SCHERBEN � A Few Notes and Observations on the First Kammerspielfilm

"A master piece of a film!" � This was the enthusiastic response by the editor and critic of the German trade paper Lichtbild-B�hne Hans Wollenberg after attending the official premiere of SCHERBEN (Shattered) in Berlin on May 27, 1921. "The days, hours, minutes are passing by in and around the hut of a railway trackman. There is no need for inter-titles. What is happening on the screen is not of an irrelevant, passing nature, but reality, captured as if by accident by the lens of the camera. � What you see grips you, impresses, it is truth, it is film!" (LBB, 28.5.1921) Wollenberg's words sum up the general reaction to a picture that stands at the beginning of the development of the Kammerspielfilm - a genre, which today is regarded as one of the great achievements of the so-called "Golden Age of German Cinema" of the 1920s. The following paragraphs will briefly introduce the background and personalities of the two men behind the project � the film's scriptwriter Carl Mayer and its director Lupu Pick� and point to its hitherto neglected roots in their theatre background as well as in naturalist/realist theatre traditions.

Born into an impoverished merchant family in Graz (Austria), Carl Mayer (1894-1944) had to give up formal grammar school education at the age of 15 in order to support his family which, due to his father's gambling debts, had fallen onto hard times. Following his father's suicide in 1914, he worked in various functions in theatres in Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck, before moving to Berlin in 1917 where he joined the Residenz-Theater as an assistant director. The same year, he became co-founder of a Drama Society for the advancement of contemporary plays and of a film company (which does not seem to have produced anything). Mayer's break-through came in 1919 when, together with his friend Hans Janowitz, he wrote the scenario for THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (Robert Wiene, 1919/1920), which established him as a leading, sought-after scriptwriter in Germany. Following the failure to repeat the film's critical as well as financial success with GENUINE (Robert Wiene, 1920, another production along expressionist lines) Mayer mainly collaborated with directors Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (DER BUCKLIGE UND DIE T�NZERIN, DER GANG IN DIE NACHT, SCHLOSS VOGEL�D) and Lupu Pick (DER DUMMKOPF, SCHERBEN, GRAUSIGE N�CHTE, SYLVESTER). Today, his name is usually associated with the work of Murnau and "classic masterpieces" such as DER LETZTE MANN (THE LAST LAUGH, 1924). Discussions about this celebrated pinnacle of the Kammerspielfilm tend to forget that it was Mayer's collaboration with Pick, from which the genre originated. (Indeed, had it not been for disagreements with Mayer, Pick would have directed the film.)

A Kammerspielfilm is an intimate film, which concentrates on just a few characters, their relationships and psychological development. It is the result of Mayer's experiments and desire to do away with explanatory titles and written dialogues. The scriptwriter's ultimate aim was to develop an art form that can only be realised through the medium of film. Dissecting and analysing his characters just through images, he simplified and condensed the dramatic elements of his material and concentrated on protagonists from the lower classes. In Lupu Pick Mayer found a congenial partner who shared his sympathies and concern for the less fortunate in life and � most importantly � considered the work of the scriptwriter to be at least equal in importance to that of a film's director. In light of the horrors of World War I, Pick regarded film as the most powerful means to advance understanding between nations. The prerequisite for achieving such idealistic objectives was a script written by someone aware of and fully familiar with the creative possibilities (as well as the technical problems) of the medium.

Born in Jassy (Rumania) to an Austrian merchant and his Rumanian wife, Lupu Pick (1886 � 1931) grew up mainly in Berlin where he became involved with dramatics while still at school. As a trainee destined to follow in his father's footsteps, he took acting lessons and, in 1909, joined a theatre company in Altona (in those days not yet part of the city of Hamburg). In 1912, he married the actress Edith Posca who later would appear in many of his films (and, in SCHERBEN, can be seen as the Daughter). In 1913, he moved to Berlin where he established himself as a reliable actor of secondary roles who frequently played older men and became known for his interpretation of withdrawn, mysterious characters. Two years later, he joined the ensemble of film director Richard Oswald. In 1918, he became co-founder (and shortly afterwards general manager) of the Rex Film Company, which subsequently expanded into distribution and also established its own film laboratories. Throughout his life, Pick was highly respected as a man of great integrity, as well as strong artistic and social commitment. His sudden death at the early age of 50 was generally regarded as a major blow to the German film industry.

Though as producer Pick was an employer and a leading as well as influential member of the Association of German Film Producers SPIO, Pick fought relentlessly for the improvement of working conditions within the German Film Industry. In 1927 (much to the annoyance of the Board of Directors of Ufa, then Europe's largest film company and the only one able to challenge Hollywood's hegemony), he was co-founder and First Secretary of the Association of German Film Directors. The following year, he founded and (once more) became First Secretary of Dacho (Dachorganisation der filmschaffenden K�nstler Deutschlands) � an organisation representing the interests of all artistic employees in the industry. Pick's strong commitment to raising awareness of the plight of the underprivileged in society is found in those of his films, which offer a convincing visual rendition of the human tragedies and the psychological state of people from the lower classes. It is central to SCHERBEN, a film that � though anything but filmed theatre � is deeply rooted in the traditions of Naturalism in the theatre of the late 19th & early 20th Century (without repeating the movement's excesses of copying life in every detail).

In his autobiography one of the all-time greats of German theatre and film, Werner Krau� (who, after playing the railway Trackman in SCHERBEN, had a great respect for his director), has described Pick as "a strange actor, obsessed by the devil of Naturalism�" (Das Schauspiel meines Lebens, p. 76) Indeed, the basic ideas behind the film may be traced back to principles and ideas developed by the French advocates of Naturalism, the literary critic Hyppolyte Taine and the writer Emile Zola, whose writings where widely discussed at the time Pick became involved with drama activities, first as a school boy and later as a young actor. Taine's theory of race milieu and moment is based on the observation that psychological facts are the result of physiological causes. Consequently, he declared vice and virtue to be nothing but products of nature like vitriol and sugar. With reference to these ideas Zola, in his preface to his novel Th�r�se Raquin, called Taine a Naturalist, and advised writers never to trust their imagination, but to rely only on experience gained from precise observation. To him the author was the natural scientist whose characters are elements in a scientific experiment. The author's task is to bring these elements together, observe what happens and give an objective, dispassionate description of the progress and results of this experiment without interfering or passing judgement on the events.

This is precisely what happens in SCHERBEN. The film may be seen as a test tube experiment the consequences of which are analysed under a microscope. Starting off by showing the ordinary, everyday lives of a railway trackman, his wife and daughter in a remote, isolated house in a winter landscape, Mayer and Pick introduce increasingly stronger disturbances into their daily routines, beginning with a change of weather and culminating in the arrival of a railway inspector. (As if to underline the general applicability of the experiment, the film's four characters are only identified by their sex or profession.) The film's subtitle "A Drama in Five Days by Carl Mayer" states precisely the length of the experiment. Except for one sentence containing spoken words, a telegraph message, and references to the passing of time, SCHERBEN does not contain any written titles, forcing the spectators to focus their full attention on what is happening on the screen. This emphasis on observation is reinforced through the deliberate use of circular irises, which resemble the look down the dark tube of a microscope. The wipes parallel the exchange of glass slides containing the material to be analysed. Similarly, the sleepers of the railway tracks checked by the Trackman at night resemble the gears used for moving the microscope's tube up and down for focussing. Individual shots never show more than is absolutely necessary. Recurring images familiarise the spectators with the environment and thus allow them to concentrate their attention on details they might otherwise miss. All possibilities of distraction have been eliminated. The snow-covered landscape is not just background, but an important element influencing the outcome of the experiment. Similarly, the inside of the house affects the characters' postures and movements.

Despite the "scientific" approach, the impression left by the film is not that of a scientist's cold, detached look, for Pick and Mayer do not simply present an objective reality. By letting their images speak for themselves they release meanings that go beyond those of a mere documentary record. The film's power even today lies in the way in which it communicates its humanity und understanding of human suffering through images rather than words. Director and writer never try to convey "a message". Instead, they leave it to the spectators to reach their conclusions about what they have seen.

Today, as Carl Mayer has been given the accolade of first film poet of the German cinema, the film seems to be discussed mainly in the context of the work of its scriptwriter. Mayer's eye for and understanding of the medium has led others to observe that a script by him was already a film. In respect to SCHERBEN (and without intending to belittle Mayer's genius), I would add that it is also the result of the collaborate efforts of a creative team headed by a director and a writer united by similar artistic and ideological ideals which tried to raise general awareness of the plight of the underprivileged through a naturalist approach focussing on the essence of the representation of life in the cinema.

(For a more detailed analysis (in German and in English) of SCHERBEN as well as of HINTERTREPPE (Back Stairs, 1921, directed by Leopold Jessner, script by Carl Mayer) within their production contexts cf. my article (in German as well as in English) "Scherben auf der Hintertreppe/Backstairs Shattered" in: Michael Omasta, Brigitte Mayr, Christian Cargnelli (eds.), Carl Mayer Scenar[t]ist, Vienna: Synema, 2003, pp. 129-154.)

Horst Claus