New Austrian Film

Published by Berghahn Books 2011

New Austrian Film

Edited by: Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857452320

Overview
Contents

About this book

Out of a film culture originally starved of funds have emerged rich and eclectic works by film-makers that are now achieving the international recognition that they deserve: Barbara Albert, Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, and Stefan Ruzowitzky, to give four examples. This comprehensive critical anthology, by leading scholars of Austrian film, is intended to introduce and make accessible this much under-represented phenomenon. Although the book covers the full development of the Austrian new wave it focuses on the period that has brought it global attention: 1998 to the present. New Austrian Film is the only book currently available on this topic and will be an essential reference work for academics, students and filmmakers, interested in modern Austrian film.

Author / Editor information

Robert von Dassanowsky is Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and also works as an independent film producer. He is the author of Austrian Cinema: A History (2005), the first English language survey of that nation's film art. Other books include The Nameable and the Unnameable: Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s "Der Schwierige" Revisited (co-ed., 2011), Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metafilm (ed., 2012), World Film Locations: Vienna (ed., 2012), and Screening Transcendence: Film Under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope 1933–38 (2014).

Oliver C. Speck is Associate Professor of Film Studies and Graduate Program Director of the M.I.S. Concentration in Cinema and Language at Virginia Commonwealth University, School of World Studies. His scholarly writing focuses on narrative strategies and the representation of memory and history in European cinema. He is the author of Funny Frames: The Filmic Concepts of Michael Haneke (2010), and editor of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained: The Continuation of Metacinema (2014).

Robert von Dassanowsky is Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and also works as an independent film producer. He is the author of Austrian Cinema: A History (2005), the first English language survey of that nation's film art. Other books include The Nameable and the Unnameable: Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s "Der Schwierige" Revisited (co-ed., 2011), Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metafilm (ed., 2012), World Film Locations: Vienna (ed., 2012), and Screening Transcendence: Film Under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope 1933–38 (2014).

Reviews

“In this excellent collection of essays on recent Austrian cinema – the first to attempt to define this body of films as a coherent whole – the editors Robert Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck settle upon the term New Austrian Film. They have assembled an impressive team of scholars with diverse backgrounds, interests and perspectives to offer 27 chapters analysing various aspects of Austrian cinema at the turn of the 21st century…[The editors] have done an exemplary editorial job, bringing the contributions together nicely without forcing them into a monotonous similarity of style, approach, or argument. Like the best examples of the films it analyses, New Austrian Filmweaves together a wide variety of narratives and perspectives to challenge its audience to see things differently. The volume is as handsome and professionally presented as we have come to expect from the publisher, Berghahn Books.” · Senses of Cinema

“…highly recommended to scholars, students, and film lovers.” · Monatshefte

“This volume is unreservedly recommended to those who are already familiar with Austrian film to some extent. They will welcome the in-depth treatment and overview of Austrian cinema and its most important representatives.” · Media Studies

“This is a rich volume that will broaden understanding and appreciation of Austrian film and Austrian-trained filmmakers.” · Austrian Studies

“A substantive, coherent, and nuanced volume that brings together first-class authors and presents up-to-date research not only by German-speaking but also by foreign scholars - a reflection of the growing awareness of Austrian film internationally… The scholarly expertise to be found in these rich contributions make reading this volume a pleasant experience.” · RAY Magazine

“Almost all of the essays are well written and argued; they are well worth the attention of anyone interested in contemporary German-language cinema or in the contemporary German-speaking world. They provide a useful introduction to a national cinema that should be of interest to cinephiles everywhere.” ·Journal of Austrian Studies

“This book opens by referencing a 2006 New York Timesarticle that characterized Austria as the ‘world capital of feel-bad cinema,’ and then sets out to complicate this aesthetic, an objective which the diverse and engaging contributions more than accomplish… Beyond the pessimistic storylines, it seems, there is another level on which these films function, a productive, didactic and perhaps even optimistic level that is tested and chronicled in this unique and valuable collection of current perspectives.” · Austrian Studies Newsletter

“New Austrian Film introduces a generation of Austrian and Austrian-trained Central European filmmakers to world cinema scholars and cinephiles, opening a vista on a resolutely political and multicultural cinema… This volume is well-balanced and conceived to provide historical, theoretical, and aesthetic frameworks that will draw both the professional and the enthusiast into a contemporary cinema too long overlooked as a distinctive voice on the international stage.” · Katherine Arens, University of Texas at Austin

“The essays in this volume provide both historical context and critical analysis for the politically and aesthetically significant filmmaking now being done in Austria. This is an exemplary collection, comprehensive in scope and rich in fascinating detail, that will help bring closer attention to a remarkable national cinema.” · Chris Fujiwara, editor of the International Federation of Film Critics journal, Undercurrents

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction New Austrian Film: Th e Non-exceptional Exception Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Early Visions/Influential Sites
Chapter 1 “The Experiment Is Not Yet Finished”: VALIE EXPORT’s Avant-garde Film and Multimedia Art Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Chapter 2 Franz Antel’s Bockerer Series: Constructing the Historical Myths of Second Republic Austria Joseph Moser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
Chapter 3 Historical Drama of a Well-intentioned Kind: Wolfgang Glück’s 38 – Auch das war Wien Felix W Tweraser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
Chapter 4 Cartographies of Identity: Memory and History in Ruth Beckermann’s Documentary Films Christina Guenther Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
Part II Barbara Albert and the Female Re-focus
Chapter 5 A New Community of Women: Barbara Albert’s Nordrand Dagmar Lorenz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Chapter 6 Metonymic Visions: Globalization, Consumer Culture, and Mediated Aff ect in Barbara Albert’s Böse Zellen Imke Meyer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
Chapter 7 Place and Space of Contemporary Austria in Barbara Albert’s Feature Films Mary Wauchope Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
Chapter 8 Connecting with Others, Mirroring Diff erence: Th e Films of Kathrin Resetarits Verena Mund Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
Chapter 9 Not Politics but People: Th e “Feminine Aesthetic” of Valeska Grisebach and Jessica Hausner Catherine Wheatley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
Part III Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl: A Question of Spectatorial Destination
Chapter 10 Allegory in Michael Haneke’s Th e Seventh Continent Eva Kuttenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Chapter 11 “What Goes without Saying”: Michael Haneke’s Confrontation with Myths in Funny Games Gabriele Wurmitzer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Chapter 12 Unseen/Obscene: The (Non-)Framing of the Sexual Act in Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste Catherine Wheatley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Chapter 13 The Possibility of Desire in a Conformist World: Th e Cinema of Ulrich Seidl Mattias Frey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Chapter 14 Dog Days: Ulrich Seidl’s Fin-de-siècle Vision Justin Vicari Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Chapter 15 Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl’s Indiscreet Anthropology of Migration Martin Brady and Helen Hughes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Part IV Re-visions, Shifting Centers, Crossing Borders
Chapter 16 Crossing Borders in Austrian Cinema at the Turn of the Century: Flicker, Allahyari, Albert Nikhil Sathe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Chapter 17 “Th e Resentment of One’s Fellow Citizens Intensifi ed into a Strong Sense of Community”: Psychology and Misanthropy in Frosch’s Total Therapy, Flicker’s Hold-Up, and Haneke’s Caché Andreas Böhn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	242
Chapter 18 Trapped Bodies, Roaming Fantasies: Mobilizing Constructions of Place and Identity in Florian Flicker’s Suzie Washington Gundolf Graml Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Chapter 19 A Cinephilic Avant-garde: Th e Films of Peter Tscherkassky, Martin Arnold, and Gustav Deutsch Erika Balsom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Part V Stefan Ruzowitzky and Neo-classic Trends
Chapter 20 Screening Nazism and Reclaiming the Horror Genre: Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Anatomy Films Alexandra Ludewig Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Chapter 21 Beyond Borders and across Genre Boundaries: Critical Heimat in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Th e Inheritors Rachel Palfreyman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	292
Chapter 22 A Genuine Dilemma: Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters as Moral Experiment Raymond L. Burt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307
Chapter 23 National Box-office Hits or International “Arthouse”? The New Austrokomödie Regina Standún Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	320
Part VI Austria and Beyond as Terra Incognita: Glawogger, Sauper, Spielmann
Chapter 24 Austria Plays Itself and Sees Da Him: Notes on the Image of Austria in the Films of Michael Glawogger Christoph Huber Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
Chapter 25 Configurations of the Authentic in Hubert Sauper’s Darwin’s Nightmare Arno Russegger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343
Chapter 26 The Lady in the Lake: Austria’s Images in Götz Spielmann’s Antares Sara F. Hall Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	356
Chapter 27 “Children of Optimism”: An Interview with Götz Spielmann on Revanche and New Austrian Film Catherine Wheatley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	368
Select Filmography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	393

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 408
Keywords: Film and Television Studies

eBook

Published: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 9780857452320