12 - Seeing Crisis in Harry Piel’s Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (1933)

Summary

THE CRISIS CAUSED BY AN INVISIBLE MAN in Harry Piel's Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (An Invisible Man Goes through the City, 1933) is announced on the radio. The “Ruhe” light (literally “quiet,” or “on-air”) shines behind the announcer in the studio as he speaks into the microphone: “Achtung, Achtung” (Attention, attention). A bank robbery has just taken place and is causing great concern throughout the city. Three shots depict different groups of listeners suddenly turning their attention to this disembodied voice and its disturbing message: “Jeden Augenblick kann ein neues Verbrechen geschehen und es gibt keine Möglichkeit, den Täter zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen” (A new crime can take place at any moment and there is no possibility of bringing the culprit to justice). Ladies having tea glance first toward the radio speakers, then apprehensively at each other. Film viewers return momentarily to the unified body and voice in the radio studio: “Nach den Berichten der Augenzeugen besteht kein Zweifel mehr, dass tatsächlich die sensationelle Erfindung sich unsichtbar zu machen, von einem kriminell veranlagten Unbekannten ausgebeutet wird” (Following eyewitness accounts, there is no longer any doubt that a sensational invisibility invention is indeed being utilized by an unknown person with criminal intentions). Halfway through the sentence, just before the announcer utters the word “invisible,” the film cuts to a shot of men in a bar playing cards. They look up from their game and stare in disbelief at the radio beside them. Back in the studio: “Seine Macht ist leider fast unbegrenzt und das Schlimmste ist zu befürchten, wenn es nicht in Kürze gelingt, seiner Person habhaft zu werden” (Unfortunately he has almost unlimited power and the worst is to be expected if he is not soon apprehended). The film cuts to people in the street who have gathered around to look up at the radio voice beyond the frame that is broadcasting this message of crisis and provoking at once social unrest, skepticism, and fantasies.

A voice can appear unexpectedly, out of nowhere. That is the source of anxiety and disbelief that is foreshadowed in this filmic depiction of a radio audience realizing the threat that the invisible man poses.