A dynamic, event-centered exploration of the hundred-year history of
German-language film.
This dynamic, event-centered anthology offers a new understanding of the
hundred-year history of German-language film, from the earliest days of
the Kintopp to contemporary productions like The Lives of Others. Eachof
the more than eighty essays takes a key date as its starting point and
explores its significance for German film history, pursuing its
relationship with its social, political, and aesthetic moment. While the
essays offer ampletemporal and topical spread, this book emphasizes the
juxtaposition of famous and unknown stories, granting attention to a
wide range of cinematic events. Brief section introductions provide a
larger historical and film-historicalframework that illuminates the
essays within it, offering both scholars and the general reader a
setting for the individual texts and figures under investigation.
Cross-references to other essays in the book are included at the close
of each entry, encouraging readers not only to pursue familiar
trajectories in the development of German film, but also to trace
particular figures and motifs across genres and historical periods.
Together, the contributionsoffer a new view of the multiple,
intersecting narratives that make up German-language cinema. The
constellation that is thus established challenges unidirectional
narratives of German film history and charts new ways of thinkingabout
film historiography more broadly.
Jennifer Kapczynski is Associate Professor of German at Washington
University, St. Louis, and Michael Richardson is Associate Professor of
German at Ithaca College.
