This week, we will be discussing German Expressionistic elements found in the movie from the year 1999, Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton.
First of all, what is German Expressionism? German Expressionism is a filmic style that emerged in the year of 1919 to 1926 in Germany. It is influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. Theme from this expressionism includes revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive, sexual and savagery. Besides, this expressionism was not limited to painting but was manifest in literature, theatre and architecture of Scandinavian and German-speaking countries. It also spread into cinema in terms of narrative, set and mise-en-scene. The expressionism is most apparent in set design and chiaroscuro lighting.
The German Expressionism style includes:
l Oblique Camera Angles
l Distorted Bodies and Shapes
l Bizarre and Incongruous settings that are usually Gothic in Look and Framing
l High contrast (low-key) lighting creating dramatic shadows
l Content is usually Surreal and Gothic, about unnatural acts/realities
Most of the filmmakers migrated from Germany to USA, brought their filmmaking practice to Hollywood, influencing horror films and film noir. Germany Expressionism started to fade as 1920s German film industry tries to imitate and compete with Hollywood films, diluting the expressionist tendencies. Some of the German Expressionist filmmakers are Fritz Lang, Robert Weine, and F.W. Murnau.
The theory that the German Expressionism elements used in the movie Sleepy Hollow is the genre and semantic/syntactic approach by Rick Altman. In semantic/syntactic approach, semantic represents the visual aspects and syntactic represents the thematic aspects of the film. The approach uses both semantic and syntactic complementarily to do a proper genre analysis on a movie. The problem that genre in film encounter is films cannot be imposed by a generic definition as genres are not static but evolutionary as the changing times. Genres evolve according to times and many sub genres or minor sub-genres have been spun out which in turn become hybrids of original genres or a mixture of several genres.
After going through the background of German Expressionism, let’s dwell deep into the movie with an understanding mind :) .
Sleepy Hollow, a movie that sets in the year of 1799, “Sleepy Hollow” is based on Washington Irving’s classic tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Faithful to the dreamy custom-bound world that Irving illustrates in his story, the film mixes fantasy, romance, and horror, along featuring an extraordinary cast of characters that dabble in the supernatural.
A New York City police constable Ichabod Crane is dispatched by his superiors to the Hudson Highlands hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, to investigate a series of of brutal slayings in which the victims have been found beheaded. Ichabod Crane arrives in Sleepy Hollow armed with his bag of scientific tools only to be informed by the town’s elders that the murderer is not of flesh and blood, rather a headless supernatural warrior from beyond the grave who rides at night on a massive black steed.
Upon analysing the movie, there are several scenes that consists of the visual and the thematic aspects of the film. High contrast visuals are used in the film. Certain scenes in the movie such as thunderstorm in the night where the headless horseman beheading its victim or Ichabod Crane, the main character of the story and young Masbeth, Jonathan Masbeth’s son followed a guy into the forest during the dark night.
The director used high contrast lighting to create dramatic shadows here and there in the scenes such as lightning flashes across the sky and Ichabod carrying an oil-fueled lamp through the dark forest with young Masbeth, creating a focus point on Ichabod Crane in a dire situation.
Distorted bodies are found in several scenes in the film. One scene in particular is where Mrs Van Tassel’s sister, who is a witch living in the forest by herself, helped Ichabod to locate the headless horseman’s skull whereabouts to end the series of beheading murder cases by performing a witch ritual where the spirits possessed her. As Ichabod gets closer to her, her face from the veil is revealed, giving a shock to Ichabod. Her appearance being possessed by the spirits is wrinkled and paled where both her eyeballs are missing giving a soulless look which terrifies Ichabod himself. The other distorted bodies scenes are just the appearance of the headless horseman beheading its victim’s head.
Revolt elements are also found in the movie. An example can be given like when Ichabod Crane was called upon by the officials of New York State and have a discussion about Crane’s scientific method in deducing crimes. As Ichabod fights to defend for his revolutionary method, the officials of New York State deny Crane’s scientific method as it is considered new and unproven investigate techniques.
In few scenes in the Sleepy Hollow, the town’s elders and the townsfolk have a culture in their society where witches are not allowed in the town and if found, they will be sentence to death. According to their norms, witchcraft is represented as an act of revolt against the legal system.
There is primitive and sexual savagery elements involved in the film. At one point of the film, through the legend and the description of the headless horseman, the town’s elders said that the headless horseman filed his teeth to be sharped so that he can devour his victims to death. For the sexual part, there is one particular scene where Ichabod Crane and young Masbeth followed a suspicious guy to a dark forest and witnessed the suspicious guy is having sexual intercourse with Ms Van Tassel. In the process, Ms Van Tassel took a dagger and cut a wound on her hand, seemingly performing a dark satanic ritual.
In conclusion, Sleepy Hollow is a movie that tells a story about how a man willing to take the risk to investigate something with his new, unproven technology and proving it successful together with his new-made friends along the way to solve a mystery murder case. From this movie, I have learn that there are things that appear in front of us are something more than it meets the eye. At one moment you think the person next to you is a normal individual but the next moment he or she will appear as a serial killer or some sort. As an old saying goes, “never judge a book by its cover.”
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