Feind im Blut (1931)
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Générique principal
Drehbuch: Walther Ruttmann, Lazar Wechsler, Gerhard Bienert
Kamera: Georges C. Stilianudis, Emil Berna
Schnitt: Walther Ruttmann, Georges C. Stilianudis
Musik: Wolfgang Zeller
Die Rechte wurden freundlicherweise zur Verfügung gestellt von der Praesens-Film AG, Zürich.
Drehbuch: Walther Ruttmann, Lazar Wechsler, Gerhard Bienert
Kamera: Georges C. Stilianudis, Emil Berna
Schnitt: Walther Ruttmann, Georges C. Stilianudis
Musik: Wolfgang Zeller
Contenus
Thèmes médicaux
- Pathologie du système uro-génital. Affections urinaires et génitales
- Pathologie des organes locomoteurs. Système squelettique et locomoteur
- Maladies infectieuses et contagieuses, fièvres
Sujet
A film intended to raise awareness of syphilis which one risks contracting even more in an urban environment.
Genre dominant
Résumé
In a style related to urban symphony, which Walter Ruttmann employed in his masterpiece Berlin: Symphony Of A Great City (1926), the film tells the story of many characters hit by syphilis in Berlin: students, wealthy people, and workers. One of them goes to a clinic in order to be examined.
Contexte
In the mid-19th century, syphilis appeared to have reached its greatest extent in European countries, while the transmission of several venereal diseases at once was becoming more and more frequent.
Venereal diseases became less frequent between 1850 and 1880. This was caused by the intervention of public bodies in surveying the health of sailors, soldiers and prostitutes. Medical progress also contributed, with the introduction of new treatments such as potassium iodide, as well as improvements in hygiene. In the two or three decades that followed, depending on the country, the rise in illegal prostitution overturned these efforts and, at the beginning of the 20th century, new public investment and new measures were required to see a new fall in venereal disease cases.
In almost all developed countries, after seeing a temporary doubling of infections during the two World Wars, the introduction of sulphonamide treatments (succeeded by antibiotics) led to the hope that the most serious, if not all, STDs could be wiped out. Until around 1965, the fall in new cases made this appear promising.
Éléments structurants du film
- Images de reportage : Non.
- Images en plateau : Non.
- Images d'archives : Oui.
- Séquences d'animation : Non.
- Cartons : Oui.
- Animateur : Non.
- Voix off : Non.
- Interview : Non.
- Musique et bruitages : Non.
- Images communes avec d'autres films : Non.
Comment le film dirige-t-il le regard du spectateur ?
This film is fictional and contains animated or microcinematographic sequences. In this way, the scientific and informative presentation is combined with a drama which moves the spectator and draws them into the story.
Comment la santé et la médecine sont-elles présentées ?
Only medicine has the answers: the doctor is understanding and trustworthy, the hospital offers effective treatment.
Diffusion et réception
Où le film est-il projeté ?
Feind im Blut (Enemy in the Blood) was released on the 17th of April 1931 in the Atrium in Berlin, under the supervision of Germanic societies for the prevention of venereal diseases. It was also released on the 18th of April at the Palace in Basel, the Appollo in Zurich on the 4th of May 1931 and on the 4th of December at the Palace in Paris. (See: Jean-Paul Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, Einen Dokumentation, Berlin, Freunde der Deutschen Kinematek, 1989, p 134-136.)
Communications et événements associés au film
Public
Audience
Descriptif libre
Double Prelude: Syphilis, a Social Curse
Shots of the radiant faces of children as well as ripe fruits in a basket are followed by a succession of rotten fruits, pulsing with maggots, and the haggard faces of children affected by mental illness. A shot of men leaning on a zinc bar counter, methodically taking drinks, women's piercing cries, an off-screen suggestion of the despair stemming from abandoned homes. (01:03)
The Fight Led by Research
The second part of the prelude: A sequence of animated graphics to explain the history of venereal disease research. The letters “SYPHILIS” are written on a coagulated blood stain. Numbers count up until the number 606: it was from the 606th tested molecule that the cure for syphilis was developed. An animated sequence consisting of dates precedes an abstract composition based on the motif of laboratory material. The entirety of this sequence is marked by graphical language and aesthetic experimentation, typical of avant-garde cinema, based on abstraction and musical rhythm. Let us not forget that Ruttmann began his career with abstract animation. (02:47)
Unravelling the Network of Infection. Three faces, Three Different Social Positions
The story that follows develops along the trajectory of several characters, in the style of a novel: a well-off, older man who flirts and drinks alcohol, a young student who maintains a relationship with a prostitute, and a factory worker and soon-to-be father.
The well-off man and his wife say goodbye on a railway platform. The man boards the train and promptly tries to seduce the woman in his compartment. In a messy apartment, the student leaves the arms of his lover. Once he’s left, she carefully puts on her make-up. The young man hurries to the entrance of the medical school where a professor has already begun his lecture about syphilis. A wax mould of a face passes from hand to hand. When it is the student’s turn to examine it, he seems troubled, as if he imagined that his face could one day look the same. A woman comes and stands before the students. The professor disrobes her. Her body is covered in a rash. An animated schema appears on the screen which hangs at the back of the amphitheatre, explaining how the brain is damaged by the illness.
A worker operates a steel machine. A close-up is shown of his scab-covered arm. A colleague notices them. Upon leaving the factory, he meets with him and gives him a healer’s address. The student waits below his lover’s apartment. The window is open, the curtains blow in the wind. He understands that his lover is cheating on him. His darkened countenance alternates with shots of a pneumatic drill which opens the tarmac of the road. (08:30)
A Night In Town. From the Dance Hall to Penny-Gaff
At night, in the street. Punctuating the row of shop windows, women posted under the signs solicit passers-by. At a café-concert, with the sound of an orchestra which is playing fancy Viennese music, two women play footsie, and then get up and invite men to dance. The music evolves, taking on Gypsy tones, then jazz, then oompah-pah, as we pass from one night-time venue to another: a café-concert, a cabaret, a bay, and finally the street. A succession of medium and close-up shots, clashing, disordered, of faces, glasses on a counter, trampled floors. A shot fixes on the mechanism of a barrel organ, which plays the melody performed by the café-concert orchestra, now turns into a mechanical ritornello: like in the sequence on the train, where a shot shows the wheels of the locomotive, anonymous seduction is associated the regularity and relentlessness of a mechanical object. From one place to another, we recognise the student, accompanied by a large, well-off man: the bourgeois from the train sequence. They indulge in drunken revelry until the small hours of the morning. Behind his bar, a bartender pulls a final beer - nothing but foam - as the student goes up the street in the early morning light, with the sound of a train whistle. (26:03)
The Infected Child Scandal
A midwife knocks on a door. The worker’s wife comes to open it and shows her in. The midwife reassures her and invites her to lie down on a bed. An apartment window, shown in long detail, the virulent complaints of a woman from out of shot. The camera pans down to a pram, in which there is a restless baby, its face covered in a rash. He has been affected by the illness that his mother contracted from her husband. A curious neighbour enters. She is stunned by the baby’s appearance. The midwife looks over the child defeatedly: “It’s sad,” she says. The class begins again with an animated schema showing the different stages of syphilis. We see sick children: a case of idiocy, hydrocephaly and paralysis. Note the inclusion of a case of Down’s Syndrome (called “Mongolism” at the time) which we now know has nothing to do with syphilis.
When the worker enters the factory, his colleagues uncork bottles of champagne to celebrate the birth of his son. When he goes home at night, welcomed by the lugubrious silence of his neighbours on his doorstep, he finds that his door had to be forced open because his wife had blocked it with chairs. She had taken her own life. (37:32)
Today’s Care
Succession of newspaper adverts, beginning with eye-catching adverts and leading to adverts for venereal disease medicines. The student takes his place among the men waiting in the office of a doctor who specialises in venereal diseases. In the clinic, numbers and letters light up on an electric signboard, giving rhythm to scenes of treatment and showing that medicine can take up the fight against the illness. The student, spared from infection, has left the city with his new girlfriend. They are in the mountains, enjoying winter sports. They set off skiing down a mountain, the world is their oyster. The end of the film shows the same images as the start, the only difference being that the children remain radiant and the fruits do not rot. (42:57)
Notes complémentaires
Références et documents externes
Goergen, Jean-Paul, Walter Ruttmann. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin, Freunde der Deutschen Kinematehek, 1989, p 134-136.
Laukötter, Anja, Sex-richtigǃ Körperpolitik und Gefühlserziehung im Kino des 20. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2021.
Goergen, Jean-Paul, Walter Ruttmann. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin, Freunde der Deutschen Kinematehek, 1989, p 134-136.
Laukötter, Anja, Sex-richtigǃ Körperpolitik und Gefühlserziehung im Kino des 20. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2021.
Contributeurs
- Auteurs de la fiche : Joël Danet
- 2 Traducteurs_vers_anglais : Michael Craig
- Transcription Allemand : Pauline Kochanowski
- Sous-titres Français : Laetitia Serris, Chloé Bourgogne, Pauline Kochanowski
