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FUBiS Term II: Vampires and Vamps, Mad Scientists and Manic Serial Killers: Weimar Cinema Between Aesthetic Modernism and (Anti-)Modern Discourses
(Kurs # 1.12)
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Typ: |
B Track |
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Dozent(en): |
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Sprache: |
Englisch |
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Veranstaltungsumfang: |
72 (6 Kontaktstunden pro Tag) |
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Bonuspunkte: |
6 Credit Points |
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Anzahl Plätze: |
18 |
Inhalt
The years between the end of World War I and the rise of Hitler (1918-1933) were not only the most dazzling in German cinema but are also regarded as one of the most fascinating periods in all film history. What is often called “German Expressionism” but should be less reductively referred to as “Weimar cinema,” is the product of an exceptional historical constellation when traumatized post-World War I Berlin became the cultural center of Europe. This seminar jumps back in time and confronts its participants with a number of mesmerizing movies that have long become canonical − movies like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis. We will look at these films from an aesthetic as well as a discursive point-of-view, i.e. from a neo-formalist and a new historicist perspective. This approach suggests itself since Weimar cinema curiously vacillates between radically modernistic aesthetics and strangely backward-looking subject matters, between a stylistic celebration of the speed and change of modernity and anti-modern if not reactionary undertones.
This fluid oscillation is one of the reasons why the movies of the Weimar Republic − situated at the historical crossroads between silent film and talking pictures − are still tremendously captivating. On the one hand, Weimar cinema is dominated by extreme stylizations and aesthetic innovations that would quickly transcend its national boundaries. In the 1920 and 30s famous directors like Ernst Lubitsch, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Fritz Lang and Josef von Sternberg or actors such as Marlene Dietrich and Peter Lorre moved on to the United States and left their stamp on Hollywood filmmaking. Weimar aesthetic reverberates even today: from arthouse movies like Shadow of the Vampire and Neo-Noir films like Seven to Madonna music clips (“Express Yourself”) and science fiction films such as The Fifth Element. On the other hand, we have to ask, why are these films time and again haunted by vampires, golems, homunculi and robots at the exact same time when Germany was caught in a period of political, economic and social unrest? Why are the streets of these movies so often roamed by mad scientists, sinister masterminds, serial killers and lecherous professors? Can we interpret them as a foreshadowing of the tyranny of the Nazis or even as cultural products that helped to pave the way for Hitler? Or do these films rather work through the traumata of World War I and its conflict-ridden aftermath? Do they take up the influential demonic thread of Gothic literature from Romanticism? Or should we judge Weimar cinema with its often exotic, mythic or historical settings as a form of escapism in difficult times? On the other hand, these movies might also be seen as a symptom of the fear of changes brought about by modernity: secularization, industrialization, urbanization, the rise of the ‘new’ woman, changing forms of sexuality…
The six-week course includes discussions and screenings of ten of the most seminal films of Weimar cinema (with English subtitles): The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Faust (1926), Berlin − Symphony of a Great City (1927), Metropolis (1927), Pandora’s Box (1929), The Blue Angel (1930), People on Sunday (1930) and M (1931).
Field Trips
The summer course will also provide the opportunity to visit the historic site where some of the most famous Weimar films like Metropolis or The Blue Angel were shot: the former UFA studios at Potsdam-Babelsberg, just outside of Berlin. Ironically, in the 1920s one of the strongest and most formidable rivals of Hollywood, the enormous studio complex has now become a place of production for Hollywood blockbusters like The Bourne Supremacy, Valkyrie or Speed Racer. A half-day field trip including a guided tour through the theme park will be part of the seminar just as an excursion to the prestigious Berlin film museum which devotes several rooms to the cinema of the Weimar Republic and hosts a number of original models and scripts.
Course Assignments and Grading
Course assignments include a 15-minute oral presentation, two short essays in English or German and a final exam (identification, short answer, essay). Grading: attendance and participation 15 %, oral presentation 15 %, papers 40 % and final exam 30 %.
Preparatory Reading
At the beginning of the course a reader will be provided with the necessary text material. As optional preparatory reading I would recommend:
- Bordwell, David/Thompson, Kristin: “Germany in the 1920s.” In: Film History. An Introduction. Second Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
- Elsaesser, Thomas: Weimar Cinema and After. Germany’s Historical Imaginary. New York: Routledge, 2000.
- Weitz, Eric D.: Weimar Germany. Promise and Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Zielgruppe
Weiterführende Links
