Early German Sound Sourcing with Songs in the Trilogy of the Mackeben-Jugo-Engel Ensemble

Authors

  • Gregg Wager Program Note Writer for LA Philharmonic

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.27096

Keywords:

Mackeben, Jugo, Engel

Abstract

Once German filmmakers had accepted the advent of talking motion pictures as an inevitable and important technological and aesthetic development in cinema, they anticipated a drastic shift in their foreign markets based on a language barrier that was more difficult to overcome than with silent films. While Germans still closely studied practices in the new synchronized sound in America’s Hollywood, their own experiments with how to use music in the enhanced medium still raised similar issues, but stylistically took cinema in slightly different directions based on the origins and development of the music itself. Composer Theo Mackeben, actress Jenny Jugo, and director Erich Engel collaborated on three comedies together during this era that emphasized original songs, culminating in a storytelling style that utilized both the fantasy of a recurring melody throughout the story featuring various kinds of source music, and the realism of having a character introduce the song without suspending the story as musicals often do. When the Nazi influence took hold, phasing out jazz music and attempting to deliberately introduce German folk elements into the movies, the intrusive new propaganda rules became obstacles to steer creative energies and innovation around.

Author Biography

  • Gregg Wager, Program Note Writer for LA Philharmonic

    Gregg Wager is a freelance music critic, who regularly contributes program notes to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the Freie Universität Berlin, writing a dissertation on symbols in Stockhausen’s music. He has been an adjunct professor at State University of New York, Purchase, and a visiting professor at Korean National University of Arts. He also recently earned a J.D. from McGeorge School of Law.

References

Abusch, Alexander. 1971. Suchender und wissender Künstler, überzeugter Kämpfer. In Schriften über Theater und Marxismus, ed. Erich Engel, 117-121. (East) Berlin: Kindler.

Albuquerque, Carlos. 2007. German expert on Nazi films and propaganda (interview with Gert Albrecht). Deutsche Welle website (August 12). http://www.dw.de/german-expert-on-nazi-films-and-propaganda/a-2728383

Altendorf, Guido. 2007. Eine Liebeserklärung an Jenny Jugo. Filmmuseum Potsdam website. https://web.archive.org/web/20071019072038/http://www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/images/6850_8321_JUGOLiebeserklrungAltendorf.pdf

Büsing, Elsa. n.d. Erich Engel—Der erste Nachkriegsintendant der Kammerspiele. 100 Jahre Münchener Kammerspiele website. http://100mk.de/erich_engel.html

Clarke, Malcolm and Stuart Sender. 2002. Prisoner in paradise. Documentary film about the career and death of Kurt Gerron.

Clauss, Stephan. 2008. Pfeift der Wind durch Portemonnaie. Badische Zeitung (November 8). http://www.badische-zeitung.de/panorama/pfeift-der-wind-im-portemonnaie--7526893.html

Ebert, Roger. 1994. The wonderful, horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl (review of film by Ray Muller). Roger Ebert website (June 24). http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-wonderful-horrible-life-of-leni-riefenstahl-1994

Engel, Erich. 1971. Schriften über Theater und Marxismus. (East) Berlin: Kindler.

Hardt, Ursula. 1996. From Caligari to California: Erich Pommer’s life in the international film wars. Oxford, UK: Berghahn.

Hirsch, Foster. 2002. Kurt Weill on stage: From Berlin to Broadway. New York: Knopf.

Irving, David. 1996. Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich. London: Focal Point.

Kater, Michael H. 1992. Different drummers: Jazz in the culture of Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kohler, Pauline. 1940. Hitler’s sex life. Liberty Magazine (June 15). http://www.libertymagazine.com/the-library/

Konezni, Raoul. 2003. Theo Mackeben (05.01.1897–10.01.1953) ein Komponistenportrait (liner notes in Theo Mackeben. …und über uns der Himmel). Berlin: Duo-Phon Records 05 34 3.

Lamb, Andrew. 2001. Mackeben, Theo. The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., 15. London and New York: Macmillan.

Levant, Oscar. 1940. A smattering of ignorance. New York: Doubleday.

Lynch, Michael. 2013. Hitler. New York et al.: Routledge Historical Biographies.

Mitchell, Arthur. 2007. Hitler’s mountain: The Führer, Obersalzberg, and the American occupation of Berchtesgarten. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Mann, Klaus. 1936. Mephisto. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag.

McDowell, W. Stewart. 2000. Actors on Brecht: The Munich years. In Brecht Sourcebook, ed. Carol Martin and Henry Bial, 67-79. London: Routledge:.

Moeller, Martina. 2013. Rubble, ruins, and romanticism: Visual style, narration and identity in German post-war cinema. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

New York Times. 1992. Felix Jackson is dead; film producer was 90 (December 16). http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/16/obituaries/felix-jackson-is-dead-film-producer-was-90.html

Oberländer, Heinrich. 1893. Übungen zur Erlernung einer dialektfreien Aussprache. Munich: Fr. Bassermann.

Rosar, William H. 1983. Music for the monsters: Universal Pictures’ horror film scores of the thirties. Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 40, 390-421.

——— 2009. Film studies in musicology: Disciplinarity vs. interdisciplinarity. Journal of Film Music 2, Nos. 2–4 (Winter), 99-125. http://www.academia.edu/769161/Film_Studies_in_Musicology_Disciplinarity_vs._Interdisciplinarity

Schetter, Arthur Schetter, ed. 1934. Besuch beim Jugo-Benfer Künstlerehepaar. Filmwelt 3 (January 21), 10-11.

Spring, Katherine. 2013. Saying it with songs: Popular music and the coming of sound to Hollywood cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199842216.001.0001

Unt, Mati. 1997. Brecht ilmub öösel. Tallinn, Estonia: Kupar. Eric Dickens, trans. 2009. Brecht at Night. Washington, DC et al,: NEA et al.

Wagener, Hans. 2013. Gabriele Tergit: Gestohlene Jahre. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737001144

Published

2017-05-03

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Wager, G. (2017). Early German Sound Sourcing with Songs in the Trilogy of the Mackeben-Jugo-Engel Ensemble. Journal of Film Music, 7(1), 21-51. https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.27096

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>