NEWSLETTER NO. 3, OCT 02, 2001
CONTENTS



EDITOR’S DIARY: 5TH ANNIVERSARY
HISTORY: WWW.FILMGESCHICHTE.DE
THEATRE: DAS KABINETT DES DR. CALIGARI
EXHIBITION: FRITZ LANG

EDITOR’S DIARY 5TH ANNIVERSARY



Nobody can write an editorial in October 2001 without thinking of the terrible terrorist attacks that destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and shook the world, on September 11. What incredible acts of violence, what sad loss of lifes! Most of the readers of this website are Americans, or living in America. We hope that all of you and your friends and families are OK.

For something more pleasant: Today, this website is online for five years. Started from humble beginnings, the site has become a quite comprehensive reference-book on some of the topics we are interested in, and about which you might not find much anywhere else. The focus of our work is early horror, fantastic and adventure film, especially the rise of these genres in Germany during the 1910s and 1920s, the early career of director Fritz Lang, and the history of the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Though the focus is on fantastic, on early, and on German film, not all films we cover necessarily fit that description. E.g., you can find other non-fantastic films of our favourite actors and directors, fantastic films that are not from Germany, and even films that are not from the 1910s or 1920s. The site is mainly designed as a tool for film scientists, but may also be of use for journalists, fans, and anyone else interested in these topics. Below, you can read about the history of the site. Also, there is a new design, and lots of new entries everywhere. We hope you enjoy it as we did for the last five years. thomasolaf

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HISTORY WWW.FILMGESCHICHTE.DE



1996, October 02 In summer 1996, we were busy researching the career of actress Gilda Langer, a person involved in the genesis of the famous German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, of whom little to nothing could be found in film history text-books. At the same time, the world wide web was a strange new place where people around the world just started to exchanging ideas, chat, and scientific knowledge. Links were always blue, and we operated a 486SX25 with a 100 MB hard drive. We had this great idea: "Let's go to the internet!", and started writing a (then so called) "Gilda Langer Home Page". Five months after the initial idea, we went online with a rudimentary text-only version of this website under the title "Project Early German Film History" at http://www.alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de/~a14m/, containing six files with articles about Caligari, Halbblut, Der Herr der Liebe, and Brigitte Helm who had just died. Our friend Ulrich Kühne had given us a crash course in HTML, and though we had virtually no idea what the internet was and where it would be going, we gave our infamous talk about "the use of the computer in the humane discipline and the internet as a medium for film-scientists" at a film conference in Weimar on October 07.

1996, November 08 We were passionately interested in fantastic films, and so we went on extending the site, and learned more about writing and designing web files. In November 1996, the site was entitled "The Internet Source Book for Early German Film", introducing the "Hot Spot", and a new major article about Gilda Langer. This is the text of our first "Hot Spot":

"Berlin 1920: Gilda Langer, a beautiful girl and upcoming film star died at age 23. To find out about the SHOCKING TRUE STORY of her life and death click on the picture!"

Though we didn't find people who could tell us more about Gilda Langer, people started finding us, gaining information from our site that they couldn't find anywhere else, and started asking us questions about early German film. The feedback was quite encouraging, so in the following years, we added a lot of articles, and carried out a lot of experiments in structure and design (background pictures, animated gifs, and finally even a frame structure). It was still the case that about the topics we were interested in not much could be found in the text-books let alone the internet. People continued asking us questions about early German film, and sometimes we even knew the answer. And sometimes, people brought up a topic about which we became so excited that we researched it in detail and put the information on the website, like Robert Singer from New York who asked about Der Januskopf, or Joan McDonald from Denver about Carl de Vogt. Although now we get a lot of mail every day, we are still reading every e-mail very thoroughly, and answering most of them. If you should write to us and do not get a response, one of the following reasons applies:

  1. The answer to your question is already given on our website. We try to put every information there, so check it out first.
  2. The answer is so obvious that you can find it easily in your local library.
  3. The question does not refer to our special field of study, or we are simply not interested in the topic.
  4. You got us. We don't know the answer.

2000, February 27 In summer 1999, we prepared the move to the domain www.filmgeschichte.de, introducing a newly designed version. We had given some talks accompanying Caligari screenings of the Junges Theater, Bremen, and Olaf won a scholarship for his Caligari dissertation. February 27, 2000, celebrating Caligari's 80th birthday, a completely revised edition came out, with the "film strip" design and a lot of new articles. The site is now located at www.filmgeschichte.de, containing DVD and book reviews, newsletters, smooth navigation, and more information than ever. We see ourselves within the framework of the study of film history, contributing to our understanding and knowledge of film. And now, at least something is known about the topics we were interested in when we started all this.

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THEATRE DAS KABINETT DES DR. CALIGARI



Das Kabinett des Dr. CaligariOn Thursday, the Caligari stage version by Carlos Trafic (from 1980) premières at the   Ernst Deutsch Theater, Hamburg, Germany, running October 04 – November 10, 2001. Katrin Kazubko is directing, and starring are Stefan Wigger, Monika Barth, Nane Brüning, Georg Münzel, Gero Nievelstein and Marcus Widmann. Set design by Bernd Holzapfel, costume design by Nora Weber, music composed by Günter Baby Sommer, percussion Ulli Niedermüller.

Das Cabinet des Doktor CaligariAlso, earlier this year, another German Caligari stage-play was produced as well, a new musical by Wolfgang Sréter (text), Toni Matheis and Raymund Huber (music). Première was February 02 at the Südostbayerisches Städtetheater Landshut, directed by Johannes Reitmeier, starring Dieter Fischer (Dr. Caligari), Matthias Friedrich (Cesare), Kerstin Gandler (Jane), Alexander Braunshör (Francis), Thorsten Danner (Alan) and Jochen Decker (superintendent). Musical supervision Ulli Forster, choreography Petra Schulz, set design Thomas Dörfler, costume design Anke Drewes. (Photo W. Buchner)

Together with the new American musical (see newsletter 2), that makes three Caligari stage productions this year!

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EXHIBITION FRITZ LANG



The Fritz Lang exhibition can now be seen in Los Angeles (  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, August 03 - October 14), then it goes to Hong Kong (  Hong Kong Film Archive, December 2001 - February 2002), then Vienna (  Österreichisches Theatermuseum, March - June 2002), and later to Paris, Thessaloniki and Frankfurt am Main.

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www.filmgeschichte.de, a source book for early german film edited by olaf brill & thomas schultke.

Last update (this page): 17 Nov 2001.

The texts and images on this site are copyright © by the respective authors, except where otherwise noted. Mostly, the items were published by kind permission, but we were not able to find out all the copyright holders or their legal successors. If you know about them, please let us know, especially if there's anything wrong with publishing these texts or images. We do not intend to harm anyone's rights and thought we best serve the purpose of understanding film and general history displaying this source material and make it available for everyone.

If no author or source is noted, the texts are copyright © 1996-2004 Olaf Brill & Thomas Schultke.