But it made me think - this guy was clearly F.W. Murnau's right-hand man for five films. He co-wrote The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He came up with the original idea behind Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. But his name is misprinted in an edition of a book!? Do any film scholars really know much about him today?
Kracauer certainly discusses him a lot. He is, in fact, a pretty big fan of Mayer's. On page 62 a brief summary of his life story is told - and it isn't terribly pretty. But he was passionate about art - theater, sketching, and eventually film. It seems that Kracauer gets his information from Caligari co-writer Hans Janowitz, but it is unclear how Kracauer knows so much. Furthermore, Kracauer again and again in his text goes back to "Carl Mayer's instinct films" in comparison to other films. On page 136, which I assume we will read at some point, Kracauer even says "without the Austrian Jew Carl Mayer the German film would never have come into its own". (I decided to look at the index!)
Caligari's ending was twisted from Mayer & Janowitz's original idea, as our text explains. Berlin also went in another direction even though it was Mayer's idea. He had grown tired of the fakeness of studios and wanted to make something out of reality. Cameraman Max Freund was similarly sick of it and began filming the city. Walter Ruttman edited the footage...but not at all into what Mayer wanted. Kracauer simply says Mayer "dropped out" - but why? Did he give up easily? I want more information! On page 184 Kracauer gives another nod to Mayer's brilliance. He drafted a script of the story of Danube, years before any other country had done the "river film". It was not finished - presumably because of Mayer's illness and death.
According to Wikipedia, he was both a Jew and a pacifist - obviously fleeing at the first signs of Nazi Germany. If he had stayed, would he have gone on to greater things? Well, he also fell victim to cancer in 1942. War times led to poor treatment of his condition and he died at age 49, fairly poor.
Apparently, John Mayer's brother is named Carl. That Carl Mayer seems to be far more well-known than this film legend.
If you hadn't written this entry, I was going to make you write it, Arianna! You're going to become our Mayer expert! Kracauer also talks about Mayer's death of cancer in London by the way, in the reading for today.
ReplyDeleteDoublecheck the Kracauer--in my edition, he calls him "Mayer." It's possible your notes are wrong. Or that he was referring to someone else named "Meyer."
On page 187 of Kracauer, he speculates that "Mayer called 'Berlin' a 'surface approach'" because he condemned "Ruttmann's formal attitude towards a reality that cried out for criticism, for interpretation."
ReplyDeleteSo he dropped out on the grounds that questions were raised (or could have been raised) in the film that were completely overlooked, in the manner that German films seem to take as they ignore or withdraw from basic facts.