Covering classic films such as 'The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari' and 'Nosferatu' as well as under-appreciated examples such as 'Asphalt', this volume forms an essential introduction to one of cinema's most historically important movements.

New essays by leading scholars giving a new picture of the variety of German expressionist cinema.

Beginning with a fundamentally new interpretation of 'Dr. Caligari', and with fresh views of other expressionist classics, this book offers new perspectives on important alternative styles and genres that emerged in films by such eminent directors as Lubitsch, Fritz Lang and E.A. Dupont.

Expressionism and Film, originally published in German in 1926, is not only a classic of film history, but also an important work from the early phase of modern media history. Written with analytical brilliance and historical vision by a well-known contemporary of the expressionist movement, it captures Expressionism at the time of its impending conclusion—as an intersection of world view, resoluteness of form, and medial transition. Though one of the most frequently-cited works of Weimar culture, Kurtz's groundbreaking work, which is on a par with Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler and Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen, has never been published in English. Its relevance and historical contexts are analyzed in a concise afterword by the Swiss scholars Christian Kiening and Ulrich Johannes Beil.

One of the most visually striking traditions in cinema, for too long Expressionism has been a neglected critical category of research in film history and aesthetics. The fifteen essays in this anthology remedies this by revisiting key German films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), and also provide original critical research into more obscure titles like Nerven (1919) and The Phantom Carriage (1921), films that were produced in the silent and early sound era in countries ranging from France, Sweden and Hungary, to the United States and Mexico.An innovative and wide-ranging collection, Expressionism in the Cinema re-canonizes the classical Expressionist aesthetic, extending the critical and historical discussion beyond pre-existing scholarship into comparative and interdisciplinary areas of film research that reach across national boundaries.

German Expressionist film had a massive impact on 20th century film-making and on pop culture generally. Packed full of facts and analysis, this text is an ideal starting place for anyone interested in this period of film history.

Book on expressionism in German motion pictures.