Albrecht Viktor Blum
1888 - 1959Im Schatten der Maschine
Léo Lania, Albrecht Viktor Blum
The film was produced as a compilation film. Blum reported in “Film-Kurier“ (5.11.1928): "It will be assembled from excerpts of partly unpublished Ukrainian films. […] Some American footage has also been used. To get material as impressive as possible, a number of films, 0-60, have been viewed." Based on ideas by Dziga Vertov, and largely assembled from the last reel of his film 'The Eleventh Year', this compilation presents an explicit critique of the very technology that Vertov sought to praise, stressing the dark side of industrialization—hands mangled in workplace accidents, train wrecks, coffins—and connects to a particularly German concern with the negative effects of technology stretching from the Romantics to Heidegger, Horkheimer, and Adorno in the twentieth century.
In the Shadow of the Machine
Vanina oder Die Galgenhochzeit
Arthur von Gerlach
Asta Nielsen, Paul Wegener
Vanina loves rebel leader Octavio, who gets caught. He gets a pardon and marries Vanina. When he is captured again, Vanina helps him to escape prison. They are both caught, and after his execution she dies from grief.
Vanina
Das Spiel mit dem Feuer
Robert Wiene, Georg Kroll
Diana Karenne, Wassily Wronsky
A method actress likes living out the roles she is playing in real life. To prepare for her new play, she enters the criminal underworld and ends up being implicated in a burglary of a Duke who is one of her suitors. The film was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. The film received a generally positive reception from critics, although some were doubtful about the blending of farce and tragedy.
Playing with fire
Wasser und Wogen, ein Querschnittsfilm
Albrecht Viktor Blum
A poetic collage of the various forms taken by the element of water. The film explores water’s vital importance and its never-ending motion. Lyrical scenes of wild mountain landscapes alternate with footage of people in the streets of a flooded city and images showing the useful power of water.
The Water Cycle