lines. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s in film with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system.”
Lang History
“Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter.”
“1933. In that year, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels offered Lang the job of head of the German Cinema Institute. Lang–who was an anti-Nazi mainly because of his Catholic background–did not accept the position (it was later offered to and accepted by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl) and, after secretly sending most of his money out of the country, fled Germany to Paris.”
Performance
Actors and characters overreact to events that happen, in facial reactions and body language in order to fully sell the emotion that character is feeling within the limits of the silent cinema, mainly this can be seen in the opening with the government people looking worried.
