The 1920s: Films of the Deco Decade

Art deco, art nouveau, and the Viennese secession styles are all prevalent in the vibrant photography and set designs of many of the grandiose and decadent films of the 1920s. This unique combination of grand, sweeping visual gestures and, at times, delirious excesses embodies a dominate strain of the culture and, in some cases also reflects, the contradictions that were evident in both the cinema and the history of the period. This program presents four of the major films of the deco decade -- works that represent a distinctive sampling of the period's popular aesthetics and its own unique image.

Alfred Hitchcock's The Pleasure Garden (England/Germany 1925) was a co-production between the British producer Michael Balcon and the German Erich Pommer who was one of the key figures in the development of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s. Hitchcock was an unknown quantity in 1925 since, prior to his direct­orial debut on The Pleasure Garden, he had worked primarily as an art director on Balcon's films. The film was made as an English production set in London and Africa and totally filmed in Pommer's studios in Munich. It was to be a challenging introduction to film making for the future "master of suspense."

The heavy German Expressionistic influence found in The Pleasure Garden is due not only to the location of the film's actual production, but also to Hitchcock's great fascination with the works of such directors as Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau. Added to this was an unusual mix of set designs, ranging from the gaudy glitz of the theatre scenes to the pseudo-exotical of the English's notion of colonial Africa. The film's narrative of betrayal, madness, and miscegenation is, in part, indicative of the racial ideology that underlined British Imperial thinking. It also represents, however, a first-step in Hitchcock's recurring theme of marriage as a state of danger rather than bliss.

Hitchcock once stated that he learned how to make movies by watching repeated viewings of Lang's Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (Germany 1922). This film, which was the first part of the epic-length production Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit, presented Lang's vision of a modern Germany collapsing under the weight of economic chaos, social instability, and extreme decadence. Against this backdrop, the half-mad master criminal Mabuse thrives through combined cunning and pure will as he murders and extorts his way to power. The obvious political implications of the story were developed further by Lang in his two sequels -- The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Germany 1932) in which Mabuse directly prefigures the Third Reich, and The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Germany 1961) in which the doctor's will power proves strong enough to transcend both death and the passage of time in order to attempt the creation of a new Germany in his own image.

Lang utilized a variety of stylistic designs in the film's photography in order to invoke the period. Sharp angles and distorted perspectives create a subtle sense of disorientation through out the film as Lang depicts a society increasingly dominated by Mabuse's paranoid megalomania.

Though he was critically considered to be one of the major filmmakers of the 1920s, Rex Ingram remains largely unknown by modern audiences. His most successful film of the period, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (USA 1921), has become mainly a footnote in movie history books, despite the fact that this production not only made Rudolph Valentino a star but also made it financially possible for M-G-M Studios to be formed. Yet the film still has a striking pictorial power that may come as a surprise for viewers unfamiliar with the expressive qualities of the silent cinema. In fact, many of the scenes in the film were based on oil paintings, especially the works of Maxfield Parrish. This, combined with Ingram1s almost obsessive quest for exotic details, gave his films a stylistic polish that helped to balance his unpredictable wavering between excessive profundity and sentimental superficiality.

Based on the popular novel of the period by Vicente Blasco-Ibanez, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was originally intended as an anti-war epic in which World War One is literally shown as fratricide. The film's noble aspirations, however, were presented within the context of a very American view of Europe, and upon its release, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was protested against by the English, French, and German governments. Even though it is now clearly dated, the film remains a fascinating and vivid document of its era.

If sentimentality was one of Ingram's flaws, the lack of it was worn as a virtual badge of honor by Erich von Stroheim. In his production of Foolish Wives (USA 1921), von Stroheim proceeded to scandalize the American film audience by presenting a caustic portrait of European cynicism and debauchery that would reconfirm his title as "the man you love to hate." While he was overtly flaunt­ing his self-created image of European corruption, von Stroheim was also attacking American naivete, xenophobia, and middle-class hypocrisy while simultaneously insulting the honor and privileges belonging to the alleged nobility. That an artist like von Stroheim was able to make Foolish Wives is a testament to both his skills and his special self-destructive nature.

Though at the time it was claimed to have been the first film ever to cost a million dollars, the actual production of Foolish Wives was not that expensive. Von Stroheim did, however, pursue his notion of realism to new extremes as he completely reproduced Monte Carlo as a full scale working model on Universal's back lots, including a completely operational casino. For von Stroheim, his sets had to be as authentic as possible since his artistry was based upon the massive accumulation of physical details. As with the naturalist writers of the late 19th century, von Stroheim was interested in presenting the realities of the world with all of its warts and blemishes carefully cataloged. It was in this manner, he felt, that something resembling truth could be reclaimed from the lies and illusions of society.

Fritz Lang: the Cinema of Fear

In the films of Fritz Lang there were no accidents, only pre-determined events. The seemingly coincidental details of life were actually mani­festations of a greater force which manipulated and propelled his characters along a complex path of preordained action. His villains were madmen driven by impulses beyond their control, and his heroes were forced to discover the contradiction which existed between their moral ideals and the accelerating brutality of their actions. Lang was a moralist for whom freewill was a debatable concept. His films' intricate, geometric structures are a visual representation of a world in which the most inconsequential act could result in death.

A quick comparison of four of his films, such as the German productions of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1932) and M (1931) opposite the Hollywood movies Man Hunt (1941) and The Woman in the Window (1944), present a study in the continuation of themes and concerns. Though Lang's American films were stylistically different from his early German productions, his fatalism made it difficult for him to believe in the American legislated right to the pursuit of happiness. No wonder his American heroes had a limited, often bleak, set of choices.

With M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Lang created his most extensive vision of pure evil. The obvious villain in M is the mass murderer portrayed by Peter Lorre, a grotesque figure who is driven by an uncontrollable compulsion. Lorre's character is viewed by the film as the result of a corrupt and decadent society. Throughout the film, Lang cuts back and forth between the police and the equally organized under­world. The mentality and motivations of both worlds are presented as essentially the same, though the underworld is slightly more proficient at finding Lorre. In M, the traditional moral basis of society has become meaningless and a general atmosphere of decay is prevalent.

Ironically, part of the controversy which surrounded M on its release in Germany was caused by the Nazis who felt that the film was a critical attack on them. The original title of the film, The Murderer Among Us, was changed to M because the producer feared possible reprisals by the increasingly powerful Nazi party. If Lang did insult the Nazis in M, it was minor compared to his next film, for The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was a direct attack upon them.

In the first Mabuse film, Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (German 1922), the doctor was presented as a master criminal who thrived on the social and financial chaos of Berlin in the 1920s. At the film's climax, during a shoot out with the police, Mabuse is driven mad by the appearance of the ghosts of his numerous victims. Hopelessly insane, Mabuse is sent to a prison asylum to serve his life sentence.

In The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Lang presents Mabuse's psychosis as the incarnation of Nazi philosophy. Many of Mabuse's speeches in the film were directly taken from Nazi slogans and the film's plot concerned Mabuse's bizarre plan to create a new social order by way of mass destruc­tion. Supported by a willpower which even proves to extend beyond the grave, Mabuse attempts to undermine society through a series of terrorist actions.

Not surprisingly, the film was banned by the Nazis and Lang began to realize that his own prestige as Germany's leading filmmaker was not enough to protect him. The Nazis, however, admired Lang's ability to create large visual scenes in such earlier films as Metropolis (Germany 1927). In 1933, Lang was summoned to the Ministry of Propaganda where Joseph Goebbels offered him the position of head of the German film industry under the Third Reich. That night, Lang fled Germany.

Upon his arrival in Hollywood, Lang quickly adapted himself to the American film industry. However, his films retained a unique sense of pessimism and despair. By now, Lang fully understood that the choices a person made would ultimately limit one's future possibilities. In Man Hunt, for example, the hero's entire future is determined at the beginning of the film by an ambiguous act. The hunter portrayed by Walter Pidgeon in Man Hunt is not necessarily interested in assassinating Hitler. He first toys with the idea and aims an unloaded rifle. His decision to place a bullet in the chamber is a spontaneous gesture. That decision, however, determines everything that follows as Pidgeon realizes, in the course of the film, that he must commit the act which he had only contemplated.

In a similar manner, the psychology professor in The Woman in the Window sets in motion a murderous chain of events when he merely has one drink too many at his club. The professor's slight inebriation leads to a minor flirtation, which leads to murder. His efforts to hide one murder requires him to commit more.

In Lang's German films, such as M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, the characters were committed to their behavior patterns at the beginning of the film. In his American works, the characters had the limited freedom to make certain choices. Once the choices were made, their consequences were inevitable. The fear felt by all of Lang's characters was generated by this fatalistic certainty. In this regard, he created a cinema of fear.