End of an Era

This is the final episode of the six-part series, "Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood". And, because all the previous ones were so great, I felt rather wistful watching it.

Unfortunately, the series only goes up until the very beginnings of sound films. While there were still many great films to come out of the European studios during the 1930s, you'd strongly get the impressions that the film industries pretty much died with the advent of Naziism--which just isn't the case. In fact, some of the great films of European cinema were made in the early, mid and late 1930s. And, even a few were made during the Nazi occupation--such as France's "Le Corbeau". Because of this, the premise of the episode is a bit inaccurate--though the episode's contention that international cooperation between the studios was killed by the Nazis is pretty much true. The UFA and British International co-productions, for example, were killed by the Nazis. Another problem, and it's a minor one, is that some of the early sound films are not mentioned--such as Fritz Lang's "M".

But, if you are not the insane purist like myself, this is a great show as it shows the transition from silents to sound--and is fascinating. Interviews, archival footage and nice behind the scenes information (particularly about Hitchcock)---it's all great and highly educational as well as exciting.

"The End of an Era" focuses on the coming of sound and how it changed the cinema. This episode makes the familiar case that the transition caused tragedy and a loss of quality for several years. We get various horror stories about the advent of sound. Actors lost jobs because they did not have the right voice. One actress killed herself. Theater musicians were panhandling in the street. In Germany, Jewish actors were blacklisted. In other words, the early 1930's were a bad time in film history.

From my minimal knowledge, all of that is true as whole, but "End of an Era" hedges its argument by excluding some brilliant films made in the transitional period. Dreyer's Vampyr, Bunuel's L'age d'Or, Cocteau's Blood of a Poet, and Murnau's Sunrise (admittedly filmed in America) are all ignored. To be fair, "End of an Era" does include clips from Le Million, A Nous La Liberte, Blackmail, Blue Angel, and two other German films that I need to seek out: Kameradschaft and The Blue Light. The episode does acknowledge that some good films were being made in Europe at this time, but that only minimally lightens the mood of doom and gloom. "End of an Era" is a fitting conclusion to the series, if a downer after the highs of "The Unchained Camera" and "The Music of Light." Overall, I had a wonderful time re-visiting this series. Cinema Europe belongs in the library of every film buff.