German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as architecture, painting and cinema.

Among the first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague (1913), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), Destiny (1921), Nosferatu (1922), Phantom (1922), Schatten (1923), and The Last Laugh (1924), were highly symbolic and stylized.

The German Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned more foreign films in the nation. The demand from theaters to generate films led film production to rise from 25 films (1914) to 130 films (1918). With inflation literally on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's worth was constantly diminishing.

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations. He has also appeared in critically acclaimed films such as Empire of the Sun, The Killing Fields, Dangerous Liaisons, Of Mice and Men, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, and Red. He will produce the film version of the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois. His paternal grandparents were Croats, natives of Ozalj in Croatia. His mother was of Scottish and German ancestry. He grew up in Benton, Illinois, in a large house on South Main Street. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director and publisher of Outdoor Illinois, a conservation magazine. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser), owned the Benton Evening News (a local newspaper in Benton, Il.), as well as Outdoor Illinois. Malkovich attended Logan Grade School,^{[citation needed]} Webster Junior High, and Benton Consolidated High School, in Benton, Illinois. During his high school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical, Carousel. He was also a member of a folk/rock musical trio, and was a member of a local summer theater/comedy project in Benton in 1972, where he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah. Upon graduation from high school, he entered Eastern Illinois University, and then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theatre.