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German Cinematic Expressionism in Light of Jungian and Post-Jungian Approaches

2019; De Gruyter Open; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2478/ausfm-2019-0003

2066-7779

Christina Stojanova,

Art, Aesthetics, and Perception

Abstract Prerogative of what Jung calls visionary art, the aesthetics of German Expressionist cinema is “primarily expressive of the collective unconscious,” and – unlike the psychological art, whose goal is “to express the collective consciousness of a society” – they have succeeded not only to “ compensate their culture for its biases” by bringing “to the consciousness what is ignored or repressed,” but also to “ predic t something of the future direction of a culture” (Rowland 2008, italics in the original, 189–90). After a theoretical introduction, the article develops this idea through the example of three visionary works: Arthur Robison’s Warning Shadows (Schatten, 1923), Fritz Lang’s The Weary Death aka Destiny (Der müde Tod , 1921), and Paul Leni’s Waxworks (Wachsfigurenkabinett , 1924).