The Blue Angel

In the Blue Angel, the story revolves around two different yet important age groups. Young and old men. As is revealed to us by the end of the movie, those age groups overlap in their disposition towards the famous nightclub, the Blue Angel. No one can resist the charm of the place, and its lady dancers, especially not the star attraction: Lola (Played by Marlene Dietrich). Immanuel Rath is the local high school teacher who has taken it upon himself to chase out any of the young men from his class whom he first discovers at the cabaret. At first he believes the club is carnal attraction. Yet soon it is he, the intellectual, the erudite scholar, the "Professor" who has equally been drawn into the peepshow. 

There is one scene is particular where he is swooning to the high pitched voice of Lola as she serenades the crowd about "Falling in love again". In effect, he believes that she is singing to him. While Lola marries Immanuel Rath, a move that would not happen nine times out of ten in reality, she still retains her profession as a cabaret dancer. This causes the professor to develop deep-seated jealousies due to the sensual nature of her close proximity with her patrons. 

In the end, it is the resigned professor Rath who has taken up the role of clown in the travelling circus. He actually loses Lola due to his jealousy and ends up coming back to his hometown during their tour back. 

The scene with  the Professor at the nightclub as previously described shows man as stereotypically as they are still portrayed as the harborers of logic and reasoning and learning. Lola, on the other hand, is symbolic of the Biblical Eve, tempting man with her lustful persona; Bringing him down.  

As far as Nihilism is concerned, the Professor is brought down from a position of respectability to one of degradation. His downward descent was catalyzed by his own degradation of morals. It is the professor who allowed the Blue Angel, (Which is symbolic of the corrupted society), to corrupt him. 

From this we can ask questions such as, what is the value of the professor's learning if he was so easily corrupted in the end? Clearly the teacher had knowledge, which was enough to teach the next generation of young students (Or maybe not so much so since he could never get them to respect him) but not the logic and reasoning skills that go with being able to apply that knowledge, particularly in his own life. 

This scenario harkens back to Siddhartha, where the title character found himself among his father's traditions, that of the priests and other "Learned" men, yet it was so obvious that they did not have the experience to back up their merely meditated-upon truths. This seems to be the problem with the professor, who may have been more so on the Theory end of Praxis. 

Immanuel Rath is a stern teacher who can decipher the most complex of Shakespearean verse, at least on the surface. He is like a student who merely takes in what he learns, memorizes it, and regurgitates at least enough to get a good grade. Yet when he is asked what all of his lessons meant, can only freeze up. 

Immanuel has a lot of knowledge but no empirical, no direct experience applying that knowledge, which is rather useless.