Weimar Classics and Film Theory

This page suggests ways in which theoretical texts from The Promise of Cinema might be aligned with classic films of the Weimar Republic. Viewing these films through the lens of theory helps us to tease out and illuminate the underlying theoretical projects and aesthetic questions that animate these works. In this way, the emphasis of analysis shifts from questions of plot, characters, the director’s style, and overall meaning, to the exploration of film-theoretical, film-historical, and conceptual questions (i.e. questions of filmic representation, perception; intermediality, media specificity, technology, spectatorial manipulation, self-reflexivity, etc., as well as the film’s historical moment and discursive force field).

The listed texts are meant to assist in the endeavor to study films analytically, and in turn, many of the films point to the larger theoretical issues that they indirectly, and often unawares, address and work through – theoretical issues that are still debated today. (For examples, see our lexicon of media concepts).

All listed texts are merely suggestions and could easily be augmented with further titles. We invite you to explore different pairings. For a list of films beyond the canon, click here.

THE BASIC CANON

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

Bernhard Diebold, Expressionism and Cinema (1916, no. 189)
Gertrud David, The Expressionist Film (1919, no. 190)
B., Expressionism in Film (1920, no. 191)
Ernst Angel, An ‘Expressionist’ Film (1920, no. 191)
Oskar Kalbus, The Muteness of the Film Image (1920, no. 219)
Robert Wiene, Expressionism in Film (1922, no. 195)
Joe May, The Style of the Export Film (1922, no. 129)

Alternative Films: Nerves (1919); From Morning to Midnight (1920); Genuine (1921)

The Golem: How He Came into the World (Paul Wegener, 1920)

Berthold Viertel, In the Cinematographic Theater (1910, no. 32)
Albert Hellwig, Illusions and Hallucinations during Cinematographic Projections (1914, no. 16)
Friedrich Freksa, Theater, Pantomime and Cinema (1916, no. 48)
Bernhard Diebold, Expressionism and Cinema (1916, no. 189)
Paul Wegener, On the Artistic Possibilities of the Motion Picture (1917, no. 88)
Oskar Kalbus, The Muteness of the Film Image (1920, no. 219)
Hans Pander, Intertitles (1923, no. 221)
Béla Balázs, The Educational Values of Film Art (1925, no. 54)

Alternative Films: Warning Shadows (1923); Wax Works (1924)

Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

Hans Hennes, Cinematography in the Service of Neurology and Psychiatry (1910, no. 233)
Osvaldo Polimanti, The Cinematograph in Biological and Medical Science (1911, no. 234)
Carl Hauptmann, Film and Theater (1919, no. 49)
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, A Substitute for Dreams (1921, no. 176)
Albin Grau, Lighting Design in Film (1922, no. 220)
Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, My Ideal Screenplay (1924, no. 223)
Eugen R. Schlesinger, Kulturfilm and Cinema (1924, no. 243)
Rudolf Kurtz, Limitations of the Expressionist Film (1926, no. 197)
Henrik Galeen, Fantastic Film (1929, no. 200)

Alternative Films: Phantom (1922); Secrets of a Soul (1926);

The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924)

Oskar Diehl, Mimic Expression in Film (1922, no. 50)
Friedrich Sieburg, The Magic of the Body (1923, no. 52)
Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, My Ideal Screenplay (1924, no. 223)
Guido Seeber, The Delirious Camera (1925, no. 226)
Karl Freund, Behind My Camera (1927, no. 229)
Emil Jannings, Miming and Speaking (1930, no. 60)
René Fülöp-Miller, Fantasy by the Meter (1931, no. 187)

Alternative Films: Backstairs (1921); Shattered (1921); Destiny (1921); Joyless Street (1925)

The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926)

Arno Arndt, Sports on Film (1912, no. 11)
Siegfried Kracauer, Mountains, Clouds, People (1925, no. 42)
Riefenstahl, How I Came to Film . . . (1926, no. 55)
Lotte H. Eisner and Rudolf von Laban, Film and Dance Belong Together (1928, no. 58)
Béla Balázs, The Case of Dr. Fanck (1931, no. 29

Alternative Films: The Blue Light (1932); Storm over the Mont Blanc (1930); Ways to Strength and Beauty (1926); S.O.S. Iceberg (1933)

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

Béla Balázs, The Revolutionary Film (1922, no. 158)
Fritz Lang, Kitsch – Sensation – Culture and Film (1924, no. 90)
Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, My Ideal Screenplay (1924, no. 223)
Willy Haas, Why We Love Film (1926, no. 149)
Siegfried Kracauer, The Klieg Lights Stay On (1926, no. 159)
László Moholy-Nagy, film at the bauhaus: a rejoinder (1926, no. 206)
Fritz Lang, Looking towards the Future (1926, no. 228)
Eugen Schüfftan, My Process (1926, no. 269)
Film-Kurier, Film in the New Germany (1928, no. 123)
Carl Laemmle, Film Germany and Film America (1928, no. 136)
Ernst Toller, Who Will Create the German Revolutionary Film? (1928, no. 166)

Alternative Films: Die Nibelungen (Siegfried; Kriemhild’s Revenge, 1924); Faust (1926)

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Walter Ruttman, 1927)

Yvan Goll, The Cinedram (1920, no. 20)
Robert Breuer, The Film of Factuality (1927, no. 199)
Walter Ruttmann, How I Made My Berlin Film (1927, no. 207)
Colin Ross, Exotic Journeys with a Camera (1928, no. 24)
Walter Ruttmann, The “Absolute” Fashion: Film as an End in Itself (1928, no. 208)
Siegfried Kracauer, Abstract Film (1928, no. 209)
Erich Burger, Pictures-Pictures (1929, no 27)
Albrecht Viktor Blum, Documentary and Artistic Film (1929, no. 45)
Lotte H. Eisner, Avant-garde for the Masses (1929, no. 216)

Alternative Films: Asphalt (1929); Melody of the World (1929)

The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)

Béla Balázs, The Eroticism of Asta Nielsen (1923, no. 51)
Max Osborn, The Nude Body on Film (1925, no. 53)
Béla Balázs, Only Stars! (1926, no. 146)
W. Pabst, Reality of Sound Film (1929, no. 254)
Emil Jannings, Miming and Speaking (1930, no. 60)
Marlene Dietrich, To an Unknown Woman (1930, no. 153)
Siegfried Kracauer, All About Film Stars (1931, no. 155)
Siegfried Kracauer, Destitution and Distraction (1931, no. 156)
K., Done with Hollywood (1931, no. 139)
Anon., Film-Europe, a Fact! (1931, no. 140)
Anon., Internationality through the Version System (1931, no. 141)

Alternative Films: Pandora’s Box; Diary of a Lost Girl (1929); 3-Penny Opera (1931)

M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

Hermann Duenschmann, Cinematograph and Crowd Psychology (1912, no. 109)
Wilhelm von Ledebur, Cinematography in the Service of the Police (1921, no. 239)
Herbert Jhering, The Acoustic Film (1922, no. 248)
Siegfried Kracauer, A Film (1924, no. 178)
Siegfried Kracauer, Sound-Image Film (1928, no. 251)
Béla Balázs, A Conviction (1929, no. 252)
Alfred Polgar, The Panic of Reality (1930, no. 28)
Rudolf Arnheim, A Commentary on the Crisis Facing Montage (1930, no. 258)
Film-Kurier, Fritz Lang: Problems in Sound Film Design (1931, no. 261)
Siegfried Kracauer, The Cinema on Münzstraße (1932, no. 77)

Alternative Films: Mabuse, the Gambler (1922); The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933); The Street (1923); Überfall (1928); Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931)

Kuhle Wampe (Slatan Dudow, 1932)

Béla Balázs, The Revolutionary Film (1922, no. 158)
Siegfried Kracauer, The Klieg Lights Stay On (1926, no. 159)
Oscar A. H. Schmitz, Potemkin and Tendentious Art (1927, no. 160)
Walter Benjamin, Reply to Oscar H. Schmitz (1927, no. 161)
Lotte Eisner, The New Youth and Film (1928, no. 162)
Franz Höllering, Film und Volk: Foreword (1928, no. 163)
Béla Balázs, Film Works for Us! (1928, no. 164)
Ernst Toller, Who Will Create the German Revolutionary Film? (1928, no. 166)

Related Titles: Mother Krausen’s Journey to Happiness (1929)

ADDITIONAL FILMS

The Student of Prague (Paul Wegener, Stellan Rye, Hanns Heinz Ewers, 1913)

Ulrich Rauscher, The Cinema Ballad (1903, no. 80)
Gustav Melcher, On Living Photography and the Film Drama (1909, no. 3)
Adolf Sellmann, The Secret of the Cinema (1912, no. 10)
Egon Friedell, Prologue Before the Film (1912-13, no. 78)
The Autorenfilm and Its Assessment (1913, no. 79)
Kurt Pinthus, Quo vadis, Cinema? (1913, no. 81)
the Student of Prague (1913, no. 82)
Hermann Häfker, The Call for Art (1913, no. 83)
Joseph Roth, The Uncovered Grave (1925, no. 43)

Related Titles: The Student of Prague (1926)

Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919)

Walther Friedmann, Homosexuality and Jewishness (1909, no. 102)
Ike Spier, The Sexual Danger in the Cinema (1912, no. 96)
Karl Brunner, Today’s Cinematograph: A Public Menace (1913, no. 100)
Wilhelm Stapel, Homo Cinematicus (1919, no. 103)
Kurt Tucholsky, Cinema Censorship (1920, no. 104)
Albert Hellwig, The Motion Picture and the State (1924, no. 105)
Hans Feld, Anita Berber: The Representative of a Generation (1928, no. 152)

Alternative Films: I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1918); The Oyster Princess (1919); Sex in Chains (1928); Girls in Uniform (1931)

People on Sunday (Curt and Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, 1930)

Ludwig Brauner, Cinematographic Archives (1908, no. 31)
Alfred Döblin, Theater of the Little People (1909, no. 63)
New Terrain for Cinematographic Theaters (1910, no. 5)
Kurt Pinthus, The Ethical Potential of Film (1923, no. 177)
“Candid” Cinematography: “Kino-Eye” (1929, no. 215)
Béla Balázs, Farewell to Silent Film (1930, no. 232)
Alex Strasser, The End of the Avant-garde? (1930, no. 217)
Milena Jesenská, Cinema (1920, no. 70)

Westfront 1918 (G.W. Pabst, 1930)

Der Kinematograph, War and Cinema (1914, no. 110)
Edgar Költsch, The Benefits of War for the Cinema (1914, no. 114)
Joseph Max Jacobi, The Triumph of Film (1917, no. 120)
Gustav Stresemann, Film Propaganda for German Affairs Abroad (1917, no. 118)
Erich Ludendorff, The Ludendorff Letter (1917, no. 119)
Hermann Häfker, The Tasks of Cinematography in This War (1924, no. 113)
W. Pabst, Reality of Sound Film (1929, no. 254)
Siegfried Kracauer, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, no. 124)
Kurt Tucholsky, Against the Ban on the Remarque Film (1931, no. 125)
W. Pabst, Film and Conviction (1931, no. 173)

Alternatives: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); Kameradschaft (1931)