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Popular Cinema of the Third Reich

Sabine Hake (Author)

9780292734586

Paperback / softback, published 1 January 2002

288 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.454 kg

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 codevelopment of German and other national cinemas, especially the dominant Hollywood model.

  • Preface
  • 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 RÜ
    hmann and the Performance of the Ordinary
  • 6. Detlef Sierck and Schluß
    akkord
    (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
  • Notes
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index of German Titles and Names
  • Index

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