General Information

Author/Creator

Hake, Sabine, 1956-

Language

English.

Published

Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2001.

Physical Description

xiv, 272 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Contents/Summary

Summary

This is an immaculately researched, sophisticatedly argued investigation into the richly varied aspects of popular cinema during the Third Reich. . . The result is an impressive, highly informative, and insightful book." --Alice Kuzniar, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Too often dismissed as escapist entertainment or vilified as mass manipulation, popular cinema in the Third Reich was in fact sustained by well-established generic conventions, cultural traditions, aesthetic sensibilities, social practices, and a highly developed star system--not unlike its Hollywood counterpart in the 1930s. This pathfinding study contributes to the ongoing reassessment of Third Reich cinema by examining it as a social, cultural, economic, and political practice that often conflicted with, contradicted, and compromised the intentions of the Propaganda Ministry. Nevertheless, by providing the illusion of a public sphere presumably free of politics, popular cinema helped to sustain the Nazi regime, especially during the war years. Rather than examining Third Reich cinema through overdetermined categories such as propaganda, ideology, or fascist aesthetics, Sabine Hake concentrates on the constituent elements shared by most popular cinemas: famous stars, directors, and studios movie audiences and exhibition practices popular genres and new trends in set design the reception of foreign films the role of film criticism and the representation of women. She pays special attention to the forced coordination of the industry in 1933, the changing demands on cinema during the war years, and the various ways of coming to terms with these filmic legacies after the war. Throughout, Hake's findings underscore the continuities among Weimar, Third Reich, and post-1945 West German cinema. They also emphasize the co-development of German and other national cinemas, especially the dominant Hollywood model.

Subjects

Subject

National socialism and motion pictures.

Motion pictures > Germany > History.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Sabine Hake.

Content

1. Popular Cinema, National Cinema, Nazi Cinema: A Definition of Terms -- 2. Made in 1933: German-Jewish Filmmakers and the Forced Coordination of the Industry -- 3. Cinema, Set Design, and the Domestication of Modernism -- 4. At the Movies: Film Audiences and the Problem of Spectatorship -- 5. Stars: Heinz Ruhmann and the Performance of the Ordinary -- 6. Detlef Sierck and Schlußakkord (Final Chord, 1936): A Case Study of Film Authorship -- 7. The Foreign and the Familiar: On German-American Film Relations, 1933\-1940 -- 8. The Annexation of an Imaginary City: The Topos "Vienna" and the Wien-Film AG -- 9. The Power of Thought: Redefining Popular Cinema between Realism and Illusionism -- 10. A Question of Representation: Working Women and Wartime Cinema -- 11. The Legacies of the Past in the Cinema of Postwar Reconstruction.

Library Special Collection

The Roger Griffin ComFas Collection

ISBN

0292734573

0292734581

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	791.43/0943/09043 HAK		General Stacks	-

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