WilliamsT

much is conspicuous, and only the clean work of Schüfftan and Baberske, the two camera people, deserves real recognition.'

By 1932, Schüfftan formed his own reaction to the increasing popularity and influence of National-Socialism, and the personal danger this posed to him and his family as Jews, by working upon what he described in his own Curriculum Vitae as, an 'election picture for the Democracy Party in Hamburg against Hitler'. This year also saw Schüfftan work for Nero Film on Die Herrin von Atlantis (G.W. Pabst, 1932), another bi-lingual epic which this time saw shooting in German, French and English (the French language version was released as

L'Atlantide, and the English version The Mistress of Atlantis). Schüfftan shot the film alongside Herbert Körner for the German version, and Joseph Bart for the French version. The film was produced by Seymour Nebenzahl, head of Nero Film, and son to Heninrich, who had provided funds to make possible the filming of Menschen am Sonntag.

The film, based on the novel L'Atlantide by Pierre Benoît, is the story of Foreign Legion officer Saint-Avit, stationed at an outpost in the Sahara desert, who on hearing a radio broadcast speculating that Atlantis could have been located in the Sahara, proceeds to tell his own tale in flashback. He recounts about a time, years earlier when he and a colleague were sent to investigate a number of disappearances in the desert, only to discover the lost city, now ruled over by the deadly Queen of Atlantis, portrayed by Brigitte Helm of Metropolis fame. This new version of Benoît’s novel sought to capitalize upon the success of Paris’s Colonial Exposition of 1931, and a realization of cinema’s potential to bring to audiences exotic locations which they would be unlikely to ever visit. As Pierre Sorlin (1991: 135) explains, ‘the picture-houses were probably the only places where the French could observe the colonial world. Films made them visualize countries and people that were previously

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mere abstract nouns.’ However, despite the strong French themes of the film, all three language versions were in fact German productions.

To account for this peculiarity, figures published by Kristin Thompson (1999: 64) demonstrate the steady increase in the market share of German films released in France. In 1924 only 2.9 percent of the total number of films released in France were German, with an astonishing 85 percent of the market held by the American cinema, and a paltry 9.8 percent indigenous French films. Germany’s market share rose steadily throughout the decade, reaching a peak of 29.7 percent in 1929, and dropping down slightly in 1932, the year of Die Herrin von Atlantis, to 20.7 percent. Therefore the French market in particular could be viewed as a viable target for the German industry, where its films had already proven a success.

The film has received critical attention for the work done by set designer Ernö Metzner, who similarly to Schüfftan left Germany in 1933 on his own transnational trajectory. Metzner's writings have in fact revealed something of the working practices on Die Herrin von Atlantis, which as Bergfelder, Harris and Street (2007: 158-159) have noted, reveal that:

Metzner saw himself very much as part of a team of artistic equals, rather than simply as the executor of a directorial vision. Metzner does defer to Pabst as the initiator of some of the general ideas behind the films' designs, yet like his contemporary Herlth, he promotes and defends the values of close collaboration and exchange between director, cinematographer, and set designer, which had been the hallmark of the German studio system since the early 1920s.

With such a notion of equality in mind it is apparent that Schüfftan's contributions to the film deserve the same critical attention that has been afforded to Metzner for his work on set design.

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The scale of this exotic story went far beyond the boundaries of the French studios where production was based, with extensive location shooting also taking place in the Hoggar mountain range of the Sahara (Bergfelder, 2007: 159). This re-enaction of North Africa on screen was the film’s greatest appeal, leading to Louis Delluc’s famous appraisal of the film, that its best actor was the sand (Wakeman, 1988: 326). To capture this landscape, far beyond anything he would have previously encountered in his life or his filmmaking experience, must surely have been a challenge to Schüfftan. Commenting upon Hollywood shooting practices of the 1940s, John Alton has noted a number of difficulties which can arise during desert location shooting. These include mirages, which affect the focus; dust, which can cause the camera equipment to malfunction; and the heat, which can affect the camera and the film (Alton, 1995: 133). Furthermore, these obstacles were likely to have been far more acutely experienced by Schüfftan, who, in 1932, was working with more primitive equipment than Alton. Once all these difficulties had been overcome, the problem of light still remained. For whilst Schüfftan was well-versed in location shooting from his experiences in Germany, those locations offered a far milder shooting climate. The problem of shooting a desert space is that such a barren landscape in such strong sunlight makes it difficult to register any definition of the image, in order to create an impression of depth and a threedimensional sense of space. To combat this Schüfftan shot such scenes either in the early morning, or towards the end of the day, in order to maximize the length of the shadows. These shadows, stretching out across the frame, disrupt any sense of flatness of image that might occur from the pale sand in the heat of the day (see for example Figure 15).

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Figure 15: The Mistress of Atlantis.

Schüfftan’s subsequent film was a rather more straightforward project, acting as technical director on the film musical adaption of Friederike. The film was based on the operetta of 1928 written by Franz Lehár, and was directed for the cinema by the original theatrical director Fritz Friedman-Frederich. Friederike told the story of the young life of the legendary German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and his relationship with Friederike Brion, the daughter of a pastor. The play did not prove successful with critics, undoubtedly due to the frivolous approach towards one of Germany's most revered figures, but nonetheless, it was wildly popular with audiences at the time (Traubner, 2003: 259-260). Schüfftan's next project was to co-direct Die Wasserteufel von Hieflau/The Water Devil of Hieflau with Erich Kober, and with Herbert Körner as cinematographer, followed by another

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German-French co-production Zigeuner der Nacht/Gypsies of the Night (Coeurs Joyeux/Happy Hearts for the French version), directed by Hanns Schwarz and Max de Vaucorbeil. Zigeuner der Nacht is to some extent a lament for silent cinema, with the protagonist of the film being a cinema projectionist of this era. The projectionist is played by Paul Heidemann in the German version and by Jean Gabin in the French version, making this film the first of three important collaborations between Schüfftan and Gabin.

Schüfftan's next film of 1932 was to be his last film project in Germany until long after the war, and so perhaps fittingly starred Metropolis's Maria, Brigitte Helm, and was written by that film's writer and wife to Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou. The film in question, Der Läufer von Marathon/The Marathon Runner, also saw Schüfftan reunited with the director E. A. Dupont for the first time since their collaboration together on Love Me and the World is Mine during their time in Hollywood, and was itself set in Los Angeles during the 1932 summer Olympic games. Described by Tim Bergfelder (2008a: 33-34) as a love triangle with a happy ending between the athletes of the games, the theme of the film seems completely at odds with the actual history of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic games, which was entirely mired by the Great Depression. This resulted in a large number of athletes not participating because they could not afford transportation costs. Whilst the film did not prove a great success it would appear that Schüfftan maintained his reputation for reliability, with contemporary film critic Rudolf Arnheim (1997: 196) noting that 'director E. A. Dupont lacks the gripping strength of imagery of his film Variety, despite the camera art of Eugen Schüfftan.'

Schüfftan’s brief experience as a cinematographer in Germany between 1929 and 1933 had been a highly productive one. His baptism had been in realism, comedies and even musicals. Entirely absent are the Expressionist aesthetics for which Weimar cinema has been best

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remembered. With this in mind, let us consider a number of quotes relating to Schüfftan’s later films, all of which stress, without questioning, his Expressionist background:

The photographer who realized Franju’s ghostly vision in La Première nuit was Eugen Shuftan, the experienced contributor to German expressionism who would create the atmospheres of La Tête contre les murs and Les Yeux sans visage. (Ince, 2005: 44)

Le Rideau cramoisi is visually highly accomplished – the great Eugene Schufftan was the cinematographer – revealing ‘a thoroughly expressionistic photography, an obviously Murnauinspired sensitivity to the dramatic contrast of light and dark.’ (Bacher, 1978: 83-84)11

Expressionist intent may also have been anticipated of the photographer of The Robber Symphony, Eugen Schüfftan. (Ede, 2008: 119)

[…] chief among them Kurt Courant and Eugen Schufftan. They had been intensely involved in the expressionist cinema, filming between 1920 and 1933. (Crisp, 1997: 377)

He [Franju] feels himself close to some of the expressionist films of Germany’s Golden Age […] his favourite cameramen, Fradetal and Schufftan, were both formed in that school.’

(Durgnat, 1967: 24)

This will be the first accredited American photographic assignment for Mr. Shuftan, whose list of credits constitutes a miniature history of European film trends, embracing German expressionism, early precursors of Italian neo-realism, pre-war French symbolic dramas and, most recently, “new wave” experiments. (Archer, 1960a)

As we have seen in this chapter, Schüfftan did not shoot a single film in Germany in the aesthetic of German Expressionism, which had already waned by the time of his introduction as a cinematographer. His artistic background, and his study of painters such as Rembrandt prior to his introduction to the film industry, would prove to be of far more relevance to his

11 Bacher is quoting from Ulrich Gregor.

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later style. To explain the cause of the above misrecognition of Schüfftan’s style and

background, we must turn to examine the development of his aesthetic in exile.

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Chapter II

Part One

European Exile, 1933 – 1940

Part Two

Case Study: Exile Modernism on Poverty Row, 1941 - 1947

If you can’t go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world – indeed, nowhere is the world.

Aleksandar Hemon, ‘The Lazarus Project’ (2008: 182).

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Part One

European Exile, 1933-1940

Austria

On 30th January 1933 Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, consolidating the political and military force of the Nazi Party. This put Schüfftan and other German-Jews in direct danger of persecution, forcing the exodus of a great number of film personnel from Germany, which would hugely impact upon the industries of Britain, France and America in particular. Nothing is known of how exactly Schüfftan and his wife Marlise succeeded in fleeing Germany in 1933, but the film project that saved their lives was Unsichtbare Gegner/Invisible Opponent, another MLV which was released in France as Les Requins du pétrole/The Oil Sharks, produced by Sam Spiegel and filmed in Vienna. It was the fortuitous timing of this picture’s filming in Vienna which removed Schüfftan and a number of other émigrés, including Spiegel and Peter Lorre, from Germany at this crucial moment in history.

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Spiegel has recounted the story of his own escape from Germany to the production of

Unsichtbare Gegner as taking place on 25th February 1933, after being warned by his barber that he shouldn't return home that evening:

He was a member of an S.S. Troop that was supposed to arrest and beat us up or kill us. We had no idea this was going to happen. I simply called [Oscar] Homolka and [Peter] Lorre and told them to get the hell out of Berlin and join me in Vienna a few days later. I went to a little suburban station in Berlin, took a local train to Leipzig, changed to a train for Vienna without an overcoat and without bags or anything, just with my script under my arm, because we had to pretend that we were just going into the country for the weekend so as not to be molested on the train. Lorre made it. Homolka made it with me on the same train. Josef von Sternberg was on that same train by accident, and Jascha Heifetz. Several weeks later we started shooting in Vienna. (Youngkin, 2005: 80)

Any thoughts of amnesty for those Jews working in the German film industry were soon quashed in a speech made by Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, on 28th March, soon after production had begun on Unsichtbare Gegner. For all his claims of encouragement and support from the Reich, in his speech Goebbels (2004: 157) nevertheless asserted that, 'public taste is not as it plays itself out inside the mind of a Jewish director. One cannot gain a picture of the German people in a vacuum. One must look at the face of the people and have oneself planted one's roots in the German soil. One must be a child of this people.' For whilst the Jews of Germany undoubtedly considered themselves planted in German soil, it is clear where Goebbels was drawing the racial divide.

The film itself, Unsichtbare Gegner, has become somewhat sidelined by the magnitude of events that surrounded its production. A thriller film, it told the story of a corrupt businessman's attempts to buy a failing oil company, through various murders and other nefarious activities. The film was not a success, and was even touted in the German press as 'an

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