Editing Fred Zinnemann (section)

===Early career===
Zinnemann worked in [[Weimar Republic|Germany]] with several other beginners ([[Billy Wilder]] and [[Robert Siodmak]] also worked with him on the 1929 feature ''[[People on Sunday]]'') after he studied filmmaking in France. His penchant for realism and authenticity is evident in his first feature ''[[Redes (film)|The Wave]]'' (1936), shot on location in Mexico with mostly non-professional actors recruited among the locals, which is one of the earliest examples of [[social realism]] in narrative film. Earlier in the decade, in fact, Zinnemann had worked with documentarian [[Robert Flaherty]], "probably the greatest single influence on my work as a filmmaker", he said.<ref name=Hillstrom/>

Although he was fascinated by the artistic culture of Germany, with its theater, music and films, he was also aware that the country was in a deep economic crisis. He became disenchanted with Berlin after continually seeing decadent ostentation and luxury existing alongside desperate unemployment. The wealthy classes were moving more to the political right and the poor to the left. "Emotion had long since begun to displace reason," he said.<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|16}} As a result of the changing political climate, along with the fact that [[sound film]]s had arrived in Europe, which was technically unprepared to produce their own, film production throughout Europe slowed dramatically. Zinnemann, then only 21, got his parents' permission to go to America where he hoped filmmaking opportunities would be greater.<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|16}}

He arrived in New York at the end of October 1929, at the time of the [[Stock market crash#Wall Street Crash of 1929|stock market crash]]. Despite the financial panic then beginning, he found New York to be a different cultural environment:<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|17}}
{{blockquote|New York was a terrific experience, full of excitement, with a vitality and pace then totally lacking in Europe. It was as though I had just left a continent of zombies and entered a place humming with incredible energy and power.<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|17}}}}

Shortly after, he took a Greyhound bus to Hollywood. One of Zinnemann's first jobs in Hollywood was as an [[extra (actor)|extra]] in ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film)|All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' (1930). He said that many of the other extras were former [[Russian nobility|Russian aristocrat]]s and high-ranking officers who fled to America as refugees from the [[October Revolution]] in 1917 and the ensuing [[Red Terror]].<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|23}}

He was twenty-two but he said he felt older than the forty-year-olds in Hollywood. But he was jubilant because he was then certain that "this was the place one could breathe free and belong."<ref name=Zinnemann/>{{rp|18}} But after a few years he became disillusioned with the limited talents of Hollywood's elites. His first directorial effort was the Mexican cultural protest film, ''The Wave'', in Alvarado, Mexico. He established residence in North Hollywood with [[Henwar Rodakiewicz]], [[Gunther von Fritsch]] and [[Ned Scott]], all fellow contributors to the Mexican project.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenedscottarchive.com/ned-scott-biography.html|title=ned scott biography|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|website=www.thenedscottarchive.com|access-date=August 3, 2018|archive-date=June 22, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622072432/http://www.thenedscottarchive.com/ned-scott-biography.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>