Mountains and the (Un)natural woman: performance and physiognomy in Die Bergkatze (1921) and Das blaue Licht (1932)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the depictions of women in Ernst Lubitsch’s Die Bergkatze (The Wildcat, 1921) and Leni Riefenstahl’s Das blaue Licht (The Blue Light, 1932). These films demonstrate a compelling number of similarities, both being centred around ‘wild’ women who live on mountains, with the latter belonging to the Bergfilm (mountain-film) genre and the former seeming to anticipate it. I draw from the theory of Béla Balázs and his understanding of physiognomy in the context of film. Given the predilection for style, aesthetics and abstract performance that often eclipses their narratives, I also focus specifically on stills from these films and how these might be interpreted independently from their narratives. I further suggest that both female protagonists can be viewed as versions of the mythical Medusa, an image-making figure arising from misogyny but adopted by feminism as a symbol of subversively empowered women. I conclude that through the performances of the women and the physiognomic scenery of the mountains themselves, images of powerful women in control of their own image are generated, which disrupt the narratives from which they arise.