About definitions of expressionism: the fantastic genre films of Weimar Republic

Abstract

The paper proposes a brief analysis of the movies “Die Puppe” (1919), “Orlacs Haende” (1924), “Das Waxfigurenncabinett” (1924) and, especially, “Schatten” (1923), held in Weimar Republic, putting in question the main definitions of the so-called German expressionist cinema. It suggests the possibility of looking to these films and some of his contemporaries as representatives from a fantastic point of view linked to expressionism (as well as other sources) that uses irony and self-awareness often ignored by the historical memory of the movies of this the period.