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of this chapter, ‘The Cinematographic Representation of the Asylum Space’, looks in detail at Schüfftan’s lighting choices with regards to a particular space, that of the asylum, in Georges

Franju’s La Tête contre les murs/Head Against the Wall (1959). I also argue that, with the aid of Schüfftan’s lighting, the film can be linked to contemporary discourses at the time on the treatment of the mentally ill.

The final chapter of this thesis, Chapter IV, is concerned with Schüfftan’s final years as a cinematographer, between 1960 and 1977. Part One, ‘An American Cinematographer’, details Schüfftan’s final acceptance into (one branch) of the ASC, allowing him to finally shoot films in America, albeit only in the New York area. This resulted in some of

Schüfftan’s greatest successes, most notably in the form of his two collaborations with Robert

Rossen, The Hustler (1961) and Lilith (1964). Schüfftan finally received recognition from the industry that had rejected him for so many years, in the form of an Academy Award for his work on The Hustler. This first part of my final chapter also details Schüfftan back-and- forth between New York and Paris for his collaborations with Jean-Pierre Mocky, and the fading of his career in the late 1960s as his eyesight was failing. Chapter IV, Part Two is the final case study of this thesis, and deals with Schüfftan’s abovementioned New York filmmaking (specifically on Something Wild (Jack Garfein, 1960), The Hustler, and Trois chambres à Manhattan/Three Rooms in Manhattan (Carné, 1965)). The case study, titled

‘Cityspace in the New York City Trilogy’, examines the three films for their shared use of the

New York location, and for a similar intent of blending a dialectic of realism and stylization

(something discussed by each of the three directors). I argue that Schüfftan’s dual interests in realism and more Expressionist forms of lighting make him the perfect cinematographer to create such effects for the films. Furthermore, I employ Edward Soja’s Thirdspace (1996) in order to mediate the complex dialectical tension between realism and stylization, and to

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demonstrate Schüfftan’s cinematographic negotiation of the various spaces of the city,

including interiors and exteriors.

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Part One

The Technology and Aesthetics of the Schüfftan Process

Introduction

In part one of this chapter I look back to the very foundations of Schüfftan's career in the film industry: the invention of his 'Schüfftan Process' and its famous application in Fritz Lang's

Metropolis (1927). For although Schüfftan did not in fact act as cinematographer on

Metropolis (this credit is taken by Karl Freund and Günther Rittau), the mirror process for filming miniatures in large scale which Schüfftan invented for use on Metropolis is a perfect microcosm of the tension between the technological and the aesthetic which exists in the work of any cinematographer of repute. Furthermore, a sound understanding of the technical processes involved in the 'Schüfftan Process' is imperative to this study, particularly considering that rather than his cinematographic work, it is this process which is still Schüfftan's legacy. It is the main reason why his name may still be recognised today (and is

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therefore addressed by this thesis), despite the later acclaim and variety of his career as a cinematographer.

The Technological

Schüfftan filed the first application to patent his process, described as an 'Apparatus for Composite Cinematography' in Germany on May 9th 1923, with two subsequent patents applied for on March 1st 1924 ('Method and apparatus for producing composite motion pictures') and September 23rd 1924 ('System of taking photographic and cinematographic pictures'). Each was then later patented in the United States, respectively, on January 4th

1927, with patent number 1,613,201; on November 9th 1926, with patent number 1,606,482; and on October 5th 1926, with patent number 1,601,886. The process itself is described by Schüfftan in patent 1,601,886 as follows:

This invention is concerned with improvements in the production of photographic and cinematographic takings at which objects of different scale are united within the camera and by means of a mirror to a picture corresponding picturally [sic.] and as to the scale of the picture parts to the conditions required, the unison by means of the mirror being effected by the mirror being provided with a mirror foil at its camera facing side and being made transparent or light permeable by the mirror foil being eliminated at certain places, so that one sees at the permeable places the object arranged behind the mirror, whereas the reflecting portion of the mirror reproduces as reflection the complement to the through-sight object. (Schüfftan, 1926)

Clearly it is necessary to clarify some of the convolutions of Schüfftan's complex invention. Essentially it is a process through which two separate elements of scale are combined within a single image. One element is usually a live action sequence, featuring movement and

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actors, and the other is often a miniature set or a photographic backdrop. Through the Schüfftan Process, both elements may be filmed through one camera, uniting them in a single frame and giving the static element the scale required over the actors (see Figure 1. In the description which follows the numbering corresponds to those numbers listed on the diagram).

Figure 1: An example of the process entered with US patent 1,606,482.

The Schüfftan Process is an optical deception literally achieved through 'smoke and mirrors', as it is through the use of a mirror that the two separate elements are combined within the single film image. A mirror (51) is mounted in front of the camera lens (6), angled so that the miniature (53), beyond the lens's perception, is reflected on to the appropriate portion of the mirror, and magnified to the required scale (achieved through the proximity of the object

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to the mirror). To combine this mirrored image alongside another scale of object, the liveaction element, the appropriate portion of the reflective surface of the mirror is scratched away to leave clear glass (40), through which the second element of the final image may be performed (52). Finally then we have a single unified image, in one part filmed through clear glass before the camera, and in the other part reflected in a mirror from off-camera. A completed example of a Schüfftan Process shot can be seen in Figure 2, in which the upper portions of the set (above the open doorway) are in fact a miniature model.

Figure 2: An example of the Schufftan Process from Metropolis.

There are a few variations upon this basic principle which Schüfftan has highlighted in his patents. For one, he notes that it is immaterial whether it is the miniature which is reflected and the life-size scene which appears through the glass or vice versa (Schüfftan, 1926).

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Furthermore, an image which has already been filmed may be projected to provide one of the elements of the final complete image, a technique which Schüfftan suggests would aid in the blending of the two distinct elements (Schüfftan, 1926).

It is worth briefly mentioning here one particular technological development in special effects shots of the 1900s which anticipated the invention of Schüfftan's process. Known as the 'glass-shot', it was in fact one of the earliest attempts in cinema to combine live action with a separate static element of a set during the production process. The technique was developed as early as 1905 and employed by Norman O. Dawn in 1907 on the set of

California Missions (Fielding, 1985: 31). It involved a plate of glass placed between the lens of the camera and the set, with part of the glass painted upon to augment the existing fullscale set, which was filmed through the clear unpainted section of the glass. Such 'glassshots' clearly anticipate the invention of the Schüfftan Process, through the division of the frame by glass, and the combination of two separate elements.

This is also the basic principle upon which matte shots would later be based. The matte shot was a development by Charles Assola, for which black cardboard was used to mask the part of the frame which needed to be painted. As Jane Barnwell (2004: 113) explains, the technician would then produce a counter matte, which protected 'the already exposed area while the painting was photographed, thus enabling the combination of action and sequence.' The benefit of such a technique was that the image could be completed in post-production, allowing for quick shooting which would not be delayed by waiting for the presence of the completed paintings.

The Schüfftan Process holds certain aesthetic advantages over both glass-shots and matte shots, in its ability to create more complex and accurately blended imagery. This is achieved through the use of miniatures, rather than a reliance upon trompe-l’œil painting. In

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particular, the natural sensation of depth and space created through the lighting of miniature sets, which is so effective in the resultant images of the Schüfftan Process (and will discussed later in relation to images from Metropolis), cannot be adequately recreated through the unavoidable flatness of painted backdrops. Furthermore, it is the use of the mirror that crucially allows the image of the miniature to be scaled up in relation to the live action. This successfully masks the use of a miniature set, creating a coherently composed image from two separate elements. Contrary to the time-saving benefit of matte shot techniques (preventing any delays during production), there are also clear benefits in being able to perceive how the completed image will appear at the time of filming.

The Schüfftan Process, once patented, achieved considerable success with uses in numerous films from across the globe. Schüfftan travelled to America in 1926, where he stayed for a year for the purpose of introducing the procedure and selling it to the American market. Schüfftan accomplished this by selling the rights to Universal Studios. During this period Schüfftan worked upon the film Love Me and the World is Mine (E.A. Dupont, 1926), in which he employed his newly popular process. Petrie (1996: 25) has noted of the British context:

The [Schüfftan] process was used on a great many British films beginning at BIP, which initially bought the British rights, with Herbert Wilcox's Madame Pompadour (1927). Hitchcock employed it to great effect on The Ring (1927); Blackmail (1929) – for the British Museum sequence; Rich and Strange (1932), Number Seventeen (1932) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). While Wilcox's regal biopic Victoria the Great

(1937) was made entirely in the studio with the royal interiors recreated using the Schüfftan Process.

Despite this global success, it was in Germany, home of the most dominant and creatively fertile of film industries in the 1920s, and the birthplace of Schüfftan's invention, that the

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process achieved greatest acclaim. Early experiments with the new invention were employed on Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen (1924) (Schüfftan, 2003: 109). However, the film which heralded the new Schüfftan Process was Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), one of the most enduringly popular products of the Weimar period. An ambitious Ufa super-production with a budget of over six million RM, Metropolis tells the story of a futuristic city where a powerful class divide exists (Hake, 2008: 34). Beneath the city the workers are tasked with operating the machines which run the city, whereas above the ruling classes live in luxury.

Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), the son of the city’s ruler (Alfred Abel), meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), and follows her to discover the horrors of the worker’s city. Freder is appalled at the truth of how the lifestyle of his class is sustained, and joins Maria and the worker’s plight. However, Freder’s father, Joh, discovers his son’s cause and the influence that Maria has over him, and so charges Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to create a robot in her image. As we shall see, the Schüfftan Process is evident in a variety of sequences filmed against the backdrop of the cityscape, with the bottom half of the frame tending to comprise of liveaction and full size sets, and the upper portion created through the reflection of an off-camera miniature (see Figure 2 for example).

The Aesthetics

A number of recollections from craftspeople involved in the making of Metropolis have functioned to inform us of the practical working nature of the process, and have helped to identify the sequences in which it was employed. Günther Rittau (2000: 78-79), who acted as cinematographer on Metropolis, has noted:

With the help of parts of sets and smaller-scale Schüfftan models, we created parts of the gigantic street scenes and the atmospheric scenes in the cathedral. During Schüfftan

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