Screening Art: Modernist Aesthetics and the Socialist Imaginary in East German Cinema (Film Europa Book 20)

Introduction: texts and contexts -- German classical humanism and the sovietisation of culture -- Cosmopolitanism, formalism, and fantasies of national culture -- Experiments in modernism I: from Bitterfeld to Barlach -- Experiments in modernism II: responses to the eleventh plenum -- New ways of seeing: Jurgen Bottcher and the transformation of tradition -- The dialectic of Enlightenment and the romantic turn -- Epilogue: art, exile and the socialist imaginary.;With internationalist aspirations and wide-ranging historical perspectives, East German films about artists and their work became hotly contested spaces in which filmmakers could look beyond the GDR and debate the impact of contemporary cultural policy on the reception of their pre-war cultural heritage. Spanning newsreels, documentaries, and features, Screening Art is the first full-length investigation into a genre that has often been overlooked in studies of DEFA, the state-owned Eastern German film studio. As it shows, "art films" in fact played an essential role in the development of new paradigms of socialist art in postwar Europe. With internationalist aspirations and wide-ranging historical perspectives, East German films about artists and their work became hotly contested spaces in which filmmakers could look beyond the GDR and debate the impact of contemporary cultural policy on the reception of their pre-war cultural heritage. Spanning newsreels, documentaries, and feature films, Screening Art is the first full-length investigation into a genre that has been largely overlooked in studies of DEFA, the state-owned Eastern German film studio. As it shows, “artist-films” played an essential role in the development of new paradigms of socialist art in postwar Europe. Contents Figures Acknowledgements Introduction. Texts and Contexts Chapter 1. German Classical Humanism and the Sovietisation of Culture Chapter 2. Cosmopolitanism, Formalism and Fantasies of National Culture Chapter 3. Experiments in Modernism I: From Bitterfeld to Barlach Chapter 4. Experiments in Modernism II: Responses to the Eleventh Plenum Chapter 5. New Ways of Seeing: Jürgen Böttcher and the Transformation of Tradition Chapter 6. The Dialectic of Enlightenment and the Romantic Turn Epilogue. Art, Exile and the Socialist Imaginary Filmography Bibliography Index Screening Art represents the first full-length study of films about art and artists produced by the state-owned Eastern German film studio DEFA. It investigates the essential role that these "art films" played in the development of new paradigms of socialist art in post-war Europe.