230252 From Haunted Screen to Puzzle Film: Film Noir – Roots and Legacies (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

“The leaning towards violent contrast – which in Expressionist literature can be seen in the use of staccato sentences – in the inborn German liking for chiaroscuro and shadow obviously found an ideal artistic outlet in the cinema. Visions nourished by moods of vague and troubled yearning could have found no more apt mode of expression, at once concrete and unreal.” -- Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen (L’Ecrain Démoniaque, 1954)

“Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.” -- David Lynch

-- THE SEMINAR WILL START ON OCTOBER 18 DUE TO THE 'HOW TO ENGLISH' WEEK OCT. 09 - 13! --

“Rosebud” (Citizen Kane, 1940), the “Great Whatsit” (Kiss Me Deadly, 1955) or the inscrutable magnetism of a painted portrait (Laura, 1944): Hollywood’s classic film noir has frequently shown a fascination for riddles and mystery. This predilection is evident in its narrative techniques, themes and mises-en-scène: zig-zagging flashbacks and labyrinthine, nightmarish plots; a display of tortured and sometimes split psyches; steep camera angles, characteristic chiaroscuro lighting. Many of film noir’s creators had fled Fascism-haunted Europe, and many of noir’s key features point to the cinematic traditions of the old continent, particularly to those of Expressionist cinema of the 1920s and ‘30s, a cinema where evil masterminds Dr. Caligari and Dr. Mabuse ruled supreme and, in tow with machine-mad Metropolis, foreshadowed the advent of totalitarianism.

Drawing on key theoretical texts and films, not only will this seminar investigate classic 1940s and ‘50s film noir’s adaptation and transformations of Expressionism’s distinctive aesthetics and its celebration of the dark and obscure; we will also examine and discuss the reemergence of the dark, mysterious and arcane in more recent – 1990s ff. – mind game and puzzle films.

Since our seminar will make a head start into the abyss of expressionism by way of the upcoming exhibition “Expressionismus und Film” (Kunstforum Hermann Stenner) and Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene) at Film+Musik Fest Bielefeld, stay tuned for more information regarding our agenda and readings!

Requirements for participation, required level

Basic film analytical knowledge is expected. For a quick overview, see https://filmanalysis.yale.edu/

Bibliography

To be announced.