|
Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema. Acting career At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and concentrate on acting, touring the provinces before joining Max Reinhardt's acting troupe in 1906. In 1912, he turned to the new medium of motion pictures and appeared in the 1913 version of '' The Student of Prague''. It was while making this film that he first heard the old Jewish legend of the Golem and proceeded to adapt the story to film, co-directing and co-writing the script with Henrik Galeen. His first version of the tale '' The Golem'' (1915, now lost) was a success and firmly established Wegener's reputation. In 1917, he made a parody of the story called ''Der Golem und die Tänzerin'', but it was his reworking of the tale, '' The Golem: How He Came into the World'' (1920) which stands as one of the classics of German cinema and help ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jarantowice, Wąbrzeźno County
Jarantowice (german: Arnoldsdorf, until 1874 ''Jerrentowitz'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wąbrzeźno, within Wąbrzeźno County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It lies approximately north of Wąbrzeźno and north-east of Toruń. Notable residents Paul Wegener Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema. Acting career At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and conce ... (1874–1948), actor References Villages in Wąbrzeźno County {{Wąbrzeźno-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Ingram (director)
Rex Ingram (born Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock, 15 January 1892 – 21 July 1950) was an Irish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Director Erich von Stroheim once called him "the world's greatest director".Soares, André. ''Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro'', New York: Macmillan, 2002, p. 27; Early life Born in 58 Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland, (where a plaque commemorates his birth), Ingram was educated at Saint Columba's College, near Rathfarnham, County Dublin. He spent much of his adolescence living in the Old Rectory, Kinnitty, Birr, County Offaly, where his father, Reverend Francis Hitchcock, was the Church of Ireland rector. Ingram emigrated to the United States in 1911. His brother Francis joined the British Army and fought during World War I, during which he was awarded the Military Cross. Career Ingram studied sculpture at the Yale University School of Art, where he contributed to campus humour magazine ''The Yale Record'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-parody
A self-parody is a parody of oneself or one's own work. As an artist accomplishes it by imitating their own characteristics, a self-parody is potentially difficult to distinguish from especially characteristic productions. Self-parody may be used to parody someone else's characteristics, or lacking, by overemphasizing and/or exaggerate one's own. Overemphasis can be made for the prevailing attitude in their life's work, social group, lifestyle and subculture. Including lines and points made by others or by the recipient of the self-parody directing it to a parody of someone else which that other person is likely to remember and can't de-emphasize without frustration. Sometimes critics use the word figuratively to indicate that the artist's style and preoccupations appear as strongly (and perhaps as ineptly) in some work as they would in a parody. Such works may result from habit, self-indulgence, or an effort to please an audience by providing something familiar. An example ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unheimliche Geschichten (1932 Film)
''Unheimliche Geschichten'' (Uncanny Stories) is a 1932 German horror/comedy film directed by the prolific Austrian film director Richard Oswald, starring Paul Wegener, and produced by Gabriel Pascal. The story is a merging of three separate short stories, Edgar Allan Poe's '' The Black Cat'', ''The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether'' and Robert Louis Stevenson's '' The Suicide Club'', set within a story frame of a reporter's hunt for a crazy scientist. It is a black comedy revisiting many of the classic themes of the horror genre. It was Paul Wegener's first talking movie. Plot A crazed scientist, Morder (Paul Wegener), driven even crazier by his nagging wife, murders her and walls her up in a basement, a la Poe's ''The Black Cat''. He then flees as the police and a reporter, Frank Briggs (Harald Paulsen), set out to track him down. Morder eventually escapes, by pretending to be insane, into an asylum. Though here the patients has managed to free themselves, lock up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Comedy
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. Writers and comedians often use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues by provoking discomfort, serious thought, and amusement for their audience. Thus, in fiction, for example, the term ''black comedy'' can also refer to a genre in which dark humor is a core component. Popular themes of the genre include death, crime, poverty, suicide, war, violence, terrorism, discrimination, disease, racism, sexism, and human sexuality. Black comedy differs from both blue comedy—which focuses more on crude topics such as nudity, sex, and Body fluids—and from straightforward obscenity. Whereas the term ''black comedy'' is a relatively broad term covering humor relating to many serious subjects, ''gallows humor'' tends to be used more specifical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Oswald
Richard Oswald (5 November 1880 – 11 September 1963) was an Austrian film director, producer, screenwriter, and father of German-American film director Gerd Oswald. Early career Richard Oswald, born in Vienna as Richard W. Ornstein, began his career as an actor on the Viennese stage. He made his film directorial debut at age 34 with ''The Iron Cross'' (1914) and worked a number of times for Jules Greenbaum. In 1916, Oswald set up his own production company in Germany, writing and directing most of his films himself. His pre-1920 efforts include such literary adaptations as ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1917), '' Peer Gynt'' (1919), the once scandalous ''Different from the Others'' (1919) and ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (1919). Oswald directed nearly 100 films. Some critics have suggested that Oswald was more prolific than talented, but such films as his horror film '' Unheimliche Geschichten'' (1932), produced by no less than Gabriel Pascal, would seem to refute thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein is a fictional character and the main protagonist and title character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''.. He is an Italians, Italian-Swiss scientist (born in Naples, Italy) who, after studying chemical processes and the decay of Organism, living things, gains an insight into the creation of life and gives life to his own creature (often referred to as Frankenstein's monster, or often colloquially referred to as simply "Frankenstein"). Victor later regrets Playing God (ethics), meddling with nature through his creation, as he inadvertently endangers his own life and the lives of his family and friends when the creature seeks revenge against him. He is first introduced in the novel when he is seeking to catch the monster near the North Pole and is saved from near death by Robert Walton and his crew. Some aspects of the character are believed to have been inspired by 17th-century alchemist Johann Konrad Dippe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alraune (1928 Film)
''Alraune'' is a 1928 German silent science fiction horror film directed by Henrik Galeen and starring Brigitte Helm in which a prostitute is artificially inseminated with the semen of a hanged man. The story is based upon the legend of Alraune. In this version, the blasphemous sexual union causes the progeny (a daughter) to grow to adulthood quickly, behave in a sexually promiscuous fashion and cause the men who fall in love with her nothing but hardship, heartache and financial ruin, if not death. Plot A wealthy Professor specializing in genetics is ambitious to conduct an experiment with a woman of "low social status", by impregnating her with a mandrake. The plant is believed by legend to sprout from the semen of hanged prisoners. He instructs his young nephew, Franz, to obtain a woman from the "scum of society". Franz reluctantly retrieves a prostitute, and the experiment is performed on her. The child from the experiment, Alraune, grows up to become a beautiful woman with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanns Heinz Ewers
Hanns Heinz Ewers (3 November 1871 – 12 June 1943) was a German actor, poet, philosopher, and writer of short stories and novels. While he wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is now known mainly for his works of horror, particularly his trilogy of novels about the adventures of Frank Braun, a character modeled on himself. The best known of these is ''Alraune'' (1911).Henry and Mary Garland, ''The Oxford companion to German literature''.Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997. (pp.221–222).Mary Ellen Snodgrass,''Encyclopedia of Gothic Literature''. New York, Facts on File (2004). (p.106-7) Career Born in Düsseldorf, Ewers started to write poetry when he was 17 years old. His first noticed poem was an obituary tribute to the German Emperor Frederick III. Ewers earned his Abitur in March 1891. He then volunteered for the military and joined the ''Kaiser-Alexander-Gardegrenadier-Regiment No. 1'', but was dismissed 44 days later because of myopia. Ewers's literary career b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brigitte Helm
Brigitte Helm (born Brigitte Gisela Eva Schittenhelm, 17 March 1906 – 11 June 1996) was a German actress, best remembered for her dual role as Maria and her double named Futura, in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film, ''Metropolis''. Early life and film career Brigitte Gisela Eva Schittenhelm was born on 17 March 1906 in Berlin, the daughter of Gretchen Gertrud Martha Schittenhelm (née Tews) and Edwin Alexander Johannes Schittenhelm. Helm's first role was that of Maria in ''Metropolis'', which she began work on while only 18 years old. After ''Metropolis'', Helm made over 30 other films, including talking pictures, before retiring in 1935. Her other appearances include '' The Love of Jeanne Ney'' (1927), ''Alraune'' (1928), '' L'Argent'' (1928), ''Gloria'' (1931), ''The Blue Danube'' (1932), '' L'Atlantide'' (1932), and ''Gold'' (1934). Helm was considered for the title role in ''Bride of Frankenstein'' before Elsa Lanchester was given the role. She signed a ten-year contract with U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Strange Case Of Captain Ramper
''The Strange Case of Captain Ramper'' (German: ''Ramper, der Tiermensch'') is a 1927 German silent drama film directed by Max Reichmann and starring Paul Wegener, Mary Johnson and Max Schreck.Giesen p.262 It was shot at the Staaken Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art director Leopold Blonder. It was distributed by the German subsidiary of First National Pictures. Unlike many silent films which are now lost, copies of this still survive. Cast * Paul Wegener as Kapitän Ramper * Mary Johnson as Tony * Hugo Döblin as Doktor * Georg Guertler as Freddy * Camillo Kossuth as Charles Ipling * Max Schreck * Hermann Vallentin Hermann Vallentin (24 May 1872 – 18 September 1945) was a German actor. Biography Hermann Vallentin was born in Berlin in 1872. He was the son of a Jewish timber merchant and factory owner, Felix Vallentin. He was the older brother of actress ... as Barbazin References Bibliography * Giesen, Rolf. ''Nazi Propaganda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_10.jpg "Click for more on -> Rex Ingram (director)")
