Katja Hoyer: belief

Transcript context

…Amazing music. I do appreciate that, and especially the creativity of the 1920s. There’s something about the utter devastation of the First World War that creates this absolute creativity and creative freedom that you see and the willingness to experiment in the 1920s. When you look at films like Metropolis or M, they’re so innovative. The whole idea of the vampire movie, the arch vampire movie in the 1920s with Nosferatu, that’s a German creation because they’re looking at these really dark, twisted horror themes as well. I think that’s certainly something about the 1920s that’s incredibly precious, this willingness to just break the boundaries, try again, start from scratch, because the world that people had come from and that they knew had gone. They knew that the First World War was an absolute turning point. It wiped the slate clean, and you could start again. Because of hyperinflation and all those things, people also felt they had nothing to lose. There wasn’t this fear now when you think, “Oh, can I really say this? Can I really do this? Will I get canceled? What will it do to my career?” People were almost hedonistic in a way. They would just go out and try things because of this absolute dizzying state where there are no certainties, where there’s nothing to cling on to. That’s unique, I would say, to that time period. It created this absolutely dazzling cultural scene that you see in the 1920s, particularly in Berlin, of course. Who is the great underrated German thinker or writer?…

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