Aside from Reinhardt, Leopold Jessner was considered the most-advanced director in the German theater. The hallmark of his stage productions was the use of stairs, and his critics coined the word, "Jessnertreppin", as a short-club to beat him with in their newspaper reviews. In his only film, "Hintertreppe", he uses stairs to dramatize both the social status of the characters and their emotional relationships. For the greater part of the film, only three people are seen, and the lighting, described by Carl Vincent as "seeming to come from within the characters," is used to convey the sense of isolation. Based on the comments on this site page, most of them missed whatever it was Carl Vincent was so taken with. So did I while watching the USA 16mm under the title of "Backstairs."
Review of Hintertreppe
