In 1930, the French writer Louis Reynaud conducted an enquiry entitled L'Ame allemande into the mutual differences in character between the French and German nations. His speculations concluded that if the German temperament relied on a knack for
combining instinct and organisation, the French could, on the other hand, be justly celebrated for their elevated sense of taste and reason. His findings match the racially motivated distinction Norbert Elias was later to make in Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (1936) between Parisian "civilisation" (meaning intellect and artistry) and Berliner Kultur
(meaning modern-day socially minded politics). This chapter has argued that the tenor of these remarks also reoccurs in cinematic critical discourse of the early 1930s. The fact that Paris was seen, to some extent, as a more stable place than its German counterpart, provides a framework to understand many of the journeys of the film émigrés. Indeed, Kracauer commenting on the pace and momentum of change in Berlin, called Paris
"Europe's oasis" (qtd. in Hansen, 386). By drawing attention to cultural continuity, he was also suggestively reiterating the conventional image of the French capital as the beacon of refuge for the continent's displaced. Modern Germany and American companies may have been literally harnessing the power of light to dominate the electrification market and its ancillary industries (including the potential of sound cinema), but Paris continued to stand lor the intellectual and political connotations of light in the metaphorical sense of
enlighten—ment.
Having said this, I have also been interested in this chapter to point out how the different waves of emigration between France and Germany in the early sound era, actually suggest new ways of discussing the inter-relationship between film and national identity. I have argued that the apparently clear-cut dichotomy between the two nations, outlined in the previous paragraph, may, in fact, be troubled in two ways. Firstly, by an
understanding of the complex and ambivalent nature of the Franco-German film relationship in particular, and then, secondly, more generally, by the Franco-German relationship as a whole. The changing nature of film relations between Berlin and Paris during the early years of sound cinema, for example, specifically challenged any attempt to make too much of the notion o f a homogenous national film culture. I have shown how a complex network of co-operation, rivalry and exchange emerged between Berlin and Paris as Germany took advantage of the parlous state of the French film industry. Central to this was the MLV phenomenon which simultaneously related to ongoing competition from the United States. This competition took the form of European language film production in France as well as Hollywood. I have also suggested, more broadly, that the long reaching legacy of the First World War significantly altered the ways in which the French saw themselves in relation to Germany and the ways in which, through the medium of cinema, the French then represented themselves to each other. The devastation of the war induced a deeply felt need for recuperation and longing for the reassurances of past notions of national belonging. For France and Germany, the cinematic city became one of the crucial sites for the representation of the nation. Yet, as I have argued, the city, by the beginning of the era of sound film production, meant different things in the two different contexts.
Despite these factors, trade and economic partnership and rivalry between the two countries did continue to take place against a frequent backdrop of nationally specific commentary. In terms of production management and aesthetics, Berlin film-makers were praised by the French for their organisational skills and their attention to form—especially in relation to the manipulation of light for subtle atmospheric and psychologically motivated effect. The question that remained for many was what the characteristics of Paris-based sound cinema were to be. The critic Georges Altman noted bitterly that "the films coming out of this new technology and which represent "landmarks" are coming, for the moment, horn America and Germany" (qtd. in Abel, 1988, 82). He even went as far as suggesting
that "the Latin genius [might] he badly suited to the screen". Altman's pessimism was, of course, misfounded, but I have begun to argue that the various waves of émigrés who travelled to Paris in the 1930s came to play an important role in representing the French city on the screen. Berlin trained or experienced technicians and cinematographers were particularly welcomed within a fractured Parisian film industry which was still debating the directions that the cinematic representation of life in the French capital should take. Significantly, Altman praised a number of contemporary urban based films such as Vidor's Halleluiah (1929) and Pabst's Threepenny Opera (1931). He was opposed to the "treasons practiced at the cinema's expense" by the "old ruts of the theatre, the operetta, and the music hall" (82). This idea of forging a specifically cinematic portrayal of the world of the city also, to some extent, chimed with the concerns of many of the émigré directors. We have seen how Anatole Litvak's notion of "real cinema" was echoed, for example, by Robert Siodmak. This constructed polarity between the inauthenticity of the Parisian theatre and the authenticity of the visual potential of the urban street will resurface again in the chapters to come.
As I have already suggested, one of the key reasons that the city played such an important role in the development of early French sound cinema was that the French capital, like Berlin, had become the primary staging ground for specific debates over the character of the modern nation. In Berlin by 1933, race had become the dominant issue fuelling political rhetoric. Horrific decisions were beginning to be taken over the future direction of the ethnic composition of both the capital and the state. Many prominent talents in the German film industry felt it necessary to leave, though perhaps not in such dramatic circumstances as previous narratives have indicated. In Paris, the reception of the German émigrés was initially favourable but it was soon complicated not just by political ideology but also by a subsequent downturn in the film industry in 1934 caused by the delayed onset of the Depression. For many émigrés, the crucial issue remained the distinction between
cultural difference and cultural assimilation—in other words, what Albert Dreyfus termed "the ability to adjust" (qtd. in Golan, 1995, 141) when he wrote about the position of the Jewish artist in 1930s Paris. The measure of this issue o f adjustment will be one of the key focus points of my discussion in subsequent chapters.
The fact is that many of the post 1933 émigrés were Jewish. Like previous Jewish members of the Parisian population, the Berlin film-makers found themselves caught between being of beneficial use and being secondary to domestic interests. Right-wing commentators specifically focussed on fears of cultural heterogeneity by relating
Jewishness to threatening aspects of urban darkness and even to the ill-effects of modern life. These terms were also mirrored in the language used by sections of the French film critical establishment to discuss the German film industry's representation of urban life. It therefore remains a central paradox that despite this negative critical reception, the arrival of the émigrés in the French capital mattered not just because of their difference, but because of the very facility with which they could, as non-French personnel, enhance the existing tropes of Parisian representation. We shall now see how this was achieved in more detail as we turn now to an investigation of the films themselves.