A look at the film, Kabarett Berlin:1919 – 1933 Die Wilde Bühne
2010 von Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir mit Ulrich Tukur
It seems that so often, great works art can hardly be studied and discussed without considering the influence
of the tragic realities that often surround them.
You can’t examine the films of James Dean without the shadow of his gruesome, far-too-early death hanging over
them. The genius of Vincent van Gogh is often considered hand-in-hand with his steady and tragic descent into madness. And rarely do we hear about the magic and artistic mayhem of Weimar Berlin without ending the story on Nazi’s rise to power.
This is natural and to be expected. But what if we could consider the spirit and intent of the artists apart from the circumstances the art was created in? Would it be a purer way to experience art, removed from it’s tragic context? Is it right to do that? Is that even possible?
The tendency to always contextualize art within it’s tragic circumstance has a distinct effect on how we perceive that art. For one thing, we begin to substitute an after-the-fact poignancy to the work. We know how the story ends. The artists did not. We tend to attribute qualities to the work, often maudlin or despairing ones, that were not at all present during the creation of that work.
We fail to see or acknowledge the joy, the hope, and energy that went into it. We ignore or at least miss some of its original vitality and substance.
Sometimes, oddly enough, we are even asked to believe that the present was somehow influenced by the future.
The basic premise of Siegfried Kracauer’s book, From Caligari to Hitler was that the films of post World War One Germany were somehow prescient of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. He proposes that Weimar Cinema had some sort of view into what the future held and that if you watch the films (after-the-fact of course) you can clearly and easily see they were predicting what was about to come to pass.
That’s a lot of jumping forward and backward into time, but Kracauer’s theory was held in very high regard for a
long time. Many still buy into it.
This extremely reductive and limited view of the groundbreaking cinema of this era was
later challenged by Anton Kaes in his book, Shell Shock Cinema. Kaes took the view that film makers were far more likely to have
been influenced by the very recent devastation and trauma of World War One they were still reeling from, and had not likely moved onto predicting it’s second act quite yet.
Kaes saw the art of these times to be dealing more with the “double wound of war and defeat” than of anything yet to come. The emphasis was on a desire to live again and figure out how that is done.
It makes sense of course that nearly every book or film or historical overview about the Weimar Republic ends with
the Nazis because they did put a very decisive end to the Weimar Republic.
But when the story ends there every time I feel a little cheated.
It feels to me like the Nazis stole the whole show, did an encore and took all the bows utterly robbing us, the audience, of the show we came to see. All those performers and their work are abruptly shoved aside drowned out by the sound of marching boots and hidden in the fog of the smoke of canons and burning cities.
But then I saw Kabarett Berlin: Die Wilde Bühne. (The Wild Stage)
This film is a montage of original material depicting the wildly vibrant cabaret scene of Weimar Berlin. We see live stage performances as well as peeks backstage. The film is a combination of moving images and music and spirited voiceover that vividly captures the sheer liveliness and fun of the era
We are then treated to the sounds and images of young, beautiful, talented, and engaging performers of all kinds. They are funny, they are powerful, they are irreverent. It’s a joy to see.
But then, like so many before it, Die Wilde Bühne appears to close with the rise of the Nazis. But then it does two things I’ve never seen done before.
First, it portrays in a completely original way the senseless destruction of the city of Berlin. Rather than simply showing the marching legions taking power and then the aftermath of misery described with some dry voiced-over commentary, this film focuses on the sense of psychic defeat and loss in a way that is extremely emotionally visceral.
The intercutting of stylized images of troops with film clips of nervous people and of buildings dissolving as if they were being burned by the projector lamp, communicates a much more intense sense of the tragedy of the physical and spiritual destruction of the city of Berlin.
Unlike the usual presentation of events, which typically ends on the perpetrators of the destruction in triumph, the film chooses to give the artists the last word.
The film ends with an amazing credit sequence featuring one last look at several of the stars of the era with their names beautifully displayed, each one different and completely original capturing the spirit of the each artist. And all this is to the accompaniment of Friederich Hollaender’s satirical song, An allem sind die Juden Schuld (The Jews are to Blame for Everything, An English translation of this song is below)
The crafting of this sequence is purely joyful in style and allows the film to end on a note where the control is given back to the beautiful, creative and sly-humored artists of the Weimar Berlin stages and screens.
Seeing this I realized that you can’t divorce any art from it’s setting, from the problems faced because art is always an expression of it’s time and place. Even when it is done unconsciously. Even when the story being told is personal. It’s not only disingenuous to try and avoid these influences, it ignores the reality that we are shaped by the times we live in, whether we realize it or not. It is our artists who help us to maintain our humanity and individuality in the face of dark times.
Context matters, and it’s important to understand it, because only when you truly do is it possible to convey it artistically and with depth in a way that is true to the spirit of the times and the people of those times, as it is done in this film.
-Joan Marie 2016 (re-edited, 2020)
An allem sind die Juden Schuld
Text / Music by Friedrich Hollaender
(the song is sarcastic meant to highlight the absurdity of anti-semitism)
english translation:
The Jews are to blame for everything
If it rains, if it hails,
If it snows or if it flashes,
if it dawns if it thunders,
if it’s freezing or if you sweat,
if it is beautiful weather or it’s cloudy,
if it thaws or if it pours,
if it’s drizzling, if it trickles
if you cough, or if you sneeze:
The Jews are to blame for everything!
The Jews are to blame for everything!
Why, why are they to blame?
Child that you don´t understand that, they are to blame for it!
And me too! You are to blame!
The Jews are, they are, they are definitly to blame!
And when you don´t believe it, they are to blame!
In particular, all the Jews are to blame!
Oh!
If the phone is busy,
if the bathtub leaks,
if your income is estimated incorrectly,
if the sausage tastes like soap,
if on Sunday nothing´s baked,
if the Prince of Wales is gay,
if at night the furniture makes noise,
if your hound has hard shit:
The Jews are to blame for everything! …
If you´re taxed by Mr. Dietrich,
if Dietrich sings: from head to toe,
if Okasa becomes more expensive,
if a virgin says: “I’ll do it”,
if there is a crisis at the Danat,
if there is an old joke on the radio,
if Garbo has a decayed tooth,
if the kiss pops in the sound-film:
The Jews are to blame for everything! …
That snow is so terrible white,
and even, how to say, cold,
but that fire is hot.
And that trees stand in the forest,
that a rose has no roots,
that a beef patty is scraped,
that Heine is not bad,
and Einstein is very talented:
The Jews are to blame for everything!
