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| Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou, Paul Falkenberg, Adolf Jansen (writers), Fritz Lang (director), M / 1931 |
After German expressionism’s migration to Hollywood, the world of film in the United States was altered permanently and dramatically. Following the “Golden Years” of German cinema and the oncoming of the Nazi political party, silent films such as
Metropolis, Nosferatu, and Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, and continuing with the advent of sound after 1929—
Der blaue Engel, Die Drei von der Tankstelle, M—German film became a model for a distinctive technique and style of filmmaking. With the appeal of higher budgets, better economy, and greater opportunities, many directors such as Ernst Lubitsch(
Carmen) and Billy Wilder(
Double Indemmity) transferred to Hollywood bringing their light and sound techniques, storytelling, and set design. Hollywood transformed from still lighting and dreary settings to the cutting-edge of light and shadow into film noir. Besides the styles that came with the new immigrants, their look into the criminal world and the lifestyle of evil doers and the people who apprehend them brought a violent turn around to American film plot. One Austrian born director who stands atop the rest in this specific influence is Fritz Lang. Lang brought the dark vision of criminality and the paranoid mentality of his Expressionistic classics,
Dr Mabuse, the
Gambler, and
M to Hollywood and became one of the most prolific directors of the noir genre. American director’s sometimes took this dark side ideal and turned them around writing stories about detectives and private investigators that catch the criminals.
Along with directors came an influx of German and Austrian actors and actresses to be guided by their countrymen in Hollywood. Many of these performers were given similar roles they portrayed in their homeland. One in particular is the classic early 20th century femme fatale, Marlene Dietrich. Beginning in 1930, with her revolutionary representation of the sultry femme fatale in
The Blue Angel (
Der blaue Engel), Dietrich’s film career spanned more than half a century from the earliest days of talking pictures into the age of Technicolor and Cinemascope, and she wasn’t the only lasting influence. To this day German directors such as Roland Emmerich(
Independence Day) and Wolfgang Petersen(
In the Line of Fire) still journey to Hollywood and alter the cinematic world.
