CZM Rewind: Part One: The Vampires Are On Our Side: Antifascism in Film

Margaret talks with Caitlin Durante about the antifascist filmmaking in Germany and Hollywood that laid much of the foundations for modern cinema.

Original Air Date: 10.17.22

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff?
Another rerun. Why are there so many reruns?

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Well, I told you each one made sense for different reasons,
and this one is.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Because cool Zon Media takes off for.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
The holidays sometimes, And so we're going to run a
rerun about anti fascism and film.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Why because I like it and I want you to
hear it again or for the.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
First time, but also because I think it's really important
that we understand about how culture can shape things and
also specifically how we can use culture to resist. And
also I just think it's cool that all the original
vampires are on our side. Anyway, I hope you all
are well, and here's an episode. Hello and welcome to

(00:51):
you Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. I'm your host,
Margaret Kiljoy, and each week I talk about cool people
who did cool stuff. This week, I'm super excited about
our guest because she's Kitlyn.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Or One, which is exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hello. Yeah, you're the co host of the Bechdel Cast,
which is about movies.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Is that correct? It is true movies? And we watch
a movie, we say this is a sexist pile of garbage.
And then sometimes I'm like, oh, but I still like it.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh, it's not the piles of garbage that I still like.
This is a good episode for you.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh well, yeah, I don't know what we're talking about,
so I'm excited to find out. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
I mean, basically, eighty percent of the men in history
who are worth talking about as cool are also sexists.
So you know, no matter what you do, there's going
to be some of them.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Don't worry.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
This is not an episode about one particular one. I'm
trying to build up the suspense. The audience will already
know what the thing is about because they've seen the title.
Caitlin is not But how are you doing? How are you, Caitlin?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I'm doing very well. Well, let's see. I just saw
R R R in theaters for the third time. It's
my new favorite movie. I'm spreading the gospel. I had
the catalytic converter stolen out of my car, and I
was told that it would take Thank you so much.

(02:18):
I was told it would be months before I would
get a replacement part because there's a supply chain issue
because everyone's getting there things are stolen. But they happen
to have a spare one and it fit my car.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
And it's exactly like the one that was in your car.
Someone just happened to come by and sell it.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Oh, I wonder where that came from. So I got
my car back much sooner than Anticif things are looking up,
things are looking up. I love that for you. Thank you.
How are you, Margaret? I'm okay.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'm on this long road trip and I'm paranoid that
someone's going to steal the catalytic converter around my truck.
And I was like looking into like welding things on
the underside of my truck, and then I was like,
this is you know, I'm still more likely to there's
other bad things that could also happen that are worse.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Let's hope not. Oh that's true.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Only good things will happen because this is the only
Good Things podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
We also this show is produced by Sophie Lichterman, who
is also my friend. She has a cute dog. Sophie,
how are you?

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I thank you for complimenting Anderson. She appreciates that she
is a cute dog, and I am honored to be
your producer and friend. I am well, I am well, Anderson,
are you well? She just looked at me. She is well,
she got a new piece of furniture that she can
comfortably lounge on today, So that is that is always

(03:45):
good news.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Shout out, and not to brag or anything, but Sophie
is also my producer and also my friend. Yeah well
then oh it's a competition. Well I'm also Sophie's producer
and you're no, I got nothing.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, Oh my producer's Anderson.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Ian is our audio engineer and the theme music was
written by unwoman. And today's episode is not about Anderson.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's upsetting. She is cool people who did cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Though.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Absolutely one day, one day there's just going to be
the dog's episode.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I just read your next sentence and it's perfect.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Do it, do it.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Today's episode is about movies, Caitlin, have you ever heard
of movies?

Speaker 4 (04:37):
No?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
What are they?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well, if you take a bunch of still pictures and
you move them very quickly, okay, the rest is beyond me,
I think. Then you claim to be the inventor even
though it was actually so many worked for you who
invented it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
If you're Thomas Edison and then oh sure, yeah, I
mean that makes sense if it were me, you know,
putting still images together to create the illusion of a
moving image. I would maybe do it at like twenty
four frames a second.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
I don't know, no call, okay, but what about twenty
nine point ninety seven?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Sometimes that happens too, because you know, if you're like
using film versus digital, like, it is probably a little different.
But again I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Oh okay, So I actually am curious. I have a
feeling that you know quite a bit about movies, and
I'm wondering if you would explain to our audience your
authority on movies.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I would be happy to I lied before. I do
know some things. I do have two degrees, that's what
I was thinking. Yeah, okay, yeah, so one of them
is is just a lowly bachelor's degree and it's in
film production. And then I do have a master's degree
in screening. Screen What is it I'm writing? I'm really

(06:03):
tired today, screen writing from Boston University. But this is
something that I never mentioned, and that's why I like
stumbled over my words because I really first never said it.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
DAYLN Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well today we're going to talk about movies, and we
are going to talk about anti fascism.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
In movies even better, we're going to talk.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
About in the movies themselves having anti fascist themes, but
mostly we're going to talk about the ways in which
a ton of people in Germany and Hollywood in the
nineteen twenties and thirties and a little bit into the
forties stood up to fascism and risk their reputation and
often their lives to try to stop the fucking Nazis.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
So that was why I was excited to have you
as the guest for this particular episode.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
I hope to not disappoint oh Kaylin, Yeah, no, I
I but the only other downside, right, like, like I
try to pick a guest who knows background material about
the thing that I'm talking about, but not the specific story,
and this one, I was a little bit like, Okaitlyn
might know all the things that I'm going to say,
but whatever.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
We'll see.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, they do have a master's in screenwriting.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
So it's what I hear. Actually two degrees. How did
you know that? Again, I've never said it.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I mean it's just you, just you just you just
radiate that master's in screenwriting energy.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
And don't forget the unmarried degree that you have a
degree in not being married or something.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
That is something I actually that's it ohe And it
was a joke. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
I'm not taking into your personal life on air.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I well, you're right though, I am unmarried and I
do identify as a bachelor. And when people are like, oh, like,
what do you do you have a are you single?
Do you have a partner? Are you married? And I
say no, I'm a bachelor and I am living a
bachelor's life. I like to think.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
So there's anyone who can see on the zoom screen,
I see a lot of piled up takeout containers of
giant TV. That is the only piece of furniture in
the room.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I don't. I don't do laundry, and I know I
well I do. I can't. I don't cook, so I
do order a lot of takeout and you know, I'm
out there kissing people. And I feel like that's what
bachelors do.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I think they aspire to. They aspire to.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Well, I'm doing it, so maybe have a degree in
it above exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Okay, Well, if I want to talk about anti fascism
in film, there's only one logical place to start. Vampires
let's talk about vampires.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Great, wait, wait, wait, very important question Margaret that I'm
not I'm hoping you understand the pop culture reference.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I probably don't.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Team Jacob tam Edward.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
This is a.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Twilight reference, and I don't know which one is which,
Kayle Sophia, I probably.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Don't like you don't. They are both horrible options. Edward
is Edward Cullen, of course, the vampire played by Robert Pattinson.
He is creepy and abusive and a major gas lighter
among them.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
But his skin sparkles in the sun.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
This is true. But now we've got.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Best line is hold on, spider Monkey.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Spider Monkey.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Then we've got team Jacob. He's a warewolf.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Okay, I'm on team Jacob, so I usual I.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Was for a long time. And then you find out
what happens in I think it's the fourth and final
book and he falls in love with a baby.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, okay, there's some weird. There's some weird.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Best worst jacob lyone in the movie is uh, Bella,
where have you been? Loca? And I just want to
put out all these things so that you may properly pick. Also,
I really want to watch these movies with you, Margaret.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
That would be fun. We should do a show, Margaret
pop culture.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think that next time.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
This isn't from the nineteenth century. How would anyone know it?

Speaker 5 (10:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think we should do. We should do a compound
Twilight watch party.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
All right, I come, yeah, my gosh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I request both you and one Jamie Loftus at this
event to curate it properly. We will be there. Fantastic anyways, Vampires,
let's talk about it.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
So the first Hollywood vampire not Hollywood actually sorry, the
first movie series of still photos shown in rapid secession
to create the illusion of motion in life. Max Shrek,
who played the original screen vampire in No Sfaratu nineteen
twenty two. So the silent movie called nos Faratu Max Shrek.

(11:03):
First of all, his last name means Terror, which is cool,
Shrek means terror.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, I'm gonna look at the Shrek movie so differently now,
and do you trust me?

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I look at the Shrek movies. I absolutely believe you. So,
so Max Shrek the actor, not the character.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Max does not it.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Max Shrek is Max Terror, which is the punk ist
fucking name, right. Yeah, And it fits because he was
a punk, fucking guy, and this is a guy he
paid played Count Overlock in nineteen twenty twos Knows Faratu.
We'll talk about that film in a minute, but we're
gonna sort of he's gonna be a little character that's
going to show us through nineteen twenties and thirties Berlin,
the time when I secretly wish I lived, even though

(11:45):
it would have ended terribly. Also would have been terrible
the entire time.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
From I think, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
He was born in eighteen seventy six to some civil
servants in Germany. I think his dad was like a
type a topographer, oring like that, and his dad didn't
want him to act, but his mother slipped him money
and he went off to go to acting classes. And
this guy is like an actor's actor. He got his
start in traveling troops, going around from town to town.
He slowly moved up to like some playing some cities,
and the end he ends up winding up playing the

(12:15):
most respected theaters in Germany. But he's never the central
starring character, right. He works from the shadows. He took
on almost eight hundred roles over the course of his life,
and he would photograph himself in the costume of each one,
like each role, which is fucking cool. People only found
those photos recently or something.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh cool.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
He lived a quiet life with his wife, who was
an actress, and they had no kids, and his friends
describe him I'm totally not describing a vampire here. His
friends describe him as very remote. He lives in his
own world. He spends hours walking through the darkest forests
he can find. Nice And there's only one biography of him,

(12:57):
and it's from two thousand and nine, and it's just
kind of a list of all the places he played.
It's not really about his life because no one knows
anything about his fucking life, Okay, because he was just
this like reserved, quiet actor who would go out and
play every night for his entire life, and.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Then he'd go into a dark forest and stroll around.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yeah yeah, and apparently mountains too. I found one reference
to he liked hanging out in the mountains in an
obituary of him. But he was a quiet man and
also an anti fascist man, because the world's first screen
vampire was played by a committed anti fascist in the
Weimart and early Nazi era in the sort of anti
fascist theater and film scene. And this was huge, a

(13:38):
lot of stuff. I mean, actually, there's one time period
that doesn't get to depoliticized. It's like the rise of
Nazi Germany. But overall people still talk about like theater
and film as in sort of depoliticized terms. And so
that's what I'm going to try and undo here today.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
So they developed entire styles of performance, the anti fascist
theater and film scenes, and expressionist horror and theater are
two of those styles. Have you heard of of these styles?
I don't know what, you know. It's like I look
at these things and I'm like, I don't know what
gets talked about it.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Is it like German expressionism or is that yeah, okay,
yeah I'm familiar, not deeply, but.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, no totally. So they go on to influence fucking everything,
especially German expressionism in specific. And since I like making
grand statements that I can only partially defend, I'm going
to go ahead and claim that film noir and modern
Hollywood horror are descendants of a direct lineage of anti
fascist filmmaking.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Mmmm.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Max shrek by By one article I could find in
addition to his film and theater work. He was a
bouncer for Pertult Brex Theater Company. So fucking count Orlock
the Vampire. I mean, he probably didn't do it in
the count Orlock outfit, but I prefer to imagine.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
It'll rewrite history and say that he did.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, have you have you seen Sarato? I'm really not
trying to put you on the spot about film shit.
I guess I am accidentally.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Look, I I'll say every movie I've ever seen on
this episode. No, but I have seen No Fratu. It
was in my when I was getting my degree in
being unmarried. Yeah again, hilarious joke that I am very funny.
I truly loved it. And then I've also seen Shadow

(15:27):
of a Vampire. Yeah, pretty cool movie. Yeah, but yes
I've seen Nou.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
So it's creepy looking as fuck, right, anyone who hasn't
seen this, you've You might even recognize it if you
see stills from it. Not you, you've seen it. But
like anyone listening is instead of the like most vampires
we see in Hollywood and stuff, sparkle in the daylight
and gently abuse their romantic partners. Count Orlock, I haven't

(15:55):
reatt enough. Twilight to make that claim as a specific
thing about what happens in Twilight. I don't know, but
count Orlock is a creepy monster, right, count Overlock looks
inhuman and like runs around with like long fingers and
this super fucking creepy and cool. M So I just like, yeah,
that's this is who I like to imagine bouncing for
Bertolt Breckt, and in particular, basically what was happening is

(16:18):
Bertolt Brecht was a Marxist and was making very political
theater and Nazis would come and try and fuck it up,
and so it had to be bounced very actively. So
this wasn't a very like passive job just being like, oh,
I'm a bouncer. It was like, it's like if The Proud.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Boys was.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, and so I'm going to use that to talk
about Bret, right, He's my framing character, Max Shrek, Max
Maximum Terror. Bertolt Brecht was this theater director and a
Marxist who was really upfront about his political engagement and
so the Nazi brown shirts fucking hated him and they
were always trying to shut him down. And Brett was

(16:56):
into a movement called epic theater, the idea that and
this is actually I see a lot of influences once
I read what this is about. The idea is that
the viewer shouldn't just blindly identify with the characters of
the thing that they're watching, and instead they should It
was kind of cool because this whole point was to
do political theater, but it was in this kind of
counter propaganda way where he's like, I want the viewer

(17:20):
to have to think about what's happening instead of just
accepting the themes and the concepts that are being presented
to them, and so watching the piece should cause the
viewer to criticize how they feel about what's happening. And
some of the ways that he used to do that
was to avoid climactic catharsis, which leaves the viewer complacent
in his point of view. And it's interesting to me

(17:42):
because I have this thing where I watch modern movies
and I kind of hate the climax of the film
every single time. But that's usually because I kind of
like action movies, and I hate action movie climaxes because
it's just fifteen minutes of the same shit we've already seen,
devoid of.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Right, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
The other way that he would do this, and epic
theater is breaking the fourth wall because you're reminding the
viewer that they are consuming media.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
And I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
And one of the things I was realizing was was
researching all of this, I would have paid so much
more attention in art history class if people talked about
like why these various art movements existed instead of just
being like epic theater wanted people to remember that they
were consuming media, so they would break the fourth wall
instead being like epic theater came out of the rise
of Nazism, and it was people trying to help people

(18:33):
fight against the propaganda that they were being fed, and
so they wanted people to question media, and so they
figured out how to put it into the fucking media itself.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Hmm you really, Yeah, that would have been nice also, yeah,
learn about that.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah yeah, And I don't know, Like I'm curious because
I suspect that you went further into these degrees. For example,
then I have my two years of undergrad and art
that I never finished or cared about because I didn't
care about these art movements that they were talking about
because they were just so deep, not just depoliticized, but dehumanized.

(19:08):
They were just like and this is the way that
these people painted the following river, and that was the
Hudson River School, because they were at the Hudson River,
and here are the pretty pictures of the river, and
they're very pretty pictures of the river.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
I will say that a number of film classes that
I took, I learned more about American history in those
classes because the teachers often did, like contextualize, and this
is why this movement in cinema happened as a response
to like McCarthyism or so. I learned more about different

(19:43):
pieces of American history in those and obviously like more
modern American history, but like I learned more about that
in film classes than I did in history classes, because
up until that point I had just learned, like, I
don't know, I grew up in like a small town
where no it's just I don't know, not not agreat,

(20:06):
not great education I got. So they did, Yeah, so
they all this to say, they did contextualize, Uh, just
film me crements and stuff quite a bit. That's cool story. Yeah, okay, yeah, no, I.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
I I don't know. It makes me care about the
stuff when I have these hooks into it you know, totally,
and it made obviously these people care about it too, right,
like that was part of They cared about both things
is what was so interesting to me. They absolutely cared
about different different leftism or just anti fascism, and also
they cared about figuring out art and shit. I don't know, shit,

(20:46):
I'm clearly very good at totally graduated with money. We're scholars, Yeah, yeah, exactly,
definitely not pop entertainment producers. And so okay, So Brett
sadly his kid wound up, one of his kids wound
but Nazi who then died on the Eastern Front. So
sort of break even, you become a Nazi. Nazi games,

(21:07):
Nazi prizes, they go together. Sure, But Breckt himself fled
in nineteen thirty three after Hitler's rise to power. He
came to the US, whereupon he was treated like shit
for being a communist. He got caught up in the
Red Scare, and he did end up actually wind up
kind of snitching into the House of on American Activities.

(21:28):
He was like one of like the Hollywood ten, of
these ten filmmakers who were accused of being communists. And
in Breck's case, it was true right. He was a
communist ye, and all of his peers refused to talk,
and he kind of was like, but he named names.
I don't know exactly what he said. I didn't get
enough far into specifically this, but he did it go

(21:48):
at least and go talk to them, and his like
theory and the thing that he did was he was like, no,
I got to get the fuck out of this country.
And so he was I presume he was just a
so he goes and he like goes and does, goes
and talks to them and then gets the fuck out
of the country again. He also he's kind of interesting.

(22:09):
He wasn't super consistent in his anti tootalitarianism. One of
his main actresses, Carolina Naher, was caught up in Stalin's
Great Purge. Everyone who wasn't the right kind of communist
got like dragged off to gulags, and Bret.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Was like, uh, I don't don't know her.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
What's up, like just kind of ignored her suffering under Stalin,
and she died in a gulug and brecked himself wind
up living in East Germany after the war, where he
was critical of the Soviet government. Sort of he was
like oh, I totally love you. You're great, don't murder me.
And then he would be like, here's some poems about
why the government sucks.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
I don't know whatever.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Breckt cool theater guy, slightly disappointing in some personal levels
or political levels. Sure, back to Shrek are our thread.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
My favorite phrase, especially in reference to the green ogre.
But yeah, do you know, we're also happy to hear
about Max.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
I read something that said that they named Shrek after
Max Shrek, but I is there any do you have
any idea?

Speaker 2 (23:12):
I have no idea. The spelling is not the same.
Max Shrek has two extra SE's in his name. Yeah,
it's just at the end. Yeah, I don't I don't know.
But let's again, let's rewrite history and say that.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yes, okay, yeah, and they just americanized it by cutting
out extra letters. The americanization exactly. Shrek performed for Bract,
I believe, and then also hung out with other anti
fascists as well. He performed for Airwind Piscatour, who, besides
Brect was the main epic theater guy. So the break

(23:51):
the fourth wall question everything, think for yourselves. We're all individuals.
I'm not, and fuck I'm in a mony Python reference.
I think I have to quit. I'm done.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I didn't even I didn't even catch that.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, I didn't catch it. But I accept your resignation.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, it's only fair. Let me just Caitlyn. I'm gonna
send you over the script and you can.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Can't kit you can take over. Maybe I should.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Okay, I'll finish this one out and then i'll and then.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Why don't why don't we go to an ad break
and you can collect yourself out out of the ground.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Okay, come back for an accountability process about.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
All right?

Speaker 3 (24:31):
You know who won't hold you accountable capitalism. Capitalism wants
you to do everything that he wants you. Okay, here's
some ads. We are back, and we are talking about
nothing wrong that I did, but we instead we were
talking about Erwin Piscator m hm. And he, like a

(24:53):
lot of the directors and ship that we're going to
talk about, right, fought in the trenches in World War
One and he came back hating war, which is really
hard to imagine someone fighting in World War One having negative.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
And then eating war.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
I know he must have just ungrateful. I think he
came back ungrateful. Yeah, but he didn't hate war enough
to not go and throw down in the November Revolution
of nineteen eighteen when Germany got itself democracy. So he
came back being like, I'm anti war, I mean, except
this very necessary war to have democracy. So he's pretty cool.

(25:31):
And he was in the Communist Party. He staged films
by communists and anarchists. I really just included this line
so I can get Tolstoy in here, because Tolstoy has
to show up and everything I do for no good reason.
I don't even have strong feelings about this guy. But
he staged some plays by Tolstoy, and he literally directed
a play I want to see this play at some
point called Oil Boom in nineteen twenty eight that was

(25:53):
against the colonial and environmentally destructive production of oil, which
I had no idea people were talking about nineteen twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Then yeah, all right.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, and it worked. One hundred years later, we don't
have the colonial or environmentally destructive practice of oil extraction.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
And thank goodness for that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
For some odd reason, Erwin left Germany in the nineteen thirties,
and he went around and lived a ton of different places,
including New York City and he taught at the New School.
This is like part of how I'm tying all the
threads together of how these people influenced fucking everything he
taught at the New School, including with students including Marlon
Brando and Tennessee Williams. And then he left the US
because of anti communism. So it's basically all of these

(26:35):
like German directors are like, oh fuck the Nazis, and
they get to the US and they're like, oh fuck,
oh no, the Usians.

Speaker 5 (26:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
I mean, it all comes back to McCarthyism, as I
brilliantly mentioned earlier. So it's very well done.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
If you have any actually, because I only know the like,
I'll touch on some of this, but if you ever
want to, like talk more about McCarthyism and House of
an American and all that shit this relates to Hollywood,
please interrupt me and talk about this.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't know that much about it, so I would
I'm a fraud actually.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Oh okay, well, I feel really good that I set
you up to could admit that, thank you.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, And so he ends up back in West Germany.
So it's like, you know, because he's a little bit
I don't know it seems like he was like more
on the democracy side of things than the Stalin side
of things, and so Shrek he rolls with. This guy
plays at his theater. He probably bounced the more Nazis
there too. I don't actually know, but I in my
head canon he also is a bouncer at each of

(27:35):
these places and continues to dress like Orlock, or maybe
actually the Orlock was the non costume and that the
rest was the costumes when he was dressing up.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
To the normal Are you sure sure? Let's go with that?

Speaker 3 (27:46):
And then he played at my favorite place that he
played an anti fascist cabaret, because this man cannot miss.
He performed specifically at Erica Man's anti fascist cabaret called
the pepper Mill, which I won't try to pronounce in German. Okay,
Erica Man. I'd never heard of Erica Man, and I

(28:07):
after writing this script, I was like, I wish I'd
just done Erica Man, like she's so fucking cool. I mean,
like I like Max Shrek, and I like this vampire
through line just to continue to break the fourth wall
of how I write script so that you all can
think for yourself about the propaganda that I'm feeding you
so wow, Erica Man theater right now, right? Yeah, exactly.

(28:28):
So Erica Mann is the son of Thomas Mann, who's
this Nobel prize winning author who is pretty interesting. But
life is short, so I'm not gonna he's anti Nazi.
He's good in that way. I don't know about him
to claim he's a good person at all. Erica Man
gay as hell. If you look at a photo of her,
you'll be like, oh, that lady's gay as hell. And

(28:48):
the first play she acted in was basically a gay polycule.
It was this play in Weimar, Germany about four friends
who were all in love with each other, two men
and two women. And not only was the play about that,
but that was the actors as well. The both the
two women were dating, both the two men were dating,
and each woman was dating one of the men.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Okay, so a lot of threuttles.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, like complicated, like building multiple threatles out of a cubical. Sure,
this is why people don't have relationships with four people,
because then they'd be cubicles.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Mmmm wait would that be six? How many cube has six?

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Eight?

Speaker 5 (29:33):
Eight?

Speaker 3 (29:34):
A square? Yeah, but it had, but but it's four people.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
A cube has eight?

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
For intersections. Oh yes, I mean my master's I don't know. Again,
wouldn't ever talk about it. It is in screenwriting and
not geometry. I almost said geography. Yeah, fair enough. Again,

(30:02):
I'm a scholar. I'm a scholar. I'm really smart.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah yeah, okay, So eric, amn uh six there's okay,
but there's there's eight corners?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Are there not eight corners to a cube on two? Four?

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Wait, dude, where are six sides?

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, yeah, six.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
I know you're right, there are there are eight corners. Yeah,
six sides. So which one is more applicable to the metaphor? Ooh,
I we're gonna have to get like a physicist in
here or something.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
In my degree is in psychology. I'm a bow out.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Okay, okay, you can just tell people why this is
a bad idea to have that kind of or maybe
it's a very good idea. Triangle is the strongest shape
after all.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
So she has two honeymoons at the same hotel. She
goes first with the like man she's married or whatever,
and then she goes with the woman that she's married
illegally like on the side, and the woman that she
marries like checks into the hotel dressed asm Man, and
she dates a who's who of lesbian Weimar Germany cabaret people.
And she acted in a nineteen thirty one film about

(31:09):
lesbianism that's just a documentary about lesbianism. And she was
a committed and active anti fascist as well, and she
kept getting fired for her work trying to stop Nazis
from recruiting people. The rest of her family are known
anti fascists, and while they're Protestant, they have Jewish ancestry,
and so most of her family, the rest of her
family's already fucked off, and by nineteen thirty five, she's

(31:33):
the last girl standing from her family, her whole big
anti fascist family still in Germany. Her uncle Heinrichmand was
literally the first person that the Nazis stripped of German citizenship,
like the Nazis hated the man's and then oh except
actually this contradicts because then her and her brother started something.
Maybe her brother hadn't fucked off yet. I love reading

(31:55):
all of these like weird translated things that I try
to find like because everything contradicts with itself. Right, her
and her brother and her girlfriend and another friend start
an anti fascist cabaret the above mentioned pepper mill in
July nineteen thirty three. She writes most of the material,
they get the name from their dad, who's like, you know,
when people are talking about like nineties band names, they're like,

(32:17):
I don't even know, just like look at the nearest object,
and that's the name of your band, like sewing machine,
dishwasher or whatever. Right, that's how they got their fucking
band name, their cabaret.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Okay, their dad was what was it, pepper mill.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
The pepper Yeah, the pepper mill. Their dad was like
kind of I think, basically trolling them and was like, whatever,
just call it, I don't know any gestures at the
table and he's like, uh, the pepper mill.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
All right.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
So it worked.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, it gets called legendary a lot. I'd never heard
of the pepper mill, but apparently it's a very big deal. Okay, Yeah,
everything is refers to the legendary pepper mill. Maybe they
wrote that into that, they didn't write it into the name.
And our man Shrek big Green Ogre was there, the
Quiet Vampire, and he performed there a whole fucking bunch,

(33:08):
right because he just showed up to everything that was
anti fascist and acted and then went home to his
wife and then wandered around the dark forests.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
And also was so he would perform in some theaters
and then be the bouncer at others.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
So I'm having the hardest time. I only have one
article that references the fact that he bounced, and I
know the author of that is someone who has access
to a lot of languages that I don't. The author
of that speaks fucking shit ton of languages. So I
was unable to find more information about his bouncing. I
found a lot more information about his acting than his bouncing,

(33:46):
but I don't know. So in my mind, I'm like,
I only have one source, Therefore it is not true
because I've become that kind of paranoid pop historian. Actually,
that probably makes me a very bad pop historian. I
should probably just make thanks great. Oh, okay, thanks, I
appreciate that anytime.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Pepper Mill only only last two months, it managed to
become legendary in the two months it exists. The Nazis
shut it down. Did for them?

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, they get the fuck out and they get the
fuck out of Germany. And there's competing sources about exactly
what happens at this point, but it sounds like the
whole thing. Moved probably without Shrek to Zurich for a
while m hm, and she she's like, all right, I
get the fuck out of here. And so she finds
a gay dude in England and is like, hey, you
want to get married, like real romantic. You can do

(34:34):
whatever you want. I can do whatever I want. And
he's like, yeah, totally, I'll get married. And then he
was like, cool, do you have a gay friend I
can set my girlfriend up with and.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
He does mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
And so I love the gay poly world. That helped
get people out of fucking Nazi Germany. And they moved
to England. And at this point I'd love to even
just be like happily ever after, but she kept fucking
doing shit. Her and her brother reported on the Spanish
Civil War. She wrote a whole bunch of anti Nazi books.
When World War II broke out, she was like, yeah,

(35:04):
I got I got fucking help. We got a fucking
deal with these fucking Nazis. So she worked in radio
and worked for the BBC, speaking in German, basically like
doing counterpropaganda against the Nazis. She became a war correspondent.
She was like one of the first people on the
ground at like all these like liberated German cities. And
later she moved to the US, where she was treated
like shit and investigated by the FBI because she was

(35:26):
a lefty or whatever. And even worse than being a lefty,
she was gay. So she moved to Switzerland where she
lived the rest of her days. And I'm really glad
that our gay, anti fascist Jewish heritage lady survives the.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
End of the war.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
Yeah, and I know what you're thinking to yourself, what
does this have to do with vampires? Everything has to
do with vampires.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
I wasn't I've seen the connection, is cris Day? Great? Yeah,
well then in nineteen twenty just for anyone in any listeners,
Yeah yeah, okay, you know who haven't.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, I did the dots yet. I mean, what I
find interesting about it right is like it doesn't specifically
have to do a vampire myth inherently, but like this idea.
These people are famous for their entertainment, most of these
people Max Shrek certainly famous for nos Faratu and not
for anti fascism, But this idea that like entertainment and
myth and storytelling and horror and all of that they're

(36:21):
not actually divorced from life, you know, sure, and that's like,
that's the thing that gets to be really excited about
this shit. I'm making weird eyes at the camera because
I'm like over excited. Yeah, one hundred years ago, on
this very night, that parts a lie. In nineteen twenty two,
a German expressionist horror film called nos Faratu was released

(36:43):
and it was put together by a studio called Prana Films,
and it was their first film, and it was their
last film because it was really obviously a ripoff. It
was obviously bram Stoker's Dracula with the serial numbers rubbed off.
It was apparently advertise basically as hey, check it out.
We've got a film that's Dracula with the serial numbers

(37:05):
rubbed off. We changed the names, huh, And.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
That didn't work.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Bram Stoker was dead or undead at this point, but
his widow wasn't Florence Balcom and she's like, hey, you
know what, fuck this, fuck you, I'm suing. I owned Dracula,
my husband wrote it. Prana Films declares bankruptcy because they
couldn't afford to pay and most of the copies of
the film were destroyed, but as an article in the

(37:34):
New European put it, fortunately for posterity, if not copyright law,
the film reappeared in the late nineteen twenties, when a
handful of surviving prints emerged in far flung places, cut
clumsily and with intertitles in different languages, but enough to
save one of history's great cinematic achievements from oblivion.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
I assumed that they, I didn't know any of that,
and I assumed that, you know, they had just acquired
the rights to adapt in no Dracula narrative. I guess not.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, it's kind of a shitty move. I have like
mixed feelings about copyright in general, but like especially the
fact that they were Like I had always assumed that
they had rubbed the serial numbers off and then like
tried to downplay its connections to Dracula. But apparently the
way that the widow Florence, the way she finds out
about it is like an anonymous person sends her like

(38:27):
a promotional flyer that's like, come see technically not Dracula,
you know, all right, Yeah, So it's because of this
that people rescued count Overlock. I mean knows fratu that
we know Max Shrek today, and there were all of

(38:49):
these rumors that he never existed. There were these rumors
that he was a false persona of another more famous
actor who was also super cool and anti fascist.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
But is short, wait, that Max Shrek never agested.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yeah, okay, that there was no Max Shrek, and that's
almost certainly not true. He was just such a minor character.
He was like this like behind the scenes guy. He's
just this quiet guy who acts right. But then in
nineteen fifty three, a surrealist writer named a Donnis Krum
suggested that Shrek himself might have been a vampire who
is hired to play the vampire, which of course gets

(39:26):
turned into another sick movie, The Shadow of the Vampire,
which came out in the Ear of Our Lord two thousand,
which is worth seeing also and possibly a documentary.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
And actually probably a documentary, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, a biopic, I think so. Yeah. And I find
that surrealists don't lie.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
They are known for depicting things very realistically.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, yeah, as they are sir actually means more than
real in German.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, very very very realism.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, no lies realism. Yeah. Max Shrek ostensibly died of
heart failure when he was fifty seven in nineteen thirty six. Obviously,
of course he became an anti fascist vampire who single
handedly brought down the Nazis, but that's a story for
another time. The previous night, the last night of his

(40:23):
regular life, he performed on stage, and then he checked
himself into the hospital. And then he died the next morning,
and he was buried in an unmarked grave next to
his mother. And I don't know, like, like, there's like
not that much about this guy. But I feel like,
just like this, like you live your life. You're the quiet,
shadowy actor. You got one big starring role that like

(40:44):
rewrites filmic history, and then you like fight Nazis and
hang out in the woods. Like I feel like that's
a fucking good life.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's a great life. And yeah, you think there'd be
that he'd I mean, he left a legacy, but that
like more people would know about her, that there'd be
more written about, more biographies. Yeah, I don't know. I
didn't know anything of this about about Shrek. The only
the only thing I know about Shrek is that he's
a green ogre with a donkey friend. Yeah, and that's

(41:13):
not the same Shrek a heart made out of gold
onions exactly. Yeah, I really like the Shrek movies. But
I don't remember is a Twilight thing? Wait? What really
in the first movie? All right? Right, Sophia might write
about this. In the first movie when Bello Swan is
trying to she's like kind of getting to know Edward Cullen,

(41:35):
but he's being really.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
The first time. He especially creepy, like she thinks that
she smells.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Because he's he's hungry for human blood.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
He just wants to eat her and he can't read
her mind. It's a whole thing. Their their lab partner,
Lab partners.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Okay, and the prize.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Because he's under he's a teenager, but he's actually a
hundred twenty something or whatever years old, and that's sketchy.
She says to him, how old are you? He goes,
I'm seventeen, and she goes, hollo ben so and then
he's like, oh god, God, we really need to do

(42:16):
this movie night.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
But they meet because they're lab partners in biology class
or whatever and teachers.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I dissect it pretty close.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
The teacher's like, hey, learn about photosynthesis or whatever, and
so they're like looking at little at stuff the microscope,
and then the prize for whoever does photosynthesis. The best,
I don't know is a golden onion.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
So it's all arow.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
It all goes back to our man, Max Shrek Maximum Terror,
Maximilian Terror properly. Okay, Well, uh, I know what you're thinking, Caitlin.
You're thinking you're talking about the knockoff track. Sorry, I
have to go back to my script. Tell my dumb
joke even it no longer flows correctly. You're thinking, that's
the knockoff Dracula. What about the real Dracula Bela Lagosi,

(43:08):
who started as Count Dracula on Broadway in nineteen twenty
seven and in the Universal Pictures nineteen thirty one Hollywood Dracula.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I was thinking, yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I mean, that was exactly what I was thinking. But
you know, you know what else I was thinking about,
Margaret was that we need Caitlin to give us a
good sponsor.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Oh, that's true. We're out of sponsors. We need a
good idea for like a Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Previous sponsors that we have chosen for this show are potatoes,
the concept of potatoes. Yeah, clean, clean, tap water and
always cool pillow A front of the pod bridget Todd said,
a really good comb.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Okay, yeah, how about oh gosh, I know so much pressure,
I'm cracking. How about a tasty piece of I was
gonna say toast, but that I don't know. That's just

(44:17):
the first thing I thought of. I was too busy.
I was too busy trying to make a joke about
bella logo si Bella Swan. And then that's where my
mind was.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
I feel I feel like Kit then wants the podcast
to be sponsored by the toilet here.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
All right, we can be.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
I don't condone that, but what about what about like
a really good movie, just the concept of a really
good concept of r r R, the concept of r
R There we are there, you go there, we.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Are are are rr. Okay, I'll stop.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Okay, here's the meds. We are back, and we're talking
about the fact that while Caitlin was thinking bellis Swan,
I was thinking Bella Legosi is Dead by the by
Bauhaus and didn't know about bellas Swan's Belliswan from Twilight. Yes, yes, okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
I really need to do that movie night.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
I know pop culture. I just know pop culture that
is not pop culture, but goth culture. From the nineteen eighties.
It's true. I know songs that work came up that
were from before I was capable of coherent thought.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Wonderful. Yeah, and now you know who Bella Swan is.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's right, it was Belliswan, one of the vampires.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Was that spoiler? Well, it's yeah, it's just she's the
cool question. It's a it's a yes, exactly, it's a
difficult it's the lead. Difficult answer.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Okay, the lead. Okay, she is Twilight in Twilight. Well,
her precursor to the the filmic interpretation of vampires, bel Legosi,
was Hungarian, much like Belliswan. Born in eighteen eighty two.

(46:10):
Like Belliswan, ran away from a conservative household when he
was twelve to become an actor like Belliswan. But this
is actually where the similarities end. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I know.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I had twelve, I know, and things were wild in
the turn of the century.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
This guy was fucking tough, like this guy rules. He
runs away from home. He wants to be an actor,
but it's not like, oh great, you're an actor school
now and you get to be an actor. He works
at various blue collar work as a laborer while he
sorts all that out. Eventually ends up a silent movie

(46:49):
film actor in the nineteen tens in Hungary until World
War One, when he volunteers as a ski fighter and
he works his way up in the ranks as a
ski fighter. He's not fighting, he's on skis.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
What that is a thing? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, no, totally soldiers on skis. Yeah, because there's snow,
you're in the mountains, sure, yeah, okay. He gets wounded
in action several times, and at one point he was
trapped falling on this probably yeah. And then a very
common accident happened to him that has happened to everyone
when they're at the ski slopes, which was that he
was trapped under a mound of corpses. Ah uh, And

(47:29):
for some odd, unknowable reason he got what was called
shell shock back then but we now call PTSD, possibly
related to being buried under a pile of corpses.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Could be.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
World War One doesn't last forever. Nineteen nineteen comes around
and him and a bunch of his buddies, an awful
lot of his buddies like the whole working class of
Hungary kind of, They decide to overthrow capitalism, so he
goes and he overthrows capitalism.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
They win for a moment.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
One hundred and thirty three days you have the Hungarian
Soviet and this is nineteen nineteen, so it's like kind
of before before the promise of the Soviet Union did
not live up to its promise.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I will put it that way.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
That's my most diplomatic attempt to phrase that. Sure, And
so for one hundred and thirty three days they had
the Hungarian Soviet and bel Legosi fought in That was
because he was a proud union man. He was a
member of a locksmith union and a laborer union, and
later he helped form an actors union. And he specifically
who was like against all of the weird hierarchy and

(48:31):
shit within the acting move scene in Hungary. And he
has his quote, the former ruling class kept the community
of actors in ignorance by means of various lies, corrupted
it morally and materially, and finally scorned and despised it
for what resulted from its own vices. The actor, subsisting
on starvation wages and demoralized, was often driven driven, albeit reluctantly,

(48:53):
to place himself at the disposal of the ruling class.
Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting. So if
you want to be an actor, you gotta like get
treated like shit. And I think that this is not
something that happens now. I don't think that people go
and get treated like shit by the industry just because
they love acting.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Right, that's changed. Actors are famously treated so well, especially
the ones who are still obstensively working class. Yeah no,
they're they're they're gods among humans. Yeah, that's they're treating

(49:30):
that way. Yeah, No, that's amazing. Yeah, the industry doesn't
chew you up and spit you out.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
No, why would it do that. That doesn't seem like
it would work against his own interests.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, dry humor with Margaret and Katon. So that the
Soviet falls and a wave of reactionary terror murders a
ton of people, and so you got the fuck out.
And he goes to Germany, and that's not far enough away.
He needs to get further the fuck So he starts
working on like a steamboat, and he like steamboats over

(50:03):
to the US and he like sneaks into the country
illegally because the Hungarian government still after him so illegally
immigrates to the US, which is cool. I just want
to point that out for anyone who's listening who might
think that I have negative feelings about this, I'm listing
this as one of the things he did that is.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Cool, that's badass. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Later he goes back and does it the proper way,
and he actually gets used in a lot of like
propaganda for like don't illegally immigrate. If you do, go
turn yourself in and you'll get treated well and you'll
become a star like Bella Legosi. But he gets to
the US and he helps found the Screen Actors Guild
because unions fucking rule, and in the nineteenth no kidding, yeah,

(50:38):
and in the nineteen thirties help start another project, the
Hungarian American Council for Democracy, which wanted quote Nazism to
be wiped out everywhere. It's a very understandable position. In
the nineteen forties, he leveraged all of his fame to
help fight for the US to accept Hungarian Jewish refugees.
And the final cool thing he did from my point

(50:58):
of view, is that when he was buried, he got
married in his like Dracula cape nice.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
I actually think is there a reference to that in
the movie Ed Wood, I think I there might be,
and that might be. How I know about that.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
I believe you, and I think I even saw that movie.
But I saw that movie before I understood anything about anything.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Got it. It's one of my favorite biopics. Although I
can I you know, a lot of the people involved
in that project, such as Johnny Depp and Tim Burton,
you know, suck ass as people. Yeah, but Bela Lugosi
played by oh my gosh, who plays him?

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Martin Landau is a great character in the movie, and
so shout out to that performance. Hell yeah, now I
want to rewatch that.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Although as pointed out, sometimes I struggle to enjoy things
when I know just exactly how terrible some of the
people involved there.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, you are correct on the casting for that movie.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Mark Oh, do I know movies or do I know
Moviesly do.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
So we've established that all the old draculas are on
our side, sorry, old vampires. Some types of people refer
to them as draculas because it's funny. But do you
know who else is on our side? Kaitlin, tell me
it's not the goods and services that support this show.
Instead it's one of the most influential styles of cinema.
German expressionism. We talked about her a little bit earlier.

(52:30):
German expressionism is on our side. German expressionism in the
late nineteen tens, Germany was like fucked as hell. They
just lost World War One. There's like runaway inflation, totally
unfamiliar to today's listeners, and people were like, well, I guess
as saving money doesn't do any good because it's worth
less every single day, So I'm going to go to

(52:50):
the movies, which is kind of a funny response to that,
but like, fuck it, I don't know. Hedonism looked different
than I guess, you know, And so they everyone went
out to the movies and they made really fucking weird movies,
and there were intentionally low budget movies, although I think,
I mean, you know, they also didn't have any money, right,

(53:11):
and so they would use intentionally fake looking sets, and
they would make movies that talk about like losing your
mind and is basically a response to the realism and
film that everyone else was doing about these like grand
traditionally structured adventure films or whatever. As one film critic
put it, it was the visual manifestation of the romantic
ideals with not like romances and people dating, but like

(53:32):
romantic as like the romantic poets and shit. R This
is at odds with the Nazi worldview. And this stuff,
esthetically is what creates both film noir and the first
Hollywood horror movies ten years later, and it also found
its way into crime film and a bunch of other things.
This idea, it happened both because all the filmmakers had
to flee the Nazis. The reason that it influenced everything

(53:55):
is that all the filmmakers had to fucking flee the
Nazis and move to Hollywood. Of them actually while they
were there, like donated all their money to the war
effort and shit. But film was also influenced by them
because Hitchcock went to Berlin in nineteen twenty four and
made a film and he was like, oh, this rules.
I'm really into what people are doing here, which is
to say that anti fascists invented the horror genre. Which

(54:17):
again I'd like making these grand, sweeping narrative statements because
I'm a fiction.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Writer, but I'm not un for it.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
I don't disbelieve what I'm saying to be clear, of course,
and the expressionists, they were really fucking clear in their
anti fascist sentiment. In the nineteen twenties and thirties, Germany
wasn't a subtle time for subtle political laity allegiances. The
filmmakers who made the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari said they
used they used like shocking contrasting lights, you know, and

(54:43):
all of this like really intense visual stuff. And it
was a reference to their experiences as infantry in World
War One with nighttime artillery bombing. And they all came
home from that committed anti militarists and pacifists and anti fascists,
and they were like, it wasn't just we hate the
Nazis because they're taking over our country. They all hated
Mussolini and shit. So I'm gonna tell you about one

(55:04):
of those actors, Conrad Vite. Have you heard of Conrad Vite?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
I haven't, okay.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
He was an openly bisexual actor married to a Jewish woman,
and when the Nazis made everyone in the film industry
fill out a form to say what race they were,
he just wrote in I'm a Jew, which he knew
what the fuck he was doing when he did that
and he was like, it was like, I'm in solidarity.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
With my wife. If she's a Jew, then I'm a Jew.
Fuck you.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
And they both survived that particular move, which is good.
They got out to England, whereupon Vite donated his entire
life savings to the English War Effort because he was like,
oh my god, please go kill all the Nazis. And
then he moved to the US, and he moved to
the US specifically because he was like, I'm going to
use my star power, etc. To go to Hollywood and
try to influence the US to join the war because

(55:51):
if the US doesn't join the war, world fucked. And
he wounded up playing a villain in Casablanca. It's the
role he's most famous for, and he played Nazis.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
He knew.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
He was like, I'm going to go to the US
and I'm this like German speaking person in late nineteen
thirties or whatever. I'm going to be playing Nazis when
I get there. But he wrote into his contract that
he would only play Nazis if they were the villains good.
And then he kept sending all of his money back
to like he would do things like buy thousands of
packets of chocolate for British kids who were stuck in

(56:21):
bomb shelters on Christmas and shit. And he used his
fortune to smuggle his Jewish in laws out out of Austria.
And he uses influence. He had a bunch of ex
wives because I don't know, people used to marry when
they should have just dated.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Just I mean, living a bachelor lifestyle, but not because
they were getting married. Yeah. Look, everyone's a slot and
I love that for them.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he stayed friends with his exes,
which I feel like is like a good judge of
a man when he's dating women is if he stays
friends with his exes even more than staid friends with
his exes. He smuggled his fucking exes out of and
his like kid with one of them out of Germany.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
M I I was gonna say, I was gonna say
it's a green flag unless his only friends are his exes.
Then it becomes a red flag.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
You're welcome, fair enough, fair enough. It makes you.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Think, as someone who unfortunately dates men, it happens to
the best of us.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Yeah, including uh Conrad Wighte who also dated men.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Orally slept with them.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
I don't think you're married and Conrad.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
The most famous of these expressionists today is probably Fritz Lang,
called the Master of Darkness by some like Film Institute
or something. I think they even wrote it down in
that way where they said, like, please say it like that.
He directed Metropolis. That's what I know him for. He
did a bunch of other shit, but when I was
like a little edge lord fucking school kid, I really

(58:00):
liked Metropolis. And what inspired him was the human instinct
to revolt against totalitarianism, whether that totalitarianism was Fascist or Bolshevik.
His first day of work as a director, January fifth,
nineteen nineteen, he takes a taxi to work and something
else happens that day. There was a big fucking uprising

(58:22):
in Germany, because Germany in nineteen nineteen was a really
interesting time. Basically, the Communists tried to overthrow the Social
Democratic Party and the Spartacist uprising and it didn't work.
And Fritz Lang didn't take a side in it, but
he watched it and he was like, he says, his
quote is it was that day, the first day I
was to direct that I understood the pawn revolts. I

(58:44):
did not become a director that day, but I did
become an artist because of that experience. And Fritz Lang
fucking interesting. He was a Catholic atheist with Jewish heritage,
and like the rest of his generation, he fought in
World War One. He lost his right eye. He was
wounded four times during World War One, and he's committed
anti fascist. He also hates the Bolsheviks, he says everyone

(59:07):
when he's talking about why he made Metropolis, he was like,
I'm afraid of sutalitarianism. His quote is everyone was talking
about the future, and I was afraid of their vision.
So I made mine that reflected that fear. And as
he said of the Bolsheviks in particular, they're just another uniform.
I hate all uniforms. And this is the first dystopia,
right as Metropolis. Again, it's funny because when I'm like, oh,

(59:29):
the first, this the first that I'm kind of like,
I don't know that we know of, right, you know, sure,
like there might have been these film scenes and like
countries that didn't have end up in America, you know,
I don't know. Yeah, his wife, he had worse choice
in wife, Thea von Harbow, who wrote Metropolis. She she

(59:55):
probably saw it as propaganda of a different sort. She
became a Nazi. Uh so Metropolis was made by a
couple that was an anti fascist and a fascist.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Huh uh, Fritz Langdov. That's why you always talk about
politics before you marry somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
Right, Like, so what do you think, do you think
like master race?

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Like yes, no, you know, important conversation to have. Yeah,
well yeah, So first, Lange divorced her, which makes a
lot of sense. It is possibly over politics if you
read things from his point of view, it's like divorced
over politics because she was a fucking Nazi. And if
you read things that are like intended as neutral or
more from her point of view, are like they were
both boning other people and he was a hypocrite because

(01:00:40):
he couldn't stand it because she put up with him
boning other people, but he couldn't put up with it
when she was bonying other people. And I don't know,
I think it was the Nazi thing based on everything
else I was reading, I'd imagine. So they were married,
I'm seeing for eleven.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Years, yeah, yeah, throughout the whole twenties, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah, twenty two to thirty three.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yeah, And so she becomes a Nazi, and it's kind
of weird and nonsensical that she becomes a Nazi based
on her other politics. She was a pro abortion activist,
although of course the Nazis legalized some abortion because they
believed in eugenics, because they were fucking Nazis. But and
she had to secretly marry her next husband because he
wasn't white. He was a dark skinned Indian man. And

(01:01:23):
she later claimed that she joined the Nazis to help
Indian immigrants who are living in Germany.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
But she made a.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Fuck ton of Nazi propaganda films, and she was she
was a fucking Nazi. Fritz Lang the Nazis uh cancel
one of his films as being dangerous, right, But then
the propaganda guy, Joseph Goebbels calls Lang to his office
and Fritz is like, oh fuck, I'm fucked, Like fucking
Goebbels has just canceled my film. And now I'm like

(01:01:49):
walking into this office and there's like men with guns
everywhere and shit, right, and like so Fris Lang walks
in and Goebbels is like, hey, uh, we had to
cancel your film. I'm sorry about that. You know, it's
a verse bad or whatever. But you're really good at filmmaking.
What if you become the in charge of the Nazi
film studio. You could be like the person who creates
nationalist socialist film, Like, don't you want that job? Isn't

(01:02:09):
that amazing? And Chris Lang and Goebbels is like, and
it's totally okay the fact that we know you're Jewish,
because even though his mom was a practicing Catholic, she'd
been like born Jewish or whatever. And so he's surrounded
by armed Nazis and he does what probably anyone would
do in exactly this position, which is he's like, oh, totally,
I would absolutely love that job. And then he gets

(01:02:32):
the fuck out of Germany. He just like goes home,
being like, yeah, see you later. I'm totally your guy,
gonna be in charge of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
I'll be there on Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Yeah. He goes home, He packs up all of his stuff,
including a bunch of all of like the Prince of
films that he can. He gets the fuck out of Germany.
He claims that he never went back, but he actually
went back a couple times, I think to go get
more shit. A couple times over the next couple of
months before he is gone for good, and he grabbed
a copy of Metropolis. It's probably for the best he did,
although who knows, maybe the Nazis would have fucking loved Metropolis.

(01:03:03):
I'm not sure someone knows. The answer is someone knows
whether or not the Nazis love Metropolis?

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Is that the one I will want to say i've
seen it? Is it three hours long? Is that the
one that's like really long? And this is coming from
someone who loves R R R, which is also three
hours long. But I was like, I can't be watching Metropolis.
It's too long. Oh no, I'm not even correct about that.
It's only an hour fifty four. Yeah, so never mind.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
It's it's been I used to be obsessed with this film,
but I barely remember it. But I barely remember anything.
It's it's a dystopian thing about like there's like workers
and they're all basically machines and they get like marched
off and put into the underground and there's like a big.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Okay, I have seen it brag. Yeah. Once again, I
just just thought it just seemed maybe just seemed like
three hours.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Yeah, that that is fair. There's also been a million
different cuts of it. They like keep re releasing it
with different cuts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Okay, maybe I saw the three Maybe I saw the
r r R cut of my trumpet.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Probably just where they just enter stitch r r R
into it in order to make people actually pay attention exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
It's funny because I loved all these German expressions horror films,
and then like my attention span stopped being capable of
watching them for a very long time, and like, I
feel like I could be in like the right mood
to go and watch these things, but it's not what
I'm like. It's not currently what I use film for.
I use film to mostly to turn off my fucking
brain at the end of work, you know. Yeah, And

(01:04:34):
I don't think that's wrong as much as I'm like, yeah,
it's cool that all these people rejected all that, and
I'm like, it's also cool when you just fucking embrace
it and do entertainment.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
You just got to put on Shrek too, yeah, yeah,
and escape into you know, far far away.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
Shadow of the ogre that's done saying yeah. Fris Lang
in a nineteen seventy two interview, So he talked about
how he like always puts all his violence off screen,
because these there's no point putting it on screen. The
viewer's imagination can do that. He made an exception, was
very proud of this exception and his film Cloak and Dagger.

(01:05:09):
There's a fight. To quote Fritz Lang, I am let
me call myself a liberal, which is not very correct,
but let me call myself that. And I hate fascists.
And this was the fight of a decent man against
a fascist. So seemingly my hatred got the better of me.
So like, the only violence he puts in his like long,
I mean, I don't know, there might be other moments,
but like, the only fucking violence he uses is someone

(01:05:31):
stabbing a Nazi. Nice he gets to the US, he
makes a film by how fucked up lynching in America is,
because he's not trying to just be like only the
Nazis are bad. He teams up with Bract he makes
an anti fascist film called Hangman Also Die, which is
a fucking cool name for a film. He stayed consistent,
and so he's credited with the first dystopia, the blueprint
for the serial killer movie, the entertainment warflick, and film noir.

(01:05:55):
All fucking Fritz Lang anti fascists get shited done.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
That's my theory.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
And it wasn't just the Germans getting shit done against
fascism and film. When we come back on Wednesday, we'll
talk about the Hollywood Anti Nazi League, and we'll talk
about why the Warner Brothers were cooler than you realize,
and we'll talk about Walt Disney, but not as a
cool guy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
No. I was like Walt Disney way was anti Semite.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
I was like, wait, shows, is Robert Evans gonna pop up?
What's happening, Caitlin? Do you have anything that you would
like to plug?

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Sure? You can follow me on social media on Twitter
and Instagram at Kaitlyn Dronte because the more followers I have,
the more validated I feel as a human being in
that yes, a sad fact. You can follow and listen
to my podcast, The Bechdel Cast, which is all about

(01:06:55):
movies and examining movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Margaret
has been a guest on the episode on We Are
the Best, very fun movie about tween punk kids making
a band in nineteen eighties Sweden, Right, I think so?

(01:07:16):
And then also you can check out the movie r
R R. It's streaming in a few different places, and
depending on the city you live in, it might still
be in theaters. I saw it last night in Los Angeles, California.
Ever heard of it? I hope this age as well.
I mean like a school c R r R. Although

(01:07:37):
it has been it's been criticized for being like, you know,
Indian nationalist propaganda at a time where the politics in
India are a little scary. So I understand. I know
about the criticism of the movie, and yet it's the
coolest movie ever made. So check out. And that's I'm

(01:07:59):
gonna stop talking.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Okay, And Margaret, you have a book that's out that
people can order, correct do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
I'm even on book tour right now. If you look
at my Instagram at Margaret Killjoy, there'll be some of
the tour dates posted, and then I'll get around to
posting the rest of the tour dates when I get
my shit together. But I have very little free brain
space because I'm on tour right now for a book
called We Won't Be Here Tomorrow, which is a collection
of short fiction available from Akpress anywhere you buy books.
If you like people killing CEOs with drones, or you

(01:08:30):
like mermaids who eat men, Or you like people dressing
up as Orcs and then fighting Nazis in the woods
with swords, or if you like arsonists who fall in
love with ghosts, then you might like this book. You
might hate it, yes, but you might like Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
So check out check out at Margaret Kiljoy on Instagram.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
From more Infro on that yeah, and we will see
you all on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Bye bye. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Zone Media, visit our website foolzonmedia dot com or check
us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.