We asked female film and art critics to look at the Goethe-Institut Toronto's exhibition Early UFA Film Posters: Projecting Women with eight visuals from famous as well as rarely seen or lost Berlin UFA films from the 1920s and 30s that portray women as heroines or seductresses, debutantes or harlots. Toronto film critic Alex Heeney took a closer look at two of them:
I had been staring at the poster for "Die Nibelungen" (Fritz Lang’s 1924 fantasy-adventure film) from across the room at the Goethe-Institut for half an hour before I noticed a woman was on it. She’s leading the cavalry charge on the bridge. But she almost blends in. Of the eight posters in the exhibition “Early UFA Film Posters: Projecting Women”, this was the only poster where I didn’t immediately spot a woman. Since the poster was used, at the time, to advertise the film on pillars, walls, and billboards, most people would have had the same view as I did. So I probably wasn’t alone in missing her presence.
Yet Martin Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster is designed to draw attention to this woman as im-portant and different, the heroine of the piece, Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) — but only subtly so.
She is placed directly in front of the lightest and brightest part of the poster, the sun, while the sun’s beams seem to emanate from her. She’s also a few paces in front of the army, and the only one not wearing armour. Yet the blues in the pattern of her dress match the blues of the men’s shields. She’s both a part of the group and standing apart from and in contrast to these men.
In an age when women were often depicted as seductresses, debutantes, or harlots on film, Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster seems surprisingly conservative. Kriemhild seems like she might be a warrior, but she doesn’t fit any of these expected female archetypes.
The fact that Kriemhild appears on the poster as almost one of the men seems to be in line with the political doctrine of the time: more rights for women, approaching equality with men, but never quite reaching it. A key foundation of the Weimar Republic was Article 109, which granted women “essentially the same civil rights and obligations” as men. Women could vote. Working women were increasingly common: one third of all married women had paying jobs. Still, the workplace and public life were dominated by men. Women’s rights still had their limits. For ex-ample, women could and did take up places in the civil service, but they were forced into retire-ment once married or if they gave birth to an illegitimate child.
So here we have Kriemhild, going to war with the men, even leading them into battle, but not quite dressed for it. Why isn’t she equipped for battle? In the film, she dons an enormous metal headdress, to even her height with the men, and head-to-toe chainmail. Beating her in battle is said to be impossible, and she certainly looks the part. From afar, on the poster, she looks as battle-ready as the men; up close, she seems unprepared and out of place.
Lehmann-Steglitz’s design seems to allow more old-fashioned viewers to see the movie as in-tended for them, but to highlight the film’s modernity for those with a keen eye. By almost dis-guising the female protagonist in the image, he avoids scaring off audiences who may not be quite ready for a feisty heroine. And he makes her look equal — but not quite — to men. She’s the only woman who appears, making her less of a threat and more of an aspirational figure: she’s the one woman who is the exception to the rule.
Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster isn’t the only one in the exhibit in which a woman appears on al-most-but-not-quite even footing as her male co-stars. In Willy Keil’s poster for F.P.1. Doesn’t Answer, the heroine is sandwiched between two men — a pilot and an officer — and seems to be part of a military team. With her hair pulled back, she could almost pass for a man. It again took me a second to realize she wasn’t. But her paler skin and blonde hair give her away; she’s also the only one not in an official uniform. The message is clear: she can play with the boys, but she’ll never quite be one of them.
Alex Heeney is a film and theatre critic based in Toronto and a member of the Canadian Association of Online Film Critics. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Seventh Row, an online film and theatre criticism publication for the curious novice, which takes a multidisciplinary approach to arts criticism. She also hosts the 21st Folio Podcast about modern Shakespeare productions of stage and screen.
Addendum
Shortly after we published this Piece in October 2017, we discovered from the exhibit’s original curator at the Austrian National Library that the person at the head of the troop is in fact Siegfried not Kriemhild. And yet I — and many others who read my interpretation — didn’t know this. Neither the metrosexual Siegfried nor the almost masculine (in her fierceness and look) Kriemhild conform to gender norms; instead, their genders are somewhat fluid.
Fascinatingly, this means that the poster is almost designed to let you project onto it what you want to see: for women, it could be Kriemhild leading an army; for men, it could be a not quite conforming man. In either case, Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster breaks down the barriers between how we perceive --and "project"-- men and women.
And yet it’s interesting that the one poster in our exhibit which doesn’t feature a woman is also the one film in which a woman who dares to flout norms must also be trampled into submission. Kriemhild fights fiercely and admirably to not be forced into marriage, but she loses. The old gender order triumphs. In a way, Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster is having its cake and eating it, too.
Margarete Schön as Kriemhild
Paul Richter as Siegfried
Poster image: Lehmann-Steglitz poster of "Die Nibelungen", courtesy Austrian National Library
3 film stills
