When Heimat Meets Hollywood

Contemporary connections between German directors and Hollywood and their implications for German, American, and transnational film.The film histories of Germany and the United States have long been seen as intertwined, but scholarship has focused on émigré works of the 1930s and 1940s, on links between Weimar film and American film noir, and on the conflictedrelationship between directors of the New German Cinema and Hollywood. Recently, German film studies has begun reexamining the interconnection of the two film cultures and focusing on the internationalism of German cinema, but little research has been done on contemporary German directors'' involvement in American cinema, a gap in scholarship that this book fills. The study offers ways of understanding current German cinematic engagement with America and different directorial responses to the hegemonic pressures of Hollywood. It delineates the historical trajectory of German-American film relations in the 20th century, then analyzes the careers and works of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.

Analyzes a diverse body of films and investigates the renaissance that has taken place in German cinema since the turn of the twenty-first century.

This comprehensively revised, updated and significantly extended edition introduces German film history from its beginnings to the present day, covering key periods and movements including early and silent cinema, Weimar cinema, Nazi cinema, the New German Cinema, the Berlin School, the cinema of migration, and moving images in the digital era. Contributions by leading international scholars are grouped into sections that focus on genre; stars; authorship; film production, distribution and exhibition; theory and politics, including women's and queer cinema; and transnational connections. Spotlight articles within each section offer key case studies, including of individual films that illuminate larger histories (Heimat, Downfall, The Lives of Others, The Edge of Heaven and many more); stars from Ossi Oswalda and Hans Albers, to Hanna Schygulla and Nina Hoss; directors including F.W. Murnau, Walter Ruttmann, Wim Wenders and Helke Sander; and film theorists including Siegfried Kracauer and Béla Balázs. The volume provides a methodological template for the study of a national cinema in a transnational horizon.

Following the release of Ridley Scott's Gladiator in 2000 the ancient world epic has experienced a revival in studio and audience interest. Building on existing scholarship on the Cold War epics of the 1950s-60s, including Ben-Hur, Spartacus and The Robe, this original study explores the current cycle of ancient world epics in cinema within the social and political climate created by September 11th 2001. Examining films produced against the backdrop of the War on Terror and subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, this book assesses the relationship between mainstream cinema and American society through depictions of the ancient world, conflict and faith. Davies explores how these films evoke depictions of the Second World War, the Vietnam War and the Western in portraying warfare in the ancient world, as well as discussing the influence of genre hybridisation, narration and reception theory. He questions the extent to which ancient world epics utilise allegory, analogy and allusion to parallel past and present in an industry often dictated by market forces. Featuring analysis of Alexander, Troy, 300, Centurion, The Eagle, The Passion of the Christ and more, this book offers new insight on the continued evolution of the ancient world epic in cinema.

"This book explores the representation of Helen of Troy in Hollywood film and television, with a particular focus on her defining features: transcendent beauty and transgressive erotic agency. The first chapter, on early Hollywood, sets the scene by explaining the importance of ideas about Greek beauty at the beginning of cinema and highlighting some of the problems that continue to bedevil this topic, especially "realism" and the representation of supreme beauty. Blondell argues that the problem of Helen is baked into Hollywood from the start. In subsequent chapters Blondell examines specific screen adaptations in which Helen is featured. Each of these case studies locates a particular work in its historical, cultural, and generic context, as a framework for addressing the ways in which it approaches a range of interlocking questions about beauty, its representation, and the cinematic uses of myth. The second chapter is devoted to the sole Helenic feature film of the silent period, Alexander Korda's Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927). Part II moves to the big screen epic, pairing one film from each of the two great waves of ancient world epic spanning the latter half of the 20th century: Robert Wise's 1956 epic Helen of Troy and Wolfgang Petersen's more recent extravaganza, Troy (2004). In Part III she turns to television, with a chapter on episodic tele-fantasy followed by a study of the 2003 miniseries Helen of Troy. In some of these works Helen is the central character (or "hero"); in others she is at the periphery of a masculine adventure. But in all of them she represents the threat of superhuman beauty as an inheritance from classical Greece"--

Offers a fresh approach to German film studies by tracing key genres -- including horror, the thriller, Heimat films, and war films -- over the course of German cinema history

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films comprises 200 essays by leading film scholars analysing the most important, influential, innovative and interesting films of all time. Arranged alphabetically, each entry explores why each film is significant for those who study film and explores the social, historical and political contexts in which the film was produced. Ranging from Hollywood classics to international bestsellers to lesser-known representations of national cinema, this collection is deliberately broad in scope crossing decades, boundaries and genres. The encyclopedia thus provides an introduction to the historical range and scope of cinema produced throughout the world.

A Companion to German Cinema A Companion to German Cinema regards the shifting terrain of German filmmaking and film studies against their larger social contexts with twenty-two newly commissioned essays by well-established and younger scholars in the field. While several of these focus on classic topics such as Weimar cinema, Fifties cinema, New German Cinema and its legacy, and Holocaust film, the collection is distinguished by its focus on new developments and the innovative light they may shed on earlier practices. A Companion to German Cinema includes essays on Berlin Film, Neue Heimat Film, New Comedy, post-Wall documentaries, the post-Wende RAF genre, and Rabenmutter imagery, as well as on the persistently overlooked and under-theorized Indianerfilme, post-AIDS documentaries, sexploitation films, and new multicultural and transnational films produced in Germany under the auspices of the European Union. Organized into three “movements” representing the significance of these developments for their aesthetic theorization, A Companion to German Cinema challenges its readers to address critical gaps in the field with the aim of opening it further onto new terrains of intellectual engagement.