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behind this film lack vitality is unavoidable." The author demands of
the German film-makers-why not of Hollywood too?-that they de–
fine democracy in celluloid, on pain of being considered profascist. Con–
fronted by Pabst's
West front 1918,
"an outright pacifist document," he
complains it is not Marxist enough: "Its fundamental weakness con–
sists in not transgressing the limits of pacifism itself. The film tends to
demonstrate that war is intrinsically monstrous and senseless; but this
indictment of war is not supported by the slightest hint of its causes."
When Pabst goes on to make
Kameradschaft,
which
does
treat the causes
of war from a socialist point of view, we learn: "That the socialist pacif–
ism of
Kameradschaft
was better founded than the humanitarian pacif–
ism of
W estfront 1918
does not justify the assumption that it was more
substantial. Under the Republic, the German socialists, especially the
Social Democrats, proved increasingly unable to grasp the significance
of what happened around them." Pabst could easily have avoided such
criticisms by leading a successful socialist revolution.
Nor is Mr. Kracauer's simplism only political. The interpretation of
an art work by "depth psychology" is a delicate business, or should be.
This approach considers an art as the psychoanalyst considers a dream:
as a symbol concealing a hidden meaning, i.e., as something to be
understood in other than its own terms. New insights are possible with
such an approach, but only if the observer remembers that an art
work also has a conscious, surface meaning and that, unlike a dream,
this meaning is the important one.
Thus we read, apropos the vogue of mountaineering films: "The
idolatry of glaciers and rocks was symptomatic of an antirationalism
on which the Nazis could capitalize."
It
is as impossible to disprove
this statement as to prove it; but the fact that rocks and glaciers look
well on the screen might have also had something to do with their
use in German, as in our own, films. Indeed, the author himself says
as much a page earlier: "Whoever saw them will remember the glit–
tering white of glaciers against a sky dark in contrast, the magnificent
play of clouds forming mountains above mountains" etc. It is generally
a mistake to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is ade–
quate; Mr. Kracauer's practice is just the reverse. He notes, apropos a
merry-go-round that is used thematically in the fair sequences of
Cali–
gari:
"The circle h ere becomes a symbol of chaos. While freedom re–
sembles a river, chaos resembles a whirlpool. Forgetful of self, one may
plunge into chaos; one cannot move on in it." (Reactionary whirlpools,
progressive rivers- has the pa thetic fallacy been carried to more absurd
lengths?) And a circular dance floor in a night club, in a later film,
draws this solemn comment: "Here, as in the case of
Caligari,
the circle
denotes a state of chaos." That a merry-go-round is a cinematically
interesting way to sum up a fair, or that night-club floors are usually
