Weimar on the Pacific

Ehrhard Bahr's Weimar on the Pacific examines the cultural impact that German expatriates had on Los Angeles in the 1930s and 40s, looking at the arts in particular to make the assertion that German fascism was “to a certain degree a counterrevolution against modernism, and since the manifestations of modernism were most conspicuous in the realms of literature, music, and the arts, these became important battlegrounds for the conflicting ideologies and their proponents.” In studying the exodus of creative minds from Germany and its surrounding nations before and during the second World War as well as the material they produced while in exile, Bahr adeptly argues that Los Angeles, in having a uniquely concentrated population of German exiles, developed its own German culture that stood apart from the culture in the European nation these people had once inhabited.

Particularly interesting to me was the chapter on Epic Theater versus Film Noir, describing the development of Hangmen Also Die by Bertold Brecht and Fritz Lang. Inspired by headlines describing the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the two men worked together to turn the story into a film, though they disregarded historical fact in order to make the story move in the way they wanted. As the movie was created, Brecht and Lang diverged greatly on how they wanted the film made and what was to be included; creative differences in which Brecht's high standards for the film were not met caused him to drift from the project. Artistic freedom and heavy editing soured Brecht to the final product, but the film continued on to be nominated for academy awards. The demand for anti-Nazi films as well as the popularity of the film noir aesthetic came together in Hangmen Also Die, and Bahr lays out the way this film was created in a fascinating light, describing not only the relationship between Brecht and Lang as it evolved during the making of the film but also their diverging opinions on where the focus of the film should lie. While Brecht had a political agenda in creating the film, Lang depended heavily on audience reaction; he was creating entertainment while Brecht wanted the film to stand also as art and statement.