ERNST TOLLER'S FILM PROJECTS

Abstract

This article examines Ernst Toller's ambivalent relationship to film as a medium and to cinema as a place of mass entertainment. It focuses particularly on Toller's own film projects and his hope for cinema as an effective contributor to the public sphere, while tracing his time in Hollywood as an exile from Nazi Germany. Toller had two film scenarios in his luggage when he moved to New York – ‘Betsy James’ (later entitled ‘Lola Montez’ and, finally, ‘Heavenly Sinner’) and ‘Der Weg nach Indien’ – but neither project came to fruition. Based on surviving manuscripts, newspaper articles and Toller's correspondence with other exiles in the US and friends abroad (such as the leader of the Indian independence movement Jawaharlal Nehru and the Irish writer Denis Johnston), this article pieces together his engagement with the medium and the industry, and highlights film as an integral aspect of Toller's work in exile.