1.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
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Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
2.
World War I
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
World War I
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Clockwise from the top: The aftermath of shelling during the
Battle of the Somme,
Mark V tanks cross the
Hindenburg Line,
HMS Irresistible sinks after hitting a
mine in the
Dardanelles, a British
Vickers machine gun crew wears
gas masks during the Battle of the Somme,
Albatros D.III fighters of
Jagdstaffel 11
World War I
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Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the
Austrian annexation in 1908.
World War I
–
This picture is usually associated with the arrest of
Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.
World War I
–
Serbian Army
Blériot XI "Oluj", 1915.
3.
Wall Street Crash of 1929
–
The crash, which followed the London Stock Exchanges crash of September, signaled the beginning of the 12-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries. The Roaring Twenties, the decade that followed World War I and led to the crash, was a time of wealth, while the American cities prospered, the overproduction of agricultural produce created widespread financial despair among American farmers throughout the decade. This would later be blamed as one of the key factors that led to the 1929 stock market crash, despite the dangers of speculation, many believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. On March 25,1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, two days later, banker Charles E. Mitchell announced his company the National City Bank would provide $25 million in credit to stop the markets slide. Mitchells move brought a halt to the financial crisis and call money declined from 20 to 8 percent. Despite all these economic trouble signs and the breaks in March and May 1929, stocks resumed their advance in June. The market had been on a run that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase in value tenfold. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, Stock prices have reached what looks like a high plateau. The optimism and financial gains of the bull market were shaken after a well publicized early September prediction from financial expert Roger Babson that a crash was coming. The initial September decline was thus called the Babson Break in the press and this was the start of the Great Crash, although until the severe phase of the crash in October, many investors regarded the September Babson Break as a healthy correction and buying opportunity. On September 20, the London Stock Exchange crashed when top British investor Clarence Hatry and many of his associates were jailed for fraud, the London crash greatly weakened the optimism of American investment in markets overseas. In the days leading up to the crash, the market was severely unstable, periods of selling and high volumes were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. On October 24, the market lost 11 percent of its value at the bell on very heavy trading. Several leading Wall Street bankers met to find a solution to the panic and chaos on the trading floor. The meeting included Thomas W. Lamont, acting head of Morgan Bank, Albert Wiggin, head of the Chase National Bank and they chose Richard Whitney, vice president of the Exchange, to act on their behalf. With the bankers financial resources behind him, Whitney placed a bid to purchase a block of shares in U. S. Steel at a price well above the current market. As traders watched, Whitney then placed similar bids on other blue chip stocks and this tactic was similar to one that ended the Panic of 1907. It succeeded in halting the slide, the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered, closing with it down only 6.38 points for the day
Wall Street Crash of 1929
–
Crowd gathering on
Wall Street after the 1929 crash
Wall Street Crash of 1929
–
Sir George Paish
Wall Street Crash of 1929
–
Unemployed men march in
Toronto
4.
Weimar Republic
–
Weimar Republic is an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place, the official name of the state was still Deutsches Reich, it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, in its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their leaders for the countrys defeat. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, Weimar Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the borders of the republic. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brünings policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government, the Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control, within months the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency, it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitlers seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation and these events brought the republic to an end, as democracy collapsed, a single-party state founded the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, Germany from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model, the Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellors SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany, after the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were officially altered to reflect the political changes. The Weimar Republic retained the Reichsadler, but without the symbols of the former Monarchy and this left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak, tongue and claws and white highlighting. If the Reichs Eagle is shown without a frame, the charge and colors as those of the eagle of the Reichs coat of arms are to be used. The patterns kept by the Federal Ministry of the Interior are decisive for the heraldic design, the artistic design may be varied for each special purpose. The achievements and signs of movement were mostly done away with after its downfall
Weimar Republic
–
The rebellion, November 1918.
Weimar Republic
–
Flag
Weimar Republic
–
Philipp Scheidemann addresses a crowd from a window of the
Reich Chancellery, 9 November 1918.
Weimar Republic
–
Official postcard of the
National Assembly.
5.
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic
–
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic was a three-year period of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic of Germany between June 1921 and January 1924. It caused considerable internal political instability in the country, the occupation of the Ruhr by foreign troops as well as misery for the general populace, to pay for the large costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard when the war broke out. The government believed that it would be able to pay off the debt by winning the war, also, it would be able to impose massive reparations on the defeated Allies. The exchange rate of the mark against the US dollar thus steadily devalued from 4.2 to 7.9 marks per dollar, the strategy backfired when Germany lost the war. The new Weimar Republic was now saddled with a war debt that it could not afford. That was made worse by the fact that it was printing money without the economic resources to back it up. The Treaty of Versailles further accelerated the decline in the value of the mark so 48 paper marks were required to buy a US dollar by late 1919, German currency was relatively stable at about 90 marks per dollar during the first half of 1921. Because the Western Front was mostly in France and Belgium, Germany came out of the war with most of its industrial infrastructure intact and it was, in fact, in a better position to become the dominant economic force on the European continent. The first payment was made, when it came due in June 1921 and it marked the beginning of an increasingly rapid devaluation of the mark, which fell in value to approximately 330 marks per dollar. The total reparations demanded were 132 billion gold marks, but Germany had to pay only 50 billion marks and that greatly exacerbated the inflation of the paper mark. From August 1921, Germany began to buy foreign currency with marks at any price, as the mark sank in international markets, more and more marks were required to buy the foreign currency that was demanded by the Reparations Commission. In the first half of 1922, the mark stabilized at about 320 marks per dollar, international reparations conferences were being held. One, in June 1922, was organized by US investment banker J. P. Morgan, the meetings produced no workable solution and so inflation changed to hyperinflation, and the mark fell to 7,400 marks per US dollar by December 1922. The cost-of-living index was 41 in June 1922 and 685 in December, by fall 1922, Germany found itself unable to make reparations payments since the price of gold was now well beyond what it could afford. Also, the mark was by now practically worthless, making it impossible for Germany to buy foreign exchange or gold using paper marks, instead, reparations were to be paid in goods such as coal. In January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, inflation was exacerbated when workers in the Ruhr went on a general strike and the German government printed more money to continue paying for their passive resistance. By November 1923, the US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks, the hyperinflation crisis led prominent economists and politicians to seek a means to stabilize German currency. In August 1923, an economist, Karl Helfferich, proposed a plan to issue a new currency, the plan was rejected because of the greatly fluctuating price of rye in paper marks
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic
–
Piles of new
bank notes awaiting distribution at the
Reichsbank during the hyperinflation
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic
–
A 5 billion mark
postage stamp issued during the hyperinflation
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic
–
50 000 Mark, Aachen, 1923
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic
–
500 000 Mark, Leipzig, 1923
6.
France in the 1920s
–
The term Années folles refers to the decade of the 1920s in France, so called because of the fertile social, artistic, and cultural collaborations of the period. The same period is referred to as the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age in the United States. In Germany, it is referred to as the Golden Twenties because of the economic boom that followed World War I. The Utopian positivism of the 19th century and its progressive creed led to unbridled individualism, Art nouveau extravagance began to evolve into Art Deco geometry after the First World War. André Gide, who founded the Nouvelle Revue Française literary review in 1908, influenced Jean-Paul Sartre, cafés around Paris became places where artists, writers, and others gathered. On the Rive Gauche the scene centered around cafés in Montparnasse, the Rive Gauche, or left bank, of the Seine in Paris, was and is primarily concerned with the arts and the sciences. Many artists settled in Paris and filled cabarets like Le Boeuf sur le Toit, American writers of the Lost Generation, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, met and mingled in Paris with exiles from dictatorships in Spain and Yugoslavia. The painters of the School of Paris for example included among others Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Marc Chagall, Lithuanian, Italian, later the American Henry Miller, like many other foreigners, gravitated to the rue Vavin and Boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse was, he said, the navel of the world, gertrude Stein also lived in Montparnasse during this period. Montmartre was a center of Paris nightlife and had been famous for its cafés. Trumpeter Arthur Briggs played at LAbbaye and transvestites frequented La Petite Chaumière, after World War I the artists who had inhabited the guinguettes and cabarets of Montmartre and invented post-Impressionism there during the Belle Époque gravitated to the cafés of Montparnasse. In 1926 the facade of the Folies Bergère building was redone in Art Deco style by the artist Maurice Pico, adding it to the many Parisian theatres of the period in this architectural style. Surrealists also included artists like Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, the avant-garde movement saw many of its members adhere to the French Communist Party and share their desire to break with the bourgeoisie. Jean Cocteau, while he denied belonging to the surrealists, was unquestionably avant-garde, in the 1920s, Parisian nightlife was greatly influenced by American culture. One of its greatest influences was the ragtime called jazz, which very popular in Paris. Ragtimitis came to Paris with a rendition of The Memphis Blues by a U. S. Army band led by New York Army National Guard lieutenant James Reese Europe, the band, known as the Harlem Hellfighters of the 369th Infantry Regiment. According to band member Noble Sissle, in 1926, Baker, an African-American expatriate singer, dancer, and entertainer, caused a sensation at the Folies Bergère. In a new revue, La Folie du Jour, in which she danced a number, Fatou, wearing a costume revealing all, wearing only her loincloth of bananas, Baker suggestively performed danse sauvage to a Charleston tempo – a genre still new to Europe
France in the 1920s
–
Josephine Baker, an emblematic figure of the "Roaring Twenties" in France.
France in the 1920s
–
The Closerie des Lilas in 1909.
France in the 1920s
–
Josephine Baker dancing the Charleston at the
Folies-Bergere in Paris - 'Negro Dance Revue (1926).
France in the 1920s
–
vignette
Henri Desgrange to 1922
7.
Stock market crash
–
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors and they often follow speculative stock market bubbles. There is no specific definition of a stock market crash. Crashes are often distinguished from bear markets by selling and abrupt. Bear markets are periods of declining stock prices that are measured in months or years. Crashes are often associated with bear markets, however, they do not necessarily go hand in hand, the crash of 1987, for example, did not lead to a bear market. Likewise, the Japanese bear market of the 1990s occurred over several years without any notable crashes, the mathematical description of stock market movements has been a subject of intense interest. The conventional assumption has been that stock markets behave according to a random log-normal distribution, among others, mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot suggested as early as 1963 that the statistics prove this assumption incorrect. Mandelbrot observed that large movements in prices are more common than would be predicted from a log-normal distribution. Mandelbrot and others suggested that the nature of market moves is generally much better explained using non-linear analysis and this has been expressed in non-mathematical terms by George Soros in his discussions of what he calls reflexivity of markets and their non-linear movement. George Soros said in late October 1987, Mr. Robert Prechters reversal proved to be the crack that started the avalanche, research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that there is evidence the frequency of stock market crashes follows an inverse cubic power law. This and other such as Prof. Didier Sornettes work suggest that stock market crashes are a sign of self-organized criticality in financial markets. In 1963, Mandelbrot proposed that instead of following a random walk. A Lévy flight is a walk that is occasionally disrupted by large movements. In 1995, Rosario Mantegna and Gene Stanley analyzed a million records of the S&P500 market index, researchers continue to study this theory, particularly using computer simulation of crowd behaviour, and the applicability of models to reproduce crash-like phenomena. Research at the New England Complex Systems Institute has found warning signs of crashes using new statistical tools of complexity theory. This work suggests that the panics that lead to come from increased mimicry in the market. A dramatic increase in market mimicry occurred during the year before each market crash of the past 25 years
Stock market crash
–
Crowd gathering on
Wall Street the day after the 1929 crash.
Stock market crash
–
The collapse of
Lehman Brothers was a symbol of the Crash of 2008
8.
Bob cut
–
A bob cut or bob is a short haircut for women in which the hair is typically cut straight around the head at about jaw-level, often with a fringe at the front. The bob is cut at the level of ears, below the ears or above shoulders, historically, women in the west have usually worn their hair long. English society beauty Lady Diana Cooper, who had had bobbed hair as a child, kept the style through her teenage years and continued in 1914 as an adult. Renowned dancer and fashion trendsetter Irene Castle introduced her Castle bob to a receptive American audience in 1915, and by 1920 the style was rapidly becoming fashionable. Although as early as 1922 the fashion correspondent of The Times was suggesting that bobbed hair was passé, the style was spreading even beyond the West, as women who rejected traditional roles adopted the bob cut as a sign of modernity. Close-fitting cloche hats had become very popular, and couldnt be worn with long hair. Well-known bob-wearers were actresses Clara Bow and Joan Crawford, as well as Dutch film star Truus van Aalten, as the 1930s approached, women started to grow their hair longer, and the sharp lines of the bob were abandoned. In the mid 1960s, Vidal Sassoon made it again, using the shape of the early bob. Its resurgence coincided with the arrival of the mop top Beatle cut for men, many styles and combinations of the bob have evolved since. In the late 1980s, Siouxsie Sioux, lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees, singer Linda Ronstadt sported a very Louise Brooks inspired bob on the cover of two Grammy award winning albums in the late 1980s. 1987s Trio album with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris and her 1989 release Cry Like A Rainstorm and she also wears the cut in the video for her duet with James Ingram, Somewhere Out There. Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988, apparently had hers trimmed every day, in the mid to late 1990s, T-Boz of TLC also had a bob haircut with very unusual colors that was asymmetrical with bangs. Also, for the first two seasons and the first two episodes of the season of Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman. Also, in Barry Sonnenfelds 1997 film Men in Black, the character of Dr. Laurel Weaver also sported a bob, in 2006 the bob was adopted by the singer Madonna and, as a move away from boho-chic, by actress Sienna Miller. In November 2005, Canadian ice dancer Kristina Lenko was asked to join ITV1s new series and she went to her stylist in Toronto and told him Do whatever you like. In 2007, R&B singer Rihanna had a bob haircut in the video for Umbrella and she has stated that she got her inspiration from Charlize Theron in Æon Flux. Keira Knightley had a bob in her short TV ad for Coco Mademoiselle, actress Christina Ricci also had a bob for live-action movie version for 60s anime series Speed Racer and later onwards. Katie Holmes got a bob cut with bangs in 2007, at her third show in Brisbane, Australia, Britney Spears wore the bob throughout her concert
Bob cut
–
Polaire in 1910
Bob cut
–
Anna Wintour with a bob haircut and a fringe/bangs
Bob cut
–
Micheline Calmy-Rey
Bob cut
–
A modern shingle bob haircut
9.
Cabaret
–
Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. It is mainly distinguished by the venue, which might be a pub. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance, performances are usually introduced by a master of ceremonies or MC. The entertainment, as done by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is oriented towards adult audiences. In the United States striptease, burlesque, drag shows, or a solo vocalist with a pianist, the word cabaret was first used in 1655. It is derived from tavern probably from Middle Dutch cambret, the word cabaret came to mean a restaurant or night club by 1912. Cabaret can be divided in 10 different types. However, these are artificial dividing lines, cabaret shows are most of the time a compound of elements from the different types, the cabaret performer plays with language, sometimes poetic, but often is he or she rock hard and hateful. The cabaret performer analyses in his/her stubborn manner actual, social and political topics, the cabaret performer tells an often slightly absurd story with a moral packed in it. The cabaret performer plays with music, for example by twisting or combining familiar melodies, the cabaret performer tells nonsensical and absurd stories and plays idiotic types. The emphasis is less on text in the show of cabaret performer. Here the cabaret performer eludes on his liberating through laughter role, an iteration of storytelling cabaret The cabaret performer quickly switches between the different styles/types of cabaret, types, or songs. In this the cabaret performer is a guest at a government, institution or a company, cabarets existed in Paris in the 16th century, they were ancestors of the modern restaurant. Unlike taverns they sold wine not by itself but only with a meal, customers might sing if they had drunk enough wine, but early cabarets did not have formal programs of entertainment. Cabarets were frequently used as meeting places for writers and artists, in 1773 French poets, painters, musicians and writers began to meet in a cabaret called Le Caveau on rue de Buci, where they composed and sang songs. The Caveau continued until 1816, when it was forced to close because its clients wrote songs mocking the royal government, in the 18th century the café-concert or café-chantant appeared, which offered food along with music, singers, or magicians. The most famous was the Cafe des Aveugles in the cellars of the Palais-Royal, in the early 19th century many cafés-chantants appeared around the city, the most famous were the Café des Ambassadeurs on the Champs-Élysées and the Eldorado on boulevard Strasbourg. By 1900 there were more than 150 cafés-chantants in Paris, the first cabaret in the modern sense was Le Chat Noir in the Bohemian neighborhood of Montmartre, created in 1881 by Rodolphe Salis, a theatrical agent and entrepreneur
Cabaret
–
1896 advertisement for a tour of the first French cabaret show,
Le Chat Noir.
Cabaret
–
The Café des Aveugles in the cellars of the Palais-Royal (beginning of the 19th century)
Cabaret
–
The composer
Eric Satie playing the piano at
Le Chat Noir (1880s)
Cabaret
–
The
Moulin Rouge in 1893
10.
The Charleston
–
The Charleston is a dance named for the harbor city of Charleston, South Carolina. Runnin Wild ran from 29 October 1923 through 28 June 1924, the peak year for the Charleston as a dance by the public was mid-1926 to 1927. At first, the step started off with a twisting of the feet. When the dance hit Harlem, a new version was added and it became a fast kicking step, kicking the feet, both forward and backward and later done with a tap. Further changes were made before the dance was put on stage. Although the step known as Jay-Bird, and other specific movement sequences are of Afro-American origin, although it achieved popularity when the song Charleston, sung by Elisabeth Welch, was added in the production Runnin Wild, the dance itself was first introduced in Irving C. Millers Liza in the spring of 1923, willie The Lion Smith noted that the dance was known well before that, in particular, he mentions the version done by Russell Brown under the name Geechie dance. Johnson actually recorded several Charlestons, and in later years derided most of them as being of that same damn beat, several of these were recorded on player piano rolls, several of which have survived to this day. The Charleston and similar such as the Black Bottom which involved Kicking up your heels were very popular in the later part of the 1920s. They became less popular after 1930, possibly because after seven years of being fashionable people simply became less interested, the new fashion for floor level sheath evening dresses was also probably a factor. The new dresses constricted the leg movements essential for the Charleston, there is a British Pathé Instructional Short from 1933 in which a new variation – The Crawl Charleston – is demonstrated by Santos Casini and Jean Mence. This shows a very sedate version of similar to a Tango or Waltz. It wasnt until dress hem lines rose toward the end of the thirties that the Charleston is again seen in film, a slightly different form of Charleston became popular in the 1930s and 1940s, and is associated with Lindy Hop. In this later Charleston form, the hot jazz timing of the 20s Charleston was adapted to suit the swing music of the 1930s and 1940s. This style of Charleston has many names, though the most common are Lindy Charleston, Savoy Charleston, 30s or 40s Charleston. In both 20s Charleston and Swinging Charleston, the basic step takes eight counts and is danced either alone or with a partner, frankie Manning and other Savoy dancers saw themselves as doing Charleston steps within the Lindy rather than to be dancing Charleston. Tap Charleston, Leonard was said to have invented Tap Charleston after he learned tap in 1925, Tap Charleston was the Charleston with breaks into open position to do tap steps. The connection between Breakaway and Tap Charleston is murky therefore it could be the same thing attributed to Leonard Reed or something else
The Charleston
–
Josephine Baker dancing the Charleston at the
Folies Bergère, Paris, in 1926
11.
New Objectivity
–
The New Objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. Rather than some goal of objectivity, it was meant to imply a turn towards practical engagement with the world—an all-business attitude. The movement essentially ended in 1933 with the fall of the Weimar Republic, although New Objectivity has been the most common translation of Neue Sachlichkeit, other translations have included New Matter-of-factness, New Resignation, New Sobriety, and New Dispassion. Sachlich could be best understood as factual, matter-of-fact, impartial, practical, or precise, Sachlichkeit is the form of the adjective/adverb. In particular, Crockett argues against the view implied by the translation of New Resignation, leading up to World War I, much of the art world was under the influence of Futurism and Expressionism, both of which abandoned any sense of order or commitment to objectivity or tradition. In concert with this evocation of angst and unease with bourgeois life, critics of expressionism came from many circles. From the left, a strong critique began with Dadaism and they wanted to use their art in order to express political outrage and encourage political action. Expressionism, to Dadaists, expressed all of the angst and anxieties of society, bertolt Brecht, a German dramatist, launched another early critique of expressionism, referring to it as constrained and superficial. His early plays, Baal and Trommeln in der Nacht express repudations of fashionable interest in Expressionism, after the destruction of the war, more conservative critics gained force particularly in their critique of the style of expressionism. The return to order was especially pervasive in Italy, however, some of the Germans found important inspiration in the pages of the Italian magazine Valori plastici, which featured photographs of recent paintings by Italian classical realists. Hartlaub first used the term in 1923 in a letter he sent to colleagues describing an exhibition he was planning, the verists vehement form of realism emphasized the ugly and sordid. Their art was raw, provocative, and harshly satirical, george Grosz and Otto Dix are considered the most important of the verists. Use of collage in these works became a principle to blend reality and art. This later developed into portraits and scenes by artists such as Grosz, Dix, portraits would give emphasis to particular features or objects that were seen as distinctive aspects of the person depicted. Satirical scenes often depicted a madness behind what was happening, depicting the participants as cartoon-like, other verists, like Christian Schad, depicted reality with a clinical precision, which suggested both an empirical detachment and intimate knowledge of the subject. Schads paintings are characterized by an artistic perception so sharp that it seems to cut beneath the skin, often, psychological elements were introduced in his work, which suggested an underlying unconscious reality. Compared to the verists, the more clearly exemplify the return to order that arose in the arts throughout Europe. The classicists included Georg Schrimpf, Alexander Kanoldt, Carlo Mense, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, the sources of their inspiration included 19th-century art, the Italian metaphysical painters, the artists of Novecento Italiano, and Henri Rousseau
New Objectivity
–
Made in Germany (Den macht uns keiner nach), by George Grosz, drawn in pen 1919, photo-lithograph published 1920 in the portfolio God with us (Gott mit Uns). Sheet 48.3 × 39.1 cm. In the collection of the
MOMA
New Objectivity
–
Panorama of the
IG Farben Building from the south, demonstrating how the curved shape of the building's façade reduces the impact of its scale
12.
Moulin Rouge
–
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret in Paris, France. The original house, which burned down in 1915, was co-founded in 1889 by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche, Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world, the clubs decor still contains much of the romance of fin de siècle France. The Belle Époque was a period of peace and optimism marked by progress. The Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900 are symbols of this period, the Eiffel Tower was also constructed in 1889, epitomising the spirit of progress along with the culturally transgressive cabaret. Japonism, a movement inspired by the Orient, with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as its most brilliant disciple, was also at its height. Montmartre, which, at the heart of an increasingly vast and impersonal Paris, managed to retain a village atmosphere, festivities and artists mixed, with pleasure. On 6 October 1889, the Moulin Rouge opened in the Jardin de Paris and its creator Joseph Oller and his Manager Charles Zidler were formidable businessmen who understood the publics tastes. The aim was to allow the rich to come and slum it in a fashionable district. The extravagant setting – the garden was adorned with a gigantic elephant – allowed people from all walks of life to mix, workers, residents of the Place Blanche, artists, the middle classes, businessmen, elegant women and foreigners passing through Paris rubbed shoulders. Nicknamed The First Palace of Women by Oller and Zidler, the quickly became a great success. His posters and paintings secured rapid and international fame for the Moulin Rouge, the early years of the Moulin Rouge are marked by extravagant shows, inspired by the circus, and attractions that are still famous such as Pétomane. Concert-dances are organised every day at 10pm, 1886–1910, Footit and Chocolat, a comic act of a white, authoritarian clown and a black, long-suffering Auguste, are very popular and often appear on the Moulin Rouge poster. 19 April 1890, 1st review, Circassiens et Circassiennes,26 October 1890, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, who on a private visit to Paris, booked a table to see this quadrille whose reputation had already crossed the Channel. Recognising him, La Goulue, with her leg in the air and her head in her skirts, spontaneously called out Hey, Wales,1891, La Goulue, Toulouse-Lautrecs first poster for the Moulin Rouge. 1893, The Bal des QuatzArts caused a scandal with its procession of a nude Cleopatra surrounded by naked women. 12 November 1897, The Moulin Rouge closed its doors for the first time for the funeral of its manager and cofounder,1900, visitors from around the world, attracted by the Universal Exhibition, flock to the Moulin Rouch
Moulin Rouge
–
Poster by
Jules Chéret, 1890
Moulin Rouge
–
The Moulin Rouge in 1900
Moulin Rouge
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Toulouse-Lautrec and Mr Tremolada, Zidler's assistant, Moulin-Rouge manager. Paris, 1892.
Moulin Rouge
–
Brooklyn Museum - At the Moulin Rouge (Au Moulin Rouge) - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
13.
Anita Berber
–
Anita Berber was a German dancer, actress, and writer who was the subject of an Otto Dix painting. She lived during the Weimar period, by the age of 16, she had moved to Berlin and made her debut as a cabaret dancer. By 1918 she was working in film, and she began dancing nude in 1919, scandalously androgynous, she quickly made a name for herself. Her hair was cut fashionably into a bob and was frequently bright red, as in 1925 when the German painter Otto Dix painted a portrait of her. Her dancer friend and sometime lover Sebastian Droste, who performed in the film Algol, was skinny and had black hair with gelled up curls much like sideburns, neither of them wore much more than lowslung loincloths and Anita occasionally a corsage worn well below her small breasts. Her performances broke boundaries with their androgyny and total nudity, Berbers overt drug addiction and bisexuality were matters of public chatter. In addition to her addiction to cocaine, opium and morphine, one of Berbers favourites was chloroform and this would be stirred with a white rose, the petals of which she would then eat. Aside from her addiction to drugs, she was also a heavy alcoholic. In 1928, at the age of 29, she gave up alcohol completely. She was said to be surrounded by empty morphine syringes, according to Mel Gordon, in The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber, Weimar Berlins Priestess of Debauchery, she was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis while performing abroad. After collapsing in Damascus, she returned to Germany and died in a Kreuzberg hospital on 10 November 1928 and she was buried in a paupers grave in St. Thomas Cemetery in Neukölln. In 1919, she entered into a marriage of convenience with a man with the surname Nathusius and she later left him in order to pursue a relationship with a woman named Susi Wanowski, and became part of the Berlin lesbian scene. Her second marriage—in 1922—was to Sebastian Droste, in 1925, she married a gay American dancer named Henri Chatin-Hofmann. A1987 film by Rosa von Praunheim titled Anita - Tänze des Lasters focuses on the life of Anita Berber, the band Death in Vegas named a song after her, which is on the album Satans Circus. It is frequently used on the NPR radio show This American Life, the Story of Dida Ibsen Around the World in Eighty Days Figures of the Night The Count of Cagliostro Lucrezia Borgia Vienna, City of Song A Waltz by Strauss Lania, Leo. Der Tanz ins Dunkel, Anita Berber Berlin 1929, Gordon, Mel The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber, Weimar Berlins Priestess of Debauchery. Los Angeles, California, Feral House Capovilla, Andrea Berber, Anita in, Aldrich, Robert & Wotherspoon, Garry Whos Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, From Antiquity to World War II. New York, Routledge, pp. 50–51 Fischer, Lothar Tanz zwischen Rausch und Tod, Anita Berber, new York, Carroll & Graf Jarrett, Lucinda Stripping in Time, a history of erotic dancing
Anita Berber
–
Anita Berber in 1918
Anita Berber
–
A plaque outside Anita Berber's house in Berlin.
14.
Marlene Dietrich
–
Marie Magdalene Marlene Dietrich was a German actress and singer who held both German and American citizenship. Throughout her unusually long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, in the 1920s in Berlin, Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel brought her international fame, Dietrich starred in Hollywood films such as Morocco, Shanghai Express, and Desire. She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and exotic looks, throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she still made occasional films after the war, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer. Dietrich was noted for her efforts during the war, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received honors from the United States, France, Belgium. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema, Dietrich was born on 27 December 1901 on Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin. She was the younger of two daughters of Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine and Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, who married in December 1898, Dietrichs mother was from an affluent Berlin family who owned a jewelry and clock making firm. Her father was a lieutenant who died in 1907. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich girls, so Dietrichs surname was never von Losch, Dietrichs family nicknamed her Lena and Lene. Around age 11, she contracted her two first names to form the name Marlene, Dietrich attended the Auguste-Viktoria Girls School from 1907 to 1917 and graduated from the Victoria-Luise-Schule in 1918. She studied the violin and became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. Her dreams of becoming a concert violinist were curtailed by a wrist injury and she was fired after only four weeks. Her earliest professional stage appearances were as a girl on tour with Guido Thielschers Girl-Kabarett vaudeville-style entertainments. She did not attract any attention at first. She made her film debut playing a bit part in the film The Little Napoleon and she met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of Tragödie der Liebe in 1923. Dietrich and Sieber were married in a ceremony in Berlin on 17 May 1923
Marlene Dietrich
–
Dietrich in her breakthrough role, Lola-Lola in
Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)
Marlene Dietrich
–
Dietrich in 1951
Marlene Dietrich
–
Marlene Dietrich signing a soldier's cast in
Belgium, 1944.
Marlene Dietrich
–
Dietrich often performed parts of her show in
top hat and tails. Caricature by Hans Georg Pfannmüller showing Dietrich during a cabaret performance in 1954.
15.
Thomas Mann
–
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and his analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family and portrayed his family and class in his first novel and his older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland, when World War II broke out in 1939, he moved to the United States, returning to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur. Manns work influenced many authors, including Heinrich Böll, Joseph Heller, Yukio Mishima. Paul Thomas Mann was born to a family in Lübeck. His mother was Roman Catholic but Mann was baptised into his fathers Lutheran religion, Manns father died in 1891 and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich, Mann lived in Munich from 1891 until 1933, with the exception of a year in Palestrina, Italy, with his novelist elder brother Heinrich. Thomas worked with the South German Fire Insurance Company in 1894-95 and his career as a writer began when he wrote for Simplicissimus. Manns first short story, Little Mr Friedemann, was published in 1898, in 1905, Mann married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a wealthy, secular Jewish industrialist family. She later joined the Lutheran church, today the cottage is a cultural center dedicated to him, with a small memorial exhibition. In 1933, while traveling in the South of France, Mann heard from Klaus and Erika in Munich, the family emigrated to Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland but received Czechoslovak citizenship and a passport in 1936. After Nazi Germany took over Czechoslovakia, he emigrated to the United States in 1939. In 1942, the Mann family moved to 1550 San Remo Drive in the Pacific Palisades suburb of Los Angeles, on 23 June 1944 Thomas Mann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. The Manns lived in Los Angeles until 1952, the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, prompted Mann to offer anti-Nazi speeches to the German people via the BBC. In October 1940 he began monthly broadcasts, recorded in the U. S. and flown to London, in these eight-minute addresses, Mann condemned Hitler and his paladins as crude philistines completely out of touch with European culture. In one noted speech he said, The war is horrible, Mann was one of the few publicly active opponents of Nazism among German expatriates in the U. S
Thomas Mann
–
Mann in 1937
Thomas Mann
–
Mann's summerhouse in
Nida (German: Nidden), today a museum.
Thomas Mann
–
Family grave in which are buried: Thomas, Katia, Erika, Monika, Michael and Elisabeth Mann, in Kilchberg, Switzerland.
Thomas Mann
–
Mann in the early period of his writing career
16.
Nobel Prize in Literature
–
Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, here work refers to an authors work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize in any given year, the academy announces the name of the chosen laureate in early October. Although the Nobel Prize in Literature has become the worlds most prestigious literature prize, many authors who have won the prize have fallen into obscurity, while others rejected by the jury remain widely studied and read. The prize has become seen as a political one - a peace prize in literary disguise, whose judges are prejudiced against authors with different political tastes to them. Tim Parks has expressed skepticism that it is possible for Swedish professors, as of 2016,16 of the 113 recipients have been of Scandinavian origin. The Academy has often been alleged to be biased towards European, Nobels vague wording for the criteria for the prize has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word translates as either idealistic or ideal. The Nobel Committees interpretation has varied over the years, in recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that the Storting approved it. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the Prize in Literature. Each year, the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature and it is not permitted to nominate oneself. Thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011 about 220 proposals are returned and these proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by the Nobel Committee. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates, by May, a short list of five names is approved by the Committee. The subsequent four months are spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates. In October, members of the Academy vote and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel laureate in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
–
Announcement of the Nobel Prize laureate in literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
–
In 1901,
French poet and
essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."
Nobel Prize in Literature
–
French author
Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award.
17.
Fritz Lang
–
Friedrich Christian Anton Fritz Lang was an Austrian-German filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best-known émigrés from Germanys school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the Master of Darkness by the British Film Institute. His most famous include the groundbreaking futuristic Metropolis and the also influential M. Lang was born in Vienna as the son of Anton Lang, an architect and construction company manager. He was baptized on December 28,1890, at the Schottenkirche in Vienna, Langs parents were of Moravian descent and practicing Roman Catholics. His parents took their religion seriously and were dedicated to raising Fritz as a Catholic, Lang frequently had Catholic-influenced themes in his films. Late in life, he described himself as born Catholic, after finishing school, Lang briefly attended the Technical University of Vienna, where he studied civil engineering and eventually switched to art. In 1910 he left Vienna to see the world, traveling throughout Europe and Africa and later Asia, in 1913, he studied painting in Paris, France. At the outbreak of World War I, Lang returned to Vienna and volunteered for service in the Austrian army and fought in Russia and Romania. While recovering from his injuries and shell shock in 1916, he wrote some scenarios, Langs writing stint was brief, as he soon started to work as a director at the German film studio Ufa, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building. In 1920, he met his wife, the writer. Considered by many scholars to be his masterpiece, M is a disturbing story of a child murderer who is hunted down. M remains a work, it was remade in 1951 by Joseph Losey, but this version had little impact on audiences. During the climactic scene in M, Lang allegedly threw Peter Lorre down a flight of stairs in order to give more authenticity to Lorres battered look. Lang, who was known for being hard to work with, epitomized the stereotype of the tyrannical German film director and his wearing a monocle added to the stereotype. At the end of 1932, Lang started filming The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, and by March 30, the new regime banned it as an incitement to public disorder. Testament is sometimes deemed an anti-Nazi film as Lang had put phrases used by the Nazis into the mouth of the title character. Lang had stated that it was during this meeting that he had decided to leave for Paris –, Lang has stated that he fled that very evening
Fritz Lang
–
Lang (right) on the set of
Woman in the Moon
Fritz Lang
–
Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou in their Berlin flat, 1923 or 1924
Fritz Lang
–
Fritz Lang (1969)
Fritz Lang
–
Grave of Fritz Lang, at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills
18.
Metropolis (1927 film)
–
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang. He and his wife, Thea von Harbou, wrote the silent film, erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A. G. It is regarded as a work of the science-fiction genre in movies. Filming took place in 1925 at a cost of five million Reichsmarks. The art direction draws influence from Bauhaus, Cubist and Futurist design, Metropolis was met with a mixed reception upon release. Critics found it pictorially beautiful and lauded its complex special effects, the films extensive running time also came in for criticism, as well as its alleged Communist message. Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere, removing a portion of Langs original footage. Numerous attempts have been made to restore the film since the 1970s, Music producer Giorgio Moroder released a truncated version with a soundtrack by rock artists such as Freddie Mercury, Loverboy and Adam Ant in 1984. In 2008 a damaged print of Langs original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina, after a long restoration process, the film was 95% restored and shown on large screens in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously on 12 February 2010. Joh Fredersen is the citys master, Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder, fascinated, goes to the machine rooms to find her. Witnessing the explosion of a machine that kills and injures several workers. Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, brings to Fredersen secret maps found on the dead workers, Freder secretly rebels against Fredersen by deciding to help the workers, after seeing his fathers cold indifference towards the harsh conditions they face. Fredersen takes the maps to the inventor Rotwang to learn their meaning, Rotwang had been in love with a woman named Hel, who left him to marry Fredersen and later died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Fredersen a robot he has built to resurrect Hel, the maps show a network of catacombs beneath Metropolis, and the two men go to investigate. They eavesdrop on a gathering of workers, including Freder, Maria addresses them, prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can bring the working and ruling classes together. Freder believes that he could fill the role and declares his love for Maria, Rotwang kidnaps Maria, transfers her likeness to the robot and sends her to Fredersen. Freder finds the two embracing and, believing it is the real Maria, falls into a prolonged delirium, intercut with his hallucinations, the false Maria unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder and stirring dissent amongst the workers. Freder recovers and returns to the catacombs, finding the false Maria urging the workers to rise up and destroy the machines, Freder accuses her of not being the real Maria
Metropolis (1927 film)
–
original 1927 theatrical release poster
Metropolis (1927 film)
–
Statue of Maria in
Babelsberg, Germany
Metropolis (1927 film)
–
The Tower of Babel in Maria's recounting of the fable was modeled after
this 1563 painting by
Pieter Brueghel.
Metropolis (1927 film)
–
Poster for the 2002 restored version, featuring the
Maschinenmensch
19.
German Expressionism
–
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture. This article deals primarily with developments in German Expressionist cinema before, the German Expressionist movement was initially confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned foreign films, the demand from theaters to generate films led to an increase in domestic film production from 24 films in 1914 to 130 films in 1918. With inflation also on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their moneys value was constantly diminishing, by the time the 1916 ban on imports was lifted, Germany had become a part of the international film industry. Various European cultures of the 1920s embraced an ethic of change, the plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal and other intellectual topics triggered by the experiences of World War I. Later films often categorized as part of the history of German Expressionism include Metropolis and M. This trend was a reaction against realism. Its practitioners used extreme distortions in expression to show an inner emotional reality rather than what is on the surface, the extreme anti-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light. This dark, moody school of film making was brought to the United States when the Nazis gained power, Nazi film theorist Fritz Hippler though was a supporter of expressionism. Two further films produced in Nazi Germany using the expressionist style were “Das Stahltier” in 1935 by Willy Zielke, das Leben eines Titanen” in 1940 by Curt Oertel. Two genres that were influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had made a name for themselves by producing such famous films of the silent era as Lon Chaneys The Phantom of the Opera. The German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of Hollywood during the same period, the cinema outside Germany benefited both from the emigration of German film makers and from German expressionist developments in style and technique that were apparent on the screen. The new look and techniques impressed other contemporary film makers, artists and cinematographers, in 1924, Alfred Hitchcock was sent by Gainsborough Pictures to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. The immediate effect of the environment in Germany can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for that film. Hitchcock later said, I. acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios Berlin, German expressionism would continue to influence Hitchcock throughout his career
German Expressionism
–
Mary Wigman, pioneer of Expressionist dance (left)
German Expressionism
–
Still from the 1920 film
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
20.
Epic film
–
Epic film is a style of filmmaking with large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The usage of the term has shifted over time, sometimes designating a film genre, like epics in the classical literary sense it is often focused on a heroic character. An epics ambitious nature helps to set it apart from other types of such as the period piece or adventure film. The most common subjects of epic films are royalty, and important figures from various periods in world history, the term epic originally came from the poetic genre exemplified by such works as the Iliad, Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Odyssey. In classical literature, epics are considered works focused on deeds or journeys of heroes upon which the fate of a number of people depend. Similarly, films described as epic typically take a historical character, common subjects of epics are royalty, gladiators, great military leaders, or leading personalities from various periods in world history. Such films usually have a setting, although fantasy or science fiction settings have become common in recent decades. The central conflict of the film is seen as having far-reaching effects. The main characters actions are often central to the resolution of the societal conflict, in its classification of films by genre, the American Film Institute limits the genre to historical films such as Ben-Hur. However, film scholars such as Constantine Santas are willing to extend the label to science-fiction films such as 2001, A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. Stylistically, films classed as epic usually employ spectacular settings and specially designed costumes, often accompanied by a musical score. Epics are usually among the most expensive of films to produce and they often use on-location filming, authentic period costumes, and action scenes on a massive scale. Biographical films may be less lavish versions of this genre, many writers may refer to any film that is long as an epic, making the definition epic a matter of dispute, and raise questions as to whether it is a genre at all. As Roger Ebert put it, in his Great Movies article on Lawrence of Arabia, what you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word epic refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzogs Aguirre, The Wrath of God didnt cost as much as the catering in Pearl Harbor, but it is an epic, the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail had the joking tagline Makes Ben Hur look like an epic. This boom period of international co-productions is generally considered to have ended with Cleopatra, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Epic films continue to be produced, although since the development of CGI they typically use computer effects instead of an actual cast of thousands. Since the 1950s, such films have regularly been shot with an aspect ratio for a more immersive. Epic films were recognized in a montage at the 2006 Academy Awards, War epics are generally focused on specific battles in a war, P. O. W camps or the personal consequences of living in an invaded/occupied country
Epic film
–
Charlton Heston starred in Biblical epics such as
The Ten Commandments and historical epics such as
El Cid
21.
Science fiction film
–
Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. The genre has existed since the years of silent cinema. The next major example in the genre was the film Metropolis - being the first feature length science fiction movie, from the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubricks landmark 2001, A Space Odyssey, the fiction film genre was taken more seriously. This definition suggests a continuum between empiricism and transcendentalism, with science fiction film on the side of empiricism, and horror film, however, there are numerous well-known examples of science fiction horror films, epitomized by such pictures as Frankenstein and Alien. The visual style of fiction film can be characterized by a clash between alien and familiar images. This clash is implemented when alien images become familiar, as in A Clockwork Orange, as well, familiar images become alien, as in the films Repo Man and Liquid Sky. For example, in Dr. Strangelove, the, distortion of the make the familiar images seem more alien. Finally, alien and familiar images are juxtaposed, as in The Deadly Mantis, Science fiction films appeared early in the silent film era, typically as short films shot in black and white, sometimes with colour tinting. They usually had a theme and were often intended to be humorous. In 1902, Georges Méliès released Le Voyage dans la Lune, generally considered the first science fiction film, several early films merged the science fiction and horror genres. Examples of this are Frankenstein, a adaptation of Mary Shelleys novel. Taking a more adventurous tack,20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a based on Jules Verne’s famous novel of a wondrous submarine. In the 1920s, European filmmakers tended to use science fiction for prediction and social commentary, as can be seen in German films such as Metropolis and Frau im Mond. In the 1930s, there were big budget science fiction films, notably Just Imagine, King Kong, Things to Come. Starting in 1936, a number of science fiction comic strips were adapted as serials, notably Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and these serials, and the comic strips they were based on, were very popular with the general public. Other notable science fiction films of the 1930s include Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Doctor X, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, F. P. The 1940s brought us Before I Hang, Black Friday, Dr. Cyclops, The Devil Commands, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Man Made Monster, It Happened Tomorrow, It Happens Every Spring and The Perfect Woman
Science fiction film
–
1927's
Metropolis by
Fritz Lang was one of the first feature length science fiction films in history. It was produced at
Studio Babelsberg, Germany. (Photo shows the statue of the film figure Maria at Filmpark Babelsberg)
Science fiction film
–
Science fiction films
Science fiction film
–
Peter Sellers as the title character from
Dr. Strangelove
Science fiction film
–
Transformers characters at
Universal Studios Hollywood
22.
Otto Dix
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Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera. The eldest son of Franz and Louise Dix, he an iron worker and she a seamstress who had written poetry in her youth. Between 1906 and 1910, he served an apprenticeship with painter Carl Senff, in 1910, he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden, where Richard Guhr was among his teachers. When the First World War erupted, Dix enthusiastically volunteered for the German Army and he was assigned to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the autumn of 1915 he was assigned as a officer of a machine-gun unit on the Western front. In November 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia, back on the western front, he fought in the German Spring Offensive. He earned the Iron Cross and reached the rank of vizefeldwebel, in August of that year he was wounded in the neck, and shortly after he took pilot training lessons. He took part in a Fliegerabwehr-Kurs in Tongern, was promoted to Vizefeldwebel and he was discharged from service in 22 December 1918 and was home for Christmas. Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and he represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called Der Krieg, published in 1924. At the end of 1918 Dix returned to Gera, but the year he moved to Dresden. He became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, in 1920, he met George Grosz and, influenced by Dada, began incorporating collage elements into his works, some of which he exhibited in the first Dada Fair in Berlin. He also participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year and his 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furore that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, cancelled the purchase of the painting, Dixs work, like that of Grosz—his friend and fellow veteran—was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexual murder. He drew attention to the side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age. In one of his few statements, published in 1927, Dix declared, The object is primary, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, they regarded Dix as a degenerate artist and had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy. He later moved to Lake Constance in the southwest of Germany, Dixs paintings The Trench and War cripples were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst
Otto Dix
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Otto Dix on April 12, 1957
Otto Dix
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Otto Nagel (left) and Dix (right) on April 12, 1957
Otto Dix
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Otto Dix House in
Gera. The artist's birthplace opened as a museum in 1991
Otto Dix
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Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas, etching and
aquatint by Otto Dix, 1924
23.
Weimar
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Weimar is a city in the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Leipzig,170 kilometres north of Nuremberg and 170 kilometres west of Dresden. Together with the neighbour-cities Erfurt and Jena it forms the metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants. Weimar is well known because of its cultural heritage and its importance in German history. The city was a point of the German Enlightenment and home of the leading characters of the literary genre of Weimar Classicism. Until 1948, Weimar was the capital of Thuringia, today, many places in the city centre have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites and tourism is one of the leading economic sectors of Weimar. Relevant institutions in Weimar are the Bauhaus University, the Liszt School of Music, in 1999, Weimar was the European Capital of Culture. Archaeological finds dating back to the Thuringii epoch show that the Weimar part of the Ilm valley was settled early, the oldest records regarding Weimar date to 899. Its name changed over the centuries from Wimares through Wimari to Wimar and finally Weimar, it is derived from Old High German wīh-, another theory derives the first element from OHG win. The place was the seat of the County of Weimar, first mentioned in 949, in 1062 it was united with the County of Orlamünde to the new County of Weimar-Orlamünde, which existed until the Thuringian Counts War in 1346 and fell to the Wettins afterwards. The Weimar settlement emerged around the wooden castle and two small churches dedicated to St Peter, and to St James. In 1240, the count founded the monastery in Oberweimar. Soon after, the counts of Weimar founded the town, which was an independent parish since 1249, from 1262 the citizens used their own seal. Nevertheless, the influence of the Weimar counts was declining as the influence of the Wettins in Thuringia increased. Hence, the new town was relatively marginal in a regional context. The settlement around St James Church developed into a suburb during the 13th century, after becoming part of the Wettins territory in 1346, urban development improved. The Wettins fostered Weimar by abolishing socage and granting privileges to the citizens, now Weimar became equal to other Wettinian cities like Weißensee and grew during the 15th century, with the establishment of a town hall and the current main church. Weimar acquired woad trade privileges in 1438, the castle and the walls were finished in the 16th century, making Weimar into a full city
Weimar
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Weimar
Weimar
Weimar
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Park an der Ilm
Weimar
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The Kasseturm is a relic of the former city wall at Goetheplatz
24.
George Grosz
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George Grosz was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic and he emigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his work, he exhibited regularly. In 1956 he returned to Berlin where he died, George Grosz was born Georg Ehrenfried Groß in Berlin, Germany, the son of a pub owner. Grosz grew up in the Pomeranian town of Stolp, where his mother became the keeper of the local Hussars Officers mess after his father died in 1901. At the urging of his cousin, the young Grosz began attending a weekly drawing class taught by a painter named Grot. Grosz developed his skills further by drawing meticulous copies of the scenes of Eduard von Grützner. From 1909 to 1911, he studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers were Richard Müller, Robert Sterl, Raphael Wehle and he subsequently studied at the Berlin College of Arts and Crafts under Emil Orlik. In November 1914 Grosz volunteered for service, in the hope that by thus preempting conscription he would avoid being sent to the front. He was given a discharge after hospitalization for sinusitis in 1915, in January 1917 he was drafted for service, but in May he was discharged as permanently unfit. In the last months of 1918, Grosz joined the Spartacist League and he was arrested during the Spartakus uprising in January 1919, but escaped using fake identification documents. In 1921 Grosz was accused of insulting the army, which resulted in a 300 German Mark fine and the destruction of the collection Gott mit uns, by contrast, in 1942 Time magazine identified Grosz as a pacifist. In 1922 Grosz traveled to Russia with the writer Martin Andersen Nexø, upon their arrival in Murmansk they were briefly arrested as spies, after their credentials were approved they were allowed to meet with Grigory Zinoviev, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Vladimir Lenin. Groszs six-month stay in the Soviet Union left him unimpressed by what he had seen and he ended his membership in the KPD in 1923, although his political positions were little changed. Bitterly anti-Nazi, Grosz left Germany shortly before Hitler came to power, in June 1932, he accepted an invitation to teach the summer semester at the Art Students League of New York. In October 1932, Grosz returned to Germany, but on January 12,1933 he, Grosz became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1938, and made his home in Bayside, New York. In the 1930s he taught at the Art Students League, where one of his students was Romare Bearden and he taught at the Art Students League intermittently until 1955. In America, Grosz determined to make a break with his past
George Grosz
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George Grosz in 1921
George Grosz
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George Grosz, Daum marries her pedantic automaton George in May 1920, John Heartfield is very glad of it,
Berlinische Galerie
George Grosz
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George Grosz, Republican Automatons, 1920, watercolor on paper,
Museum of Modern Art, New York
George Grosz
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Made in Germany (
German: Den macht uns keiner nach), by George Grosz, drawn in pen 1919, photo-lithograph published 1920 in the portfolio God with us (
German: Gott mit Uns). Sheet 48.3 x 39.1 cm. In the collection of the
MoMA
25.
1920s Berlin
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The Golden Twenties was a vibrant period in the history of Berlin, Germany, Europe and the world in general. After the Greater Berlin Act the city became the third largest municipality in the world and it was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, music, film, higher education, government, diplomacy, industries and military affairs. The Weimar Republic era began in the midst of major movements in the fine arts. This culture was considered to be decadent and socially disruptive by rightists. Film was making huge technical and artistic strides during this period of time in Berlin, talkies, the Sound films, were also becoming more popular with the general public across Europe, and Berlin was producing very many of them. Berlin in the 1920s also proved to be a haven for English writers such as W. H, spenders semi-autobiographical novel The Temple evokes the attitude and atmosphere of the time. The University of Berlin became an intellectual centre in Germany, Europe. The sciences were especially favored — from 1914 to 1933, albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, physician Magnus Hirschfeld established the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in 1919, and it remained open until 1933. Hirschfeld believed that an understanding of homosexuality could be arrived at through science, Hirschfeld was a vocal advocate for homosexual, bisexual, and transgender legal rights for men and women, repeatedly petitioning parliament for legal changes. His Institute also included a museum, politically, Berlin was seen as a left wing stronghold, with the Nazis calling it the reddest city after Moscow. The communists, who adopted the motto Beat the fascists wherever you encounter them, had their own paramilitary organization called the Roter Frontkämpferbund to battle the Nazis Sturmabteilung. In February 1927 the Nazis held a meeting in the Red stronghold of Wedding that turned into a violent brawl, beer glasses, chairs and tables flew through the hall, and severely injured people were left lying covered with blood on the floor. Despite the injuries, it was a triumph for Goebbels, whose followers beat up about 200 communists, the government began printing tremendous amounts of currency to pay reparations, this caused staggering inflation that destroyed middle-class savings. However, economic expansion resumed after mid-decade, aided by U. S. loans and it was then that culture blossomed especially. The heyday of Berlin began in the mid-1920s when it was the most industrialized city of the continent, tempelhof Airport was opened in 1923 and a start was made on S-Bahn electrification from 1924 onwards. Berlin was also the second biggest inland harbor of Germany, all of this infrastructure was needed to transport, during the interwar period high-quality architecture was built on a large scale in Berlin for broad sections of the population, including poorer people. In particular the Berlin Modernism housing estates built before the beginning of National Socialism set standards worldwide, inflation was on the up and for citizens on low incomes decent housing was becoming increasingly unaffordable
1920s Berlin
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Street Scene at Night by
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1926-7.
1920s Berlin
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Color variations of doors and entrances in the Hufeisensiedlung (1925-1933)
1920s Berlin
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The Europahaus, one of hundreds of cabarets in Weimar Berlin, 1931.
1920s Berlin
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Prostitutes buy cocaine capsules from a drug dealer in Berlin, 1930. The capsules sold for 5 marks each.
26.
Weimar culture
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1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some also include the German-speaking Austria. Germany, and Berlin in particular, was ground for intellectuals, artists. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate, German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture. The intellectuals associated with the Institute for Social Research fled to the United States, the culture of the Weimar year was later reprised by the left-wing intellectuals of the 1960s, especially in France. Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault reprised Wilhelm Reich, Derrida reprised Husserl and Heidegger, Guy Debord, by 1919, an influx of labor had migrated to Berlin turning it into one of the most fertile grounds for the modern arts and sciences in history. This caused a boom in trade, communications and construction, even before the War, this change significantly turned over the ways of the royalty. People used their backyards and basements to run small shops, restaurants, workshops and this led to the establishment of bigger and better commerce in Berlin, including its first department stores, prior to World War I. An urban petty bourgeoisie along with the middle class colonized and flourished the wholesale commerce, retail trade, factories, types of employment were becoming more modern, shifting gradually, but noticeably, towards industry and services. Before World War I, in 1907,54. 9% of German workers were manual labourers and this dropped to 50. 1% by 1925. Office workers, managers, and bureaucrats increased their share of the market from 10. 3% to 17% over the same period. Germany was slowly becoming more urban and middle class, still, by 1925, only a third of Germans lived in large cities, the other two-thirds of the population lived in the smaller towns or in rural areas. The total population of Germany rose from 62.4 million in 1920 to 65.2 million in 1933, the most prominent philosophers with which the so-called Frankfurt School is associated were Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas and Max Horkheimer. Among the prominent philosophers not associated with the Frankfurt School were Martin Heidegger, the German philosophical anthropology movement also emerged at this time. Many foundational contributions to quantum mechanics were made in Weimar Germany or by German scientists during the Weimar period, Göttingen was the center of research in aero- and fluid-dynamics in the early 20th century. Mathematical aerodynamics was founded by Ludwig Prandtl before World War I, and it was there that compressability drag and its reduction in aircraft was first understood. A striking example of this is the Messerschmitt Me 262, which was designed in 1939, albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921
Weimar culture
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Bauhaus Dessau, built from 1925 to 1926 to a design by
Walter Gropius who founded
modern architecture.
Weimar culture
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The Europahaus, one of hundreds of cabarets in Weimar Berlin, 1931
Weimar culture
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Children being fed by a soup kitchen, 1924.
Weimar culture
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A man reads a sign advertising "Attention, Unemployed, Haircut 40 pfennigs, Shave 15 pfennigs", 1927.
27.
Roaring Twenties
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The Roaring Twenties is a term for Western society and Western culture during the 1920s. In the French Third Republic, the decade was known as the années folles, emphasizing the social, artistic. Jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, not everything roared, in the wake of the hyper-emotional patriotism of World War I, Warren G. Harding brought back normalcy to the politics of the United States. This era saw the use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, radio. The economies saw rapid growth, accelerated consumer demand, plus significant changes in lifestyle. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their teams and filled the new palatial cinemas. In most major states, women won the right to vote. The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers, the United States gained dominance in world finance. Thus, when Weimar Republic Germany could no longer afford to pay World War I reparations to the United Kingdom, France and other Allies, the Americans came up with the Dawes Plan. Wall Street invested heavily in Germany, which repaid its reparations to nations that, in turn, by the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known, especially in Germany, as the Golden Twenties. The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a feeling of novelty associated with modernity. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology, New technologies, especially automobiles, moving pictures, and radio, brought modernity to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both life and architecture. At the same time, Jazz and dancing rose in popularity, as such, the period is also often referred to as the Jazz Age. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression brought years of worldwide gloom, the economy of the United States, which had successfully transitioned from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy, boomed and provided loans for a European boom as well. However, some sectors were stagnant, especially farming and coal mining, the United States since the late 19th century was the richest country in the world per capita and in terms of total GDP. Its industry was based on production, and its society acculturated into consumerism. European economies, by contrast, had a more difficult postwar readjustment, at first, the end of wartime production caused a brief but deep recession, the post–World War I recession of 1919–20
Roaring Twenties
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Climax of the new architectural style: the Chrysler Building in New York City was built after the European wave of
Art Deco reached the United States.
Roaring Twenties
Roaring Twenties
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Felix the Cat, a popular cartoon character of the decade, exhibits his famous pace.
Roaring Twenties
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Sheet music poking fun at the masculine traits many women adopted during the 1920s.
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