Robert Wiene — Obituary (1938) 🇬🇧

Robert Wiene, film director, died in Paris during July. An émigre from Germany, he was nearly 60 years of age and had been without work for a long time. The Press, however, has not mentioned the real cause of his death: he died of fame.

Film fame is of two kinds; both are deadly. There is the fame of the popular “star” which kills its owner as soon as he loses his job, the film company having entangled him in a publicity-life which, as a private individual, he cannot afford. There is the more exclusive fame of the film director who presents an important work which drives him out of his profession by overshadowing the whole of his later career. D. W. Griffith is an example.

This was the fate of Robert Wiene. Critics could not understand his inability to repeat his first great success, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — the biggest freak in film history. Finally Wiene became weary and just sought a quiet “commercial” job, as have done dozens of other able directors, whilst the motion picture industry assumed that he was too concerned with Art to accept what it might have offered him.

The fame of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, its historic importance and its legendary glory have lasted for nearly 20 years. It must have been shown by every Film Society in Britain. In it Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover and Werner Krauss played memorable parts.

Its making came about like this. In 1919 Robert Wiene, the son of an Austrian actor and a former student of Theatre History at the Vienna University, was invited to prove his worth on an experimental work in Berlin. Life was exciting in Berlin in 1919, crowded with revolutionary movements in the political as well as the social life of the country. “Expressionism” was the slogan of the day. Three painters — Herman Warm, Walther Rohrig and Walther Reimann — got hold of a film-scenario and designed its background by means of hundreds of expressionist drawings. It is said that one of the two authors, Hans Janowitz, strongly objected to this “expressionist” treatment, but Carl Mayer, the other author (who later was to become such an important figure in the German cinema), and Wiene’s enthusiasm, prevailed. The theory was that the sets and costumes should be more than a background, they should be an elaborate psychological reflection of the story in its minutest detail: a theory that was to prevail for the next six years of German cinema.

Caligari, as Robert Wiene produced it, was a revolution, wholly in the spirit of the time. It succeeded in drawing the attention of intellectuals in Europe and America to the artistic possibilities of the film. It inspired much literature on film problems and provided a basis for discussion on the real purpose of the cinema. Some critics decry its close relations to the theatre. Others applaud its active approach. It came at a time when America was flooding the screens of the world with bright, sophisticated movies and adventure films of the western type.

The practical consequence of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an era of expressionist films, putting the German experiments in the foreground of contemporary film art. Among them we remember Kobe’s “Torgus,” Martin’s “From Morn till Midnight,” Leni’s Waxworks and Murnau’s Nosferatu (Dracula) [Hanns Kobe, Karlheinz Martin, Paul Leni, F. W. Murnau]. Robert Wiene took his further share by shooting “Genuine,” “Raskolnikoff” and “Orlacs Hands.” But the expressionist style faded into the background as realism prevailed. It had presented merely an exotic, decorative frame to stories with inadequate plots which only served their purpose to liquidate German post-war inhibitions.

Wiene’s last films of importance were “Inri,” the story of Christ, and “Rosenkavalier” to the music of Richard Strauss. They were theatrical decorations quite unlike the style and aims of Caligari.

During his last years, Wiene made desperate efforts to revive The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by shooting it again as a sound film. He tried to adapt its scenario to the new technique, to the new film business and even to the new politics of to-day. He was unable, however, to obtain the necessary financial support and was thus happily prevented from repeating a film, the success of which remains as unrepeatable as by-gone history itself.

Kraszna-Krausz

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Collection: World Film News, August 1938