'' (1927) Many critics see a direct tie between cinema and architecture of the time, stating that the sets and scene artwork of Expressionist films often reveal buildings of sharp angles, great heights, and crowded environments, such as the frequently shown Tower of Babel in Fritz Lang's
Metropolis. Strong elements of
monumentalism and
Modernism appear throughout the canon of German Expressionism. An excellent example of this is
Metropolis, as evidenced by the enormous power plant and glimpses of the massive yet pristine "upper" city. German Expressionist painters rejected the
naturalistic depiction of objective reality, often portraying distorted figures, buildings, and landscapes in a disorienting manner that disregarded the conventions of perspective and proportion. This approach, combined with jagged, stylized shapes and harsh, unnatural colors, were used to convey subjective emotions. A number of artists and craftsmen working in the Berlin theater brought the Expressionist visual style to the design of stage sets. This, in turn, had an eventual influence on films dealing with fantasy and horror. The prime example is
Robert Wiene's dream-like film
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) which is universally recognized as an early classic of Expressionist cinema.
Hermann Warm, the film's art director, worked with painters and stage designers
Walter Reimann and
Walter Röhrig to create fantastic, nightmarish sets with twisted structures and landscapes with sharp-pointed forms and oblique, curving lines. Some of these designs were constructions, others were painted directly onto canvases. German Expressionist films produced in the
Weimar Republic immediately following the
First World War not only encapsulate the sociopolitical contexts in which they were created, but also rework the intrinsically modern problems of self-reflexivity, spectacle and identity. According to
Siegfried Kracauer and
Lotte Eisner, German Expressionist cinema operates as a kind of collective consciousness and a symptomatic manifestation of what they polemically claim to be inherent cultural tendencies of the German nation. Expressionism has also been described as focusing on the "power of spectacles" and offering audiences "a kind of
metonymic image of their own situation". '' (1920) from the Goldwyn Pictures press book This film movement paralleled Expressionist painting and theater in rejecting realism. The creators in the Weimar Period sought to convey inner, subjective experience through external, objective means. Their films were characterized by highly stylized sets and acting; they used a new visual style which embodied high contrast and simple editing. The films were shot in studios where they could employ deliberately exaggerated and dramatic lighting and camera angles to emphasize some particular affect – fear, horror, pain. Aspects of Expressionist techniques were later adapted by such directors as
Alfred Hitchcock and
Orson Welles and were incorporated into many American gangster and horror films. Some of the major filmmakers of this time were
F. W. Murnau,
Erich Pommer, and
Fritz Lang. The movement ended after the currency stabilized, making it cheaper to buy movies abroad. The UFA financially collapsed and German studios began to deal with Italian studios which led to their influence in style of horror and films noirs. The American influence on the film industry would also lead some film makers to continue their career in the US. The UFA's last film was
Der blaue Engel (1930), considered a masterpiece of German Expressionism. ==Interpretation==