1930's Research

 

 I have collected some images from pintrest exploring the styling within the 1930's i wanted to gain a clear understanding of that eras classic hair and makeup styling along with outfit choices i chose images that to me reflected more of the made-up dressy side of the 1930's, how i would imagine women inspiring within 'Goodbye to berlin' would have looked to Christopher.

Weimar Berlin was the modern city in the 30's you didn't have to hide what you were life was celebrated in all forms. With no censourship sex was a huge part of Berlin life and presented its self in all forms you could get what ever you could possibly think off.
Berlin sinful city was also a place that had hundreds of newspapers, 50 theatres and some of the best Science laboratories and universities in the world it became a hub for ambitious and talented people. Berlin at this time had some of the best artists, writers, actors in the world traveling to berlin to expand there careers but they all found the sex scene to irrasistable.
Although at this time Berlin's currency was suffering poverty hit, people would be running to the shop after getting paid as in this time the prices would have risen, it became a time of struggle and a division between the poor and ridiculously wealthy. As every currency at this point was more valuable than the Berlin currency tourists would flock to the city to take advantage of this, the people of berlin would be trying to sell anything from there rooms to let to there bodies.

The documentary below highlights what life was like in 1920's & 30's Berlin.

Anita Berber was an icon in 1930's Berlin she was the definition of decadent Berlin she was know for scandal and for one of the first to dance naked on a Berlin stage, her dances were erotic and sexual and off stage she flaunted her bisexuality along with her love of drugs and alcohol dancing in some of the most exclusive clubs in Berlin. She was often pictured with her homosexual husband and was painted by a famous artist of the time Otto Dix before she pasted away. 

Otto Dix 

Otto Dix was a famous german painter he was know for his harshly realistic depiction's of Weimar society and war. As shown above he painted the scandalous Anita Berber before her passing. 

George Grosz another german painter looking in the shadows of modern society in Berlin depicting caricatures of people in the 20's & 30's. These two artists are considered the most important artists of the New objectivity a term used to describe the attitude of public life in Weimar Berlin. 

The Salon (1921) Otto Dix

George Grosz

George Grosz 

I found this article below on one of Otto Dix's paintings i found this interesting how the director of the film 'Cabaret' took inspirations from these artists. The painting of this time are the one key in look that we can have on society in that time in Berlin, these artists depicted scene and people around berlin that are true to the situation Otto Dix and further George Grosz being a 'visual reporters' allows us now to experience the colours, people and landscape of the time. 

''Film often imitates art and it’s fun to find references to famous paintings or sculptures when watching movies.  One of the more obvious adoptions of a painting into film is Bob Fosse’s use of Otto Dix's Portrait of Sylvia von Harden in his film, Cabaret (see it at the 0.33 mark in the video below).  It made sense; the film was set in the Berlin in 1931 and Otto Dix was working there during the same period.  The imagery is artistic and authentic.

In the somewhat shocking portrait of the German writer, Sylvia von Harden sits at a café table, drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigarette.  She is ugly and androgynous.  Somehow, all of the reds in the painting clash and the plaid pattern along with her dark hair and monocle are jarring.  Her hands are claw-like and monstrous and the expression on her face is very unattractive.  The real lady was not a looker, but she was not nearly as unappealing as Dix portrayed her.

Dix persuaded Von Harden to sit for him by exclaiming, “I must paint you! I simply must! You are representative of an entire epoch!”  Indeed, Dix’s painting became representative of life during the Weimar republic.  Dix, a member of the art movement the Neue Sachlichkeit, or the New Objectivity, was dedicated to a no-nonsense engagement with reality and facts.  He recreated his sober observations with exaggerated and manipulated form to heighten the expressive content.  In essence, he was a visual reporter, holding up a mirror to society in order to make moral judgments.''

- The-art-minute.com, (2012). painting, Neue Sachlichkeit, Otto Dix | The Art Minute. [online] Available at: http://www.the-art-minute.com/otto-dix-and-bob-fosse-together-at-last/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2014].