What Strictly Defined Expressionist Cinema in its Aesthetic and its Intellectual Aspirations ?

Extract

[...] Additionally, the expressionist cinema really worked with a black and white picture by the use of shadows, chiaroscuro . as I evoked. So, added to the speaking movies, the arrival of the Technicolor and the first colored movie in 1935 braked increasingly the expressionist cinema production. At this time, Germany was also in the midst of the international economic crisis. As a matter of fact, Germany was really depending on the outside states and on banks because of the financial outlet of WW1. [...]

[...] That is what said Siegfried Kracauer in his book From Caligari to Hitler in 1947. It's necessary to note that there is a parallel between the content of those films (dark society, psychology) and the state of mind and the moods of the time. The movies reflected the society of the time. The expressionist cinema was deeply rooted in the cultural, political and social life. If we take an example, we can discuss Metropolis made by Fritz Lang in 1927. [...]

[...] What strictly defined expressionist cinema in its aesthetic and its intellectual aspirations ? After WW1, Germany was wiped out and wrecked and so had difficulties to put on a new face. Its cinematographic industry also had troubles comparing to Hollywood, given that Germany underwent an economic recession. The expressionist cinema is a movement which arose from the German humiliation and aiming to build a new cinematographic identity. Therefore, German cineasts wanted to give a new shape to the cinema and to the cinematographic picture based, especially, on symbolism. [...]

[...] So the depression was very severe in Germany and about 50-60% of people were unemployed. And therefore, in the artistic field it was also a great problem: a lot of actors, filmmakers, artists didn't find any jobs and some studios had to close down. Finally, the movement sparsely turned out on the very end of the 30's and with WW2. Nazism was inspired and used a lot of technics of the expressionist cinema to make their movies of propaganda but, after WW2, the state of mind changed and there was a will to be optimistic just after what happened during those years of war. [...]

[...] The idea was to explore the form (plastic means), for a better showing of the content. (psychology of the human being). And the final goal was to put the interior characteristics of the human being on an equal footing with his exterior (physic) characteristics to claim that, even if we don't see them, the interior characteristics are as important as the exteriors, nay more. The arrival of talking cinema undermined the expressionist cinema by the fact that its principal characteristic was to talk with bodies, it was the picture which talked. [...]