Let there be light!

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Movie
Original title Let there be light!
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1917 to 1918
Rod
Director Richard Oswald
script Richard Oswald
Lupu Pick
E. A. Dupont
production Richard Oswald
camera Max Fassbender
occupation

First part

Second part

third part

fourth part

Let there be light! is a four-part film cycle by Richard Oswald, shot from 1916 to 1918 . The film series deals with sexually transmitted diseases and other consequences of unprotected sex life in an educational and warning form. Let there be light! is considered the forefather of all educational and moral films . Bernd Aldor (parts 1 and 2), Theodor Loos (parts 2 and 3), Werner Krauss (part 3), Conrad Veidt (part 4) and Reinhold Schünzel (part 4) play the leading roles .

action

Although they had a storyline, the four films were primarily conceived as information and educational films and were advertised as so-called cultural films . The first three parts focus on syphilis and its consequences.

Paul Mauthner, a painter, has it; a quack who promises a cure, however, cannot help. Eventually Paul seduces the bride of his brother, a doctor, and also infects her with syphilis. While Paul Mauthner fled, the young, infected woman died of the disease. The daughter born from this liaison, also infected, is admitted to a special clinic and can be cured there. She later marries the son of the doctor treating her. Her syphilis-ridden father, however, dies in her arms.

The second syphilis film poses the moral question: namely, how far an illness should be considered a human disgrace. The protagonist of this story, a young doctor, believes that only characterless people can succumb to the disease through reprehensible acts. At a meeting in honor of a venereologist , a violent dispute broke out between the doctor who applied moral categories and a more objective colleague. Two events make the dogmatic young doctor pensive: his sister marries a syphilitic person who is not yet completely cured, and he himself falls ill as a result of a kiss from a young woman who is also suffering from syphilis. But the doctor is healed and reconsiders his previous attitude.

Also in the third part of Let there be light! syphilis is at the center of the action. This time a landowner falls ill. He turns out to be a real monster, tyrannizes his wife and seduces the daughter of the forester he employs. When the young woman doesn't think she can find a way out, she tries to commit suicide . Finally the despot dies too and, post mortem, also carries his son into misery. The latter believes that he too has syphilis and is soon obsessed with this delusion.

The medical messages behind the narrated events are on the one hand: A warning is given about the dangers of unprotected sexual intercourse. On the other hand: Syphilis is curable and therefore not a morally condemnable disgrace, but only a health-endangering disaster that must be fought with all means. In the dramatic stories, instructive and educational information is incorporated, with which the "reckless spread" of sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis is to be prevented.

The fourth and last part of this series was no longer titled Let there be light! expelled. Since the topics of unwanted pregnancies and abortions due to unprotected sexual intercourse were to be visualized here, the film was given a completely different title, which Oswald found more appropriate to this topic: Sinful mothers .

Background and production notes

As stated in the accompanying text, the first film was made with the support of the " German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases , directed by Professor Blaschko ", the second with the support of the "Medical Society for Sexual Science" in Berlin with the help of Iwan Bloch .

As Kay Less writes, director Oswald initiated an original genre from “the second half of World War I [...] that has since been (unjustly) associated with his name: the so-called moral or educational film. In these scandalous works, often strongly attacked by reactionary circles, the Austrian treated all previously taboo areas of sexuality such as venereal diseases, sexual bondage, homosexuality, trafficking in girls and prostitution. "The four Let there be light! - Oswald's productions are considered to be the first and central productions of this film genre, which was particularly popular in the years 1918 and 1919, which were temporarily free of censorship.

The first part of Let there be light! was created in 1916 and was shown for the first time on January 25, 1917 as part of a press screening. The public premiere took place on March 1, 1917 in the Tauentzienpalast . The second part, filmed in 1917, started on January 25, 1918 in the same cinema. Let there be light !, 3rd part , was shown for the first time two months later, while the fourth was presented shortly after the end of the war , on November 22, 1918, under the title Sinful Mothers . Each of the four films were five acts long.

The film constructions come from August Rinaldi , Manfred Noa and Rudolf Dworsky .

Director Oswald, an undaunted advocate of sexual liberalization in Germany, remained true to the topic of sexuality in his cinematic work in 1919 as well. This year Anders als die Andern (thematization of homosexuality and § 175 ) and the two-parter Die Prostitution were created . Soon even the DGBG demanded that it be given to him at the beginning of his Let there be light! -Series had advised, a sharper intervention by the film censors. These films, it was said, were “not socially hygienic, but immoral, demoralizing”. In 1920 the DGBG finally joined the "Association for Combating Trash Films" which had just been founded.

Reviews

The films met with a strong positive response from non-bourgeois critics and the general public, the " Kinematograph " said, according to the first part in its edition of January 2, 1918 (No. 574) of a " sensational success ". Archconservative and military circles feuded Oswald's educational and moral films in 1918/19. In September 1918, for example, the Prussian War Ministry ordered, Let there be light! no longer to be shown in front of soldiers, because the film shows " so much depravity, especially of the upper classes, that its effect is more an incitement to class hatred than an enlightenment in the sexual sense ". The population policy committee of the Reichstag, in turn, criticized what it found to be a “ completely unsuitable speech ” towards the end of the film: “ In this way one does not deter people from having sexual intercourse outside of marriage .”

CineGraph : “ With IT BE LIGHT! Oswald ventures a topic speculation. The film is made with the support of the “German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases” and is the first so-called “educational film”, breaking a social taboo in dealing with venereal diseases that are widely known as “widespread diseases”. The film, advertised by Oswald as a "social hygiene work", is both praised and rejected . "

On the development of German film art. The silent film: “ Oswald allegedly set out to create a film that, in an interesting dramatic development, should have an instructive effect and show how the specter of evil infections is to be confronted. According to the terms of the time, it turned out to be a huge film that caused a sensation under the aegis of the 'Society for Combating Venereal Diseases' with Bernd Aldor, Hugo Flink and Leontine Kühnberg in the leading roles. As early as 1917, many had denied Richard Oswald's willingness to enlighten and accused him of speculating about enlightening the people. He might not have come under this suspicion if he had only made the first part of "Let there be light". But as it is, he stands before us as the speculatively laughing film manufacturer who, with the success of the first part of his "Enlightenment", was unable to advance fast enough on the material path of success. At the beginning of 1918 the second part of “Let there be light” was published, co-directed by EA Dupont and with the help of Iwan Bloch (!). The "interesting" topic was again given new sides. Quickly a third part in mid-1918! As in the manufacture of the collections on the rack. "

literature

  • Lutz Sauerteig: Illness, Sexuality, Society. Venereal diseases and health policy in Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (= Medicine, Society and History. Supplement 12). Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-515-07393-0 , p. 218 ff. , (At the same time: Berlin, Humboldt University, dissertation, 1996).
  • Rolf Thissen : Sex transfigured. The German educational film. (= Heyne books 32 / Heyne film library 220). Heyne, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-453-09005-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lutz Sauerteig: Illness, Sexuality, Society. 1999.
  2. ↑ Kim Thiel: Enlightenment films and the erotic films of the 60s and 70s. GRIN Verlag, o. O. 2004, ISBN 3-638-28414-X , p. 5 .
  3. ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. Acabus-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 68.
  4. ^ Lutz Sauerteig: Illness, Sexuality, Society. 1999.
  5. ^ Lutz Sauerteig: Illness, Sexuality, Society. 1999.
  6. ^ Lutz Sauerteig: Illness, Sexuality, Society. 1999.
  7. ↑ "Let there be light!" In cinegraph.de
  8. ^ Oskar Kalbus: On the becoming of German film art. 1st part: The silent film. Cigarette picture service, Berlin 1935, p. 40 f.