TEN GREAT GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST FILMS FROM M, METROPOLIS, GOLEM, NOSFERATU TO THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI AND THE LAST LAUGH

...In 1913, Germany, flush with a new nation’s patriotic zeal, looked like it might become the dominant nation of Europe and a real rival to that global superpower Great Britain. Then it hit the buzzsaw of World War I. After the German government collapsed in 1918 from the economic and emotional toll of a half-decade of senseless carnage, the Allies forced it to accept draconian terms for surrender. The entire German culture was sent reeling, searching for answers to what happened and why.
German Expressionism came about to articulate these lacerating questions roiling in the nation’s collective unconscious. The first such film was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), about a malevolent traveling magician who has his servant do his murderous bidding in the dark of the night. The storyline is all about the Freudian terror of hidden subconscious drives, but what really makes the movie memorable is its completely unhinged look. Marked by stylized acting, deep shadows painted onto the walls, and sets filled with twisted architectural impossibilities -- there might not be a single right angle in the film – Caligari’s look perfectly meshes with the narrator's demented state of mind.

• Nosferatu - Free - German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau. An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. (1922)
• The Student of Prague - Free - A classic of German expressionist film. German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers and Danish director Stellan Rye bring to life a 19th-century horror story. Some call it the first indie film. (1913)
• Nerves - Free - Directed by Robert Reinert, Nerves tells of "the political disputes of an ultraconservative factory owner Herr Roloff and Teacher John, who feels a compulsive but secret love for Roloff's sister, a left-wing radical." (1919)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Free - This silent film directed by Robert Wiene is considered one of the most influential German Expressionist films and perhaps one of the greatest horror movies of all time. (1920)
• Metropolis - Free - Fritz Lang’s fable of good and evil fighting it out in a futuristic urban dystopia. An important classic. An alternate version can be found here. (1927)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World - Free - A follow-up to Paul Wegener's earlier film, "The Golem," about a monstrous creature brought to life by a learned rabbi to protect the Jews from persecution in medieval Prague. Based on the classic folk tale, and co-directed by Carl Boese. (1920)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World - Free - The same film as the one listed immediately above, but this one has a score created by Pixies frontman Black Francis. (2008)
• The Last Laugh - Free - F.W. Murnau's classic chamber drama about a hotel doorman who falls on hard times. A masterpiece of the silent era, the story is told almost entirely in pictures. (1924)
• Faust - Free - German expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau directs a film version of Goethe's classic tale. This was Murnau's last German movie. (1926)
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - Free - Made by the German expressionist director F.W. Murnau. Voted in 2012, the 5th greatest film of all time. (1927)
• M - Free - Classic film directed by Fritz Lang, with Peter Lorre. About the search for a child murderer in Berlin. (1931)

FRANCOIS HERBERT: A FRENCH ILLUSTRATOR'S PASSION FOR BYZANTIUM

....The Byzantine Empire fell in the mid-15th century (also called Roman Empire East), but something of its spirit still lives on. A great deal of it lives on in the work of the French illustrator Antoine Helbert. "This passion was kindled by a birthday gift from his mother," writes a blogger named Herve Risson in a post about it. "This gift was a book about Byzantium. Helbert was 7 years old." Like many an interest instilled early and deeply enough in childhood, Helbert's fascination turned into an obsession — or anyway, what looks like it must be an obsession, since it has motivated him to create such magnificently detailed recreations of Byzantium in its heyday.

HAGIA SOPHIA

Helbert, who only made his first visit to Istanbul at the age of 35, has put in that amount of imaginative work and much more besides. "Since then," writes Risson, Helbert "has taken great care to resurrect the city of the emperors, with great attention to details and to the sources available. What he can’t find, he invents, but always with a great care for the historical accuracy." Indeed, many of Helbert's illustrations don't, at first glance, look like illustrations at all, but more like what you'd come up with if you traveled back to the Constantinople of fifteen or so centuries ago with a camera. "The project has no lucrative goal," Risson notes. "It’s a passion. A byzantine passion.

THE PALACE OF BUCOLEON

THE TWELVE FEATS OF HERCULES (LITTLE GATE)

EQUESTRIAN STATUE FOR BYZANTINE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN

EMPRESS THEODORA

VIEW OF THE HIPPODROME AND THE GRAND PALACE

http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/french-illustrator-revives-the-byzantine-empire.html