Talk:The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Archive 2

Referencing, and Who was the previous owner of the Lixie-Atelier?

Hi all, I'm user:MinorProphet and apologies in advance for this particularly lengthy and detailed post. First off, I'm really impressed with the way this important article has grown recently: Caligari was just the first of those stunning late German silent films to really grab my long-term attention. I have no axe to grind except that of accuracy, otherwise I'm just a layman interested in early films and film scores.

I have two propositions, one general and trivial, and one particular but horribly detailed:

1. To improve the article's referencing scheme, namely by consolidating it with the {{harvid}} scheme as far as possible. I'm offering to do this if anyone thinks it would improve the article; IHMO the harv tools are superior to the <ref name=FooBar> style. Ref name= has its uses, but it's unwieldy, it's based on the random swirlings of a given human mind, which other people may well find wildly annoying; and if most of your references fit easily into the harvid template - which is well suited (strange to relate) to referencing reliable sources (yay!) - it's a cinch. However, this task is partially conditional on some sort of response to my second proposition, namely:
2. To re-write the beginning of the second paragraph of the ==Filming== section, which I feel has a number issues. These are discussed almost unto death below - click on [Show] button below...

Detailed discussion of ==Filming== section, second para.

Background

Brief declaration of interest in this article: A few years back I foolishly determined to attempt to sort out the unholy mess of Das Mirakel (1912 film). I slowly discovered that mess existed because of a huge confusion between two rival films of The Miracle (play) having the same name and subject matter; namely the 'spurious' (ie rip-off) Das Mirakel, and the 'authorised' The Miracle (1912 film) (both mea culpa). This led to the spin-off Continental-Kunstfilm (C-K) and List of films made by Continental-Kunstfilm articles (also mea culpa), and additions to Jules Greenbaum.

Thus I am fairly certain that Dr. Caligari was filmed at the former Continental-Kunstfilm studio at 9 Franz Joseph-Strasse in Weissensee (later leased by Lixie-Film), and not at 5-7 Franz Joseph-Strasse, which was built by Vitascope in 1913, leased by Joe May and then owned by UFA after 1924. To skip the intervening argument, see #Proposed re-wording.

<Essay>

The beginning of the second paragraph in the 'Filming' section contains a number of statements which I have been trying (on and off) to verify since March this year (2015). I made a stab - originally for the accuracy of the C-K article - at translating the relevant sources for each studio building involved; my efforts are at Talk:Continental-Kunstfilm. The argument is the same, but approached from a different angle.

The paragraph in question begins:

"Caligari was filmed in the Lexie [sic]-Atelier film studio at Weissensee. It was the fourth film to be made there, followed by Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of Fritz Lang's The Spiders. The studio was built in 1913 for use with the Vitascope GmbH, and as a result was restrictive in scale; most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth. However, an understage space was provided for use as a foreground set."

NB All the quotes from Robinson in the above passage appear to occur on p. 25, (not pp. 24 or 28), so they would need to be cleaned up if this is the case.

References

Sources

• Robinson, David (1997). Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 0851706452. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) The URL is a GB snippet view, here is the rest of the sentence.

My comments on each sentence

1. "Caligari was filmed in the Lexie [sic]-Atelier film studio at Weissensee.[80][84]"

The wording is fine (apart from the spello): but what was the exact address of the studio in Weissensee? Because there were actually two studios bang next door to each other, Vitascope and Continental-Kunstfilm (C-K). However, although the quote from the Berliner Zeitung says the film was shot in in Franz Joseph-Strasse, Weissensee, it doesn't say exactly where; and there are other sources that do. Furthermore, I feel fairly sure that David Robinson (the author of ref.[84] in the main article) seems to have confused the old Vitascope studios at 5-7 Franz-Joseph Strasse, Weissensee, with the Continental-Kunstfilm (later Lixie-Atelier) studios next door at no. 9 Franz-Joseph Strasse (also later 9-12). In trying to pinpoint (for the C-K article) exactly when no. 9 became 9-12, I recently updated the Jules Greenbaum article with some info from German sources, to try to clarify the relationship between Continental and Greenbaum's Deutschen Bio- und Vita-scopes; they seem to have followed each other around Berlin with a certain fluidity of staff. I'm fairly sure that the following is the case:

• To the best of my knowledge, the only studio built in Weissensee by Jules Greenbaum's Vitascope was at 5-7 Franz-Josef-Straße in 1913. Vitascope fatally merged with UFA in 1919, who acquired the studio when Greenbaum died in a mental hospital in 1924. Before UFA acquired 5-7 F-J Str. after Greenbaum's death, the studio was previously leased by Joe May, hence its name, May-Atelier. The Lixie-Atelier, however, was...
• ...the studio two doors down at 9 Franz-Josef-Straße, which was built by Continental-Kunstfilm in 1914 This is the studio which was hired out/sub-leased to Decla-Bioscop to make - inter alia - Caligari in late 1919-20, apparently before it was greatly enlarged to include 9-12 Franz Joseph-Strasse.

I suggest that this sentence could read something along the lines of "Caligari was filmed in the Lixie-Atelier film studio (previously owned by Continental-Kunstfilm), at 9 Franz Joseph-Strasse, Weissensee [probably not in 9-12, see also point 3 below.]."

2. "It was the fourth film to be made there, followed by Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of Fritz Lang's The Spiders.[84]"

Robinson's actual words cited in ref [84] are slightly mis-transcribed, creating an error in the order of Decla's 1919/20 releases. The original reads (p. 25):

"It was the fourth Decla production to be made there, following Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of [Fritz] Lang's Die Spinnen."

This (and reference to the Pest & Spiders articles themselves) clearly shows that the other three titles were made before Caligari, from around October 1919. (Die Spinnen Part 1 was shot in a Hamburg park; only Part 2 was filmed in Weissensee according to the article's source filmportal.de.

3. "The studio was built in 1913 for use with the Vitascope GmbH, and as a result was restrictive in scale; most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth.[84]"

Hopefully (if I am on the right track and if you are with me) you may agree that it is the studio at 9 Franz Joseph-Strasse built by Continental that is meant; and that this third sentence (in isolation) should begin "The studio was built in 1914 by Continental-Kunstfilm GmbH..." But Robinson notes carefully that "the stage as a result was restrictive in scale;". Now, this could mean a number number of things, but for me it tends to point towards Caligari having being shot in the original No. 9, before it was enlarged. This seems to sort out the C-K chronology. If Caligari had been made in the new studios at 9-12, the size of an (assumedly) newer, larger stage would have not been a cause for comment, whereas it was apparently the original stage from c1914. And anyway, this picture of the Vitascope/May-Film studios with Walter Schmidthassler (after Continental-Kunstfilm's founder had returned to the Greenbaum fold) shows that the Greenbaum glasshouse (built in 1913, later May-Atelier) at No. 5-7 is considerably more than 6 metres across (think three tall men lying down.)

4. "However, an understage space was provided for use as a foreground set.[67]"

Whatever this means exactly may be open to question. It seems, however, that it should still apply to the Continental-Kunstfilm/Lixie studio at No. 9, rather than the Vitascope/May-Atelier at 5-7; I just feel he has identified the wrong studio. BTW, the page numbers are trivially wrong: this snippet shows that the quote in ref [67] is actually on p. 25, following straight on from point 3.

The obvious point of contention is whether Robinson is correct on this single point of the ownership of the studio. I am not taking issue with the validity of anything else he says, just the statements I have reviewed in this post.

Proposed re-wording

Original paragraph

"Caligari was filmed in the Lexie [sic]-Atelier film studio at Weissensee. It was the fourth film to be made there, followed by Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of Fritz Lang's The Spiders. The studio was built in 1913 for use with the Vitascope GmbH, and as a result was restrictive in scale; most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth. However, an understage space was provided for use as a foreground set."

Proposal

A re-wording of the first four statements could be based around some or all of the following :

"Caligari was filmed in the Lixie-Atelier film studio (formerly owned by Continental-Kunstfilm) at 9 Franz Joseph-Strasse (now Max Liebermannstraße), Weißensee, a north-eastern suburb of Berlin. Decla had been making films at the Lixie studio since October 1919, having previously released three titles, Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of Fritz Lang's The Spiders (Die Spinnen.) The relatively small size of the studio (built some five years earlier in 1914) meant most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth. However, an understage space was provided for use as a foreground set."

References

Sources

• Berg-Ganschow, Uta; Jacobsen, Wolfgang, eds. (1987). ...Film...Stadt...Kino...Berlin... (in German). Argon (S. Fischer Verlag). ISBN 978-3870241056. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Robinson, David (1997). Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 0851706452. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

>MinorProphet (talk) 04:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Anyone for tennis? MinorProphet (talk) 04:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

• Hey MinorProphet. I'm the primary author of this article's recent expansion. I wrote the paragraph in the filming section that you are referring too, so I apologize for its problems and appreciate your attention to detail in this matter. I read your discussion above (Well, most of it. :P) and I agree with your four comments on the paragraph, and also have no issues with your proposed rewriting. Let me know if you want me to do it, or if (I assume) you want to do the edits yourself. (Regarding your other point, I personally have no problem with the reference templates as they are currently used, and they are the ones I use in basically all the articles I work on, including my FA. But that's just one Wikipedian's opinion.) — Hunter Kahn 14:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

What does this part mean?

"The studio was built in 1913 for use with the Vitascope GmbH, and as a result was restrictive in scale; most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth." What does use by Vitascope GmbH have to do with set size? Were they infamous for using small sets or something? This part makes no sense. --Serpinium (talk) 16:41, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Filming location

I updated the specific location of the filming, as discussed many moons ago at Talk:The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Archive 2 and Talk:Continental-Kunstfilm. I also deleted the immediately following sentence: "However, an understage space was provided for use as a foreground set." I feel that this is a somewhat misleading contraction of Robinson's original "The studio did, however, apparently provide the facility of an understage set: the approach to the fairground is up an inclined path which disappears behind the hillock on which the fairground (a 'meadow' in the original script) seems to stand." (Robinson, p. 25.) Even if quoted in its entirety, the idea of an 'understage set' in a glasshouse studio seems slightly far-fetched - or even fanciful - to my non-expert mind, although I haven't watched the film for a while. Also, a WL for every single publisher and their location in the Bibliography section may lead to a WP:LINKCRISIS. :>MinorProphet (talk) 10:15, 16 February 2016 (UTC)