A New History of German Cinema

Professor Michael D Richardson editor Jennifer M Kapczynski editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published:3rd Jan '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

A New History of German Cinema cover

A dynamic, event-centered exploration of the hundred-year history of German-language film. This dynamic, event-centered anthology offers a new understanding of the hundred-year history of German-language film, from the earliest days of the Kintopp to contemporary productions like The Lives of Others. Eachof the more than eighty essays takes a key date as its starting point and explores its significance for German film history, pursuing its relationship with its social, political, and aesthetic moment. While the essays offer ampletemporal and topical spread, this book emphasizes the juxtaposition of famous and unknown stories, granting attention to a wide range of cinematic events. Brief section introductions provide a larger historical and film-historicalframework that illuminates the essays within it, offering both scholars and the general reader a setting for the individual texts and figures under investigation. Cross-references to other essays in the book are included at the close of each entry, encouraging readers not only to pursue familiar trajectories in the development of German film, but also to trace particular figures and motifs across genres and historical periods. Together, the contributionsoffer a new view of the multiple, intersecting narratives that make up German-language cinema. The constellation that is thus established challenges unidirectional narratives of German film history and charts new ways of thinkingabout film historiography more broadly. Jennifer Kapczynski is Associate Professor of German at Washington University, St. Louis, and Michael Richardson is Associate Professor of German at Ithaca College.

There has never been a history of German film like this one. [Its] original approach is to write film history from the margins of the established film canon . . . . The contributions are compact in their argumentation and quite readable; an encyclopedia wasn't the intention. . . . The book is supremely suited as a completion of and especially as a critical confrontation with the canon . . . . [I]n the future one won't be able to bypass Kapczynski and Richardson's volume. . . . -- Wolfgang Fuhrmann * FILMBLATT *
The volume offers extensive and varied material on the history of German cinema; especially to be noted are the careful bibliographies. . . . The volume is well suited for classes on both the history of German cinema and on its present state, because it treats the most diverse topics carefully and offers concisely formulated insights along with suggestions for further reading. * MONATSHEFTE *
[A]n extremely rich and informative book [that makes an] important contribution to the area of German film studies . . . . [It] certainly performs the task demanded of this changing discipline and revises, reconfigures, and advances German national cinema in all of its dimensions. * H-GERMAN REVIEWS *
Film Book of the Year, 2012. I have decided in favor of [this] American publication on German film because I find its perspective on our film history particularly richly detailed, thought provoking, and original. * HANS-HELMUT PRINZLER, WWW.HHPRINZLER.DE *
Can claim top position just by its extent and number of contributions . . . . The chronological jigsaw puzzle joins together into an original and substantial whole. . . . One shouldn't forget that this is a film book from America. Thus: a view from the outside, which, however, has the advantage of a different curiosity and perspective. . . . It is astounding, given their brevity, how the texts hit their crucial marks. . . . With this book [the editors] have accomplished an extraordinary editorial feat. * HANS-HELMUT PRINZLER, WWW.HHPRINZLER.DE *

ISBN: 9781571135957

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 994g

692 pages