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Cult ojDistraction:O n Berlin's P ic tu re P ala ces ~ :;

by Siegfried Kracauer

The large picture houses in Berlin are palaces of distraction; to callthem movi e t hea te rs (K in o s) would be disrespectfuL The latter are still abun-dant only in Old-Berlin and in the suburbs where they serveneighborhood audiences, and even there they are declining in num-ber. Much more than such movie houses or even the ordinarytheaters, it is the picture palaces, those optical fairylands, which areshaping the face of Berlin. The UFA palaces - above all the one at theZoo -~ the Capitol built by Poelzig, the Marmorhaus and whatever theirnames may be, enjoy sell-outs day after day. The newly built Gloria-Palast proves that the style initiated by these palaces is still developingin the same direction.'Elegant s ur fa ce s ple nd or is the hallmark of these mass theaters. Like

hotel lobbies they are shrines to the cultivation of pleasure, their glam-our aiming at edification. However, while the architecture does per-

.. A translation of "Kult der Zerstrcuung," Frankfur ter Zeitung 70:167 (ErstesMorgenblatt: March 4, 1926), 1-2; reprinted in Siegfried Kracauer, D as O rnam en t derMasse (Frankfurt a.M .: Suhrkamp Vcrlag, 1963), pp. 311-317; this collection is forth-coming as Th e M a ss O rn am en t, translated and edited by Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1988). The essay is published here with the permission ofHarvard University Press. Compare also the Italian translation "Culto del diver-timcnto" by Maria Giovanna Amiranre Pappalardo in S. Kracauer, La M assa Com eOrnumento (Naples: Prisma Editrice, 1982), pp,79-84.1. Hans Poelzig (1869-1936), one of the founders of the modern movement in

German architecture, dcsigned the Grosse Schauspielhaus for Max Reinhardt in Berlin(1919) with its famous "stalactite dome," the 'Capitol' cinema in Berlin (1925), the 'Deli'cinema in Breslau (1926), and the 'Babylon' cinema in Berlin (1928-29). He also madethe expressionist sets for the second version of Paul Wegener's film T he G o le m (1 92 0) .For more material on the Berlin film palaces (including extensive photographic docu-mentation), see Rolf-Peter Baacke, L ic hts pie lh au sa rc hite kiu r in D eu ts ch la nd : V on d er S ch au bu deb is zum Kinopalas t (Berlin: Frolich lind Kaufmann, 1982) and Heinz Frick, M e in G lo riaP a la s t: V a s K i no u om K u rf i" ir st en d amm (Munich: Universitats Verlag, 1986). For informationon corresponding developments in America, d. Douglas Gomery, "Towards a Historyof Film Exhibition: The Case of the Picture Palace," Film S tu die s A nn ua l Part 2(Pleasantville, N,Y.: Redgrave, 1977), 17-26, (Translator's note)

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haps bombard the patrons in its attempt to create an atmosphere" it inno way relapses into the barbaric pomposity of wilhelm inian secularchurches in the manner of the Rhine Gold, for example, which wantsto give one the impression that it harbors the Wagnerian Nibelungentreasure. Rather, the architecture of the film palaces has evolved into aform that avoids stylistic excesses. Taste has presided over thedimensions and has spawned costly interior furnishings inspired by arefined artisanal fantasy. The Gloria-Palest presents itself as a baroquetheater, The community of worshippers, numbering in the thou-sands, can be content, for its gathering places are a worthy abode.The programs also display a well wrought grandiosity. Gone is the

time when films wen: allowed to run one after another each with a cor-responding musical accompaniment. The major theaters at least haveadopted the American style of a self-contained show which integratesthe fiim as part of a larger whole. Like the program sheets which haveexpanded into fan magazines, the shows have grown into a structuredprofusion of production numbers and presentations. A glittering, re-vue-like creature has crawled out of the movies - th e tota l a rtw ork(Cesamtkunstroetk} of eUixts .This total artwork of effects assaults everyone of the senses using

every possible means. Spotlights shower their beams into the auditori-urn, sprinkling across festive drapes or rippling through colorfulgrowth-like gla~s fixtures. The orchestra asserts itself as an indepen-dent power, its acoustic production buttressed by the responsory ofthe lighting. Every emotion is accorded its own acoustic expression,its color value in the spectrum ~ an optical and acoustic kaleidoscopewhich provides the setting for the physical activity on stage, panto-mane and ballet. Until finally the white surface descends and theevents of the three-dimensional stage imperceptibly blend into two-dimensional illusions.Alongside the legitimate revues, such shows arc the leading attrac-

tion in Berlin today. They raise distraction to the level of culture; theyarc aimed at the manes.

Masses also gather in the provinces but there they are subjected to apressure which does not allow them the spiritual and cultural (gei.,tig)fulfillment appropriate to their number and real social significance.In the industrial centers where they appear in great numbers, they areso overburdened as workers that they arc unable to realize their ownway of life. They arc handed down the rubbish and outdated enter-

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tainrnent of the upper class which, despite its repeated claims to socialsuperiority, has only limited cultural ambitions. In the larger provin-cial towns not dominated primarily by industry, on the other hand,the traditional forces are so powerful that the masses are unable toshape the cultural and spiritual (geistig) structure on their own. Thebourgeois middle classes remain segregated from them as if thegrowth of this human reservoir meant nothing, and thus maintain theillusory claim that they are still the guardians of culture and educa-tion. Their arrogance, which creates sham oases for itself, keeps themasses down and denigrates their amusement.It cannot be overlooked that there are four m illio n p eo ple in Berlin.

The sheer necessity of their circulation transforms the life of the streetinto the ineluctable street of life, giving rise to configurations whichinvade even domestic space. The more people perceive themselves asa mass, however. the sooner the masses will also develop productivepowers in the spiritual and cultural domain which are worth financ-ing. The masses are no longer left to their own devices; rather, theyprevail in their very abandonment. Refusing to be thrown scrapsthey demand instead to be served at set tables. There is little room lettfor the so-called educated classes who must either join in the dining ormaintain their snobbish aloofness. Their provincial isolation is, in anycase, at an end. They are being absorbed by the masses and this givesrise to the h om og en eo us c os mo po lita n a ud ie nc e in which everyone has thesame responses, from the bank director to the sales clerk, from thediva to the stenographer. Self-pitying complaints about this turn to-wards mass taste are belated; the cultural heritage which the massesrefuse to accept has become to some extent amerely historical proper-ty since the economic and social reality to which it corresponded haschanged.

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One chides the Berliners for being a dd ic te d to d is tr ac tio n, but this is apetit-bourgeois reproach. While the addiction to distraction is certain-ly greater in Berlin than in the provinces, the tension to which theworking masses are subjected is also greater and more tangible - anessentially formal tension which fills their day fully without making itfulfilling. Such a lack demands to be compensated, but this need canonly be articulated in terms of the same surface sphere which imposedthe lack in the first place. The form of entertainment necessarily corre-sponds to that of enterprise."2. Kracauer here plays with the ambiguity of the word Betrieb, which can mean both

enterprise (business) and entertainment. (Translator's Note)

Copyright 2001. All Rights Reseved.

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A correct instinct will see to it that the need for entertainment issatisfied. Thc interior design of the movie theaters serves one sole pur-pose: to rivet the audience's attention to the peripheral so that theywill not sink into the abyss. The stimulations of the senses succeedeach other with such rapidity that there is no room left for even theslightest contemplation to squeeze in between them. Like l i fe-buoys,the refractions of the spotlights and the musical accompaniment keepthe spectator above water. The penchant for distraction demands andfinds an answer in the display of pure externality; hence the irrefuta-ble tendency, particularly in Berlin, to turn all forms of entertainmentinto revues and, parallel with this tendency, the increasing amount ofillustrations in the daily press and in periodical publications.This emphasis on the external has the advantage of being sincere. Itis not externality that poses a threat to truth. Truth is threatened onlyby the naive affirmation of cultural values that have become unrealand by the careless misuse of concepts such as personality, inward-ness, tragedy and so on, terms which in themselves certainly refer tolofty ideas but which have lost much of their scope along with theirsupporting foundations due to social changes. Furthermore, many ofthese concepts have acquired a bad aftertaste today because theyunjustifiably deflect an inordinate amount of attention away from theexternal damages of society onto the private individual. Instances ofsuch repression are common enough in the fields of literature, dramaand music. They claim the status of high art while actually rehearsinganachronistic forms which evade the pressing needs of our time - afan which is indirectly confirmed hy the artistically derivative qualityof the respective productions. In a profound sense, Berlin audiencesan truthfully when increasingly they shun these art events (which, forgood reason, remain caught in mere pretension), preferring insteadthe surface glamor of the stars, films, revues and production values.Here, in pure externality, the audience encounters itself; its own reali-t'j is revealed in the fragmented sequence of splendid sense impres-sions.were this reality to remain hidden from the audience, they couldneither attack nor change it; its disclosure in distraction is therefore ofmora l significance.However, this is the case onlv if distraction is not an end in itself. In-deed the very fact that the sh~ws which aim at distraction arc com-posed of the same mixture of externalities as the world of the urbanmasses; the fact that these shows lack any authentic and materiallymotivated coherence, except possibly the glue of sentimentality whichcovers up this lack but only in order to make it all the more visible; thefact that these shows convey in a precise and undisguised manner to

Co ri ht 2001. All Ri hts Reseved.

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thousands of eyes and ears the disorder of society - this is preciselywhat enables such shows to evoke and maintain that tension whichmust precede the inevitable and radical change. In the streets of Berlinone is not seldom struck by the momentary insight that one day all thiswill suddenly burst apart. The entertainment to which the generalpublic throngs ought to produce the same effect.

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