Natural Spectacles
Film, Nature and German History
„Der Film schildert die Natur direkt, verlangt nicht die Nachsicht der Zuschauer für bemalte Leinwand und Pappbäume“, wrote Danish director Urban Gad, once very popular in Germany, in his 1920 essay Der Film, seine Mittel und seine Ziele. Gad was not alone in his assessment that this relatively young medium could provide a “true picture of nature.” Many filmmakers and film theorists of his time referred to “nature” when they wanted to describe the special qualities of film. They did not only refer to landscape shots or animal documentaries, but also brought the ‘raw’ or ‘non-human’ into the field.
Needless to say, the meaning of the word “nature” is also subject to historical change. A nature filmmaker of the imperial era who filmed untouched forests associated it with something different than a producer of educational films who provided materials for biology lessons in the post-war period, or an activist film collective that warned of forest dieback in the 1980s. The series Natural Spectacles, curated by Stephan Ahrens, follows these different perspectives on landscapes and forests, flora and fauna. It explores the question of what different conceptions and ideas of nature have been inscribed in German film history and what film-specific experiences of nature are possible in the cinema—because, as Urban Gad assesses at the end of his book, the most beautiful nature shots are thanks to filmmakers working in their Berlin studios in the big city.
The film series Natural Spectacles. Film, Nature, and German History accompanies the exhibition Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – Power, which can be visited at the Deutsches Historisches Museum / German History Museum until June 7, 2026.
