Its imaginative use of sound and music combines with the play of light in an extraordinarily controlled visual palette. We know what Dietrich could do with a voice, and Emil Jannings spoke with his face and his hulking, brooding body. The Blue Angel is an almost clinical depiction of an old man's obsession for a voluptuous dance-hall girl who becomes empowered by her lover's degradation. Contained herein are the cinematic lessons learned so well by the American expressionists, of whom John Alton is one: claustrophobic decor and sensuous compositions are not an end in themselves, but project the reality of dark obsession unto death.