ABSTRACT
The music of three films from Weimar-era Germany with prominent female lead characters is examined: Das blaue Licht (1932), Anna und Elisabeth (1933), Elisabeth und der Narr (1933). The contexts, narratives, and scoring of these films (by Becce, Dessau, and Huppertz respectively) demonstrate both sophisticated levels of artistry and unusually rich and complex commentary on the wider socio-political conditions of women in Germany of this period, in light of the emergence of the ‘New Woman,’ women’s rights associations, interwar economic struggles, urban vs. rural sensibilities, and the ingénue–seductive vamp binary prevalent in early German sound film. The figure of Junta in Das blaue Licht (played and directed by Leni Riefenstahl) is particularly significant in this regard.
