From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses

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Audience Member Siegfried Kracauer was born in Frankfurt in 1889 and studied architecture and philosophy. He would work as architect from 1914 to 1920 before taking a job as the leading film and literature editor for the Frankfurt Zeitung in 1922 as the paper's correspondent in Berlin. He became the most widely read journalist in Germany. He was Jewish and left Germany in 1933 for Paris after the rise of the Nazi Party, and would later leave Paris in 1941 for the United States. While in the United States he worked at the Musuem of Modern Art under grants from Guggenheim and Rockefeller for his work in German cinema. He would publish "From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film" in 1947 where he traces the birth of Nazism back to the cinema of the Weimar Republic. This German documentary by Rudiger Suchlands puts his book into context and includes images from some of the most popular Expressionist films to some of the more less known. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member Based on the book From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film by Siegfried Kracauer first published back in 1947. It examines German expressionism in the Weimar-era through Nazi propaganda films. This documentary uses a picture collage or video clip collage style rather than a Ken Burns style to show multiple related visual elements on screen at once. From the dream like, nightmare like early horror films to the youth culture, devil-may-care attitude, some propositions are a bit of a stretch, but we dig deep into these influential films as cultural tools. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Read all reviews

From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses

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