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

by Lotte H. Eisner

The Golden Age of German cinema began at the end of the First World War and ended shortly after the coming of sound. From The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari onwards the principal films of this period were characterized by two influences: literary Expressionism, and the innovations of the theatre directors of this period, in particular Max Reinhardt. This book demonstrates the connection between German Romanticism and the cinema through Expressionist writings. It discusses the influence of the theatre: the handling of crowds; the use of different levels, and of selective lighting on a predominately dark stage; the reliance on formalized gesture; the innovation of the intimate theatre. Against this background the principal films of the period are examined in detail. The author explains the key critical concepts of the time, and surveys not only the work of the great directors, such as Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau, but also the contribution of their writers, cameramen, and designers. As The Times Literary Supplement wrote, 'Mme. Eisner is first and foremost a film critic, and one of the best in the world. She has all the necessary gifts.' And it described the original French edition of this book as 'one of the very few classics of writing on the film and arguably the best book on the cinema yet written.'

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art, History, Media Tie In, Horror, Germany

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Lotte Henriette Eisner was born in Berlin as a daughter of a Jewish merchant and his wife. After studies in Berlin and Munich, from 1927 she worked as a theater and film critic for German newspapers. Among others, she wrote for Film-Kurier, a daily film newspaper published in Berlin.

In 1933 she fled from Germany to France to avoid the rising anti-Jewish persecution by the Nazis. During World War II she hid for a time, but finally was caught and interned in the French concentration camp at the town of Gurs in Aquitaine, France. (Foreign Jews were interned as aliens.) She managed to survive the war, and after the Liberation she returned to Paris.

She worked closely with Henri Langlois, the founder of the Cinémathèque Française. She worked there from 1945 as a Chief Archivist until her retirement in 1975.

Lotte H. Eisner continued to write for the monthly Cahiers du Cinéma and La Revue du Cinéma. In 1974, learning that Eisner was seriously ill and on the verge of death, the German film director Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris to visit her, in the faith that she would be well again when he arrived. His journey is recounted in Herzog's book Of Walking in Ice. She had been a mentor to him.

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know where or when my fascination with silent movies began. Definitely not as a child. I couldn't stand the things back then. I think it might have been after I discovered The Dark Side of the Rainbow and realized that the same technique of watching one piece of visual media while listening to another piece of aural media could easily be applied to silent movies. Suddenly, these often-campy, over-acted films could become something sublime or something sinister, with the right music. Eisner's book was grist for that mill in enough volume to last me the rest of my life. Though I was very familiar with a few of these films and had already tried the trick of using two tabs of Youtube in a web-browser - one (the film) set on mute and the other (the music) with volume UP - I found several other good combinations and a couple of great ones. I will continue exploring this way.

If you'd like to give it a try, look up The Student of Prague (1913) or Waxworks on Youtube. Mute that tab. Now open another tab, go to Youtube, then play something like Ligeti's "Lontano" or Penderecki's "Symphony No. 1" (or, for real ambience, play it on vinyl!) with the volume UP. Or, perhaps you'd like to go another route and listen to some more . . . modern music? I have a few suggestions linked here.

I suggest watching without subtitles turned on, if you can. just enjoy the visual and auditory experience. It's a stark contrast from watching the movie alone, even when, or especially when, someone has attached an old-timey organ soundtrack to the movie. It's your experience - make it yours!

Incidentally, because of this book, I understand why sub-titles are called sub-titles. Only took 52 years to be enlightened. "Titles" was the term originally used in silent movies for the words that flashed up on the screen, in the absence of spoken dialogue. "Subtitles" appear, as the name implies beneath the titles. These are, as you know, most often translations from the original language into another.

52 years.

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Speaking of new tricks, the early years of cinema were a sort of wild west, when it came to creative innovation, especially when constraints brought on by conflict interfered with the procurement of some materials. Interestingly, the lack of materials in the last years of World War I led to playwrights and cinematic directors using light and shadow, rather than elaborate sets, as they used to use, to give depth to the settings and to indicate the passage of time. A happy accident for early German movies.

The recollections of Carl Boese on how the special effects were done for Der Golem (1920) were absolutely fascinating. These practical effects were very dangerous, so volunteers were asked to try them out. The first stunt-men, perhaps. Knowing this has given me an excuse to watch the movie again. Of course, I will also have to reread Gustav Meyrinks novel, which has little to do with the movie, but hey, a good excuse is okay. After all, the book and the movie were both highly influential on one of my own creative works.

And, speaking of old dogs . . .

Eisner has a fixation on the melancholy and gloom inherit in the German soul, as he sees it. I tend to agree to some extent, but when I see this was first published in 1952, I wonder if some of the hyperbole isn't post-holocaust apologetics or manifestations of guilt. There's a bit too much of "Germans are brooding, dark-minded people as a whole" for me. It's overstated and I wonder why?

It is reasonable to argue that the German cinema is a development of German Romanticism, and that modern technique merely lends visible form to Romantic fancies.

These generalizations of German people as a brooding bunch keep coming up again and again. I don't fully disagree, but frankly (and I don't mean "in the manner of the French"), it got a little, well, old.

But if you can ignore the repeated caricature of an entire nation as, well, goths, there is much to be enjoyed about this work. I would also recommend (whether you read the book or not) following the Pagan Hollywood instagram or twitter account. Sometimes NSFW, you'll want to maneuver carefully, but if you want to catch the glamor of early cinema (and much more) in still photos, that's a great place to start. There's also a great interview with Pagan Hollywood's founder, Charles Lieurance over on Youtube, while you're at it.

I must note that the early text on Doctor Caligari instructed "see frontispiece". I turned to the front of the book, and noted the ragged edges where that key marker had been torn out of the book.

Was that a sign that I should not have entered the realm of the torn page?

Maybe I should have heeded it.

But I'm glad I didn't.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world was masked, silent, and eerily suspended. Kolkata’s streets felt like Murnau’s backdrops—shrouded in mist and meaning. And in the heart of that stillness, I found myself teaching Film Studies to an online batch for 56 weeks straight. Unexpected, unplanned, and utterly consuming.

Eisner’s The Haunted Screen became more than just a textbook. It was a séance. A portal into the shadows and sharp angles of Weimar cinema, where faces froze in anguish and staircases twisted like thoughts. Reading it during that covid winter felt uncanny—German Expressionism’s inner hysteria mirrored our collective stillness. The isolation. The distorted realities. The sense of invisible dread. It wasn’t just about Caligari’s cabinet anymore—it was about ours.

Max Reinhardt’s theatrical influence, the chiaroscuro of sets, the stylised gestures, the obsession with inner psyche—they weren’t academic details. They were moods I lived through. Every Zoom class felt like a shadowplay. I saw my students as silhouettes. Their faces grainy, movements stuttered, voices distorted—Expressionist cinema, broadcast live.

And thus The Haunted Screen didn’t just haunt my shelves—it haunted the screen I stared into for hours. Every frame, every flicker, every fear—all very real.

[Aidan Rynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a rather essential guide to German Expressionism. Seeing as Eisner was in Germany when these films were being made and was still in contact with some of the filmmakers while writing this book there is an invaluable insight into the psychology and production of films which otherwise feel incredibly distant, even in the best history books.

The historical aspect is certainly the most interesting part, especially when Eisner dives into the German Psychology which inspired Expressionism's darkness.

Towards the end, however, the book essentially turns into a collection of reviews. While this does get rather dry, especially as someone who is yet to see many of these films, there is still valuable criticism there which I would likely enjoy if I were familiar with the subject matter. As it stands I was able to make a pretty decent list of films to look out for...

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first major books on Expressionist cinema in Germany, and it remains pretty much the undisputed Bible on the subject. Eisner has an interesting way of analyzing her topic—films are grouped in ways that aren't always expected, and she approaches each film in a way that at first seems idiosyncratic, perhaps even a bit scattershot, but the elements she does end up focusing on always turn out to be enlightening and endlessly evocative. I didn't make it all the way to the end because I was looking to familiarize myself with the topic more than study it in depth (and it becomes tedious after awhile to endlessly read about films one hasn't in fact seen), but my "to-watch" has grown ever-longer and I plan to return whenever I catch up with a few more of them.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1952, this is one of the first film histories since the 1930s to treat silent movies seriously, or even as more than a footnote in the history of cinema. The “advance” to sound was so universally accepted that most audiences barely perceived that there was more to silent films than jerky, undercranked comedies about pie fights and badly-staged damsel-in-distress scenarios. German Expressionism still had a bit of a reputation in the industry, however, and Sigfried Kracauer had linked it to the Sonderweg of fascism and Hitler’s rise to power. It was left for Eisner, a Jewish German with close ties to Weimar-era theater and film production, to counter this with a more sympathetic account.

As the subtitle suggests, Eisner sees the influence of Max Reinhardt, the famous Berlin theater producer, as decisive in creating the aesthetic now known as Expressionism. Certainly in terms of staging and set design, this is not surprising, but she is also able to argue that lighting and acting techniques, so vitally different for cinema than for live theater, were also adapted. Much of her discussion of Expressionist lighting relies upon the concept of “chiaroscuro” – a single light source shining from above to define a specific object or space on the stage/screen (often representing a slash of light from a high window in the narrative’s universe) – an undeniably theatrical style, based on having lights mounted at ceiling level to avoid blocking audience views. Acting is “Expressionist” when it is “not naturalistic,” in other words if it expresses the inner condition or nature of the character more than a realistic depiction of human behavior. The distinction between this and melodrama – a theatrical style developed to guarantee that body language would transmit the action well enough to the “cheap seats” who presumably could not hear the dialogue – is left largely undiscussed, but it is important to remember that Expressionist drama mostly took place in smaller venues where dialogue could easily be understood.

Eisner’s coverage of German film from about 1916 to 1929 is amazingly detailed, given that at the time of writing it was enormously difficult even for scholars to access prints of older films. More amazing for the time of publication, her textual arguments are supported by a plethora of stills from the movies she discusses; almost as many pages are devoted to images as to text. By current standards, some of these are disappointing blurry or heavily contrasted, but it adds a great deal to the student’s understanding to have any image, where many books on film history and theory would have only a few for decades after this book came out. She recalls a great deal of detail accurately, helped no doubt by her contacts with some of the key players in the story, and the early collections of historical film at the Museum of Modern Art and elsewhere.

If there are flaws to be called out in her work, they mostly relate to her own biases and the still primitive standards of film theory at the time. Here we can detect the over-reliance on Freud that would sully film theory for decades after this, though still in embryonic form. Also, her personal friends such as Fritz Lang appear as geniuses who could do no wrong, while others like Robert Wiene are dismissed despite highly influential work. Fair enough, it’s hard to write about art history without expressing opinions, and hers are at least highly informed opinions. The book becomes less interesting as it moves into discussion of sound cinema in its closing chapters, although some interesting insights (as into the female-directed movie “Mädchen in Uniform”) do arise. Amusingly, in the final paragraph, written for the revised edition of the 1960s, she does manage to mention Werner Herzog, but that generation of German film maker had to wait for later theorists and reviewers.

[Raúl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una magnífica panorámica por la historia del primer cine alemán en la que Lotte Eisner, una de las más grandes escritoras sobre teoría y análisis del cine, revisa a través de los recursos cinematográficos y estéticos utilziados en éstas las grandes películas del llamado expresionismos alemán. Imprescindible.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lotte Eisner's great book length study on German Expressionist films. She has the final word, with respect to this subject. Hell, she knew these people as well!

[Weronika · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

For around 20 years, in the very youth of cinema, Germany produced works that set the groundwork and blueprints for everything that would come after. It is arguable that this is the most important period in the history of film making, and certainly many of my favourite films came from the UFA studios.

Lotte Eisner, a critic of the time and deeply embedded into the culture that she reviewed, has written the single greatest book on this period, and one of the most impassioned books I have ever read about cinema.

But you know this, you don’t need me to add to the plaudits of this book, other than to say that it really is that good, that detailed, that understanding.

Invaluable.

[Printable Tire]

Another book read for my Weimar Cinema class. Almost an unsettling detachment from plots and a focus purely on aesthetics permeates this page. Like Kracauer, Eisner occasionally mentions films that aesthetically predict Nazi style but no judgement is made of them. She often partakes of loaded sentences like "The German spirit is one of darkness, and he is often attracted to the uncaring void of the universe." I made that one up but it seems like something she would write. I'm often interested in purely aesthetics too but I find her complete disinterest in plots to be alienating and frankly creepy. The book is mostly photographs and descriptions of the visual images of films, with little analysis and no thesis.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty-five years ago I took a film theory class as part of my college degree, and was given a list of 9 books as required reading. Surprisingly, I got an A- for the class despite not reading any of them. I tried to start reading one or two of the books, but the subject matter was far too abstract for me to care about. Over time, I gave all the books away except for this one, and finally, last week, I pulled this one off the shelf and started reading. Much to my surprise, it wasn't a painful read. In fact, this has reignited a once fanciful interest in German Expressionist film, which I may now be able to better explore thanks to the technological miracle that is the internet. Hello German silent cinema, good-bye social life!

[Henrique Quadros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mais um clássico da teoria do cinema, li também como parte da pesquisa que estou fazendo no meu tempo livre

É geralmente mencionado junto com o "From Caligari to Hitler" do Kracauer mas eu acho que os dois livros são bem diferentes. Enquanto o clássico do Kracauer é extremamente analítico dos subtextos (e por consequência bastante politizado), este livro foca quase que inteiramente nas qualidades textuais dos filmes, ou seja, na aparência e características visuais do cinema expressionista alemão, e nisso a Lotte Eisner é muito habilidosa. O livro é uma avaliação categórica e quase que enciclopédica de todos os tipos de estética que permeavam as produções da era Weimar.

Entretanto, uma semelhança que este livro tem com o livro do Kracauer é a noção da evolução histórica do filme alemão e o decaimento com a chegada do regime Nazista. Enquanto Kracauer analisa isso por um ponto de vista do tipo de histórias que os cineastas passaram a contar com o passar dos anos, Eisner foca no distanciamento do expressionismo e na obsessão pelo realismo, e em seguida na reapropriação do expressionismo como estética fascista (filmes do Fritz Lang se tornando inspiração pra Leni Riefenstahl, por exemplo)

Além disso há uma boa elaboração em cima da diferença do cinema alemão com o cinema francês daquela época, em específico a diferença entre o Expressionismo e o Impressionismo. Achei isso muito daora. O livro é muito gostoso de ler e bastante informativo pra quem gosta de direção de arte e cinematografia, pra minha pesquisa (que foca nos aspectos políticos do cinema alemão) não foi tão útil, mas mesmo assim gostei muito de ler. Recomendo

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book. Here you'll learn everything about the expressionist film: the spell of lights (the influence of Max Reinhardt), the costume film, the stylized fantastic, the symphonies of horror (my favorite chapter), the obsession with corridors and staircases, the world of shadows and mirrors, The Nibelungen, Murnau and the Kammerspielfilm, the Fritz Lang thrillers, Murnau's Faust, the decline of this type of movie. There are so many great black and white movie stills inside, posters, photos... with this book you get an idea how the film industry started and why those black and white classics are still classics after all those years. The author did an incredible job here. Highly recommended!

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems to me this was written in large part to counter the arguments of Kracauer’s notorious 1947 “From Caligari to Hitler” which argued that the prewar German movies, including the expressionist films, presaged Hitler and represented a traceable trajectory in the German mindset. Eisner instead spends most of this book talking about what Expressionism *wasn’t*, as overly simplistic generalizations have been quick to call every German film “expressionist”. The book starts with more immediacy than it finishes but it does a good job of laying out the influence of German Romanticism, the theater of Max Reinhardt, and of the small stable of competent German filmmakers on one another.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

German Expressionist cinema is one of my favorite styles, which was most prevalent in the 1920's. Eisner's examination of this, and the influence from the great German stage director, Max Reinhardt is a must read for anyone interested in this topic.

[zeynep]

i do love how eisner thinks caligari is the most overrated movie of all time

[Maciej Tumanowicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

no za dużo odpłynęła…

[Bartosz]

ledwo co... (książka na studia)

[Blank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read parts of this as they were compulsory for my studies but I found them interesting and well-written!

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read, and still good though I feel the 'talkies-ruined-everything, even before Hitler' ending is a bit questionable.

[Gary Ellenberg]

Above my pay grade. Seriously, this book is just too dense. Too intellectual. I love the them and topic, but as with some massive essay books, I just can’t do it.

[Morgana Sirci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letto per la tesi triennale.

Molte belle immagini di film, edizione piacevole da leggere e sfogliare.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been reading Lotte Eisner’s The Haunted Screen which is regarded as one of the greatest books of film criticism. It’s about German cinema in the 1920s, and more especially about the German films in the Expressionist style. She points out that the roots Expressionist film did not magically come into being with Robert Wiene’s great 1919 film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The roots of Expressionism can be traced back at least as far as Paul Wegener’s The Student of Prague, made in 1913, and beyond that to the theatre of Max Reinhardt. Even the lighting effects, which are such a feature of Expressionism, were influenced by this theatrical pioneer.

German Expressionism was of course one of the biggest influences on American film noir of the 1940s, not surprising given that many of the best examples of film noir were made in Hollywood by German directors (Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder), writers and actors (like Peter Lorre). The biggest problem with the book is that she talks about so many films that one can never hope to see, in fact many of them probably don’t exist any longer. She does give fascinating information about the filming of some of the great movies that do survive, however, movies like M, Metropolis, Faust, Nosferatu and Pandora’s Box. She seems to regard Murnau and Lang as the greatest of the German film-makers of that era, a judgment one can’t really argue with. She also has a very high regard for Louise Brooks, the brilliant American actress whose reputation rests entirely on her two German movies, Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, and she believes that Brooks’ contribution to the success of those films was immense. The book contains literally hundreds of photos, including countless photos of films now lost. An interesting and provocative book which will no doubt cause me to buy lots more silent movie DVDs that I can’t afford!

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand that The Haunted Screen is basically the definitive account of German Expressionism, and I can see why that is so. Eisner's book is interesting and very intelligent. She talks about a wide variety of films, some readily available (Metropolis, M, Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens) and some that she might very well be making up . . . except there are film stills to prove it, so never mind. Anyway, they are currently obscure, is what I'm saying. I don't know if I bought everything she said, but her perspective is refreshingly un-Hollywood.

No one will ever convince me that Der blaue Engel is a good movie, though.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

помимо прочих познавательных радостей, которые приносят книги вообще, эта подарила крайне уместный ныне афоризм Готфрида Бенна из "Искусства и власти" (1934): "Новая молодежь принадлежит власти..."

[Maxim K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

книга, которую нужно прочесть каждому кинокритику, чтобы осознать свое меcто в этой мире.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into German Expressionist Film

[Emily Crawford-margison]

Awesome. And a lot of the key film references can be found on netflix instant streaming. I highly recommend The Hands of Orlac. =)

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my dissertation, it was quite complicated at first, but I got used to it and it was easy to navigate.