The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt

This book is great!The book feels super thick and might elicit grunts and groans from those writing term papers on expressionist film, but never fear! This thickness is due to a plethora of film stills. Often times covering an entire spread. The text is also indented significantly (making adequate space for jotting notes and the like) so really, it's probably less than half of the thickness of mere text content.The way it is organized and arranged might benefit from a bit of tweaking, but I've read a fair amount of the film movement and time period... It's hard to write a simple timeline from point A to point B. Lot's of stuff happened in Weimar Berlin and there are lots of tangents that lead to other tangents, and these all need to be readily discussed for an acute understanding of expressionism. What this book seems to do is try and cover the major shifts in the movement and then sub-categorize certain films and artists within that movement. It will often reference artists and films in later chapters, so given that it reads more like a novel than a text book. I suppose that many texts will reference earlier facts in the text, and I found that I could jump around a bit and skip the sections of the text that spoke about films I hadn't yet seen.I found it to be a fairly easy read. The author does a good job of presenting a thought in the first paragraph and then concluding it in the last paragraph. The first few paragraphs in each section will present a very good summary with interesting thesis' about the work or the period of time. (if your paper is due tomorrow and you read only these portions of the text, you might get away with it)Underline passages, jot down notes. I'm sure the book was intended for as much. You'll find it super helpful when you have yourself placed before the foreboding glow of your computer screen and need to go back to areas of the text to write about. A very helpful and inciteful book.

Book came fast in good shape and good price, book itself is great, much better I think than Kranauer and maybe neglected.

Great book, a scholarly analysis of the subject accompanied by great archive photos.

This is an excellent reference study.

In this work, Lotte Eisner makes an inteligent analysis about the influences of the expressionism and german theather in the german cinema. It's important to know that expressionism have been confused, not rarely, with other kind of ideological and esthetical sources of influence. And about this confusion, this book brings a good help. The authorress identifies and points what is expressionism and what is not, where are the traces of the expressionism, of the german theather or of whatever. And besides, Lotte Eisner makes an interesting and complete review of the most important german films, for example Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis, also speaking a little about other films related to Germany, yet made in other countries. Since the authoress was one of the most important movie critics of Germany, and also a wickness of the birth of german cinema after the First World War, her statements or reviews are solid and plenty of good reveals.

Brimming with aesthetic history, the cultural significance, and plentiful examples from this astounding era which continues to influence media today. A must read for anyone in the art community.

As a resource for all things German-Expressionistic, this is a fairly good bet: a shame that it's just so dull to read.I wonder if this is a language issue, if the original French text contained traces of Eisner's personality, which since have been lost to an unimaginative translation?Whatever the case, this isn't a book I recommend you read for the pleasure of discovery: Kracauer's "Caligari to Hitler" is more enjoyable and just as informative as this one, but Eisner's "The Haunted Screen" is an excellent fact-checking tome. Po-faced and all as it is, "The Haunted Screen" is an expansive, exhaustive, brilliantly-illustrated journey through a most important period in the history of Cinema - Eisner not only discusses the films and their relatives, but also the historical and technical details of the genesis of German Expressionism, with a clarity and a lucidity that still shine fifty-six years after its original publication.It's like eating museli for breakfast: if you can put up with the arid, dull chewing you'll definitely feel the benefits: just know that you'll be wishing for bacon and pancakes before too long.

In this work, Lotte Eisner makes an inteligent analysis about the influences of the expressionism and german theater - specially Max Reinhardt theater - in the german cinema. It's important to know that expressionism have been confused, not rarely, with other kind of ideological and esthetical sources of influence. And about this confusion, this book brings a good help. The authorress identifies and points what comes from the expressionism and what is not, where are the traces of the expressionism, of the german theater or whatever. And besides, Lotte Eisner speaks about the work of great german directors, like F. W. Murnau, F. Lang and G. W. Pabst, making an interesting and complete review of the german masterpieces - for example Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis, . She also speaks a little about other films related to Germany, yet made in other countries. Since the authoress was one of the most important movie critics of Germany, and also a wickness of the new birth of german cinema after the First World War, her statements or reviews are solid and plenty of good reveals.

Excellent reference for the small period of German Expressionism

Dieses Buch ist ein Muss für alle Interessenten des deutschen Films! Lotte Eisner war wirklich eine wichtige Persönlichkeit, speziell auch für den jungen dt. Film.