LightDrkness:Germ FLMMdrnity

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Light and Darkness: Early German Film and Modernity. This course examines how the artistic, cultural, and political state of Germany between 1910 and 1945 is addressed through and film, but also in autobiographical texts, and historical accounts. Students will examine how the wounds and memories of the “Great War” continued to fester not primarily in the form of combat movies but as a subtext in melodramas, thrillers, and vampire films of the 1920s and 1930s. Analyzing topics such as individualism, urbanization, and capitalism will provide some of the context for the class discussion and film analysis. Students will be introduced to the subjective and existential experiences of the conditions produced through modernity. They will explore techniques of expressionist filmmaking and how modernity and the Great War influenced film history. The course will introduce students to phenomena such as Schaulust (“visual pleasure”), the use of form and space in film, propaganda films, Vaterland movies, as well as reflections of suffering, violence, and death. Students will learn how German cinema from the 1920s to 1945 was affected by the political environment, the concept of nation, and the socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices of the time. Films we will discuss include The Student of Prague (1913), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night (1979), Metropolis (1927), Berlin- Symphony of a Big City (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Kuhle Wampe or who owns the World (1932), Triumph of the Will (1934), Hitler Youth Quex (1933). Through readings and in-class discussions, students will be introduced to theoretical discourses, formal aspects, and historical contexts of early German cinema. In addition to shorter writing tasks, students will complete two 5-7 pp. essays and two shorter response papers (two pages each). Modelled by the instructor, students will also introduce assigned films. Scene selection to introduce form, context, and content of a given film will complement the written work and the classroom discussion of individual assignments.