2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Ambitions of Hollywood and the Transformations of German National Cinema
| Project/Area Number |
16520164
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
ヨーロッパ語系文学
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| Research Institution | Kumamoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
TANAKA Yuji Kumamoto University, Faculty of Letters, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (60040490)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KATO Mikirou Kyoto University, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Associate Professor, 大学院・人間環境学研究科, 助教授 (60185874)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2005
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| Keywords | Parufamet agreements / Ufa / German National Cinema / Hollywood / E.Lubitsch / F.Lang / "Metropolis" / F.W.Murnau |
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| Research Abstract |
The research in Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv Berlin and Deutsches Institut fur Filmkunde in Frankfurt gave the head Investigator (TANAKA) several important suggestions of German National Cinema.
The international success of The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari confirmed that films with 'typical' German Styles could be profitable and that only emphasis on the national would make German companies competitive internationally. Caligari was part of brief export wave that started in 1920 with Passion (the American title of Lubitsch's Duarry) and so forth. The positive reception of these films in the United States provoked fears of a 'German invasion' and prompeted several studios to eliminate the unwanted competition by inviting some of the major players to Hollywood : E.Lubitsch and P.Negri as early as 1922, and E.Pommer, F.W.Murnau and E.Jannings in 1926.
While in 1925 production of Metropolis was in full swing, Ufa's board of directors had to admit that the Konzern was on the brisk of bankruptcy. Company
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assets no longer covered the enormous debts, Ufa enterd into partnership with Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer known as Parufamet, become the cynosure of critical reaction against Hollywood's role in Germany. Parufamet represented the end of the golden age of the German cinema.
The Podeneone Silent Film Festival gave the researcher (KATO) a full of range of corpus of films, which made it possible for him to grasp the whole context in which the emigrant film makers from Germany to the USA were situated. For instance, Fritz Lang, one of the most influential Jewish film directors through the film history, emigrated or exiled from Germany to the USA in 1933. Lang found in Hollywood a Jewish/German atmosphere in which he and other Jewish film makers felt at ease in making films. That atmosphere had been established throughout the 1920s, during which Hollywood gained a control over the European film market, especially Germany. Lots of excellent German film directors were incorporated into Hollywood in the 1920s. This phenomenon explains what the internationalization of the film industry went through. In those days Germany and the USA were considered the top of the Hollywood film industry meant incorporation of talented foreign film makers, since the USA was originally a nation state of immigrants. Therefore German film makers were needed in the USA throughout the 1920s. The similar phenomena take places at every stage of Hollywood film history : in the 1980s Dutch film makers were incorporated into Hollywood ; and in 1990s Chinese film makers were. Hollywood has been avid in incorporating talented foreign film makers in its own necessary development. Less
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