A Culture of Light

The innovative use of light in 1920s German silent cinema serves as a crucial lens through which to explore the cultural shifts of Weimar Germany. Frances Guerin examines how electric light in films like Schatten, Variete, Metropolis, and Der Golem reflects both the excitement and anxieties of modernity. By focusing on light as a narrative and thematic device, the book challenges traditional interpretations of German cinema's role in the political instability leading to Nazism, thereby redefining German film scholarship.