Offers not only a close reading but also a film-historical
contextualization of Phoenix, constituting the most significant and
thorough study of Petzold's film to date.
Christian Petzold's Phoenix (2014), a masterpiece from one of Germany's
leading contemporary filmmakers, portrays a death-camp survivor's return
to occupied Berlin just after the war has come to an end. Nelly, played
by German film star Nina Hoss, returns badly wounded, her face covered
in bandages, hoping that her German husband will still love her. Johnny
fails to recognize her and instead offers her a role in an intricate
criminal scheme. Petzold's film, which he scripted together with his
frequent collaborator Harun Farocki, was an international success that
has been widely compared with works by Alfred Hitchcock and Rainer
Werner Fassbinder. This study explores the film's unique array of
influences including the vast range of films, novels, and memoirs on
which its screenwriters drew. Its central argument concerns the film's
integration of a long history of German-Jewish works and ideas-its
attempt to confront its audience with a neglected tradition that
included figures as diverse as Peter Lorre, Fred Zinnemann, and Hannah
Arendt. Offering a close reading of the film's themes, compositions, and
music alongside a film-historical contextualization, this book
constitutes the most significant and thorough study of Phoenix to date.
Brad Prager is Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of
Missouri.
