LIT 54/GERM54
German Cinema
Fall 2008
Prof. Sunka Simon, Swarthmore College
LIT 54/GERM54
German Cinema
Fall 2008
Prof. Sunka Simon, Swarthmore College
Course Projection - Meeting Times - Requirements - Course Texts - Screening Schedule - Syllabus - Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6 - Week 7 - Week 8 - Week 9 - Week 10 - Week 11 - Week 12 - Week 13 - Course Bibliography - Screening Report Form
This course is an introduction to German Cinema from its inception in the 1890s until the present. It includes an examination of early exhibition forms, expressionist and avantgarde films from the classic German cinema of the Weimar era, fascist cinema, postwar rubble films, DEFA films from East Germany, New German Cinema from the 1970s, and post 1989 heritage films. This course analyzes a cross-match of popular and avantgarde films while discussing mass culture, education, propaganda, and entertainment as identity- and nation-building pracises. Taught in English.
COURSE: Wednesday 1:15-4pm, Kohlberg 302
SCREENINGS: M 7-10pm - SCIENCE CENTER 199
- Attendance at and participation in all course meetings and screenings. Unexcused absences will negatively effect your grade! 1 oral report on a director/film/aspect related to but not explicitely covered by the syllabus (25%)
- Preparation for each course meeting includes completion of all reading, viewing, and writing assignments!
- 1 oral introduction to a screened film on one Monday night (10 minutes). 2 screening reports (on a provided form) on two films from two different eras, spaced evenly throughout the semester! (3 reports/homework preparation = 15%)
- 1 short paper (5 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins) on a historical, theoretical or critical aspect of Wilhelminian, Weimar or Third Reich Cinema due Wednesday, October 8, 2008 (15%)
- 1 film analysis paper (10 pages) due Wednesday, November 26, 2008 (25%)
- Final Exam (20%)
- Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema. NY: Routledge, 2008 (2nd edition). - providing our historical, cultural context - GNC in syllabus
- Bergfelder, Tim, Erica Carter and Deniz Göktürk. Eds. The German Cinema Book. London: BFI, 2002. - providing our critical analytical inventory and encyclopedia - GCB in syllabus
- McCormick, Richard W. and Alison Guenther-Pal. Eds. German Essays on Film. NY: Continuum, 2004. - a recommended volume of original sources, also on Blackboard - BB in syllabus
All screened films are open to the Swarthmore communityand will be shown in the SCIENCE CENTER Cinema 199, 7-9pm unless otherwise noted
- Monday, September 1 - Der Student von Prag (Rye/Wegener, 1913) - 45 minutes
- Monday, September 8 - Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924) and M (Fritz Lang, 1931) - 90 minutes
- Monday, September 15 - Die weiße Hölle von Pitz Palü/White Hell of Pitz Palü (Fanck/Pabst, 1929) - 90 minutes
- Monday, September 22 - Wunschkonzert/Request Concert (Eduard von Borsody, 1940) or Romanze in Moll/Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner, 1942/43) - 100 minutes
- Monday, September 29 - Irgendwo in Berlin/Somewhere in Berlin (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1946) - 80 minutes
- Monday, October 6 - Chingachgook: The Great Snake (Richard Groschopp, 1967) - 86 minutes
- Monday, October 20 - Spur der Steine/Trace of Stones (Frank Beyer, 1966/89) - 135 minutes
- Monday, October 27 - Heißer Sommer/Hot Summer (Joachim Hasler, 1968) - 90 minutes
- Monday, November 3 - Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes/Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) - 95 minutes
- Monday, November 10 - Lola (R.W. Fassbinder, 1981) - 113 minutes
- Monday, November 17 - Redupers (Helke Sander, 1978) - 95 minutes
- Friday, November 21 - Dinner and Screening at German Society of Philadelphia - Die Fälscher/The Counterfeiters (Stefan Rutzowitzky, 2007) - 98 minutes
- Monday, November 24 - Lola Rennt/ Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
- Monday, December 1 - Gegen die Wand/ Head-On (Fatih Akin, 2004)
Syllabus Week 1 - Course Projections, Wilhelmine Cinema
Wednesday, September 3: Introduction to Course, Der Student von Prag,Wilhelmine Cinema - Exhibition and Audience
Readings:
- Sabine Hake, "Wilhelmine Cinema 1898-1919," GNC 8-26
- Joseph Garncarz, "The Origin of Film Exhibition in Germany" GCB 112-120
- Frank Kessler and Eva Warth, "Early Cinema and its Audiences" GCB 121-128
- Alfred Döblin, "Theater of the Little People" (1909) German Essays on Film, BB
- Malwine Rennert, "An Abyss not to be bridged" (1912-13) German Essays on Film, BB
- Georg Lukács, "Thoughts on an Aesthetics of Cinema" (1913) German Essays on Film, BB
Wednesday, September 10: Der letzte Mann, M, Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, Der blaue Engel, Nosferatu
Readings:
- Sabine Hake, "Weimar Cinema 1919-33" GNC 27-63
- Hans-Michael Bock and Michael Töteberg, "A History of UFA" GCB 129-138
- Fritz Lang, "The Artistic Composition of the Film Drama" (1924) German Essays on Film, BB
- Marc Silberman, "Political Cinema as Oppositional Practice: Weimar and Beyond" GCB 165-172
- Peter Krämer, "Hollywood in Germany/Germany in Hollywood" GCB 217-226
- Herbert Ihering, "An Expressionist Film" (1920) German Essays on Film, BB
Wednesday, September 17: Weimar Blockbusters: Das indische Grabmal, Die weiße Hölle des Pitz Palü
Berlin in and as Film: Emil und die Detektive, Menschen am Sonntag, Berlin- Symphonie der Großstadt
- Siegfried Kracauer, "The Little Shopgirls go to the Movies" (1927) German Essays on Film, BB
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "The Subsitute for Dreams" (1921) German Essays on Film, BB
- Erica Carter, "Marlene Dietrich - The Prodigal Daughter" GCB 71-80
Wednesday, September 24: Gesinnungsfabrik as Traumfabrik (Factory of Convictions as Factory of Dreams): Wunschkonzert, Romanze in Moll, Feuerzangenbowle, Triumph des Willens and Jud Süß
Readings:
- Sabine Hake, "Third Reich Cinema 1933-45" GNC 64-91
- Julian Petley, "Film Policy in the Third Reich" GCB 173-181
- Stephen Lowry, "Heinz Rühmann - The Archetypal German" GCB 81-89
- Joseph Goebbels, "Speech at the Kaiserhof, March 28, 1933" German Essays on Film, BB
- Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" (1944 German Essays on Film, BB
- Siegfried Kracauer, "Introduction to From Caligari to Hitler" (1947) German Essays on Film, BB
Week 5 - Postwar Cinema 1945-61
Wednesday, October 1: The Rubble Films - Irgendwo in Berlin; Prelude to 1968: Born in '45, Murderers are among us, Die Sünderin, Berlin, Ecke Schönhauser, Mädchen Rosemarie
Readings:
- Sabine Hake, "Postwar Cinema 1945-61" GNC 92-126
- Mark Baker, "Trümmerfilme: Postwar German Cinema 1946-1948" Film Criticism (1995-96) - BB
- Heide Fehrenbach, "Who killed the German Man? Early Postwar Cinema and the Betrayal of Fatherland," Cinema in Democratizing Germany 92-117 - BB
- Horst Claus, "Rebels with a Cause: The Development of the 'Berlin-Filme' by Gerhard Klein and Wolfgang Kohlhaase" DEFA East German Cinema 1946-1992 93-116 - BB
Wednesday, October 8: Representations of Heimat as Other - East and West-German Westerns and Heimatfilme ***Short Paper due!***
Readings:
- Johannes von Moltke, "Evergreens: The Heimat Genre" GCB 18-28
- Marie-Hélène Gutberlet. "In the Wilds of the German Imaginary: African Vistas" GCB 238-247
- Gerd Gemünden, "Between Karl May and Karl Marx: The DEFA Indianerfilme," Germans and Indians 243-258 - BB
Thursday, October 9: 7-9pm - Devil Music Ensemble presents a Live Music Film Screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
October Break
Week 7 - East German Cinema 1961-1989
Wednesday, October 22: The Trace of Censorship - Spur der Steine
- Horst Claus, "DEFA - State, Studio, Style, Identity" GCB 139-147
- Karen Ruoff Kramer, "Representations of Work in the forbidden DEFA Films of 1965" DEFA East German Cinema 1946-1992 131-145 - BB
- Sabine Hake, "East German Cinema" GNC 127-152
Week 8 - East German Cinema cont.
Wednesday, October 29: "Kost the Ost" (Taste the East): Hot Summer - National Image-Work through Film - From Paul and Paula to Coming Out
Readings:
- Barton Byg, "DEFA and the Traditions of International Cinema" DEFA East German Cinema 1946-1992 22-41 - BB
- Daniela Berghahn, "The East German Film Industry and the State," Hollywood behind the Wall 11-54 - BB
- Konrad Wolf, "On the Possibilities of Socialist Film Art" German Essays on Film, 222-228 - BB
- Wolfgang Kohlhaase, "DEFA: A Personal View" German Essays on Film, 242-250 - BB
Week 9 - West German Cinema 1961-1989
Wednesday, November 5: Aguirre - Popular, Avantgarde, and/or Transnational Cinema?
Readings:
- Martin Leiperdinger, "State Legislation, Censorship and Funding" GCB 148-158
- Sabine Hake, "West German Cinema 1962--89" GNC 153-189
- Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli, "Out of Europe: Werner Herzog - the Cinema as Journey" - BB
Wednesday, November 12: Fassbinder and Co.
Readings:
- "Oberhausen Manifesto" German Essays on Film 201-202 - BB
- Alexander Kluge, "What do the 'Oberhauseners' want?" German Essays on Film 203-205 -BB
- Rainer Werner Fassbinder, From 'The Third Generation' German Essays on Film 229-235 - BB
- Thomas Elsaesser, "New German Cinema and History: The Case of Alexander Kluge GCB 182-191
Week 11 - Screening Gender and Nation
Wednesday, November 19: Feminist Filmmakers as/and Auteurs
Readings:
- Helke Sander, "Feminism and Film" German Essays on Film, 215-221
- Jutta Brückner, "Women's Films are Searches for Traces" German Essays on Film 237-241
- "Manifesto of Women Film Workers" German Essays on Film, 235-237
- Ulrike Sieglohr, "Women Film-Makers, the Avant-Garde and the case of Ulrike Ottinger" GCB 192-201
- Ian Garwood, "The Autorenfilm in Contemporary German Cinema" GCB 202-210
Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 12 - Post-Unification Cinema
Wednesday, December 3: Heritage Cinema and Transnational Migrant Cinema
Readings:
- Malte Hagener, "German Stars of the 1990s" GCB 98-106
- Sabine Hake, "Post-Unification Cinema 1989-2000" GNC 190-223
- Lutz Koepnik, "Reframing the Past: Heritage Cinema and Holocaust in the 1990s" - BB
- Lutz Koepnik, "Consuming the Other: Identity, Alterity, and Contemporary German Cinema" - BB
- Deniz Göktürk, "Beyond Paternalism: Turkish-German Traffic in Cinema" GCB 248-256
Course Bibliography
