The Use and Abuse of Cinema: German Legacies from the Weimar Era to the Present (Film and Culture Series)

Eric Rentschler explores the screen fantasies and spectacles that derive from Germany's fraught modern experience and follows the traces of these sights and sounds to the postmillenial present. Each chapters contains a stirring minidrama, discussing prominent critics and theorists such as Siegfried Kracauer and Rudolf Arnheim; key New German directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Alexander Kluge; films from the so-called Berlin School, particularly those of Christoph HochhAusler, Thomas Arslan, and Christian Petzold; and seminal genres such as the mountain film, the early sound musical, the postwar rubble film, and recent heritage cinema. Rentschler balances history and theory throughout his close readings Eric Rentschler's new book, The Use and Abuse of Cinema, takes readers on a series of enthralling excursions through the fraught history of German cinema, from the Weimar and Nazi eras to the postwar and postwall epochs and into the new millennium. These journeys afford rich panoramas and nuanced close-ups from a nation's production of fantasies and spectacles, traversing the different ways in which the film medium has figured in Germany, both as a site of creative and critical enterprise and as a locus of destructive and regressive endeavor. Each of the chapters provides a stirring minidrama; the cast includes prominent critics such as Siegfried Kracauer and Rudolf Arnheim; postwar directors like Wolfgang Staudte, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, and Alexander Kluge; representatives of the so-called Berlin School; and exponents of mountain epics, early sound musicals, rubble films, and recent heritage features. A film history that is both original and unconventional, Rentschler's colorful tapestry weaves together figures, motifs, and stories in exciting, unexpected, and even novelistic ways. --Provided by publisher Table of Contents Introduction: History Lessons and Courses in Time Part I. Critical Venues 1. How a Social Critic Became a Formative Theorist 2. Hunger for Experience, Spectatorship, and the Seventies 3. The Passenger and the Critical Critic 4. The Limits of Aesthetic Resistance 5. Springtime for Ufa Part II. Serials and Cycles 6. Mountains and Modernity 7. Too Lovely to Be True 8. The Management of Shattered Identity 9. After the War, Before the Wall Part III. From Oberhausen to Bitburg 10. Remembering Not to Forget 11. Many Ways to Fight a Battle 12. How American Is It? 13. The Use and Abuse of Memory 14. A Cinema of Citation 15. The Declaration of Independents Part IV. Postwall Projects 16. An Archaeology of the Berlin School 17. The Surveillance Camera’s Quarry 18. Heritages and Histories 19. Life in the Shadows 20. Two Trips to the Berlinale Acknowledgments Notes Index Introduction: History lessons and courses in time Pt. 1. Critical venues. How a social critic became a formative theorist Hunger for experience, spectatorship, and the seventies The passenger and the critical critic The limits of aesthetic resistance Springtime for UFA Pt. 2. Serials and cycles. Mountains and modernity Too lovely to be true The management of shattered identity After the war, before the wall Pt. 3. From Oberhausen to Bitburg. Remembering not to forget Many ways to fight a battle How American is it? The use and abuse of memory A cinema of citation The declaration of independents Pt. 4. Postwall prospects. An archaeology of the Berlin school The surveillance camera's quarry Heritages and histories Life in the shadows Two trips to the Berlinale. Eric Rentschler explores the screen fantasies and spectacles that derive from Germany's fraught modern experience and follows the traces of these sights and sounds to the postmillenial present. Each chapters contains a stirring minidrama, discussing prominent critics and theorists such as Siegfried Kracauer and Rudolf Arnheim; key New German directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Alexander Kluge; films from the so-called Berlin School, particularly those of Christoph Hochhäusler, Thomas Arslan, and Christian Petzold; and seminal genres such as the mountain film, the early sound musical