Dismantling the Dream Factory: Gender, German Cinema, and the Postwar Quest for a New Film Language

Hester Baer

Published by Berghahn Books 2009

Dismantling the Dream Factory

Gender, German Cinema, and the Postwar Quest for a New Film Language

Hester Baer

Volume 9 in the series Film Europa

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781845459451

Overview
Contents

About this book

The history of postwar German cinema has most often been told as a story of failure, a failure paradoxically epitomized by the remarkable popularity of film throughout the late 1940s and 1950s. Through the analysis of 10 representative films, Hester Baer reassesses this period, looking in particular at how the attempt to ‘dismantle the dream factory’ of Nazi entertainment cinema resulted in a new cinematic language which developed as a result of the changing audience demographic. In an era when female viewers comprised 70 per cent of cinema audiences a ‘women’s cinema’ emerged, which sought to appeal to female spectators through its genres, star choices, stories and formal conventions. In addition to analyzing the formal language and narrative content of these films, Baer uses a wide array of other sources to reconstruct the original context of their reception, including promotional and publicity materials, film programs, censorship documents, reviews and spreads in fan magazines. This book presents a new take on an essential period, which saw the rebirth of German cinema after its thorough delegitimization under the Nazi regime.

Author / Editor information

Hester Baer is Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published widely on postwar and contemporary German cinema, women's literature, and feminism.

Reviews

“…[a] fascinating study…[that] makes a major contribution to a burgeoning field dedicated to the investigation of what was once dismissed.” · Monatshefte

“...makes a significant and original contribution, is well researched as well as written, and would lend itself conveniently to the teaching of any of these films…[It] bring[s] to bear theories from Anglo-American film studies as well as German cultural studies and history. The result is a felicitous mixture of theory, cultural-historical context, and informed film readings.” · Jaimey Fisher, University of California, Davis

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction. Dismantling the Dream Factory: Gender and Spectatorship in Postwar German Cinema Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Relegitimating Cinema: Female Spectators and the Problem of Representation
1 How Do You Solve a Problem Like Susanne?: The Female Gaze in Wolfgang Staudte’s The Murderers Are Among Us (1946) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2 When Fantasy Meets Reality: Authorship and Stardom in Rudolf Jugert’s Film Without a Title (1948) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
3 Gendered Visions of the German Past: Wolfgang Liebeneiner’s Love ’47 (1949) as Woman’s Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
4 Unsolved Mysteries: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Helmut Käutner’s Epilogue (1950) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Part II. Art on Film: Representing Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema
5 “Through Her Eyes”: Regendering Representation in Willi Forst’s The Sinner (1951) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
6 Looking at Heimat: Visual Pleasure and Cinematic Realism in Alfons Stummer’s The Forester of the Silver Wood (1955) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
7 Degenerate Art?: Problems of Gender and Sexuality in Veit Harlan’s Different From You and Me (§175) (1957) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Part III. Towards the New Wave: Gender and the Critique of Popular Cinema
8 Pleasurable Negotiations: Spectatorship and Genre in Helmut Käutner’s “Anti-Tearjerker” Engagement in Zurich (1957) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
9 Sound and Spectacle in the Wirtschaftswunder: The Critical Strategies of Rolf Thiele’s The Girl Rosemarie (1958) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
10 Gender and the New Wave: Herbert Vesely’s The Bread of Those Early Years (1962) as Transitional Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Epilogue. Adapting the 1950s: The Afterlife of Postwar Cinema in Post-Unification Popular Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 318
Keywords: Film and Television Studies; Gender Studies and Sexuality

eBook

Published: September 1, 2009
ISBN: 9781845459451