Made in 1923, Karl Grune's Die Straße remains an excellent example of of the kind of film that resulted when a (more) conventional linear narrative is punctuated with formal elements of Expressionist art direction. As the 1920's advanced, and the conceit of Expressionism--via the more radical films like Caligari, Genuine, From Morning Til Midnight, etc-- began to fade, directors like Karl Grune, Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, Hans Kobe, and Arthur von Gerlach began to find effective use of expressionist atmosphere & art direction, by integrating elements of the technique into narrative films.. some with quite large budgets and casts and narrative arcs.
Grune's sprawling nocturnal cityscape is a marvel to behold, a vibrating phantasmagoria of light and shadow created entirely in the studio (believe it or not-- see photo above). Grune ratchets up his pictorial effects carefully, and always in conjunction with the amping perception of his primary character. When our protagonist-- who escapes from the doldrums of his domesticated life of work-eat-sleep/work-eat-sleep for what he anticipates will be a magical night out among the wonder and the mystery of the street-- gazes out of his window at his waiting wonderland, we see the forerunning seed and core of F. W. Murnau's hallucinated city of dreams, as painted by the words of the Woman of the City ("Come To The City!") in Sunrise: sparks fly, roads crisscross and overlap, log flumes whoosh into a spray of ecstacy, wheels turn, damsels smile and beckon. It's an in-camera superimposition-montage tour-de-force.
But when his tired hausfrau, exhausted from housework, walks up to the window to see what the fuss is all about, we see the street in plain earnest: devoid of mystery and romance... simply a road choked with too many cars and carts, pedestrians, and pollution.
No matter-- our philistine has an itch, and it must be scratched. It's to Carl Mayer's & Karl Grune's credit that despite the fact that this film is (and no doubt had to be, to earn its budget) a cautionary tale, with our protagonist returning home at the end of his escape into the nighttime street, his lesson learned and head hung low, having had a brush with death, financial loss and imprisonment for murder ('Moral: don't go outdoors and meet people'?), the film is yet ravishing... and this is no doubt owing to the filmmakers' own fascination, just like the hero of their tale, with the shadows and the darkness, of the denizens predatory, seductive, and mysterious, forever lying in wait out there in the world of the nighttime street.
Karl Grune:
The set:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OMXO23Q9
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GX5YRF5C
English intertitles:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8ZOMRYPJ
Intertitles:Castellano/English
no pass
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