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dragged into the dark underworld of the ‘Black Dragon’ clan, and fearful of her daughter’s safety. This can be seen in Figure 38, in which Kay occupies the darkest portion of the frame, receiving less light that two minor character. Stronger light falls onto the table in the centre of the frame, corresponding to the Rembrandt effect. Schüfftan also chooses to give her no backlight, shrouding her in even further darkness. In contrast, Kay’s daughter represents the youthful promise of a bright new future, and as such receives stronger lighting levels from Schüfftan.

Figure 38: Christl Mardayn receives little light from Schüfftan in Le Drame de Shanghaï.

Another of Schüfftan's projects of 1938 was a further collaboration with Max Ophüls, Le Roman de Werther, an adaptation of the classic Goethe novel which was in production with

Seymour Nebenzahl’s Nero Film, from 15th June until 30th September. In the film Werther

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(Pierre Richard-Willm, star of Yoshiwara) and Charlotte (Annie Vernay) fall in love, however, unknown to Werther, Charlotte is already engaged to Albert (Jean Galland). When Werther comes to propose to Charlotte she is left with no other choice but to reveal her deceit and to marry Albert. Their relationship now over, Werther ends the film by taking his own life.

Schüfftan's responsibility in the production of the film was for studio cinematography (Fédote Bourgasoff and Paul Portier took over duties on location), and his lighting choices function to reinforce the opposing characters of Werther and Albert, through the spaces to which they are linked. Albert, the man who can provide financial assurance and social mobility for Charlotte, is located in a grand space frequently filmed by Ophüls from the lobby, an expanse punctuated by the resplendent staircase. Schüfftan’s lighting of this location functions to enhance the grandiose scale of the space through the use of visible light sources such as the large windows which are positioned above the staircase, functioning to heighten the ceilings and increase the depth of space to the set. Such depth effects are similarly achieved by Schüfftan through the Rembrandt technique of ensuring that the brightest point of lighting in the set is its rearmost point.

In stark contrast to this location, the bar patronized by Werther, who provides Charlotte with romantic excitement but can offer little financial security, is small, dark and unpleasant, with no natural light source. Schüfftan lights the set by casting key lights across the floor, ensuring very little light falls onto the walls. The effect of this is to limit the impression of space in the bar, reducing the height of the space and lessening the impression of depth, in order to create a far more claustrophobic sensation. By linking each of Charlotte's two romantic options to a differing social space, characterized visually by Schüfftan through his use of lighting, and through the production design of Eugène Lourié, Ophüls is able to

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illustrate the stark contrasts between the two men, and the irreconcilable predicament Charlotte has positioned herself in.

Low-key lighting is favoured by Schüfftan in his interior scenes, augmenting the deceitful nature of Charlotte's relationship to Werther. In such scenes Schüfftan tends to avoid a strong use of backlight, allowing the subjects to blend into the background of the night. One interesting use of such lighting occurs when Werther visits Charlotte’s room, shouting for her behind her locked door. The room itself is in almost complete darkness, and we see her move across the room in silhouette, lit by the most minimal of light sources, adding to the sense of deceit and the danger of the situation.

Following on from this film, Schüfftan then completed two weeks of studio work on Jacques

Constant’s betrayal narrative Campement 13/Camp 13, with the rest of the work completed by Nicolas Toporkoff (Asper and Meneux, 2003: 155). Schüfftan's final project of 1938 was

Trois valses/Three Waltzes, for German émigré director Ludwig Berger, and with assistance from Paul Portier and Guy Delattre. Based on a popular operetta of the time, Trois valses starred Yvonne Printemps and Pierre Fresnay who had both appeared in the stage version. The film tells the story of the romantic tribulations of three generations of the same family. This begins in 1869 with Fanny, a famous ballet dancer, before advancing to the story of her daughter Charlotte, an operetta star, and ending in the present day with the story of Charlotte's daughter Franzi, a film actress. All three generations of this dynasty were portrayed by Printemps, and all generations of the male love interest by Fresnay. Building on the popularity of the musical, the filmed version proved to be highly successful (Traubner, 2003: 284), and Schüfftan was praised by the American press for his cinematography (Anon., 1939).

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1939 would see the outbreak of war, however Schüfftan was able to work upon one further collaboration with Max Ophüls before this occurred. The film, Sans lendemain/Without Tomorrow, was filmed in January and February of 1939, with Schüfftan once more mentoring the French cameraman Paul Portier. The film is the story of Evelyn (Edwige Feuillère), a burlesque dancer in a nightclub who encounters an old flame, Georges (Georges Rigaud), who has experienced considerably more success during their time apart. In order to save face, Evelyn lies about her current occupation and the desperation of her lifestyle, instead positioning herself within the bourgeois lifestyle she longs to occupy. Evelyn and Georges fall in love again, forcing Evelyn to maintain her façade. However, as Georges tries to persuade Evelyn to come away with him to Canada, we learn that the break-up of their original relationship occurred because Evelyn was then already trying to hide her true life – her marriage to a criminal – which, at that time, had forced her to leave without explaining the truth to Georges.

Schüfftan's approach to lighting his female lead, Feuillère, is contrary to the tendencies he normally displayed when lighting a lead actress. As with Christl Mardayn in Le Drame de Shanghaï, Feuillère is not lit in the same glamourous way as many of Schüfftan's other actresses. Rather she is often shrouded in darkness, with little light illuminating her face.

Schüfftan’s usual practice from this period was to employ a combination of key and side lights to fully illuminate the face, and filler lights to reduce shadows, in order to enhance the natural beauty of the actress. By using less light on the face of Feuillère, Schüfftan reflects the psychological state of her character, the sordid nature of her career and her deceit before

Georges. Schüfftan’s method in lighting Feuillère is a strong use of baselight and backlights, but with no strong keylight. Schüfftan also employs soft focus in close-ups of Feuillère, creating a further lack of definition. The result of this is that the face of Feuillère is roundly lit, without great contrast or shadow (thereby not diminishing her natural beauty). However,

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this is only dimly done (thereby reflecting the complexity of her character). Schüfftan's approach to lighting Feuillère is enhanced by Laure Lourié's costume design, which places Feuillère in a black throughout most of the film (see Figure 39).

Figure 39: Edwige Feuillère in Sans lendemain.

As excellent example of how this lack of light is used to highlight Evelyn’s personal anxieties is the scene in which Georges drives her home for the first time. Not wanting Georges to see her true quality of life, Evelyn is forced to profess that a far grander house belongs to her, and she asks Georges to drop her off outside the gate. Evelyn nervously enters through the gate before hiding out of view around the side of the house. As she was sitting in the back of the car with Georges, nervously trying to plan her next move, she was filmed in close-up, with only a single band of light illuminating her eyes from the darkness, highlighting them as they flickered nervously back and forth. Then, once hidden around the corner of the house

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waiting for Georges to leave, her image is barely visible, her silhouette only gently highlighted from an outdoor light at the front of the house.

There are a number of further dramatic scenes where lighting becomes crucial to an understanding of Evelyn’s motivations. Key amongst these is the climactic scene of the film in which Evelyn is confronted by the manager of the nightclub and lighting is prominently employed to create a sense of threat. Evelyn stands in the centre of the shot in front of a wall, whilst the manager is positioned off-screen shouting at her, his shadow visibly cast onto the wall next to her. As he becomes more animated he moves closer to her, moving into view on the left of the frame, and thus moving his shadow forward, now ominously positioned directly over Evelyn. Finally, the progressive lighting effect reaches its climax when the manager moves forward once more, this time directly in front of Evelyn, blocking her from view. This creates a feeling of violence, by positioning his back to the camera lens, which prompts a suggestive cut away from the action.

The outbreak of war in September 1939 stalled Schüfftan's career considerably and profoundly affected the lives of all exiles residing in France. These refugees soon became seen as possible enemies, and were instructed to attend internment camps, where they would be processed and categorized. The largest example was the Colombes stadium, which held 20,000 people. Consequences could be as dire as a stripping of recently awarded French citizenship, and a forced return to Germany. It was a horror described by the exile writer Lion Feuchtwanger as The Devil in France (1941), the title of his memoir of his internment at the Les Milles camp. Although attendance for most was voluntary (in an attempt not to displease the host nation), the émigrés, those who had sought refuge from Nazism, could never have expected the squalor and ill-treatment they would receive (Palmier, 2006: 436442). The exile novelist Hermann Kesten highlighted this distressing injustice: ‘And so

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France is starting its war against Hitler with a war against the enemies of Hitler who took refuge in France. Such victories gained over the victims of tyrants make this kind of victor the tyrant’s next victim.’ (Palmier, 2006: 437)

Schüfftan was interned at this time in a camp in the South of France, likely to be the military camp of Graveson in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of France, established during the First World War, or one of the many camps opened on the Southern border with Spain, created to receive refugees from the Spanish Civil War. Fortunately Schüfftan spent only a short time in the camp as it was believed he was willing to support the French army.

Such personal and national traumas clearly limited Schüfftan's filmmaking prospects. Schüfftan remained in France for the immediate future where he was able to film

L’Émigrante/The Emigrant (Léo Joannon) and Les Musiciens du ciel/Musicians of the Sky

(Georges Lacombe) during 1939. The latter reunited Michèle Morgan and Michel Simon following Le Quai des brumes. Schüfftan’s final work as a cinematographer in France (for the time being) was to complete the photography of De Mayerling à Sarajevo/From Mayerling to Sarajevo for Max Ophüls in the first months of 1940 (Asper and Meneux, 2003: 156).19 At this time of war, the film told the story of the outbreak of the First World War following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Once the Vichy régime took control of France in July 1940 Schüfftan was fortunate enough to avoid detention until he was able to flee the country, a point where many other Jews residing in France (particularly in the Northern Zone) were less lucky.

19 On De Mayerling à Sarajevo Schüfftan was charged with completing the studio photography of Curt Courant and Otto Heller. It is possible that these two émigré cinematographers fled France before the completion of the film. Robert LeFebvre had been responsible for location shooting.

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Part Two

Case Study

Exile Modernism on Poverty Row, 1941 – 1946

Introduction

Schüfftan’s arrival in the United States in 1941 and his subsequent failure to be accepted into the union saw the cinematographer working throughout the decade upon a number of independent productions outside of the major studios, where he could find greater leniency regarding his unlicensed practice. These independent productions (termed Poverty Row) proved a popular means of dodging union restrictions. As Kerr (2003: 114) has noted, the frequent night shoots of these low-budget films, perfectly ‘suited those employees who sought to avoid IATSE [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees] overtime bans’. Schüfftan was one of many exiles who gravitated towards this area of film production, if they lacked the correct permits, or if they were yet to prove themselves to the studio bosses. The sheer number of émigrés working amongst these minor productions meant that an émigré

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filmmaking community could be facilitated in California, sustaining the careers of many exiles in Los Angeles. In this chapter I will discuss Schüfftan’s work on these Poverty Row films of the 1940s. I shall argue that his work in this context can be perceived as examples of what Bahr (2007) has termed Exile Modernism, itself an outcome of Modernist theories travelling West at a time when many of Modernism’s key thinkers were forced to flee their native Germany (often emigrating to the USA), as I shall now go on to explain.

In the wake of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the intellectual moment of German Modernism was severely challenged. Bahr (2007: 12) argues that the effect was to tear the competing strands of modernism into three categories: Fascist Modernism, Leftist Modernism, and a Modernism of the social individual, all of which had some presence in exile. Under Hitler the latter two categories more or less vanished from the German context, while the first, Fascist Modernism, prevailed. Exile Modernism is a term used by Bahr, following a framework established by Russell A. Berman in his text ‘The Rise of the German Novel’, to refer to those intellectuals who fled to America, and whose exile writings were informed by the various experiences of exile, and by the failure of democracy from which they had fled. Thus for Bahr, this period of Exile Modernism, which followed the 1933 crisis, plugs the gap between the high period of Modernism in the 1920s, and Modernism's late period of the 1950s and 60s.

Though necessarily divergent, following the split of Modernism in 1933, there are a number of traits which identify works of Exile Modernism. Strong themes amongst such works are narratives which foreground the traumas of the exile’s homeland. The true events of the Czech town of Lidice are one such example, which inspired works of Exile Modernism in various artistic forms, and is addressed at greater length later in this case study. Thomas Mann’s Docktor Faustus/Doctor Faustus, one of the key examples of Exile Modernist

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literature (Exiliteratur), also addresses the horrors committed by the Nazi Party in the author’s homeland of Germany. Mann’s novel updates the classic story of Faustus to Twentieth-Century Germany. The story is narrated by Zeitblom, a friend of the Faustus character, a composer called Leverkühn. Zeitblom narrates Leverkühn’s tragedy during the years of the Second World War, drawing parallels between Leverkühn and the rise and fall of the Nazi dominion. As Bahr (2007: 21) explains, ‘A continuing discussion of the horrifying consequences of anti-Semitism was necessary since […] Christians and Jews alike felt they needed to come to understand the catastrophe so that their escape and survival did not become meaningless.’ In addition to highlighting the Nazi atrocities from which he had fled, Mann also creates a fracturing and layering of narratives, through which parallels to the author’s real life experience of such events are reinforced through the presence of an in-text author, Zeitblom.

Exile narratives which mirror those of the author, and subsequently create a complex relationship to the host nation, also constitute examples of this Exile Modernism. Alfred Döblin’s Schicksalsreise/Destiny's Journey (originally published in 1949) is one such example of an exile narrative. Döblin’s work is an autobiographical account of the eight years following his exile from his native Germany, tracing his journey first to France, then his subsequent exile to America. For its part, the US also played a complex role in the works of other Exile Modernist writers. One of the most famous of Exile Modernists, Bertolt Brecht, provides a fine example of this complex relationship in his various poetic works written once in exile in California. Brecht (2003: 100-103) veers from comparing his new home of Los Angeles to Hell in Nachdenkend über die Hölle/On Thinking About Hell (1941), to defending the values of American democracy in Der demokratische Richter/The Democratic Judge

(1942).

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