The films of the 20s
In the 1920s, an art genre emerged that is still one of the most important media industries today: Film. Its rapid success story is not unusual, but entirely in the spirit of its time. For the people of the 1920s were more eager for new achievements than in any previous epoch. In addition, the world had suffered some setbacks in the previous decades. The entire temporal context gave rise to films that, historically speaking, are still worth a look today.
The temporal context
In 1912, the Titanic, considered unsinkable, sank and destroyed the dream of the victory of new technology. The years 1914 to 1918 plunged the world into the First World War, in which civilians suffered. Years of hunger and reconstruction followed. One might easily understand that it was during this time that "pleasure culture" celebrated a kind of high season. Revues and theatres could not complain about a lack of visitors. In many large cities, the 1920s epitomised a new "dissolute" life. It was precisely during this period that the achievements of "moving pictures" were pushed forward. At this time, short films and slapstick comedies were already very popular with a wide audience.
The stars of the time
Charlie Chaplin, who had already had great success with short films, made his first full-length film in 1921 with [nbsp]The Kid . Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon are still considered stars of the silent film era. Women are also quick to fall into the role of popular stars: Greta Garbo, Pola Negri and Theda Bara are among the first "film divas" of their time. Interesting in this context is a later interview with Theda Bara in which she reports on the problems of silent films. The films of the 1920s had no "soundtrack" ... hence the name "silent film". This posed a problem for actors of the time. Theda Bara reports that it was a challenge for theatre actors to portray dialogues and situations purely "pantomimically". Everything had to be conveyed with facial expressions and gestures. During the screening of these films, short texts were often inserted and described the dialogues or situations in more detail. Furthermore, musicians were often employed at film screenings to provide musical accompaniment to the film on a piano or violin.
The legacy of the 20s
Despite these problems, Theda Bara made her breakthrough in Hollywood and was considered one of the first "Hollywood sex goddesses" - a rank that is certainly not contemporary nowadays, but has certainly been passed down in form over many years. Even today, we rave about film stars and it is not uncommon for them to belong to "high society". This trend was born in the 1920s, so to speak. Of the actresses of the 1920s, we know only a few names today. Greta Garbo, however, should still be familiar to most film fans today. With Theda Bara, the former film diva, this term already becomes darker. It's a similar story with the actors of the 1920s: Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin may be the great exception here - but this is not least because the films in which they both starred were screened again and again for decades to come. The slapstick comedies made in the 1920s with Buster Keaton were still being shown regularly on television in the 1970s under the name Fathers of the Flea. Many of the Chaplin films are also still well-known today and enjoy cult status among fans... Although many of these works not only date from the 1920s, but were filmed a decade later.
The various 20s films
The world war from 1914 to 1918 divided the film industry and it was hardly possible to watch any of the Hollywood productions in 1920s Germany. In Germany, the UFA took over Hollywood's role and produced films for the German audience. In the process, Fritz Lang succeeded in creating two films that are still of great value today. First and foremost, the 1927 film [nbsp]Metropolis should be mentioned here, which is still one of the unbeaten classics among science fiction fans today and has made it into the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. The film is now considered "public domain" and can be watched in its entirety on the streaming service YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I9FD21k7Cs&t=952s
In the process, Metropolis paints a systolic picture of a possible future with a divided society: a model that naturally made many viewers think in the post-war period and was also not performed in a theatre in this form.
A little swing into the 30s
The second Fritz Lang film that made it to world fame is the sound film M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (M - A Town Seeks a Murderer), which was not made until 1931. This is about a child murderer who is outcast and hunted by society. Although the film itself is far less well-known than Metropolis, the story of M has since been adapted into many books, other films and plays. A few years ago, Katharina Torwesten adapted Fritz Lang's film as dance theatre for the Schleswig-Holstein Landestheater and was a great success at the premiere. This is not least due to the fact that the gloomy picture drawn by Lang has not lost any of its topicality.
Recommendations for silent films
Since such silent film classics can indeed hardly be discovered "by chance" in the evening programme, we would like to recommend some silent films that can be watched in full length on YouTube without any problems and free of charge, and which at the same time are among the great successes of their time:
- The Unchastened Woman (1925)
- Intolerance (1916)
- Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
- Battleship Potemkin (1925)
The films not only conveyed the story they told, but also the challenge of their production, which even then differed significantly from productions of stage and theatre. With film, it was possible to completely detach the venue from a theatre stage. At the same time, silent film dispensed with the dialogue of language that is still strong in theatre today. In the examples mentioned, this balancing act was quite successful and justifies the silent film as an "art medium". A claim that not every "Hollywood production" can make today.
Significance of the 20s films
Even though the film was not actually made as a sound film until the 1930s, it reflects the potential of its silent predecessors. From an art-critical point of view, this "classic claim" can certainly be applied to literature. With literary classics, one notices, just as with films of the 1920s, that they are designed for a different audience. Films produced or books written today are altogether more "short-lived". Whether this speaks for or against the industry is not to be judged here. Yet the films of the 1920s were produced for a far smaller audience than is the case today. There were no televisions and cinemas or "Lichtspieltheater" were far from being available in every town. Often projectionists travelled through the towns and villages with a film reel and a projector and showed the films in the halls of inns or other venues. This tradition continued well into the 1950s and practically ended only with the introduction of television sets. In larger cities, however, permanent "cinema theatres" (cinemas) were established even before then. In Germany, these cinemas gained importance especially in the 1930s when the Nazis used the cinemas for the weekly propaganda programme "Deutsche Wochenschau" (German newsreel) to spread news/propaganda about the course of the war. To this day, it is impossible to imagine the "cultural programme" of many cities and communities without cinemas, although regular theatres or playhouses suffer from this development. Even if the "blockbusters" produced today can hardly be compared to the films of the 1920s, the radio interview conducted in 1936 with the former film diva Theda Bara can almost be understood as a plea for theatre. The short interview (in English) is included in a YouTube film about Theda Bara:
Comparison with modern works
The film classics of the 1920s have a charm and a message that one might associate with a regular theatre nowadays rather than with modern Hollywood productions in which everything pops and explodes. The stars and actresses of the 1920s also exude a charm that can absolutely compete with film greats of today. Today, films from the 1920s are rarely seen "by chance" on television - and certainly no longer in the cinema. However, some of these classics can be "unearthed" through licence release in streaming services or on YouTube. Such films of the 1920s are a full-length alternative to today's television programme - and possibly not only for "fans" of this film era. The films of Fritz Lang and also some of the old Hollywood productions with Theda Bara are definitely more "worth seeing" than many of the new films or the Xth repetition of Wilsberg.
But above all, the aspect of art seems to be what the works of the 1920s are associated with. Yet the concept of art in these silent films - much like in classical literature - did not develop at the time of their creation. The films were made to tell a story and to entertain the audience. This "film art" therefore differs significantly from "art films" produced as such today, which do not do justice to their role at all simply through their forced uptightness. What is art is not decided by the artist or producer, but by the audience - and usually only over the course of many years. It may be that some of the films produced today will be understood as art in a hundred years. We hope that we will then represent our time as nobly and timelessly as the makers and performers of the silent films.
Flaming plea at the end
In conclusion, one can only praise the films of the 1920s and also their "stars": they were made in a time of awakening and curiosity. They were free of political propaganda and manipulation. The charm of the actors and actresses of the 1920s lives through their "love" of acting and their roles. This motivation may also have changed for many stars in the last hundred years; after all, nowadays it is a money printing machine in the case of Hollywood.
