Screening Transcendence

Film under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope, 1933-1938

Robert Dassanowsky author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Indiana University Press

Published:1st May '18

Should be back in stock very soon

Screening Transcendence cover

During the 1930s, Austrian film production companies developed a process to navigate the competing demands of audiences in Nazi Germany and those found in broader Western markets. In Screening Transcendence, film historian Robert Dassanowsky explores how Austrian filmmakers during the Austrofascist period (1933–1938) developed two overlapping industries: "Aryanized" films for distribution in Germany, its largest market, and "Emigrantenfilm," which employed émigré and Jewish talent that appealed to international audiences.


Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences.


Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.

Highly recommended.

* Choice *

Dassanowsky's carefully researched book provides an excellent account of Austrian film from those years and also forms, thanks to the inclusion of titles and production details of films from the era, a good basis for further research.

* FILMBLATT *

Screening Transcendence is so rich and informative that a short review can barely do justice to this important and interesting monograph. There is no doubt that this is a book that everyone interested in Austria during the 1930s should read.

* Journal of Austrian Studies *

The author is at home in both the European and the American cultural worlds, and he utilizes this to best advantage in his book. Anyone seeking an expert presentation of the particular influence Austrian film culture has had on Hollywood is well served by this meticulous and richly detailed work.

* German Studies Review *

Screening Transcendence undoubtedly constitutes a major contribution to the study of Austrian Cinema.....This little known episode in film history which Dassanowsky has uncovered ... tells of the unfolding drama of the Austrians' attempt to work with Hollywood studios in an effort to escape German pressure. He attributes the failure of an Austrian-Hollywood partnership to the American industry's commercial interests and its fear of offending German markets, as well as the strong German influence in Hollywood. Screening Transcendence does a great service by introducing this era to English-reading audiences... utterly fascinating....

* Contemporary Austrian Studies *

Robert Dassanowsky's Screening Transcendence provides the most comprehensive English-language examination to date of the complex and often neglected top of cinema under the Austrofascist regime of 1933 to 1938.

* Monatshef

ISBN: 9780253033628

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

444 pages