Dietrich's Ghosts: The Sublime and the Beautiful in Third Reich Film

by Carter, Erica

• ISBN13: 9780851708836
• ISBN10: 0851708838
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-01
• Publisher: British Film Institute

Summary

This text looks at the star system under the Third Reich. Following the experiments of Weimar, much of cinema after 1933 became part of a wider Nazi backlash against modernism in all its forms. This study contributes to contemporary debates concerning the historical study of film spectatorship.

Author Biography

Erica Carter is Senior Lecturer in German Studies at the University of Warwick and author of How German is She?: Postwar West German Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman (1997).

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	vii
List of abbreviations	ix
INTRODUCTION	1	(22)
Third Reich film and the fascist aesthetic	6	(6)
Kant through Third Reich eyes	12	(1)
Structure of the book	13	(10)
1 FILM AS ART: A CINEMA OF PERSONALITY	23	(33)
Film, personality and genius	26	(7)
The 'personality' as cultural official	33	(3)
The Ufa artistic committee	36	(5)
The German Film Academy and the racial selection of genius	41	(6)
Personality and genius as social fantasies	47	(9)
2 THE ACTOR IN THE CINEMA OF PERSONALITY	56	(28)
Actors versus stars	56	(5)
Stars and personality	61	(3)
Film acting and theatre	64	(3)
Acting and physiognomy	67	(5)
Personality and performance	72	(12)
3 THE NEW FILM ART: EXHIBITION	84	(24)
Cinema as theatre: the dramaturgy of reception	84	(3)
Space-time transformations of spectatorship	87	(15)
Spectatorship transformed?	102	(6)
4 PERSONALITY AND THE VÖLKISCH SUBLIME: CARL FROELICH AND EMIL JANNINGS	108	(28)
Carl Froelich as auteur-personality	110	(2)
Froelich and camera	112	(4)
Froelich and light	116	(2)
Froelich versus Hollywood: star lighting in Traumulus	118	(3)
Personality versus star: Jannings and Weissner	121	(4)
Emil Jannings as sublime personality	125	(3)
Jannings, spectatorship and the sublime	128	(8)
5 MARLENE DIETRICH: FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE BEAUTIFUL	136	(37)
Gender in the cinema of personality: the beautiful versus the sublime	137	(6)
Film commentary contra the modern mass	143	(2)
Dietrich as icon of beauty: The Scarlet Empress	145	(4)
Eroticism and ambiguity: challenges to beautiful form	149	(2)
Dietrich and the masquerade: The Devil is a Woman	151	(4)
The masquerade in close-up: racial readings	155	(3)
Desire: returning home to narrative	158	(4)
Dietrich the prodigal daughter	162	(11)
6 ZARAH LEANDER: FROM BEAUTIFUL IMAGE TO VOICE SUBLIME	173	(30)
Leander as uncanny double	175	(1)
Recruitment for the Reich, 1936	176	(3)
Leander in German-language film, 1936-43	179	(24)
7 LEANDER AS SUBLIME OBJECT	203	(18)
War and the sublime	204	(6)
Gender and the sublime	210	(3)
The star system after Dietrich: Marlene's ghosts?	213	(8)
Bibliography	221	(16)
Index	237