전유된 1차 세계대전의 트라우마

Appropriated Psychic Trauma of World War Ⅰ

The German Expressionist Film of 1920’s achieved an international reputation as masterpiece of cinematic art. Beside that, in my opinion, Expressionist Film was, in fact, very germanic cinema also. After the defeat of World WarⅠ, the Germans suffered severe psychic trauma. Daily life in those days was ‘the State of Exception’(Giorgio Agamben) such as political unrest and revolution, financial difficulties, and hyper-inflation and so on. A view of the world in many expressionist films is both irrational and prophetic. This was the reflection of the Germans who had escaped from fear or terror into the inner world instead of political action or criticism. Therefor the Expressionist Film is fully qualified for reading as metaphor of exceptional being base of Weimar Republic after the defeat of World War Ⅰ. And Bergfilm also is good subject to read the social aspect of Weimar Republic. In Bergfilm we can see only grandioso mountains, the beauties of nature, and the courage of humane. But paradoxically, in here, we can read out the psychology of escape of the Germans who were suffering the trauma of shell shock. The shock of defeat, the moral impeachment on the Germans of the Versailles Treaty, the nostalgia for the Wilhelm Empire, deadly hyper-inflation, the strange Republic which turned out paper republic etc. Therefor the Germans endured the psychic trauma through escape from the reality instead of being conscious the inconvenient fact. In the appropriated representation of Expressionist Film and Bergfim we can read out the mentality of Germans in those days. Expressionist Film and Bergfim are the excellent appropriation for ‘the State of Exception’ of Weimar Republic.