"Black" and "white" in German Expressionist Films

The subject of research of this article is the work of German expressionist directors. The relevance of this study is due to the fact that expressionists had a great influence on the entire cinema in the field of light and shadow discovery. In Soviet science, this issue received little attention. Researchers are currently addressing the topic of expressionism, but the issue of light-shadow ratio is not well understood. The purpose of the study is to show the importance of the discovery of German expressionists in the field of light and shadow, their influence on world cinema, as well as the influence of Soviet directors on German expressionists in the field of editing. The novelty of this study is to study the ratio of light and shadow in expressionists, as well as to identify the influence of Soviet directors on German expressionists in the field of editing. These aspects remain poorly understood. This study uses an integrated approach. Comparative, phenomenological, intertextual methods are used in their combination and complementarity. The main conclusions of this study are about the discovery of German expressionists in the field of light and shadow, their influence on world cinema, as well as the influence of Soviet directors on German expressionists. Films performed in the tradition of expressionists often have commercial success.

expressionism, cinema, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Fritz Lang, Paul Wegener, Paul Leni, Sergey Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Lotte Eisner, Siegfried Krakauer