Carl Zeus

Abstract

This project Carl Zeus (working title) investigates the German Expressionist film movement as an inspiration and a platform from which to develop a contemporary film project. The research focuses on the unique cinematographic and production techniques employed by the filmmakers of this movement. It explores the potential communicability of these cinematic devices. The movement (begun in 1919) emerged from the unique historical circumstances of post-World War One Germany. The works were primarily concerned with the country’s universally destabilized psyche and trauma that prevailed in German society after the war. The project questions the value of these cinematic devices in communicating contemporary issues and the experience of living in the present time. I next explore how to deploy an expressionist mode of cinema into a short film project. To negotiate this question, I produce a short film that deploys the Expressionist mode of cinema through the script, cinematography and mise-en-scene as a method of inquiry.