Expressionist films produced in the Weimar Republic immediately following the First World War not only encapsulate the sociopolitical contexts in which they were created, but also rework the intrinsically modern problems of self-reflexivity, spectacle and identity. According to Siegfried Kracauer and Lotte Eisner, German Expressionist cinema operates as a kind of collective consciousness and a symptomatic manifestation of what they polemically claim to be inherent cultural tendencies of the German nation. Expressionism has also been described as focusing on the “power of spectacles” and offering audiences “a kind of metonymic image of their own situation”. This film movement paralleled Expressionist painting and theater in rejecting realism. The creators in the Weimar Period sought to convey inner, subjective experience through external, objective means. Their films were characterized by highly stylized sets and acting; they used a new visual style which embodied high contrast and simple editing. The films were shot in studios where they could employ deliberately exaggerated and dramatic lighting and camera angles to emphasize some particular affect – fear, horror, pain. Aspects of Expressionist techniques were later adapted by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles and were incorporated into many American gangster and horror films. Some of the major filmmakers of this time were F. W. Murnau, Erich Pommer, and Fritz Lang. The movement ended after the currency stabilized, making it cheaper to buy movies abroad. The UFA financially collapsed and German studios began to deal with Italian studios which led to their influence in style of horror and films noirs. The American influence on the film industry would also lead some film makers to continue their career in the US. The UFA's last film was Der blaue Engel (1930), considered a masterpiece of German Expressionism. Interpretation The two most comprehensive studies of German Expressionist film are Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen and Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler. Kracauer examines German cinema from the Silent/Golden Era to support the (controversial) conclusion that German films made prior to Hitler's takeover and the rise of the Third Reich all hint at the inevitability of Nazi Germany. For Eisner, similarly, German Expressionist cinema is a visual manifestation of Romantic ideals turned to dark and proto-totalitarian ends. More recent German Expressionist scholars examine historical elements influencing German Expressionism, such as the Weimar economy, UFA, Erich Pommer, Nordisk, and Hollywood. See also For additional examples of films made in the German