Between 1919 and 1924 the offspring of Caligari, the Schuerfilme (films of fantasy and terror), flourished in Germany. You can see one of them, Der Golem(1920), in the previous post I did about Expressionism. However, in actuality most horror films today as well as numerous science-fiction films derive from German Expressionism.
There were two notable artists to mention in regards to Expressionism. The first is Fritz Lang, one of the masters, he gave us films such as Der müde Tod(Destiny, 1921). For some reason many of the hard to find silent films are only available online in Spanish, not sure why this is but dust off your español for this one.
der müde Tod 1/2 by desfilms
der müde Tod 2/2 by desfilms
Notice that the theme of this film is pure Expressionism, doom, gloom and Teutonic mythology. What Lang added to cinema was the use of lighting to emphasize lighting and space. This was because Lang was a trained architect and it’s that skill that becomes so readily apparent in his other, more famous, Schuerfilme, Metropolis(1926).
An inspiration for many science fiction and other films to come, Metropolis is a story about a totalitarian future society, a dystopia, brilliantly rendered through architecture and film process. There’s a lot of different versions of this movie floating around. Here’s one, it’s not a great print but I think is fairly authentic.
Lang managed the conversion to sound and directed several sound films, the most brilliant of which is M(1930). M seems to be more of an indictment of German culture at that time than the story of a man on the brink of collapse due to the guilt from his past deeds. Either way, M is not Expressionism, it’s what followed Expressionism, Kammerspiel. More on Kammerspiel later, first M.
The second notable artist to come out of German Expressionism is F.W. Murnau. His film, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horrors, 1922) is considered the prime example of the Expressionism movement. The most incredible thing about this film is that it was made with very limited resources. The Expressionism comes from camera angles and lighting, rather than expensive studio sets.
So many directors were inspired by this film and the techniques used in it are continually copied. For example, Orson Wells shot Kane from a low angle – which comes directly from this film, it’s how Nosferatu is shot to make him seem menacing.
And that brings us back to Kammerspiel (intimate, or instinct film). A film that forgoes the dramatic and tries to bring forth a more realistic portrait of the oppressiveness of contemporary middle-class life. Kammerspiel retains aspects of Expressionism, they have similar themes and they look similar, but Kammerspiel avoid theatrics. Instinct films are constructed for their specific media.
Murnau’s next important film is the first truly in this genre. It’s called Der letze Mann(The Last Man aka The Last Laugh, 1924) and it was written by the same writer as Caligari. The Last Laugh was one of the first films to make use of camera tracking, the camera is a character in this film. It was the first film to move its camera backward and forward, as well as up and down and from side to side, in scenes of substantial duration.