Paragraph 175 • Frieda Belinfante • Just happy • ISHSS seminar

               
               

Homepage: www.kmlink.net

Outline Seminar Time and Place Format Seminar Timetable Seminar Bibliography

Collective Memory and National Identity:

German Film Production after 1945

 

Lecturer
Dr. Klaus Müller, International School for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, km@kmlink.net
Office hours during or after seminar

Aim of the course
This interdisciplinary seminar brings together Historical Science, Film
History, and Cultural Studies. We will approach films as products of
their time: Thus as historical sources as well as complex sign systems
that change in the course of time and through their changing audiences.
Our interest is a double focus: to learn to position a film within its
historical, political and esthetic context as well as to understand our own contemporary way of looking.

The seminar will be organized with the support of the Goethe-Institute
Amsterdam, which provides us with 16mm copies of the films (not
Video!). The luxury of working with 16mm films also means that seminar participants have to be present for ALL screenings since we do not have video copies of the films involved.
 
Contents of the course
Post-war Germany, struggling with the past of the Nazi years, has gone
through a complex process of historical memory-work. This film seminar
explores the important, if not decisive position post-war German
film production has played in the construction of collective memories.
Cinematic representations of the past and present not only influence our
memory, but tend to 'become' memories of how it has been. The seminar
investigates the relations between experience, memory and image by
analyzing German films and their narrative strategies. Guilt and denial,
loss of national identity, esthetic escape or radical renewal characterize central issues of post-war German film.

Time
Thursday, 9.15-1.15

Place
- Goethe-Institute Amsterdam, Herengracht 470 (9.15am-app.11.00am)
- Universiteit van Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B (11.15am-1.15pm)
 
Level
2/3

Format
- Class presentation (your contribution to the discussions)
- Oral presentation (15 min) with 2 pages of a summarized presentation
as a hand-out for class
- Take home examinations (min. 7 pages. - max 10 p.) to be turned in 3 weeks after the end of the seminar
- Occasional Assignments on specific topics for all
- Presence at all film screenings and seminar discussions
 
Assessment
7 points
(33% oral participation (including assignments); 33% class presentation of topic (including hand-out); 33% take home examination)
 
Literature
Master copy of the articles will be available at the Office of the International School
Credits: 7 UvA credits (=10 ECTS) credits
Period: Second trimester
Hours: 4 seminar hours per week (film screening and seminar); at least four or more hours preparation reading

 

Program (subject to change)

All Film Screenings take place at the Goethe-Institute at Herengracht 470; all seminar sessions at Oude Turfmarkt 129 in Classroom 120 B. We start at 9.15am and have app. 20 - 30 minutes break between the film screening and the seminar session, depending on the length of the respective films. Coffee and tea will be available at the Goethe-Institute; please bring food/snacks along for the break

.

January 10, Thursday
11.15-13.00 Seminar Introduction (obligatory)
Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B

January 17, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Wolfgang Staudte: Die Moerder sind unter uns, 1946. (The murderers are among us) 16mm. (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: Heike Fehrenbach: Introduction. Cinema and National Identity (p. 1-12) and From Military Surveillance to Self-Supervision: American Occupation and the Politics of Film, 1945-1949. (P. 51-92) and R. And C.J. Reimer: "Searching for the culprits". In: R.C. Reimer and C.J. Reimer: Nazi-Retro Film. (p 14-18)

January 24, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Konrad Wolf: Sterne, 1958 (Stars) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: Eric Rentschler: Germany: Nazism and After. (p. 374-382) and Hans-Michael Bock: East Germany: The DEFA Story. In: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith: Oxford History of World Cinema. (p. 627-632)

January 31, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Frank Beyer: Nackt unter Wölfen, 1963. ((Naked among wolves) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129- Classroom 120 B)
Literature: R. And C.J. Reimer: R. And C.J. Reimer: "Defining the genre" (p. 1-13). In: R.C. Reimer and C.J. Reimer: Nazi-Retro Film, and "The Holocaust", brochure by U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, p1-29.

February 7, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Alexander Kluge: Abschied von gestern, 1966 (Farewell from Yesterday), (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: John Sandford: Alexander Kluge. In: The New German Cinema (p.17-26) and Thomas Elsaesser: New German Cinema. A History. (p. 8-35).

February 14, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Fassbinder: Die bitteren Traenen der Petra von Kant, 1972. (The bitter tears of Petra von Kant) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: Timothy Corrigan: Transformations in Fassbinder's Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant. In: TC: New German Film. The displaced Image (33-55)

February 21, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Sanders-Brahms: Deutschland, bleiche Mutter, 1979. (Germany, pale mother) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: Richard Mc Cormick: Confronting German History: Melodrama, Distantiation, and Women's Discourse in 'Germany, Pale Mother. (P. 185-206) In: Gender and German Cinema. Feminist Interventions and Anton Kaes: Our childhood, ourselves. Helma Sanders-Brahms's 'Germany, Pale Mother'. In: From Hitler to Heimat. (p.137-161)

February 28, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Die Patriotin, 1979. (The Patriot) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.15-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Anton Kaes: In search of Germany. Alexander Kluge's 'The Patriot'. In: Anton Kaes: From Hitler to Heimat (105-127).

March 7, Thursday
9.15-11.00: Joseph Vilsmaier: Comedian Harmonists, 1997. (Comedian Harmonists) (Goethe-Institute, Herengracht 470)
Seminar 11.30-13.15 (Oude Turfmarkt 129 - Classroom 120 B)
Literature: Frank Stern: Facing the Past. Representations of the Holocaust in German Cinema since 1945. (1-19)
(Oude Turfmarkt 129)

March 14, Thursday
Double Lesson 9.15-13.00
Oude Turfmarkt 129 Classroom 120 B
Presentations on: Anton Keas: Images of History. Post-war German Films and the Third Reich. In: Anton Kaes: From Hitler to Heimat. (P.1-35)

 

Selected Bibliography on 'German film after 1945' International School
Dr. Klaus Müller

 

 

- Corrigan, Timothy: New German Film: The displaced Image. Revised and expanded edition. University of Texas, 1994.
- Elsaesser, Thomas: New German Cinema. A history. London 1989.
- Fassbinder, Rainer Werner. Ed. by Laurence Kardish. The museum of modern art, New York, 1997.
- Fehrenbach, Heike: Cinema in Democratizing Germany. Reconstructing national identity after Hitler. University of North Carolina Press 1995.
- Kaes, Anton: From Hitler to Heimat. The return of history as film. London 1989.
- Katz, Robert: Love is colder than death. The life & times of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. New York 1987.
- Knight, Julia: Women and the new German cinema. London 1992.
- Kreimeier, Klaus: The UFA Story. A history of Germany's greatest Film company 1918-1945. New York 1996.
- Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (Ed.): The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press. 1996.
- Reimer, Robert C. and Carol J.: Nazi-Retro Film. How German Narrative Remembers the Past. New York, Toronto 1992.
- Rentschler, Eric: The ministry of illusion. Nazi Cinema and its afterlife. Harvard University Press 1996.
- Rentschler, Eric (ed.): West German Filmmakers on film. Visions and Voices. New York 1988.
- Sandford, John: The new German cinema. London 1988.
- Silbermann, Marc: German Cinema. Texts in Context.Wayne State university 1995.