Expressionism vs German Expressionist Film
表現主義 / ドイツ表現主義映画
Expressionism comes from Avant-garde and German Expressionist Film from Cinematic Visual Styles. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Expressionism
Painting what was felt rather than what was seen. Warped forms, violent brushwork and unnatural color moved the anxiety of the city and the age straight onto the surface.
German Expressionist Film
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Warped sets, painted shadows and extreme contrast turned a character's inner state directly into landscape, bringing a scenery of the mind into cinema.
| Expressionism | German Expressionist Film | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1905–1930s | 1919–1927 |
| Family | Avant-garde | Cinematic Visual Styles |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Distorted form / Unnatural color / Rough brush and cut / Urban anxiety | Warped sets / Painted-on shadows / Oblique compositions / Extreme chiaroscuro |
| Best used for | Hitting an emotion directly, giving up accurate description to do it · Protest work printed from rough woodcuts in unnatural color | Telling a character's dread through warped space rather than dialogue · Horror and thriller teasers that establish fear with light and shadow alone |
| Type | Cut the letters by hand and keep the tremor and unevenness | Sharpen the lettering too, break verticals to match the buildings |
| Composition | Drop perspective, press figures against the edge, leave unstable gaps | Abandon the horizon, cut the frame obliquely, press ceilings toward the figure |
| Material | Set complements side by side, keep the cut marks and paint body | Paint the shadows into the set, push tones toward two poles |
| Caution | Distortion applied evenly as an effect erases what the feeling is about, and the picture looks like realism with a filter over it. | Tilting the set alone does not produce interiority, the distortion becomes background decoration, and the frame stops having anything to do with the character. |