GRMN 233 New German Cinema * Fall 2011* TR
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GRMN 233 New German Cinema * Fall 2011* TR
(Room: t.b.a.)
Julia GoesserAssaianteGRMN 233/LACS 233
Office: Seabury 102 Fall 2010, TR
Phone: ext. 4221 Room: Media Seminar Room
Email: Office hours: TBA
New German Cinema
Course Description
This course will examine the rich and varied cinema produced in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1960 and the mid-1980s, otherwise known as New German Cinema. Concurrent with screenings of films by directors such as WimWenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and DorrisDörrie, we will consider the political and historical events that influenced the film industry and aesthetic at this time in Germany. We will also trace the history of film financing, distribution and exhibition in post-WWII West Germany. The themes examined will include, but are not limited to, the relationship between public and private, past and present, the relationship between history and gender, the "German" and the other, the search for a national identity.
COURSE MATERIALS
Reader (required). In order to save paper, all articles will be made available on Moodle. The movies are on reserve at the media center at the library. Additional materials will be posted on Moodle or distributed in class. Feel free to check out the articles & books listed under “Supplementary Bibliography” on pages 4 and 5 of this syllabus.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
Participation (30%)Regular attendance is required.
Preparation includes prompt and thorough completion of assigned reading and writing tasks.
Please watch the films at the media center before we discuss them in class.
A significant portion of the work consists of in-class discussion in which your active participation is needed and expected. You may also be asked to provide short, written responses to the week’s movie.
Presentation (20%)You will be asked to give one oral presentation on a topic from either of the areas covered in the course. Topics will be discussed during the first week of classes.
Response Papers (30%)You will write a total of three response papers of four to five pages each. These short papers are to demonstrate your ability to critically discuss the material covered in class. The first response paper is due in week 4, the second in week 7, and the third in week 10.
Final (20%)The final research paper of 10-12 pages can be based on one of your response papers. Please discuss the topic of your final paper with the instructor. The final paper is due on TBA. You may submit your paper electronically.
Syllabus
Weeks 1 & 2:Postwar "Rubble Film": Rebuilding the Future
Film:Die Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers Are Among Us), dir. Wolfgang Staudte, 1946.
Reading:Anton Kaes, “Images of History”
The Oberhausen Manifesto
Reading: Thomas Elsaesser, "Film Industry – Film Subsidy”
James Frankling, “Introduction: The New West German Cinema from Oberhausen to Hamburg”
Encounters with History: “The Marriage of Our Parents”
Film: Die Eheder Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978
Reading:Thomas Elsaesser, “Maria Braun: Irony, Accident and a Slightly Sinister Exchange”
Wallace Steadman Watson, “The ‘Women’s Picture’ as History”
Week 3:Germany-America
Film: Der amerikanische Freund (The American Friend), dir. Wim Wenders, 1976-77.
Reading:Timothy Corrigan, “A History, A Cinema: Hollywood, Audience Codes, and the New German Cinema”
KatheGeist, “The American Friend”
Thomas Elsaesser, “Spectators of Life: Time, Place, and Self in the Films of WimWenders”
Week 4:Melodrama Revisited
Film: Angst essen Seele auf (Fear Eats the Soul), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974.
Reading:Thomas Elsaesser, “In Search of the Spectator 1,”and “National or International Cinema?”
Wallace Steadman Watson, “Outsiders and Underdogs. Male
Melodramas”
*** First response paper due by Thursday ***
Week 5: Cinema as History
Film:Nosferatu—Phantom derNacht (Nosferatu—Phantom of the Night), dir. Werner Herzog, 1978
Reading:Judith Mayne, "Herzog, Murnau and the Vampire"
Lawrence O'Toole, "The Great Ecstasy of Filmmaker Herzog"
Thomas Elseasser, "The New German Cinema's Germany" and "National or International Cinema"
Weeks 6 & 7: Autobiography and Memory: The Politics of “Her Story”
Film:Deutschland, bleiche Mutter (Germany, Pale Mother), dir. Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980.
Reading:Anton Kaes, “Our Childhoods, Ourselves”
Angelika Bammer, “Through a Daughter’s Eyes: Helma Sanders-Brahm’sGermany Pale Mother”
Gabriele Weinberger, “Beyond the Private Sphere: Political Implications of Motherhood in Germany Pale Mother”
Barbara Hyams, “Is the Political Woman at Peace?: A Reading of the Fairy Tale in ‘Germany, Pale Mother’”
*** Second response paper due by Thursday (week 7) ***
Weeks 8 & 9: Film as a Political Intervention or Collective Memory?
Film: Deutschland im Herbst (Germany in Autumn), dir. Alf Brustellin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katjz Ruppé, Hans Peter Cloos, Bernhard Sinkel, Volker Schlöndorff, 1978.
Reading:Alexander Kluge, “Germany in Autumn: What is the Film’s Bias?”
Jan Dawson and Ruth McCormick, “Germany in Autumn”
Miriam Hansen, “Cooperative Auteur Cinema and Oppositional Public Sphere: Alexander Kluge’s Contribution to ‘Germany in Autumn”
JürgenHabermas, “A Kind of Settlement of Damages: The Apologetic Tendencies in German History Writing”
Week 10: Feminism/Terrorism/the Family
Film:Die bleierne Zeit (Marianne and Julienne/German Sisters), dir. Margarete von Trotta, 1981.
Reading:Susan Linville, “Retrieving History: Margarethe von Trotta’sMarianne and Juliane”
E. Ann Kaplan, “Discourses of Terrorism, Feminism, and the Family Melodrama in Von Trotta’sMarianne and Julienne”
Lisa DiCaprio, “Marianne and Juliane/The German Sisters: Baader-Meinhof Fictionalized”
*** Third response paper due by Thursday ***
Weeks 11 & 12: Memory Television History
Television Episodes of Heimat, dir. Edgar Reitz, 1984.
Reading:Miriam Hansen, Karsten Witte, Thomas Elsaesser and Gertrud Koch, “Dossier on Heimat”
Anton Kaes, “Germany as Memory”
Eric Santner, “Screen Memories Made in Germany: Edgar Reitz’s Heimat and the Question of Mourning”
Thomas Elsaesser, “The New German Cinema’s Historical Imaginary”
Week 13: New “New German” Cinema
Film:Männer(Men), dir. DorrisDörrie, 1986.
Reading:Doris Dörrie, “Searching for Stories in a Gray Germany”
Thomas Elsaesser, “Conclusion”
Thomas Elsaesser, “Public Bodies & Divided Selves: German Women Film-makers in the 80s”
Julia Knight, “A Change of Direction”
Week 14: New “New German Cinema”: Encounters with History II
Film: Das LebenderAnderen (The Lives of Others), dir. FlorianHenckel von
Donnersmarck, 2006.
Reading: SlavojZizek, “The Dreams of Others”
Additional material from the Bundesanstalt f. politischeBildung
*** Final paper due: t.b.a. ***
Supplementary Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor, “Transparencies on Film,” New German Critique 24-25 (1981-82): 199-205.
Bauschinger, Sigrid et. al. (eds.), Film und Literatur: Literarische Texte und der neue deutsche Film, Francke, Berne, 1984.
Bronnen, Barbara and Corinna Brocher, Der neue deutsche Film: Die Filmemacher, Bertelsmann, München, Gütersloh, Wien, 1973.
Byg, Barton, Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of DanièleHuillet and Jean-Marie Straub, California University Press, Berkeley, 1995.
Corrigan, Timothy, New German Film, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994.
Corrigan, Timothy et al. "Walking on Ice: Werner Herzog's Metaphysics of Filmmaking." Slought
Foundation Online Content. <
Elsaesser, Thomas, Fassbinder’s Germany: History, Identity, Subject, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1996.
Frieden, Sandra et.al. (eds.), Gender and German Cinema: Feminist Interventions. vol. 1: Gender and Representation in New German Cinema. vol. 2: German Film History/German History on Film, Berg, Providence, 1993.
Ginsberg, Terri and Kirsten Moana Thompson (eds.), Perspectives on German Cinema, G.K. Hall, New York, 1996.
Golsam, Richard J., Fascism, Aesthetics and Culture, University Press of New England, Hanover N.H., 1992.
Hartnoll, Gillian and Vincent Porters (eds.), Alternative Filmmaking in Television: ZDF—A Helping Hand, London, 1982.
Jacobsen, Wolfgang et. al. (eds.), Geschichte des deutschen Films, Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar, 1993.
Jaeger, Klaus and Helmut Regel, Deutschland in Trümmern: Filmdokumente der Jahre 1945-1949, Karl Maria Laufen, Oberhausen, 1976.
Jansen, Peter W. & Wolfram Schütte (eds.), Herzog/Kluge/Straub, Munich/Vienna, 1976.
Johnston, Sheila, “The Author as Public Institution. The “New” Cinema in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Screen Education, nos. 32-33, 1979-1980, pp. 67-78.
Johnston, Sheila and John Ellis, “The Radical Film Funding of ZDF,” Screen, vol. 23, no. 1, May-June 1982, pp. 60-73.
Kaes, Anton, From Hitler to Heimat: The Return of History as Film, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1989.
Kluge, Alexander and Oskar Negt, Public Sphere and Experience, trans. Peter Labanyi, Jamie Owen Daniel, and AssenkaOksiloff, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993.
Knight, Julia, Women and the New German Cinema, Verso, London and New York, 1985.
Koch, Krischan, Die Bedeutung des Oberhausener Manifests für die Filmentwicklung in der BRD, Lang, Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1985.
Lensen, Claudia, Women’s Cinema in Germany, Goethe Institute, Munich, 1980.
Liehm, Mira and Antonin, The Most Important Art: Soviet and East European Film After 1945,University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977.
Linville, Susan E., Feminism, Film, Fascism: Women’s Auto/Biographical Film in Postwar Germany, Texas University Press, Austin, 1998.
Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4, 1985.Special Issue on New German Cinema.
McCormick, Richard, The Politics of the Self: Feminism and the Postmodern in West German Literature and Film, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991.
New German Critique, nos. 24-25, Fall/Winter 1981-82. Special Issue on New German Cinema.
Pflaum, Hans Günther and Hans Helmut Prinzler, Film in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Hanser, Munich, 1979.
Pflaum, Hans Günter, Germany on Film: Theme and Context in the Cinema of the Federal Republic of Germany, Robert Picht (ed.), Richard Helt and Roland Richter (trans.), Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1990.
Phillips, Klaus (ed.), New German Filmmakers: From Oberhausen Through the 1970s, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1984.
Pütz, Peter, Peter Handke, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1982.
Rentschler, Eric, West German Film in the Course of Time, Redgrave, New York, 1984.
Rentschler, Eric, German Film and Literature: Adaptations and Transformations, Methuen, London and New York, 1986.
Sandford, John, The New German Cinema, Da Capo, London, 1980.
Santner, Eric, Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory and Film in Postwar Germany, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1990.
Silberman, Mark, German Cinema: Texts in Context, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1995.
Weinberger, Gabriele, Nazi Germany and Its Political Aftermath in Women Director’s Autobiographical Films of the 1970s, Mellon Research University Press, San Fransisco, 1992.