The cinema book

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The cinema book is a 1913 collection of film exposés that Kurt Pinthus had suggested and edited. Fifty years after its publication, the now legendary band was reissued and again 20 years later.

Emergence

Kurt Pinthus was a theater critic for the Leipziger Tageblatt and wrote - according to his own account - the first film review in Germany. In fact, he was not the author of the very first film review, but this in no way diminishes his pioneering role. He was then accused of taking the "low" entertainment format too seriously and of abusing the newspaper columns allowed for it. He began - not least for reasons of justification - to deal more closely with the cinema. It struck him that longer films were always based on literary templates, so no special plots had yet been developed for film productions. He asked his literary friends across Europe to send him films that they had thought of themselves without any literary "past life" in order to publish them as an anthology. Besides himself, 14 predominantly Expressionist authors ( Richard Arnold Bermann participated in the project under his real name as well as under his pseudonym Arnold Höllriegel, so that Pinthus gives 15) submitted more or less elaborated ideas, all of which found their way into the book.

publication

Pinthus, who also worked as a lecturer , found someone in his employer, the publisher Kurt Wolff , who would go along with it. Embedded in a lithograph by Ludwig Kainer , which depicts a murder scene, the book, which was predated to 1914 on the main title page, was published at the end of 1913. The full title of this first edition is: Das Kinobuch. Cinema dramas by Bermann, Hasenclever , Langer , Lasker-Schüler , Keller , Asenijeff , Brod , Pinthus, Jolowicz, Ehrenstein , Pick , Rubiner , Zech , Höllriegel, Lautensack . Introduction by Kurt Pinthus and a letter from Franz Blei . Pinthus' foreword was primarily devoted to two aspects: On the one hand, the difference between the theater performance, which is based on words and dialogues, and the film happening, which must be understandable by means of pronounced facial expressions and gestures, but through montage, parallel actions or change of location as quickly and often as desired can perform instead of being tied to a limiting stage. On the other hand, there is the social benefit of the film, whose screen adventure allows for compensation of experiences and its emotional drama and catharsis .

In the same year the book was released, the stage actors Albert Bassermann and Paul Wegener , who were admired at the time, played in films for the first time. While Bassermann was panned by the biased critics, in Wegener's film Der Student von Prag one could not avoid recognizing the exciting plot, the photographic effects, the unusual lighting and the inspired landscape shots. The new field of acting was now developing rapidly, but Das Kinobuch had no part in this because it was overlooked for a long time.

content

The page numbers refer to the edition from 1913/14.

  • Kurt Pinthus : Introduction: Das Kinostück , pp. 1–12

As Pinthus said, “at the beginning of a book, cinema pieces, the essence of the cinema piece” must be discussed.

  • Richard A. Bermann : Lyre and Typewriter , pp. 13-18

According Pinthus is the film-within-film -Handlung in which a couple is to split over drive and leisure full " feuilletonistischer , filmzauberischer ideas".

  • Walter Hasenclever : The wedding night. A film in three acts , pp. 19–30

Pinthus counted the story of a love sacrifice with a variable, but preferably good ending, to be one of the "tragicomic adventures". For the Germanist and literary historian Dorit Müller, the text proves an intensive examination of the visual medium through "the concise, partly telegram-style language and the consideration of the feasibility of individual episodes", which is not the case with all contributions. She emphasizes two further characteristics, namely the scene boards and the "flowing transitions between reality and dream".

  • František Langer : The model waiter , pp. 31–35

The short prose about a waiter who in his free time woos the actress, whom he entertains unrecognized in the evening, and who is humiliated after the actress has found out, is described by Pinthus as a “tender or dangerous idyll”.

  • Else Lasker-Schüler : Plumm-Pascha. Morgenländische Komödie , pp. 37–41

The contribution of the well-known representative of Expressionism, whose main character is an enchanted great vizier , is a grotesque set in Upper Egypt or - as Pinthus put it - an "oriental fairy tale vision". Dorit Müller also praised the existing idea of ​​feasibility and the short language. Lasker-Schüler's contribution has a high entertainment value due to the "comedic characters" and "unusual props".

  • Philipp Keller : The epidemic , pp. 43–49

The script, in which a gesture of mourning during an epidemic is interpreted by superstitious villagers as a bewitchment from which they are supposed to redeem gypsy magic, Pinthus characterized - as with Lange - as a "tender or dangerous idyll".

  • Elsa Asenijeff : The Orchid Bride. Film in three acts , pp. 51–63

Because love remains unspoken due to social conventions and pride and ends in suicide, Pinthus called this elaboration "blossoming romantic noble kitsch".

  • Max Brod : A day from the life of Kühnebeck, the young idealist , pp. 65–70

In Brod's description of the fantasy world of a twelve-year-old, which intertwines with reality in such a creative way that he succeeds in convicting a criminal, Pinthus saw the “use of new technical possibilities for fantastic tricks”. Dorit Müller judged the text in a similar way, emphasizing "the fascinatingly confusing merging of reality and imaginary worlds", which had been specifically chosen in order to "exploit possibilities that could not be shown on the stage".

  • Kurt Pinthus : The Crazy Locomotive or Adventure of a Wedding Ride. A great movie , pp. 71-82

The "use of new technical possibilities for fantastic tricks" tried Pinthus to show in his own contribution. Based on two love stories told in parallel, the film draft develops the motif of the machine becoming independent and ends in a robinsonade . The media scientist Klaus Kreimeier thought it was best. The title already combines “everything that belongs to the dramaturgy of amazement in the cinema: the adventure, the madness, departure and long journeys (in the picture of the locomotive) - and finally: the fact that two people really just want to get married and love each other instead - almost - went to hell. Because they are sitting in a train whose engine driver has unfortunately gone insane. "Pinthus designed" a program that applies the category of the 'merely possible to think' to the powers of technical movement images "and anticipates surrealism by means of his imagination . In this regard, Müller thinks that the aspect of speed and the abolition of physical laws are introduced, "but he does not succeed in adapting his genuinely literary style of writing to the visual medium".

  • Julie Jolowicz : The red lantern , pp. 83–87

Pinthus explained the plot about a naive young person from the provinces who accidentally moved into the Berlin red light district, where he tried to report a fire and mistook the red lanterns for fire alarms as the “lousy grotesque” . Dorit Müller saw the basic idea as a gross blunder, because without clear color rendering the effect fizzles out.

  • Albert Ehrenstein : The Death of Homer or The Martyrdom of a Poet , pp. 89–97

The "bitter satire of Homer's classic poet's fate" (Pinthus) shows Homer in 22 pictures as a beggar and street musician who gets into trouble everywhere. Unfortunately, the “tightly” summarized descriptions of the situation lacked their creative means, noted Müller.

  • Otto Pick : Florian's happy time , pp. 99-105

This story of a young man from a rural background who unexpectedly gains wealth but loses everything again due to his lack of need, was one of Pinthus' “tragicomic adventures”.

  • Ludwig Rubiner : The uprising. Pantomime for the cinema , pp. 107–117

A workers 'revolt, in whose turmoil a sly woman wraps useful men around her finger and changes sides twice, is portrayed in "great social riot pictures" in Pinthus' view. Here again, Müller makes a “concise, partly telegram-style language and the consideration of the feasibility of individual episodes”. On the one hand, Rubiner has a feeling for scene arrangements and parallel montages, on the other hand, he neglects facial expressions and gestures.

  • Paul Zech : The Great Strike , pp. 119–132

Pinthus also saw the “great social turmoil” in Zech's literary and expressively portrayed events during a miners' strike that ended in an act of sabotage with a hundred dead. Language and noises are described in such a differentiated way that a silent film could not nuanced, which is why the piece is more like a radio play , wrote Dorit Müller.

  • Arnold Höllriegel : Galeotto , pp. 133-139

Another film-within-a-film story with "feuilletonistic, film-magical ideas" about a woman who, during a movie screening, decides to give her rich but old and unattractive husband for a young lover leave. In Dorit Müller's summary, a triangular story that is reflected in a film that was respected by all involved.

  • Heinrich Lautensack : Between heaven and earth. A cinematographic game in three acts , pp. 141–159

This play, at the climax of which a duel takes place on a factory chimney, is an expertly laid out script in the "expressionist film scenario style". The "jealous drama with a fatal outcome" is one of the professional drafts from the film industry's point of view, but not one of the most original. As early as 1914, explains Müller, a reviewer criticized the “kitschiness”.

  • Franz Blei : cinema dramas. A letter , pp. 161–162

Bleis considerations on the general orientation with a preference for biography and everyday life over exoticism and fantasy.

New editions

If the work went almost unnoticed after its publication, it was occasionally rediscovered in the following decades and around 1960. Film historians and university lecturers cited and analyzed it, and the Züricher Arche Verlag was already planning a new edition when, in 1961 , the Suhrkamp Verlag repeated the “risk” of Pinthus with its Spectaculum volume, texts of modern films , as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote. In Enno Patalas ' Spectaculum - epilogue is The cinema book only briefly mentioned, in connection with the negative attitude of the early filmmakers that a textual precursor for film productions as " The Da Vinci Code would have considered." Therefore, something similar to Pinthus' book has not been attempted since.

In 1963, for the 50th anniversary, the new edition finally came out. The original dust jacket could not be reproduced. The only textual modification was that the title addition no longer reads “cinema dramas” but “cinema pieces”. Pinthus noted right at the beginning of his new foreword that aspects of it had been secretly and unwittingly taken over by the film industry in the past period.

After the 70-year standard protection period had expired , another reprint was printed: The Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag incorporated Das Kinobuch into its Fischer Cinema pocket book series. In the title addition, the first names have now been added to the author's last name. Walter Schobert, co-editor of the Fischer Film Almanac and author of many books on film art, provided the afterword . An image section from the original cover graphic was used for the cover .

expenditure

  • Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig 1913 (predated: "1914").
  • Verlag der Arche, Zurich, 1963 (note: “New documentary edition of the 'cinema book' from 1913/14”).
  • Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-596-23688-6 ( Fischer Cinema series , volume 3688).

Reviews

In the foreword to the new edition , Pinthus reported that his book had largely been viewed as a joke or literary nonsense. He also quoted Friedrich Pruss von Zglinicki , who in 1956 praised both initiators and contributors of their skills and foresight in the standard work Weg des Film .

Paul Marcus, known by his abbreviation Pem , referred in 1931 in the Neue Berliner Zeitung - Das 12-Uhr-Blatt to the pioneering work of Pinthus in view of unresolved “film problems”: “And it shows that some things with cinema would be different if you had them Willingness to work the poet would not have ignored. That literary ambitions are almost nowhere to be felt, that the authors have recognized the requirements of the cinema. Maybe the gentlemen of the industry take a look at the old 'cinema book' and maybe they also get the thought that one shouldn't forget the creators of the word when talking about film. "

In 1964, Der Spiegel bitingly commented on the new edition: "Even back then, German writers had no real relationship with film." And after a disrespectful example of a scene, it continued: "Only the essayist Franz Blei, who did not contribute an exposé, saw clearly [...] . "

The teaser ( About this book ) in the 1983 edition of Fischer reads: “The young authors from back then wrote a colorful potpourri of milieus, situations and dramatic fates with a view to visual impact . This is how one of the most original documents in early film history came about. ”In the follow-up to the paperback edition , Walter Schobert wrote that the choice of material, ranging from melodrama to grotesque, social drama and hearty kitsch to cruel satirical exaggeration, had the film productions of those Days can leave "no trace of refinement" because they only reflect the status quo and are simply "good old cinema " on which film historians "can draw their picture of the early days of German film with more precise, sharper contours".

"The result are strange literary cabinet pieces [...]", summarized Klaus Kreimeier 2001 the book content.

In 2004, Dorit Müller found that the writers , who were trying to emancipate film from technically unaffected literature, stood in the way of their own ideas because of their ignorance of cinematic production processes.

In 2006 Claudia Wolf again emphasized the almost uselessness of the drafts: “It should be noted that the sketches published in the 'cinema book' are by no means fully formulated film scenarios, but rather small prose pieces . The majority of the authors produce prose texts, which at best can be described as exposés or treatments and only rudimentarily outline the main features of the intended film plot. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cover text from the 1963 edition.
  2. ↑ Hans C. Blumenberg : If I had the cinema! Exhibition in Marbach: writers and silent films . In: The time . No. 36/1976 , August 27, 1976, features section , p. 34 .
  3. ↑ a b About this book . In: The cinema book. Cinema pieces by Richard A, Bermann, Walter Hasenclever, Frantisek Langer, Else Lasker-Schüler, Philipp Keller, Elsa Asenijeff, Max Brod, Kurt Pinthus, Julie Jolowicz, Albert Ehrenstein, Otto Pick, Ludwig Rubiner, Paul Zech, Arnold Höllriegel, Heinrich Lautensack and a letter from Franz Blei . edited and introduced by Kurt Pinthus, with a comment by Walter Schobert (=  Fischer Cinema ). tape 3688 . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-596-23688-6 , pp. 2 (reverse of the flyleaf).
  4. ↑ Hanne Knickmann: A life for literature, theater and film . In: Rolf Aurich, Wolfgang Jacobsen (Ed.): Kurt Pinthus. Film publicist . With essays, reviews and a film script by Kurt Pinthus. Essay by Hanne Knickmann (=  film & writing ). tape 8 . edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88377-945-4 , An art of cinema will develop, p. 11–114 , here p. 21 .
  5. ^ Andreas Wagenknecht: The automobile as a constructive metaphor. A discourse analysis on the role of the car in film theory (=  theory and practice of discourse research ). 1st edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften / Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17702-1 , 4.2.2 The cinema book as an automobile book: Pinthus and the writers, p. 96 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Kurt Pinthus: Foreword to the new edition [1963] . In: The cinema book. Cinema pieces by Bermann, Hasenclever, Langer, Lasker-Schüler, Keller, Asenijeff, Brod, Pinthus, Jolowicz, Ehrenstein, Pick, Rubiner, Zech, Höllriegel, Lautensack and a letter from Franz Blei . edited and introduced by Kurt Pinthus. Verlag der Arche, Zurich 1963, p. 7-17 .
  7. ^ A b c Walter Schobert: Follow-up comment on the paperback edition . In: The cinema book. Cinema pieces by Richard A. Bermann, Walter Hasenclever, Frantisek Langer, Else Lasker-Schüler, Philipp Keller, Elsa Asenijeff, Max Brod, Kurt Pinthus, Julie Jolowicz, Albert Ehrenstein, Otto Pick, Ludwig Rubiner, Paul Zech, Arnold Höllriegel, Heinrich Lautensack and a letter from Franz Blei . edited and introduced by Kurt Pinthus, with a comment by Walter Schobert (=  Fischer Cinema ). tape 3688 . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-596-23688-6 , pp. 157-159 .
  8. ^ Dorit Müller: Dangerous journeys. The automobile in literature and film around 1900 (=  Epistemata. Würzburger Wissenschaftliche Schriften. Series literary studies . Volume 486 ). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2672-1 , 2.2 The cinema experience in literary texts, p. 196-197 .
  9. ^ A b Kurt Pinthus: The cinema piece. Serious introduction for thoughtful and thoughtful people . In: Kurt Pinthus (Ed.): Das Kinobuch. Cinema dramas by Bermann, Hasenclever, Langer, Lasker-Schüler, Keller, Asenijeff, Brod, Pinthus, Jolowicz, Ehrenstein, Pick, Rubiner, Zech, Höllriegel, Lautensack. Introduction by Kurt Pinthus and a letter from Franz Blei . Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig 1914, p. 1–12 (1913 is indicated in the copyright notice).
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Dorit Müller: Dangerous journeys. The automobile in literature and film around 1900 (=  Epistemata. Würzburger Wissenschaftliche Schriften. Series literary studies . Volume 486 ). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2672-1 , 2.2.1 Film aesthetic claim versus literary aesthetic implementation: The film scenarios in Kurt Pinthus' cinema book, p. 197-204 .
  11. ^ A b Klaus Kreimeier: Cinema magic. Aesthetic and dramaturgical aspects of amazement in the cinema. In: filmzentrale.com. Retrieved on August 12, 2017 (First published in: Margit Frölich, Reinhard Middel, Karsten Visarius (Ed.): Signs and Miracles. About Amazement in the Cinema. (= Arnoldshainer Film Discussions, Vol. 18), pp. 29-49.) .
  12. ↑ Enno Patalas: Afterword by the editor . In: Enno Patalas (ed.): Spectaculum. Texts of modern films. Bergman, Duras, Fellini, Ophüls, Visconti, Welles . With 96 photos, complete filmographies and an afterword (=  Spectaculum ). 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1961, p. 442-447 .
  13. ↑ Pem .: Seventeen years is nothing. 1913 and 1931 same film problems . In: Neue Berliner Zeitung - The 12 o'clock sheet . No. January 12 , 21, 1931 (quoted from Knickmann: A life for literature, theater and film in: Kurt Pinthus. Filmpublizist , p. 21).
  14. ↑ Kurt Pinthus: "Das Kinobuch" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1–2 / 1964 , January 8, 1964, Bücherspiegel, p. 77 ( spiegel.de [accessed on August 12, 2017]).
  15. ↑ Claudia Wolf: Arthur Schnitzler and the film. Meaning. Perception. Relationship. Implementation. Experience . Universitätsverlag Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe 2006, ISBN 978-3-86644-058-6 , 2.2.1 Das Kinobuch, p. 25th f .

Web links