From Dadaism to Expressionism

Weimar cinema is a notable period of film history wherein Expressionism was truly pushed and pioneered as a movement. Like any artistic movement though, there were those that preceded it and paved the way for its development, and in this instance, one can look back to the roots of Dadaism and Surrealism. Dadaism was born out of a staunchly Anti-Aesthetic movement in post-WW1 Switzerland. According to Gomery and Paford-Overduin, it “…was a reaction to the war, a revolt against agony, death, greed, and materialism” (Gomery, 91). What this ultimately means is that this movement was the sheer defiance of previously established artistic and aesthetic notions in favor of sheer chaos. A classic example of this is Marcel Duchamp’s piece Fountain, which was just a urinal he submitted into an art exhibition. The general public did not like this.

Branching off of Dadaism comes Surrealism, which picked up after the Dadaist movement faded out. Surrealism was led by big names such as Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, and its goal was to continue the “attack on traditional art, but as an organized movement” (Gomery, 91). They focused heavily on mixing dreams and reality, which can certainly be seen as an influence in German Expressionism— most notably, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Buñuel and Dali worked together to create the film Un Chien Andalou which was presented in 1928. This film heavily embodies the notable traits of what constitutes Surrealism. It rebelled against the traditional Hollywood narrative, and instead threw out the idea that the events within a film must be cause-effect. This film shows its disregard for temporal straightforwardness through its erratic jumps in time, such as “once upon a time” to “three o’clock in the morning” to “in the spring” (Gomery, 92).

Buñuel and Dali focused instead on the human subconscious as a vehicle of exploration into new realms of art, digging into the disturbing and distorted perception that dreams embody.

It is clear that Dadaism and Surrealism are both chaotic in nature in their own way, and one must wonder how this translates into an association with Expressionism, but the link is there. The nature of art is to look to its predecessors and build upon it, and Expressionism certainly does this. Expressionism is, according to Gomery, “…an extreme stylization of the mise-en-scene: chiaroscuro lighting, surrealist settings, stylized acting, and frequently a camera moving about this ‘unreal’ world” (Gomery, 100). Mise-en-scene can be defined as, “a term that describes the action, lighting, decor, and other elements within the shot itself…” (Geiger, 1076). How this translates to cinema is through the exaggeration of what the viewer is presented on screen in the shot. The beginnings of this can be seen in Dadaism and Surrealism through their distorted features and elements. Dali paints dreamlike scapes that are exaggerated in order to convey their meanings— that is, as much meaning as the viewer is capable of/willing to take in.

As previously mentioned, a prime example of German Expressionism in film is the movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Here, Expressionism is pushed to its utmost definition. Everything from the dramatic makeup to the distorted, dream-like sets reflect influence from Surrealism and Dadaism. Dr. Caligari himself appears almost cartoonish in his wardrobe; lines painted on his head, face, and gloves to exaggerate the immensely unrealistic world this takes place in. Even the landscapes are painted in a distorted manner, creating a nightmarish aesthetic that definitely encompasses stimmung. The film itself even opens with a scene that has an appearance from a ghost that the two human characters openly acknowledge. Nothing about this film is grounded in reality— save for the ending. The ending serves an interesting purpose. It offers a tether to reality for the viewer, and while it can be debated whether it was a satisfying ending or not, one must admit that it draws to attention the power of the human mind and, therefore, dreams.

Dreams, like Surrealism and Dadaism, are confusing and chaotic with no logical order. Expressionism gleefully takes this and runs with it, fitting it into a narrative structure that works yet opposes the traditional Hollywood model. There are other examples of German Expressionism during the Weimar period of cinema, but none exemplify it as well as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Other films merely touch upon elements of Expressionism. However, overall, Expression would not exist the way it does without the precursors of Dadaism and Surrealism. Pioneers like Duchamp, Buñuel, and Dali, and many others surely paved the way for this significant artistic and filmic movement through their anti-aesthetic ideals and emphasis on dismantling traditional art.

Nosferatu: a Nosy Look at Anti-Semitism

The film that I chose to view for this paper was Nosferatu, a German Expressionist adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. Directed by F.W. Murnau, and with its screenplay written by Henrik Galeen, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was supposed to strike terror into its audience’s hearts upon release. Though met with lukewarm reception, the ghastly spectre of Count Orlok most likely appeared as any good monstrous vampire might: a long hooked nose, claw-like fingernails, bushy eyebrows, and a continuing association with rats.

Interestingly enough, these are also all physical traits related to anti-Semitic stereotypes, as can be seen most explicitly in Nazi propaganda films such as Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), and Jüd Süß. These films contain images of Jews with unclean appearances and hooked noses, hunched and a threat to German society. One notable scene in Jüd Süß is when the titular character undergoes a “transformation” and cleans up his appearance, allowing him to fit in better at Württemberg.

Along with this, there is also the callback to the time of the Black Death around 1350. Though not related directly to Germany, this was one of the many instances in which Jews were persecuted, and they were associated with filth, rats, and bringing about the plague. None of this is remotely true, and, in fact, the Jews remained relatively healthier than others because of their ritualistic bathing habits.

However, this is not to say that Nosferatu is itself an explicit representation of anti-Semitism. Rather, it is that it is a product implicitly affected by the surrounding conditions of a post-WW1 Germany with the newly established Weimar Republic of 1919. In fact, Galeen himself was a Jew, which only deepens the discussion of this topic.

Between Mouthfuls of Memories (500 word piece)

    I don’t know what death smells like, but I can say with certainty that the precursor to death is stale. It’s like the colorless, lint-ridden sheets that have been washed one too many times and pulled over the mattresses of an old folks home. Or maybe it’s the overabundance of cleaning supplies that sterilize to the point where no life can thrive comfortably.
    Her room is bleak. The dim TV, the empty walls, and even the faded burgundy armchair is covered in dusty white Kleenex because, “Who knows what slob sat here before, dear?” Her memory is no better than the bleak room, and the austerity bleeds into my smile when I’m asked “How’s school going?” for the sixth time.
    I nod, hands clasped together, and muster up another, “It’s good, it’s going really good.” My mom looks at me with thankful eyes that I don’t deserve.
    The brightest thing in the room is the pizza my uncle brings to celebrate her birthday. She’s 74 (“Me? I’m 74? It’s my birthday?” she asks over and over), and it’s December 26th, 2015. It’s a large cardboard box with grease stains on the bottom, the Wegmans logo printed joyfully on top in bright red, and inside sits her favorite pizza: cheese, sauce, green peppers, pepperoni. When we open the box to dole out celebratory slices the room lights up along with my grandmother’s face.
    “This is for me?” she asks, a spark of youth hidden underneath smooth skin and wrinkles. It seems as though asking is all she ever does these days. Asking for answers, asking for help, asking when we’ll be back. We tell her, but like the pizza that brings her such joy, it inevitably disappears into the pitch of her mind.
    I worry that one day, I will too.

Space Boy

tiny fists reach up towards the night sky and
he wants to touch them, touch the stars,
gather them like glowing seashells in his palms
and let them warm his chest on cold nights

the tangle of cool circuitry weaves under
his skin and metal and flesh become one
lifting him up higher and higher and it’s
close enough to burn in the sun

the only lover Space Boy knows is the cosmos,
shaped like rosy bouquets and valentine
chocolates from the store down the street
he recites equations for relativity like poetry

love notes in glass bottles are thrown
into the sky, but shatter at his feet

Paper Valentine

He wants to take the word “Love” and
crumple it up like a paper Valentine;
Stuff it into his mouth,
Grind it down,
Swallow it clean.

He wants to take the gaudy pieces
Of candy and crush them under
The heel of his boot
And then snort the dust
If only to feel the burn
Of something that isn’t
Heartbreak.

He wants to smash the memories
Like a broken coffee pot on a lazy
Sunday morning and then crunch
The glass into his hands,
Across his palms, and smear
The saccharine
Blood across his face like
A savage preparing for war.

But he does none of this. He
Crumbles like stale cake and
Waits for someone to move him
and his cracked frosting heart
With the rest of the rotting refuse.

Drowsy Bifurcation

She’s sunshine in the form of dark
edges and half-nibbled jars of strawberry
frosting sweet enough to make you
sick just by looking at it. You touch her
charcoal-smudged cheek and drag fingers

down along the distant column of her neck,
smearing dark lines that steep like
rooibos tea a little on the burnt side—
always a little on the burnt side.

You keep a messy room but a tidy
heart, books scattered but the walls
scrubbed clean of dirt until your
nails bleed from the hydrogen peroxide,
a parochial washing of your whimsy
because you think maybe— maybe—
it’s just something your soul needs.

The knot of time remains firm around
the hollow of your throat and she—
a thin dash of burnable sunlight trickling
into your atmosphere— and she— the
dark seductive curve of a calligraphy

pen at an errant hour of the night—
and she slackens the rope and sends
you on your way, stumbling, jealously
reverent, palms bent hopelessly
towards the sky— searching.

red white blue

snorting clouds of white aspirations and
getting high on scattershot clumps
of broken ozone that crumble into
rubble for the impotent greenery
we lay down and breathe

I want to drown with your
cinderblock hands around my
ankles until I bleed billowing blues
under Salem lakes
and sputter for asphyxiated love love

love love love lovely
Asphalt smashed across a
blossomingly bruised face
drip-dribbling copper red dancing
on the tip of my tongue
like tangy little pinprick soot stars
deflated and drifting downward

I lick static in the air, I lick
static off your irradiated face
and we belie a better sense of self,
versions of the self selfish selfless
self of the none for no one no more

Jupiter

Watch my breath expand like wild hydrogen,
fields igniting under the weight of my
burgeoning ego that consumes and conceives
like a vacuum in space hung among the stars

Pinpricks of light, of life and love, are swallowed
down like an elixir and finally I flourish;
my world expands and so do I, claiming
the space that belongs to me, the hollowness

that generations before carved out for me,
for me and only me, with my stars and sinew
expanding like the roots of trees and the
inky outreaches of the universe

But how far can I expand? I watch my fields
burn, the embers tickling my bare ankles.

Weird Love

It’s the brittle tenderness of a realization
founded upon unsurety, snagged in
between shreds of fluctuating identity of
both personal and private and why can’t
they just function like— like a normal fucking
thing.

A unit. A— a not quite couple, not
quite less than that, but something wonderful,
something terribly idiosyncratic with its own
mechanistic way of existing; visceral with its
mandible and black beetle wings, tangible
in its palpability of conscientious foreboding.

He breathes out and lets hands pass through
his chest like they belong there, nestled among
viscerae and sneaky stowaway fragments of
two fingers tugging at stiffly ironed shirt collars,
and he swallows— the taste of— of black licorice
sits on the back of his tongue like lead, the
taste of— of ablution beads like morning dew
and dribbles down his throat with every
second he lets pass, coiled up in nondescript

nonchalance like maybe they can just—
just. It’s a Weird Love. Drenched in emotional
obscurity that would make Aphrodite Urania
weep porcelain tears. He’s stuck in the thicket
of his own haste, boxed in by invisibilities that
elude him like Sunday Morning crossword
puzzles over burnt coffee and burnt toast and
burnt ego and just— just—

maybe he can move towards the horizon, emerge
from his self-pioneered exile of contempt; those
awfully lovely hands pulling him by the ribcage
and snapping each bone with a tenderness he’s
denied himself for so long.

Maybe there is value in contingencies that
overflow and overflood the basin, in khaki
pants and leather belts lingering lovingly
on the backs of chairs, in the awkwardly
contemptuous not-quite-right way they perfectly
slot together, elbows and broken ribs, the glimmer
of a morning thrush upending a black beetle.

Sitting by the Lake, Watching

I like to know a place intimately
through the soles of my feet,
crunching gravel like bags of
early morning granola packed for
a day full of adventures ahead,
traversing melted memories that
stick like smashed beetles against
the flat of my palm

(I didn’t mean to do it. That. This.)

I smear them along my forearm and
hymnal winds wrap around my
shoulders like a pashmina knitted
from sunsets and the slow creeping
slouch of Autumn that dips its fingers
into the bittersweet vestiges of August.
Pine needles on trees go soft with the
melting summer denouement heat.

They (who’s this omniscient “They?”)
say that if you stare into the sun for
too long, too lovingly, you’ll go blind.

I stare and stare until she’s dipped
below the supple curve of distant
dreamy mountains, erupting in a
cataclysm of smashing slapdash
embers, and I go blind with
renewed ambition.