Colloquia Germanica
cg
0010-1338
Francke Verlag Tübingen
121
2023
564
Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films
121
2023
Kamaal Haque
This essay analyzes three later films of Arnold Fanck: S.O.S Eisberg (1933), Die Tochter des Samurai (1937) and Ein Robinson (1940). Best known for the classical mountain films (Bergfilme) which he, along with Leni Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker, pioneered in the 1920s, Fanck continued to direct feature-length films through Ein Robinson. These films have been the subject of far less critical interest than Fanck’s mountain films. While S.O.S Eisberg, Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson are not classical mountain films, they all contain scenes that would fit in Fanck’s more canonical works. The three films also share a thematic element, namely that of an individual who initially chafes at the restrictions of a group, be it an expedition or a nation. Furthermore, the films show a process of politicization in Fanck’s oeuvre. As the popularity of Fanck’s mountain films declined in the early 1930s, he turned to more political themes in the hope of remaining relevant within the National Socialist film landscape. While S.O.S. Eisberg displays much of the Bergfilm genre transported to the Arctic, Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson range geographically farther afield and more explicitly take up themes of the individual versus the collective that resonate within National Socialist Germany.
cg5640325
Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films Kamaal Haque Dickinson College Abstract: This essay analyzes three later films of Arnold Fanck: S.O.S Eisberg (1933), Die Tochter des Samurai (1937) and Ein Robinson (1940)� Best known for the classical mountain films ( Bergfilme ) which he, along with Leni Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker, pioneered in the 1920s, Fanck continued to direct feature-length films through Ein Robinson . These films have been the subject of far less critical interest than Fanck’s mountain films. While S.O.S Eisberg , Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson are not classical mountain films, they all contain scenes that would fit in Fanck’s more canonical works. The three films also share a thematic element, namely that of an individual who initially chafes at the restrictions of a group, be it an expedition or a nation. Furthermore, the films show a process of politicization in Fanck’s oeuvre. As the popularity of Fanck’s mountain films declined in the early 1930s, he turned to more political themes in the hope of remaining relevant within the National Socialist film landscape. While S.O.S. Eisberg displays much of the Bergfilm genre transported to the Arctic, Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson range geographically farther afield and more explicitly take up themes of the individual versus the collective that resonate within National Socialist Germany. Keywords: Arnold Fanck, S.O.S Eisberg , Die Tochter des Samurai , Ein Robinson , National Socialist Film, Politics in Film Arnold Fanck is best known as the originator of the genre of the classical German mountain film ( Bergfilm )� 1 Among Fanck’s best-known works are Der heilige Berg (1926), Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929) and Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (1930). Often working with the actors Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl, both of whom became directors of mountain film themselves, Fanck pioneered a cinema of atmospheric images, on-location action sequences and, quite frankly, melodramatic plots� Fanck’s popularity and acclaim as director were at their height around 1930. Lesser known are the films he made afterwards. This essay 326 Kamaal Haque analyzes three later films directed by Arnold Fanck: S.O.S Eisberg (1933), Die Tochter des Samurai (1937) and Ein Robinson (1940). Although these three films have been the subject of far less critical interest than Fanck’s mountain movies, they provide insights into the genre� In addition to containing scenes that would fit in Fanck’s more canonical works, the three films are also linked by a common theme of an individual who initially chafes at the restrictions of a group, be it an expedition or a nation. Ultimately, that man, for it is always a man, submits to the larger collective. Furthermore, the films show a process of politicization in Fanck’s oeuvre. As the popularity of Fanck’s mountain films declined in the early 1930s, he turned to more political themes in the hope of remaining relevant within the National Socialist film landscape. Broadly speaking, we may say that these films are transitions to other places and other forms. S.O.S Eisberg moves the mountain film out of the Alps to the Arctic, while Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson take it even farther afield. Die Tochter des Samurai also marks an overt politicization of the genre, while Ein Robinson transitions from the mountain film to the Heimkehrerdrama . I will first discuss how these three films reveal their mountain film lineage, before turning to the thematic issues of politics and the individual versus a collective� Although Fanck’s later films are not mountain films in the narrow sense, S.O.S Eisberg , Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson all clearly reveal their kinship to Fanck’s earlier work� In her study of Die Tochter des Samurai , Valerie Weinstein noted the film’s “manipulations and inversions of the mountain film genre” (39). This insight is applicable to all three of Fanck’s later films. Indeed, these three films may be seen as showing the progression of the genre in Fanck’s hands� S.O.S. Eisberg removes the mountain film from the Alps and transposes it to the Arctic while retaining the gelid landscape of many of the mountain films, which generally have glaciated Alpine peaks such as Mont Blanc or Piz Palü as settings� In S.O.S. Eisberg , set and filmed on location in Greenland, the high latitude of the Arctic has replaced the high altitude of the Alps� The vertical essence of mountain climbing has been replaced by land and water travel along a horizontal axis. Clambering over ice has, however, remained much the same and scenes of scaling a large iceberg and taking shelter in an ice cave recall motifs popular in Fanck’s earlier films. S.O.S. Eisberg uses standard mountain film shots to present the landscape. For instance, large icebergs are filmed as if they were mountains, with pan shots of their surfaces corresponding to pan shots of mountain ridges in the mountain films. Shots of calving glaciers falling into the sea replace the frequent shots of avalanches in the mountains, as well. Furthermore, the film shares the general interest in technology that characterizes the mountain film in general and Fanck’s works especially. The first shot of the film Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 327 is a telegraph. Airplanes, once again flown by the famous Ernst Udet, this time supplemented by Leni Riefenstahl as an aviator, not only supply cutting-edge shots of the landscape, but also are key plot elements. Thus, the imbrication of modernity amid supposedly timeless landscapes that is so prominent in Stürme über dem Mont Blanc or Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü is present in S.O.S. Eisberg , as well� Beyond the continuity in cinematography and personnel from Fanck’s earlier films, the plot of S.O.S. Eisberg corresponds, generally, to one from the earlier mountain films: a search and rescue mission, this time not of missing climbers but of an unintentionally abandoned scientist left to winter over in Greenland when his expedition companions believed him lost in the arctic wasteland� In place of the local Alpine populace of the mountain film, the Greenland Inuit function in similar ways. After the German team’s rescue, the Inuit celebrate by raising and lowering their paddles in a synchronized display and then they demonstrate kayak rolls as signs of their paddling prowess� To the viewer of the classical mountain film, these shots look strangely familiar. Indeed, they are, mutatis mutandis, to be found in many of Fanck’s films, with skis instead of kayaks. The fleet of kayaks, filmed both as a group and then individually, resembles the scenes of group skiing in other Fanck films, either in races such as in Der heilige Berg or when the rescue party sets off in Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü . The downhill run of the vertically oriented mountain film is replaced by a journey over the water in the horizontally oriented S.O.S. Eisberg � Just as Fanck pioneered filming with a ski-mounted camera to show the dynamism of speed in his films, so too does he adapt this technique to his Greenland film, mounting a camera on a kayak to show the Inuit’s speed across the coastal waters� The kayak rolls parallel the jumps and sharp turns made by skiers that Fanck was so keen on capturing on film. S.O.S. Eisberg may not take place in the Alps, or even in the mountains, but it incorporates many of the conventions of the genre. Die Tochter des Samurai similarly features many elements of the classical mountain film. Indeed, Weinstein has noted the “strong resemblance between The Samurai’s Daughter and Fanck’s earlier films” (36). The film begins, and repeatedly returns to, an extreme long shot of Mt. Fuji rising over the rice fields. More generally, “Fanck introduces stunning shots of the Japanese archipelago, its harsh landscape battered by waves, typhoons, and earthquakes, and crowned by craggy, steaming and snowcapped volcanoes. To anyone familiar with Fanck’s work, his signature is unmistakable” (Weinstein 40—41). Like many mountain films, Die Tochter des Samurai features a romantic triangle, though in a sign of the inversion of the genre to which Weinstein has referred, in this film the triangle consists of one man and two women. Most significantly, mountain climbing plays an important role in the film. There is a 328 Kamaal Haque twenty-minute sequence (Hansen) towards the end of the film when the young woman Mitsuko climbs a volcano to commit suicide because she believes her betrothed Teruo is in love with the German Gerda Storm� After Gerda clears up the misunderstanding, Teruo rushes to the volcano, swims across a lake filled with dead trees from a previous eruption and climbs the peak in his stockinged feet. He reaches Mitsuko in time, and she can then attend to Teruo’s feet, which have become burned from the volcanic rock. When filmed in long shots, Teruo scrambling on rocks does not look much different than many scenes from the classic mountain film, since, after all, the volcano is a mountain. The volcanic setting allows Fanck new plot possibilities, however, that he did not have in his earlier films. Smoke from the crater stands in for the fog and even snow of earlier films and the heat of the rock replaces frostbite and hypothermia. Given a new mountain landscape - there are no volcanos in the Alps and Fanck never filmed on Europe’s Etna or Vesuvius - he adapted his mountain cinematography to the local mountain terrain� Like his earlier films, Die Tochter des Samurai shows an environment that is on the one hand timeless and on the other hand rapidly industrializing� Scenes of a steel forge with “Made in Japan” stamped on the product are highlighted, just as are scenes of rice being cultivated and irrigated in an age-old way with a foot-powered waterwheel. When Gerda arrives in Tokyo, she asks, “Sind wir in Japan oder sind wir in Berlin? ” to which Teruo replies, “Wir haben zwei Gesichter, ein altes und ein junges” (cf. Weinstein 42). Similarly, the clothing worn by Mitsuko is sometimes Western and sometimes traditionally Japanese� Even the title reveals the inherent juxtaposition of modernity and ancient tradition in Japan. Although the samurai were officially abolished in 1876, their descendants were still prominent in the 1920s and beyond (Blackford 122)� This mix of modernity, timeless nature and traditional culture is typical not only for Die Tochter des Samurai but the genre of the mountain film, as well. Ein Robinson: Tagebuch eines Matrosen also features Fanck’s typical mountain cinematography. In fact, Fanck initially planned to film only on the so-called “Robinson Island,” where the shipwrecked Alexander Selkirk served as an inspiration for Daniel Defoe. Having found it overgrown with vegetation, however, Fanck changed the script slightly to require his “Robinson,” a sailor named Carl Ohlsen, to travel through the Tierra del Fuego (Fanck, Er führte Regie 367—68)� This allowed Fanck the opportunity to film iconic mountain scenery including the Cuernos del Paine� Ein Robinson also thematizes the role of technology� For instance, a radio broadcast alerts Ohlsen to the return of his former shipmates to the island of Juna Fernandez, the official name of the Robinson Island. Although he lives an archaic existence, subsiding for years without even fire, once he receives the gift of a radio from a visiting German fisherman, Ohlsen can re- Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 329 connect with the world and eventually leave his hermitage. None of these three later films by Arnold Fanck is a clear example of the mountain film genre since the focus of the films is never on mountaineering. Nevertheless, all three films reveal similarities with the classical mountain films, both in the cinematography of ice and mountains and in the crucial role technology plays in the films. Beyond the presence of mountains - or in the case of S.O.S. Eisberg ice - the three films, S.O.S Eisberg , Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson are linked thematically by the conflict between the individual and society, with the benefits of the large collective ultimately being extolled. This is different than the classical mountain film where the climbers either are separate or seeking to leave society and if there is a collective, it is either the climbing party or, at most, the climbing community (praised for example in the idea of comradeship among climbers prominent in Der heilige Berg )� This increased focus on the collective corresponds to the political climate in Germany at the time of these later films and reflects an increased politicization of the films. It is, of course, impossible to speak of the classical mountain film without mentioning Siegfried Kracauer’s criticism of the genre. Kracauer has influenced the reception of the mountain film in a way that few critics have done for other genres� His pronouncement in his 1947 book From Caligari to Hitler that the heroism of the mountain film was imbued with “a mentality kindred to the Nazi spirit” (Kracauer 112) has colored the reception of the genre for the past seven decades, even though a reevaluation of this view has been underway since the early 1990s (Rentschler, “Mountains”). With the films under consideration in this essay, however, the question becomes relevant again, because unlike the films Kracauer is criticizing, they were all released during the Third Reich. Fanck himself refused Goebbels’ entreaties to join the NSDAP in 1933, stating “Ich bin immer ein Alleingänger, war nicht einmal in einem Skiclub oder in einem Alpenverein� Habe sogar viele meiner Hochtouren im Alleingang gemacht - ich passe einfach nicht in eine Partei” ( Er führte Regie 317)� Fanck does join the Nazi Party in 1940 after Ein Robinson in the hope of reinvigorating his career, though that attempt is unsuccessful and he never makes another feature film again (Matthias Fanck). Of course, one did not need to be a party member to make pro-National Socialist films. Nazi film policy was quite sophisticated in allowing a variety of films with diverse content to be produced within certain boundaries as many scholars have shown, most prominently Eric Rentschler ( Ministry ). With respect to these three later Fanck films, we can say that the political presence became more pronounced and, specifically, the significance of the collective over the individual became more politically charged from film to film. 330 Kamaal Haque S.O.S. Eisberg , released at the beginning of the Third Reich, is comparatively apolitical. If there is a political message, it lies in the international cooperation that characterizes both the film’s production and plot. The opening credits prominently thank the Danish government for its support in filming in the Danish protectorate of Greenland. More importantly, the film emphasizes international cooperation in the search for the missing explorers� German radio operators are shown asking for help from Wilhelmshaven from “all stations north of 60 degrees latitude.” When contact is finally made between the missing expedition and telegraph operators, Fanck creates a montage of receiving stations from around the Northern Hemisphere relaying the distress call of “S.O.S. Iceberg.” These stations include German, French, Japanese and American receivers� The message here is that the search for this German expedition is an international effort. While the international community may come together to help rescue the expedition party in S.O.S Eisberg , the fact that the party needs rescuing is caused by the actions of one of its members, Prof. Lorenz. Lorenz’s actions are a theme of the film, namely that of the responsibilities of an individual within a larger group� Fanck argues in S.O.S. Eisberg , as he does more strongly in Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson , that the individual must submit himself to the larger collective� Towards the beginning of S.O.S. Eisberg , the viewer sees an entry from Lorenz’s journal, “Die Strafe ist zu hart.” 2 Shortly thereafter the other members of the expedition are shown at an inquest for Lorenz, whom the expedition members presume has perished. They, however, are presented proof that he is alive. He set out on a different route than agreed upon and therefore the expedition did not search for him in the right location� The expedition hastily returns to Greenland where they find Lorenz, though this time the entire expedition needs rescuing. When the leader of the expedition, Dr. Johannes Krafft, 3 finds Lorenz, the latter returns to the topic of punishment, “Schau, die Strafe war hart.” Krafft replies, “Zu hart, verdammt zu hart.” Lorenz feels he is being punished because he broke the rules of the expedition� He put himself ahead of his fellow expedition members by choosing to abandon the agreed upon route and travelled in another direction to the unexplored Karajak. Dr. Krafft makes it clear at the inquest that, as expedition leader, he is responsible for everything that happens on the expedition. When Krafft confronts Lorenz’s wife about the explorer’s unexpected itinerary, he tells her that Lorenz left “Ohne uns ein Wort zu sagen, ging er damals auf und davon.” He continues, “Von alldem haben wir euch zu Hause nur nie etwas erzählt, weil solche Eigenmächtigkeiten auf einer Expedition einfach unverantwortlich sind�” When Krafft learns from Frau Lorenz that Prof. Lorenz always had the ambition to explore Karajak, Krafft dejectedly declares, “Und ich hab’s bezahlen müssen Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 331 mit meinem Ruf als Kamerad�” Comradeship is one of the principal virtues of the mountain film, a bond not to be broken as is most explicitly made clear at the end of Der heilige Berg . Krafft feels betrayed by his expedition partner and Lorenz feels that he has betrayed him� Fanck may declare himself an “Alleingänger,” but in his earlier movies and in S.O.S. Eisberg he stresses the need of the individual to submit to the group, a topic that has more explicitly political overtones in both Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson � Die Tochter des Samurai is much more overtly political than S.O.S. Eisberg � The former film was conceived of as a German-Japanese co-production. Its complicated production history has been well described elsewhere, but it is important to note that instead of two more or less identical films for the German and the Japanese/ international market, Fanck and his Japanese counterpart Mansuka Itami disagreed so greatly on the script that two independent films were created (Hansen 13—61). The political overtones of the film cannot be overlooked. By the time he directed Die Tochter des Samurai , Fanck clearly incorporated elements of National Socialist philosophy within the larger context of a Japanese family drama� This is a change from the less obvious ideological leanings of the earlier classical mountain films which, as their enthusiastic reception on both sides of the political spectrum shows, were not simply proto-Fascist vehicles as later film history occasionally makes them out to be (Rentschler, “Mountains” 142—43)� Die Tochter des Samurai was made at a time of increasing German-Japanese cooperation and shared worry over a common foe. In 1936, the same year Fanck is in Japan for filming, the German and Japanese governments sign the Anti-Comintern Pact. This agreement, officially known as the Agreement Against the Communist International, formed a German-Japanese alliance against “Communist subversion.” Since China at this time was not yet Communist, the shared threat was the Soviet Union� Teruo’s adoptive father refers most explicitly to this danger when he tells Gerda, “Es weht ein gefährlicher Sturm über die Erde. Für euch kommt er vom Osten, für uns bläst er vom Westen. Melden Sie Ihrem Lande, dass hier im fernsten Osten ein Volk wachet hier auf seiner felsigen Insel. An deren Mauern wird dieser Sturm sich brechen�” This clear allusion to Communism and to the Japanese belief that Communism will not succeed in Japan is the only direct reference to shared German-Japanese anti-Communist sentiment. Signs of German-Japanese comity, however, occur regularly in the film. Because of the film’s production date, these signs of Germany are signs of the Third Reich. On the ocean liner heading to Japan, Gerda and Teruo lounge in a room festooned with multiple swastika flags as well as multiple Rising Sun Flags of the Japanese Military� 4 Furthermore, when Teruo visits a Buddhist temple, swastikas abound in its decoration, and both the monk and Teruo are framed in 332 Kamaal Haque front of large wooden ones at various points in their discussion. Of course, the swastika’s usage in Buddhism and Hinduism predates National Socialist usage by millennia; nevertheless, for viewers of the film in Germany upon its release the presence of the symbol helps form a bond between the two cultures� Although flags and carvings certainly symbolize at least a tenuous political linkage between Germany and Japan in Die Tochter des Samurai , a deeper level of connection occurs at the level of the “Volk ohne Raum” discourse in the film. When Die Tochter des Samurai was discussed in pre-production in the pages of the Lichtbild-Bühne , the magazine notes, “Fest steht heute schon, daß das Grundthema des Films das Problem ‘Volk ohne Raum’ behandeln wird” (qtd� in Sierek 275 and Weinstein 41)� Although this is not quite accurate - as I will argue below, other issues are at least equally important - the portrayal of the Japanese people as a “Volk ohne Raum” is crucial for the film and a sign for the politicization of Fanck’s moviemaking, since this concept has by the time of Die Tochter des Samurai been in widespread use in Germany for a decade (popularized by Hans Grimm’s 1926 novel of the same name)� Already in the fourth minute of the film, Teruo describes Japan as having “eine harte Natur und so wenig Land für so viele Menschen.” A half-hour later, he is absorbed in his thoughts while staring at a globe� Broken from this revelry by Gerda’s teasing about his desire to return to Europe, Teruo insists, Nein, Gerda, ich bin Japaner und will leben für Japan. Aber schau mal, dieses Land Mandschukuo [Manchuria] ist doppelt so groß wie dein Deutschland oder mein Japan� Da gibt es neue Erde in Hülle und Fülle, die viel mehr Menschen ernähren könnte, wenn sie richtig bebaut würde� Aber dazu muss dort erst einmal Ordnung und Frieden geschaffen werden. Und das ist die Mission des japanischen Volkes. Wir müssen in diesen Ländern eine ungeheuere Aufbauarbeit leisten, und wir werden sie leisten. The visuals that accompany this speech reveal the colonialist and militarist underpinnings of this enterprise. As Teruo speaks of abundant land, we see timeless shots of crops gathered up and horse-drawn ploughs� As soon as he says the word “Ordnung,” the film cuts to images of modernity: a train followed by an airplane. At the word “Mission,” the military aspect becomes explicit: We see a corps of young men lined up in paramilitary uniforms ready to perform the “Aufbauarbeit” that is then shown in the sequence of construction images� Added to the sequence is a Japanese soldier on guard� The message is clear� Without Japanese military might and technical know-how, Manchuria will remain rural and underutilized, but it can flourish with Japanese settlement and development. Certainly, enough of the filmgoing public in Germany would be able to draw the parallels to the desire and alleged necessity to colonize Eastern Europe� Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 333 Teruo will later bring his skills to bear on this newly colonized land� As we learn earlier in the film, Teruo had studied agriculture at a German university 5 and is thus ideally suited to be one of the settlers in Manchuria� Before Teruo leaves Japan for its new colony, his biological father utters a paean to the work of their ancestors. The voiceover states, once again, that Japan does not have enough room for all its people: “Das eine weiß dein alter Vater, dass wir heute zu viele sind für dieses Stückchen Erde. Wir sind zu viele, mein Sohn Teruo.” 6 During the voiceover, the viewer sees scenes of traditional rice farming in Japan. As soon as the speech is over, the film cuts to a very different landscape. Instead of flooded rice paddies worked by hand, we see the wheels of a modern plough attached to a tractor driven by Teruo� We next see Mitsuko with a baby in her arms, followed by Teruo once again on the tractor. This time, a Japanese soldier is visible atop a mound of excavated dirt, watching over the newly cultivated land. Teruo descends from the tractor, takes his new infant and lays him in a newly plowed furrow, saying in Japanese, “Become a child of the earth, too.” The final sequences of the film show the Japanese soldier keeping guard, first in a full shot, then, after briefly cutting back to the young family, in a close-up where his half-smile rapidly devolves into a serious expression of surveillance that Sierek has aptly termed a “Kontrollblick” (359)� The treatment of the individual versus the collective is as politically inflected in Die Tochter des Samurai as the national basis of that collective is stressed� The film repeatedly insists on the Japanese people’s need to expand beyond their island borders. Teruo, having spent years in Germany, has developed what he believes is a European sense of individualism� He chafes against his marriage to Mitsuko, expected by familial duty, and more generally speaks to Gerda of the “Verlockungen” that come to Japan from the West� When he visits the monk in a temple, his old teacher speaks to him of the wisdom of Shinto, 7 “Du bist als einzelnes Individuum nicht so sehr wichtig, denn du bist als solches nur ein kleines Glied in der langen Kette deiner Ahnen� Aber jedes noch so kleine Glied ist Träger der ganzen Kette und damit verantwortlich gegenüber dem ganzem, das vor ihm war.” This speech, which includes an appeal to the “Blut des Volkes” of Japan, has the desired effect upon Teruo. Upon its conclusion, the viewer sees him strike the temple bell and the next time he appears he is no longer wearing a Western suit but traditional Japanese attire for the first time in the film. Teruo’s visit to his old teacher, the monk who reminds him of his relative unimportance as an individual, is a turning point in the film, but what at first may be seen as simply the return to a Japanese mindset is much more complicated� First, the teacher praises the West “in ihrem ruhelosen Streben nach vorwärts.” The teacher does not disparage the knowledge Teruo gained in Europe; rather, he wants Teruo to understand that the young man is only a small part of his 334 Kamaal Haque larger society. This message resonates deeply with Teruo, but, the narrative of Die Tochter des Samurai suggests, not just because it comes from the Japanese monk, but because Teruo already accepted a very similar argument made even more strongly by Gerda in a sequence that occurs twenty minutes earlier in the film. Unhappy at the rigid social rules of his society, Teruo bitterly complains about having to marry Mitsuko� When Gerda tells him that he will have to relinquish his personal desires (“auf die persönlichen Wünsche verzichten”) and accept his country’s customs, Teruo is enraged and shouts, “Wie? Auf meine individuelle Freiheit? ” The equation of personal desire with individual freedom is telling. This is, after all, what Teruo has learned in Europe: the autonomy of the individual is paramount. He explicitly states, “Die [individuelle Freiheit] habe ich immer� Gerade das habe ich in eurem Europa gelernt�” Gerda quickly corrects him, “Dann hast du eben Falsches gelernt.” The viewer then hears a bugle call and the sound of marching boots� From the balcony on which Teruo and Gerda are taking tea, they can see a column of Japanese troops march past. Gerda poses two questions that force Teruo to rethink his view on personal freedom: “Hörst du, wie sie alle im gleichen Schritt marschieren? ” “Darauf steht die Macht Japans,” Teruo replies. “Und das sind lauter Individualisten? ” Gerda counters, receiving a shocked and then resigned look from Teruo. As unwilling as he may be at this point, he has begun to understand that the collective is more important than the individual� It is no accident that the military serves as adjunct to the process and that when he finally fulfills his potential, by using his European agricultural knowledge to help cultivate colonized Manchuria, the military power of Japan is reinforced again in the final sequences. Just as Lorenz had to learn in S.O.S. Eisberg , Teruo learns in Die Tochter des Samurai that one must submit to the larger society. Crucially, the larger society is one based on national identity. This is the difference between German and Japanese societies and the threat of Communism that looms in Die Tochter des Samurai: Communism is a collective beyond the national� 8 Similar lessons about the individual and collective will need to be relearned in Fanck’s final feature-length film, Ein Robinson . Sailor Carl Ohlsen may at first leave a chaotic Germany for a hermit’s existence but will later come to understand that service to the state is the greater good, thus continuing the trend of political positioning by Fanck in his later films. Ein Robinson: Tagebuch eines Matrosen was filmed in 1938-39 and released in 1940. The political messaging of the film is unmistakable. The SMS Dresden is the sole surviving ship of a naval battle around the Falkland Islands in World War I� Chased around Cape Horn by the “weit überlegenen” British naval forces, it manages to arrive in Chilean safe harbor. The British “eröffneten gegen jedes internationale Recht das Feuer auf die im neutral stehenden Gewässer Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 335 ankernde Dresden.” The crew flees to shore on the island of Juan Fernandez, the so-called Robinson Island where Alexander Selkirk, the real-life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, was marooned. Detained by the Chileans, Carl Ohlsen, whose diary entries make up much of the film, notes, “Wir werden von den Chilenen interniert� Sie behandeln uns sehr gut! ” One of the guards also tells the sailors in broken German, “Wir gut Freund Deutschland” as he brings them a newspaper with news of the German victory in the Battle of Jutland� 9 When the crew of the Dresden finally returns home, they are met not with respect but rather scorn; their return on November 8, 1918 is a time when the sailor revolts in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven mark the beginning of the wider November Revolution. The clear anti-British and anti-Communist tenor of these scenes is, of course, not only historically directed at Germany’s enemies from the First World War, but also meant to reinforce that the enemies have remained the same at the time of the film’s production. Ohlsen is unhappy in the new Weimar Republic; fleeing back to the Robinson Island, he lives alone for many years. When the German trader and fisherman Pagels discovers him, Ohlsen naturally wants to know what is happening in Germany� Pagels is not happy with the situation: Blöd tun sie reden, immerzu disktutieren, wie und warum und wie lange sie noch zahlen sollen, wie lange sie noch nachgeben müssen und wie lange sie noch ausliefern müssen. Tja, da dann einer kommt und [es] auf den Tisch liegt und sagt, “Jetzt ist Schluß! Jetzt haben wir genug bezahlt, jetzt haben wir genug ausgeliefert, genug gekostet! ” aber, nee, dat machen sie nicht. Dazu sind die viel zu … Ach, wat, komm. Pagels’ lament about the reparations and his desire that someone should come and say, “Enough! ” is, in the context of the Nazi seizure of power and the terror that went along with it, an apologist and revisionist defense of what will soon happen in Germany� Although displeasure at war reparations and the Treaty of Versailles was widespread in Weimar Germany, Pagels’ speech with its unspoken but clear hint at the cowardice of German politicians is a rhetorical attempt to justify the end of democracy (“reden,” “diskutieren”) and the replacement of it with a strongman (“da dann einer kommt”), who of course in this case is Hitler. This new order is shown at the end of Ein Robinson . Ohlsen, rescued by the crew of the new Dresden , has been brought on board to everyone’s astonishment as a “Deutsche[r] Matrose aus dem Weltkrieg�” When he is brought to the captain, both of them are amazed; the current captain was Ohlsen’s old Fähnrich zur See, Fritz. Fritz informs him that times have changed, “Du wirst Augen machen, wenn du nach Hause kommst. Es ist alles anders … Da steht jeder nüchtern auf seinen zwei Beinen� Jeder steht zum Ganzen�” While he says this, Fritz, in his uniform, walks over to Ohlsen, who is sitting bedraggled and unkempt under a portrait of Hermann Göring� Originally speaking to Ohlsen 336 Kamaal Haque directly, the captain turns his gaze at the beginning of the sentence “Jeder steht zum Ganzen” and addresses the camera frontally. Once again, the political message here of a new Germany cured of its Weimar era decay is delivered without any trace of subtlety. Similarly, the final sequence of Ein Robinson leaves no doubt as to the film’s message. A series of shots of various film sizes show parts of the new Dresden , ending with a long shot where a large flag of the navy of the Third Reich is shown at the ship’s stern. Drewniak’s description of the film as a “Loblied auf die deutsche Kriegsmarine” applies here (314)� While the sequences above are either overtly political or even propagandistic, a further level of discourse in Ein Robinson reinforces the idea of service to the greater good, namely the theme of the individual versus society present in all of Fanck’s later films, as well as the issue of colonization found in Die Tochter des Samurai . As in the former film, Ein Robinson makes it clear that the desired collective is at the national level� Ohlsen is disgusted with Weimar Germany� Before leaving to return to the Robinson Island, he pays a visit to his old midshipman, Fritz who tries to talk him out of his plan, “Bleib hier, Karl! Lass es dir sagen: Wir werden solche Kerle, wie du einer bist, verflucht nötig haben.” When Ohlsen is finally rescued from the island and reunited with Fritz, the new captain threatens - albeit teasingly - the hermit with arrest “wegen versuchter Fahnenflucht,” a charge to which Ohlsen notes in his diary “Fritz hat ganz recht gehabt! Er hat durchgehalten und ist nun Kommandant der neuen ‘Dresden’ geworden! ” Fritz has been promoted and given a position in the new navy� 10 The film rewards not abandoning one’s comrades. Ohlsen expresses a wish to once again be a sailor. With all hands on deck, Fritz as captain makes an announcement to his crew. It is, indeed, not “vorschriftsmässig,” but Ohlsen can join the fellow sailors� He then takes his place among them� This action of joining the ranks sends a symbolic message that a German’s duty is to his society and not himself. Ohlsen realizes the folly of his isolation, even though he had created a successful life on the Robinson Island� He returns to his countrymen to serve his country. As such, Ein Robinson can be classified as one of the Heimkehrerfilme of the time (Rapp 85)� While Ohlsen struggles at first as a hermit, once the trader Pagels brings him fire he begins a colonization of the island’s land. He single-handedly clears a forest both by chopping down trees and then lighting a fire to consume them. After a diary entry states that he has been on the island for eleven years, the viewer sees the farm Ohlsen has built, complete with hut and windmill. He now has alpacas, pigs and geese. He cultivates vegetables that grow to sizes unheard of in Europe. Having started out in a dense jungle, Ohlsen has literally created his “Platz unter der Sonne” that was the German colonial project. In this way, this utopia becomes a sequel to the imagined palace of ice in Der heilige Berg � Like Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 337 that utopia, this one, too, must fail. Ohlsen is lonely and haunted by thoughts of his son back in Germany. When Pagels gives him a radio, the first transmission he hears is a program for missing World War soldiers, “Kamerad, wo bist du? ” At that point he wishes to end his isolated existence. The film thus suggests that a loyal German can succeed as a colonist, but, alas, no man is an island. For the system to work, Ohlsen must work with his fellow countrymen. He must learn to rejoin the ranks. Thus, Ohlsen returns to his ship and country and the film ends very differently than Die Tochter des Samurai where the colonization is state-sanctioned� Confronted with their work during the 1930’s, the directors of the Bergfilm repeatedly insisted on either its strict apoliticality or even its subversive nature� While Kracauer overstated the ideological imprint of the films at the genre’s highpoint, critics have rightly long found Luis Trenker’s and Leni Riefenstahl’s denials of National Socialist tendencies in their works suspect. Fanck has avoided such scrutiny, mostly because his films made during the Third Reich were not as successful as his earlier films - a situation different from those of Trenker and Riefenstahl. Like Riefenstahl, Fanck consistently claimed to have made apolitical films. His statement about not belonging to a ski club, let alone a political party, is often repeated� Yet as my analysis of S.O.S. Eisberg , Die Tochter des Samurai and Ein Robinson shows, Fanck’s films did indeed become increasingly political over the mid-1930s, culminating in 1940’s Ein Robinson with its overtly martial and “Heim ins Reich” propaganda. Like all but the most propagandist National Socialist film productions, however, the ideology in these Fanck films is generally not blatant ( Ein Robinson is the exception). At the same time, these later Fanck films did not represent a break in the mountain film tradition; rather, Fanck reworked his old themes in new settings� By telling stories of men who need to learn to subsume their goals into larger projects, the viewer is shown that it is the collective, not the individual, that counts. Thus Prof. Lorenz suffers the consequences of exploring on his own in S.O.S. Eisberg � Teruo is unhappy with his situation until he accepts the traditional familial and social obligations in Die Tochter des Samurai � Carl Ohlsen leaves his hermit existence and returns to where he belongs, among the ranks of his fellow naval seaman. Fanck and, later, his grandson have always claimed that Ein Robinson is an anomaly in the oeuvre� Fanck was not given free reign over the production and had to make a propagandistic film. Regardless of any restrictions put upon the film’s production, Ein Robinson is simply a continuation of a politization process that began with S.O.S. Eisberg and continued in Die Tochter des Samurai . Indeed, at the end of his life, Fanck considered this film his greatest: “Nach meinem eigenen Urteil war dieser Japanfilm das Schönste, was ich geschaffen habe. Ich wüßte auch keinen deutschen Film, der ein so begeistertes Echo bei der Kritik 338 Kamaal Haque gefunden hätte ( Er führte Regie 363). He is saddened that the film is not shown on television and claims that patriotism is not acceptable in 1970’s Germany� In particular, he mocks television executives for their reaction to the final scenes of Die Tochter des Samurai � Teruo and his new family in the newly ploughed land engender the following thoughts from “unsere[n] Programmdirektoren des Fernsehens: ‘Blut und Boden’! So etwas darf man dem deutschen Publikum nicht zeigen“ ( Er führte Regie 364)� This quote shows that Fanck understands the political context of his film, even if he is unwilling to accept that this context means the film cannot be shown in postwar Germany. Die Tochter des Samurai is not an innocent quest for Japanese authenticity, as Fanck elsewhere suggests, but rather a portrayal of a colonizing family and, by extension, the extolment of one nation over another ( Er führte Regie 341, 343). Fanck may claim to be apolitical, but his later feature films reveal that he, like seaman Ohlsen, not only wishes to join the ranks, but that he does indeed do so. Notes 1 The first draft of this essay was written during the time of closed libraries because of the coronavirus epidemic� While my college’s interlibrary loan department provided many needed sources, I am particularly grateful to my colleagues Alex Bates, Seth Peabody and Valerie Weinstein for providing material I otherwise could not have accessed during this time� 2 The English subtitles incorrectly render this as “The road is too hard,” having confused the handwritten “Strafe” for “Straße�” 3 This name will be familiar to viewers of the mountain film as the protagonist in Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü � 4 This was not the Circle of Sun Flag familiar to us today as the national flag of Japan, which was indeed in 1936 also the official national flag of Japan. The choice to highlight the military, rather than civilian flag, shows a more martial aspect to this film (Yoshida). 5 As Drewniak notes, “[H]ier bot sich die Gelegenheit, die hervorragende Rolle des deutschen Hochschulwesens zu zeigen” (836)� 6 The father’s monologue is in Japanese and is then voiced over in German� An English translation of both the German and Japanese in the film can be found here: https: / / archive�org/ download/ DieTochterDesSamurai1937The- NewEarthENFRSPRUSubtitles/ AtarashikiTsuchi1937.dvdrip.en.srt. 7 Somewhat incongruously, the temple where they meet is Buddhist, not Shinto. 8 I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers of this article for pointing this out� Joining the Ranks: Arnold Fanck’s Later Films 339 9 Both the English and Germans claimed victory, but the triumph in the Skaggerakschlacht, as it is known in German, became an important event in German post-war memory (cf� Götz)� 10 Ohlsen’s diary makes it clear that the new Dresden is part of the “neuen deutschen Kriegsmarine�” Works Cited Blackford, Mansel G. The Rise of Modern Business: Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan, and China . Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2008. Die Tochter des Samurai . Dir. Arnold Fanck. Terra Film, 1937. Film. Drewniak, Bogusław. Der deutsche Film 1938-1945. Ein Gesamtüberblick � Düsseldorf: Droste, 1987. Ein Robinson: Tagebuch eines Matrosen. Dir. Arnold Fanck. Bavaria Filmkunst, 1940. Film� Fanck, Arnold. Er führte Regie mit Gletschern, Stürmen und Lawinen. Ein Filmpionier erzählt . Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1973. Fanck, Matthias. “Vergessener Star: Bergfilmpionier Arnold Fanck.” Der Spiegel 11 Oct� 2015� Web� 10 Aug� 2021� Götz, George. “Remembering the Battle of Jutland in Post-War Wilhelmshaven.” Memorialization in Germany since 1945 . Ed. Bill Niven and Chloe Paver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 360—68. Hansen, Janine. Arnold Fancks Die Tochter des Samurai: Nationalsozialistische Propaganda und japanische Filmpolitik . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film � Ed. Leonardo Quaresima. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004. Rapp, Christian. “Im Banne der Politik. Der deutsche Bergfilm um 1930.” Bergfilm: Dramen, Trick und Abenteuer . Ed. Stefan König, Hans-Jürgen Panitz and Michael Wachtler. Munich: F.A. Herbig, 2001. 85—87. Rentschler, Eric. Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and its Afterlife � Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. ---. “Mountains and Modernity: Relocating the Bergfilm.” New German Critique 51 (1990): 137—61� Sierek, Karl. Der lange Arm der Ufa: Filmische Bilderwanderung zwischen Deutschland, Japan und China 1923-1949 . Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2018. S.O.S. Eisberg . Dir. Arnold Fanck. Berlin: Deutsche Universal Film AG, 1933. Film. Weinstein, Valerie. “Reflecting Chiral Modernities: The Function of Genre in Arnold Fanck’s Transnational Bergfilm, The Samurai’s Daughter (1936-37)�” Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia � Ed� Qinna Shen and Martin Rosenstock� New York: Berghahn, 2014. 34—51. Yoshida, Takashi. “Why do Flags Matter? The Case of Japan.” The Conversation 13 July 2015� Web� 10 Aug� 2021�
