Mar 29, 2024  
Catalogue 2021-2022 
    
Catalogue 2021-2022 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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GERM 265 - German Film in English Translation

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)


(Same as FILM 265 ) Topic for 2021/22b: From Caligari to Hitler? Tracing the Roots of Fascism in German Cinema between the Two World Wars. In his seminal work on German film history during the Weimar Republic, Siegfried Kracauer drew a direct line from the titular madman-manipulator in the silent horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Adolf Hitler. This course scrutinizes Kracauer’s approach as part of our own analysis of the cinematic landscape of Germany’s first flawed attempt at democracy in the 1920s and early 1930s. In addition to examining a wide range of genres, from slapstick comedy to socialist drama, we explore aesthetic styles and technological developments in cinema as well as filmic forebodings of authoritarian and fascist structures. Authors and filmmakers include: Béla Balázs, Bert Brecht, Lotte Eisner, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, F.W. Murnau, Leni Riefenstahl, and Josef von Sternberg. Lioba Gerhardi.

Readings and discussions are in English, and all films have English subtitles.

Open to all classes.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS



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