From classic Hollywood and Weimar cinema, to visual pearls from Japan, India, the Soviet Union and Europe — the 34th edition of the International Silent Film Festival Bonn, in the former capital of West Germany, is once again set to reignite memories from the movie industry's often humble beginnings.
Opening on Thursday, the festival has for years been considered one of the most important of its kind, as several long-lost films have been digitally restored and shown here first.
Digitizing old films now easier
New screenings of these often expensive restorations are often made possible with the cooperation of film museums and archives all over the world that specialize in digitizing silent films.
Germany, for example, has the Munich Film Museum, where the late film scholar Enno Patalas pioneered film restoration in the 1980s by having famous silent film works such as Metropolis and Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs) by Austrian director Fritz Lang restored.
Read more: Celebrating the films of Fritz Lang
Among the cinematic highlights in Bonn this year is the 1924 Austrian film The City Without Jews — now considered prophetic on the subject of anti-Semitism.
Director Hans Karl Breslauer turned the popular novel by Hugo Bettlauer into a movie that tells of how a political and economic crisis in a fictitious city, based on Vienna, leads to the expulsion of Jews.
Film widely viewed, criticized
Controversial for a variety of reasons, the film drew early protests from far-right activists who set off stink bombs outside cinemas where it was playing. Left-wing and liberal voices also tore the film apart, criticizing how it played up anti-Semitic prejudices.
Shortly after the film's release, Bettlauer was murdered by an ex-Nazi Party member who went on to gain notoriety among the Austrian masses, many of whom held strong anti-Semitic views.
Read more: How anti-Semitism impacted film before and after the Nazis
Widely shown at the time, the film even played to sold-out cinemas in New York before apparently disappearing without a trace. One of the last screenings was in Amsterdam in 1933 — as a protest against the rise of Nazi Germany.
That was probably the copy that was rediscovered some 60 years later by Dutch movie archivers, but it had numerous defects, and several scenes were apparently missing.
Surprise find
Another copy — this time the full version — was discovered at a flea market in Paris in 2015, and a crowd-funding campaign raised €86,000 ($98,000) for it to be digitally restored very close to its original condition.
The Bonn showing of The City Without Jews takes place on August 26. The film is also touring several other cities in Germany and Austria.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism in 16th-century Prague
One of Germany's most famous silent films, "The Golem: How He Came Into the World," was made in 1920. Paul Wegener directed and played a leading role in the film set in 16th-century Prague. The Jewish ghetto is in danger and the emperor order the Jews to leave the city. Only the mythical Golem can help. It's one of the earliest films to address the persecution of Jews.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Persecution of Jews in 1920s Vienna
Based on a novel by Hugo Bettauer, "The City Without Jews," is an important example of how films have taken on anti-Semitism. The Austrian-made film is set in Vienna in the 1920s and shows how the residents held Jews responsible for all social ills. Critics, however, have lamented the film's use of anti-Semitic cilches.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Fine line between tolerance and clichés
Four years earlier in 1916, the American director DW Griffith had created the monumental historical film,"Intolerance." The story explains historical events over the course of four episodes, taking intolerance to task. Yet in a scene showing the crucifixion of Jesus, Griffith employed Jewish stereotypes. As a result, critics have also accused "Intolerance" of demonstrating anti-Semitic tendencies.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Ben Hur through the decades
"Ben Hur" was first made in 1925, but has been reinvented many time since then. It tells the story of a conflict betweet Jews and Christians at the beginning of the 1st century. Jewish prince Judah Ben Hur lives in Roman-occupied Jerusalem as a contemporary of Jesus Christ. The way the Jewish-Christian relationship is showed in the Ben Hur films remains a topic of discussion today.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
A trial and pogrom in 1880s Hungary
Although hardly known today, GW Pabst's "The Trial" (1948) is an astounding early example of how the cinema reacted to the Holocaust. Filmed in Austria just three years after the end of the war, Pabst tells a true story set in 1882 in Hungary. A young girl disappears from her village and Jews are blamed. Tragically, a pogrom follows.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Broaching the truth
"The Trial" remained an exception. After the war, it took the film industry in Europe quite some time to deal with the subject. The French director Alain Resnais was the first to address the Nazi genocide in 1956, in the unsparing 30-minute documentary "Night and Fog."
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Bringing the Holocaust to TV
It wasn't until the 1978 television mini-series "Holocaust" was made that the genocide was brought to the broader public. The four-part US production directed by Marvin J. Chomsky tells the story of a Jewish family that gets caught in the cogs of the Nazis' genocidal policies.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List'
Fifteen years later, American director Steven Spielberg was able to accomplish on the big screen what "Holocaust" had done for television audiences. "Schindler's List" portrayed the brutal reality of the Nazis' anti-Semitism in Germany, but also in Eastern Europe, spotlighting the unscrupulous SS offcer Amon Göth.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Claude Lanzmann and 'Shoah'
French director Claude Lanzmann harshly criticized Spielberg's drama. "He did not really reflect on the Holocaust and cinema. The Holocaust cannot be portrayed," he said in an interview. Lanzmann himself took up the subjects of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in a completely different way - through long documentaries and essay films such as "Shoah" and "Sobibor."
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Humor and the Holocaust
Italian comedian and filmmaker Roberto Bengini took a daring approach in his film on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. In 1997, "Life is Beautiful" premiered, telling the fictional story of Jews suffering in a concentration camps. The humor he wove throughout had a liberating effect.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Roman Polanski's 'The Pianist'
An equally moving film by Polish-French director Roman Polanski was released in 2002. In "The Pianist," the fate of Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman during the war years of 1943-44 was brought to the big screen. The project allowed the director, whose mother and other relatives were deported and murdered by the Nazis, to work through his own family's past.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism and Jesus the Jew
Films about the life of Jesus Christ often come up in discussions about anti-Semitism in cinema. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), for example, has been accused of reinforcing anti-Semitic clichés, particularly in scenes in which Jews are indirectly associated with greed.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Mel Gibson's scandalous 'The Passion of the Christ'
Much more controversial was the film that Australian Mel Gibson released two years later. Both Christians and Jews accused Gibson of explicit anti-Semitism in the film, saying he didn't counter the implications in the New Testament that Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus (who himself was Jewish). In public, Gibson likewise used anti-Semitic speech.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Turkish anti-Semitism
Audiences and critics alike decried the anti-Semitism in the Turkish film, "Valley of the Wolves." The action-packed movie version of a TV series of the same name showed a battle between Turkish soldiers and Israel. The film employed "anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stereotypes and was inciteful," according to several organizations.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
WWII still a challenge for filmmakers
Just how difficult it can still be to address the subject matter of World War II is evident in the response to a three-part German TV series from 2013, "Generation War." The series follows a handful of German soldiers fighting on the eastern front. It was criticized in Poland for anti-Semitism and was said to have represented the Polish resistance.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Hannah Arendt and 'the banality of evil'
Margarethe von Trotta's film about Hannah Arendt was well received in 2012. The director sketched a balanced portrait of the philosopher and publicist who, in the 1960s, grappled with a figure who was largely responsible for the Nazi genocide: Adolf Eichmann. Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to explain anti-Semitism clothed in seemingly harmless bureaucracy.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
The 'Wonder Woman' controversy
Because the protagonist of the current Hollywood super hero hit "Wonder Woman" is played by Israeli Gal Gadot, the film was not shown in a number of Arab countries. Gadot herself had served in the Israeli army and defended her experience. Not showing "Wonder Woman" is anti-Semitic, according to the public sentiment in Israel.
Author: Jochen Kürten (ct)
