The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema

The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema
Author: Christian Rogowski
Publisher: Camden House
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2010
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1571134298

Traditionally, Weimar cinema has been equated with the work of a handful of auteurist filmmakers and a limited number of canonical films. Often a single, limited phenomenon, "expressionist film," has been taken as synonymous with the cinema of the entire period. But in recent decades, such reductive assessments have been challenged by developments in film theory and archival research that highlight the tremendous richness and diversity of Weimar cinema. This widening of focus has brought attention to issues such as film as commodity; questions of technology and genre; transnational collaborations and national identity; effects of changes in socioeconomics and gender roles on film spectatorship; and connections between film and other arts and media. Such shifts have been accompanied by archival research that has made a cornucopia of new information available and augmented by the increased availability of films from the period on DVD. This wealth of new source material calls for a re-evaluation of Weimar cinema that considers the legacies of lesser-known directors and producers, popular genres, experiments of the artistic avant-garde, and nonfiction films, all of which are aspects attended to by the essays in this volume. Contributors: Ofer Ashkenazi, Jaimey Fisher, Veronika Fuechtner, Joseph Garncarz, Barbara Hales, Anjeana Hans, Richard W. McCormick, Nancy P. Nenno, Elizabeth Otto, Mihaela Petrescu, Theodore F. Rippey, Christian Rogowski, Jill Smith, Philipp Stiasny, Chris Wahl, Cynthia Walk, Valerie Weinstein, Joel Westerdale. Christian Rogowski is Professor and Chair of German at Amherst College.

Weimar Cinema

Weimar Cinema
Author: Noah William Isenberg
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231130554

In this comprehensive companion to Weimar cinema, chapters address the technological advancements of each film, their production and place within the larger history of German cinema, the style of the director, the actors and the rise of the German star, and the critical reception of the film.

Continuity and Crisis in German Cinema, 1928-1936

Continuity and Crisis in German Cinema, 1928-1936
Author: Barbara Hales
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2016
Genre: Motion pictures
ISBN: 1571139354

New essays examining the differences and commonalities between late Weimar-era and early Nazi-era German cinema against a backdrop of the crises of that time.

The Long Century’s Long Shadow

The Long Century’s Long Shadow
Author: Kenneth S. Calhoon
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1487526970

The Long Century’s Long Shadow approaches German Romanticism and Weimar cinema as continuous developments, enlisting both in a narrative of reciprocal illumination. The author investigates different moments and media as connected phenomena, situated at alternate ends of the "long nineteenth century" but joined by their mutual rejection of the neo-classical aesthetic standard of placid and weightless poise in numerous media, including film, painting, sculpture, prose, poetry, and dance. Connecting Weimar filmmaking to Romantic thought and practice, Kenneth S. Calhoon offers a non-technological, aesthetic genealogy of cinema. He focuses on well-known literary and artistic works, including films such as Nosferatu, Metropolis, Frankenstein, and Fantasia; the writings of Conrad, Kafka, Goethe, and Novalis; and the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, one of the leading artists of German Romanticism. With an eye to the modernism of which Weimar filmmaking was a part, The Long Century’s Long Shadow employs the Romantic landscape in poetry and painting as a mirror in which to regard cinema.

Weimar Cinema and After

Weimar Cinema and After
Author: Thomas Elsaesser
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1135078599

German cinema of the 1920s is still regarded as one of the 'golden ages' of world cinema. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Dr Mabuse the Gambler, Nosferatu, Metropolis, Pandora's Box and The Blue Angel have long been canonised as classics, but they are also among the key films defining an image of Germany as a nation uneasy with itself. The work of directors like Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau and G.W. Pabst, which having apparently announced the horrors of fascism, while testifying to the traumas of a defeated nation, still casts a long shadow over cinema in Germany, leaving film history and political history permanently intertwined. Weimar Cinema and After offers a fresh perspective on this most 'national' of national cinemas, re-evaluating the arguments which view genres and movements such as 'films of the fantastic', 'Nazi Cinema', 'film noir' and 'New German Cinema' as typically German contributions to twentieth century visual culture. Thomas Elsaesser questions conventional readings which link these genres to romanticism and expressionism, and offers new approaches to analysing the function of national cinema in an advanced 'culture industry' and in a Germany constantly reinventing itself both geographically and politically. Elsaesser argues that German cinema's significance lies less in its ability to promote democracy or predict fascism than in its contribution to the creation of a community sharing a 'historical imaginary' rather than a 'national identity'. In this respect, he argues, German cinema anticipated some of the problems facing contemporary nations in reconstituting their identities by means of media images, memory, and invented traditions.

From Caligari to Hitler

From Caligari to Hitler
Author: Siegfried Kracauer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0691191344

An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticism First published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic. Prominent film critic Siegfried Kracauer examines German society from 1921 to 1933, in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel. He explores the connections among film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer makes a startling (and still controversial) claim: films as popular art provide insight into the unconscious motivations and fantasies of a nation. With a critical introduction by Leonardo Quaresima which provides context for Kracauer’s scholarship and his contributions to film studies, this Princeton Classics edition makes an influential work available to new generations of cinema enthusiasts.

Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic

Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic
Author: Anjeana K. Hans
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2014-09-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 081433895X

The Weimar period in Germany was a time of radical change, when the traditions and social hierarchies of Imperial Germany crumbled, and a young, deeply conflicted republic emerged. Modernity brought changes that reached deep into the most personal aspects of life, including a loosening of gender roles that opened up new freedoms and opportunities to women. The screen vamps, garçonnes, and New Women in this movie-hungry society came to embody the new image of womanhood: sexually liberated, independent, and—at least to some—deeply threatening. In Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic, author Anjeana K. Hans examines largely forgotten films of Weimar cinema through the lens of their historical moment, contemporary concerns and critiques, and modern film theory to give a nuanced understanding of their significance and their complex interplay between gender, subjectivity, and cinema. Hans focuses on so-called uncanny films, in which terror lies just under the surface and the emancipated female body becomes the embodiment of a threat repressed. In six chapters she provides a detailed analysis of each film and traces how filmmakers simultaneously celebrate and punish the transgressive women that populate them. Films discussed include The Eyes of the Mummy (Die Augen der Mumie Mâ, Ernst Lubitsch, 1918), Uncanny Tales (Unheimliche Geschichten, Richard Oswald, 1919), Warning Shadows (Schatten: Eine nächtliche Halluzination, Artur Robison, 1923), The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände, Robert Wiene, 1924), A Daughter of Destiny (Alraune, Henrik Galeen,1928), and Daughter of Evil (Alraune, Richard Oswald, 1930). An introduction contextualizes Weimar cinema within its unique and volatile social setting. Hans demonstrates that Weimar Germany’s conflicting emotions, hopes, and fears played out in that most modern of media, the cinema. Scholars of film and German history will appreciate the intriguing study of Gender and the Uncanny in Films of the Weimar Republic.

Weimar Cinema, Embodiment, and Historicity

Weimar Cinema, Embodiment, and Historicity
Author: Mason Kamana Allred
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2017-01-20
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1351858475

In its retrieval and (re)construction, the past has become interwoven with the images and structure of cinema. Not only have mass media—especially film and television—shaped the content of memories and histories, but they have also shaped their very form. Combining historicization with close readings of German director Ernst Lubitsch's historical films, this book focuses on an early turning point in this development, exploring how the medium of film shaped modern historical experience and understanding—how it moved embodied audiences through moving images.

A New History of German Cinema

A New History of German Cinema
Author: Jennifer M. Kapczynski
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 694
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 1571135952

A dynamic, event-centered exploration of the hundred-year history of German-language film. This dynamic, event-centered anthology offers a new understanding of the hundred-year history of German-language film, from the earliest days of the Kintopp to contemporary productions like The Lives of Others. Eachof the more than eighty essays takes a key date as its starting point and explores its significance for German film history, pursuing its relationship with its social, political, and aesthetic moment. While the essays offer ampletemporal and topical spread, this book emphasizes the juxtaposition of famous and unknown stories, granting attention to a wide range of cinematic events. Brief section introductions provide a larger historical and film-historicalframework that illuminates the essays within it, offering both scholars and the general reader a setting for the individual texts and figures under investigation. Cross-references to other essays in the book are included at the close of each entry, encouraging readers not only to pursue familiar trajectories in the development of German film, but also to trace particular figures and motifs across genres and historical periods. Together, the contributionsoffer a new view of the multiple, intersecting narratives that make up German-language cinema. The constellation that is thus established challenges unidirectional narratives of German film history and charts new ways of thinkingabout film historiography more broadly. Jennifer Kapczynski is Associate Professor of German at Washington University, St. Louis, and Michael Richardson is Associate Professor of German at Ithaca College.

No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home
Author: Johannes von Moltke
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2005-09-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780520938595

This is the first comprehensive account of Germany's most enduring film genre, the Heimatfilm, which has offered idyllic variations on the idea that "there is no place like home" since cinema's early days. Charting the development of this popular genre over the course of a century in a work informed by film studies, cultural history, and social theory, Johannes von Moltke focuses in particular on its heyday in the 1950s, a period that has been little studied. Questions of what it could possibly mean to call the German nation "home" after the catastrophes of World War II are anxiously present in these films, and von Moltke uses them as a lens through which to view contemporary discourses on German national identity.