engleski

Migrating Germans – Fritz Lang and the Rise of American Film Noir

Some of the most important political developments of the 20th century have been closely connected with the phenomenon of migration. Migrations have almost always been initiated by either economic or ideological agents, but this negative process has also had a much more positive connotation – the specific blending of two diverse cultures. Hollywood studios in particular benefited greatly from the creative contributions of immigrant filmmakers, specifically the ones who flew from the persecutions of Nazi Germany. European émigrés, although of different nationalities, came mostly from Germany and Austria and were crucial in changing some of the basic tenets of the classical Hollywood style, incorporating a more realistic approach and influencing the entire iconography of one of the most important Hollywood movements – film noir. This paper will focus on the changes brought about by the German émigré Fritz Lang and how, along with his colleagues who had also fled Germany, he managed to provide a completely transformed cinematic representation of nightmare states and social malaise. Lang's world is a world of austere pessimism and an uncompromising dissection of relations between man and society. Of all the German refugees, he was able to adapt most fluidly to the classical Hollywood system, where the generic framework provided the foundations for an even stronger resonance to his bleak, but penetrating vision of society. His very specific blending of German Expressionism and American hard-boiled crime films proved an important stimulus to the rise of film noir. By analyzing his key works, this paper will attempt to prove Fritz Lang's seminal influence on the development of the film noir movement.

Hollywood, Expressionism, society, exile, crime

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