Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Other library resource(s)
German cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286German film has had a uniquely prolific and diverse history. Its output ranges from experimental efforts during the Weimar era, including its renowned Expressionist films; to a heavily controlled nationalized cinema under the Third Reich; to unadventurous but popular genre films from “Western” and “Eastern” industries in the 1950s; to the inquisitive Neue Deutsche Film (New German Cinema) in the late 1960s through the early 1980s; to post-unification fiction films exploring German themes in transnational, multiethnic contexts.
Internet resource(s)
- Austrian Film CommissionThe Austrian Film Commission (AFC), founded in 1986, is an organization dedicated to promoting Austrian cinema throughout the world.
- German Film Service + MarketingThis service is the national information and advisory center for the promotion of German films worldwide.
- The German Way: Cinema in GermanyBios, history, photos and links related to the influence of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland on Hollywood and world cinema can be found here.
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introductions to Austrian and German cinemas
Austrian cinema
Moving images were first seen in Austria at an exhibition of the Lumière Cinématographe in Vienna on 27 March 1896, but local fiction film production is thought to have begun only in 1908 with Heinz Hanus’s Von Stufe zu Stufe. At around a thousand films in total, film output during the silent era was small compared with that of other countries in Europe; but a substantial proportion of these, some 120 productions annually, were made during the peak years of 1918 to 1922. Although the local cinema culture was dominated from early on by the output of studios in neighbouring Germany, a number of firms did successfully establish production bases in Austria during the silent era, most prominent among them being Sascha-Film, established in Vienna in 1914. During the 1920s and 1930s directors Willi Forst (Maskerade/Masquerade in Vienna, 1934), Sándor (Alexander) Korda (Samson und Delila/Samson and Delilah, 1922), and Mihély Kertész (Michael Curtiz) (Das sechste Gebot/The Sixth Commandment, 1923) made films in Austria. Korda later migrated to Britain; and Kertész, along with fellow Austro-Hungarians Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinneman, and Edgar G. Ulmer, to Hollywood (see hungary, film in). Forst’s Maskerade is a significant example of the operetta film, an influential middle-European variant of the film musical. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Austria, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 Aug. 2022
German cinema
Moving images were seen in Germany for the first time at an exhibition of Max and Emil Skladanowsky’s invention at the Berlin Wintergarten on 1 November 1895. Domestic film production was in full swing before World War I, by which time the Autorenfilm (author’s cinema) had already established itself in the form of quality films like Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague, (Stellan Rye, 1913), as well as a host of popular fiction features. The legendary studio UFA (Universum Film AG) was founded in Babelsberg in 1917 and continued operating in various guises until after World War II. During these early years, and into the 1930s, sociologists in Germany conducted inquiries into cinemagoing and cinema audiences, and writers and intellectuals inquired into the distinctive aesthetics of the new medium (see audience; closeup). After World War I, filmmaking in Germany entered a golden age that coincided loosely with the years of the Weimar Republic (1918–33). The period of Weimar cinema was one of unparalleled creativity and innovation, with the pioneering achievements of German Expressionism; the invention of distinctive genres like the Strassenfilm (for example Die freudlose Gasse/Joyless Alley (G.W. Pabst, 1925)); the experimental films of Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger, Lotte Reiniger, and Walther Ruttmann (see avant-garde film; city symphony); the internationally popular musicals of the early sound period (including such classics as Der Kongress Tanzt/Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931) and Viktor und Viktoria/Victor and Victoria (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933)); and the work of prominent directors such as F.W. Murnau, Max Reinhart, Fritz Lang, and Ernst Lubitsch. The Weimar era came to an end with National Socialism’s accession to power in 1933, when Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, took charge of the film industry, which was fully nationalized nine years later (see propaganda). Many German filmmakers were driven into exile in the US or other European countries during this period. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Germany, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 Aug. 2022
Searching the online catalog
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.
- motion pictures austriaCall number range PN 1993.5 .A83 on Baker Level 4.
- motion pictures germanyCall number range PN 1993.5 .G3 on Baker Level 4. Please note: this is not the only call number range, but it has the most items.
This subject heading will also show items for East and West German film.
Introductory reading(s)
Austrian cinema: a history by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .A83 D37 2005ISBN: 9780786420780This comprehensive English survey of Austrian film provides an examination of the influences of Austrian social-critical and comedy genres on the international cinema. The work introduces more than a century of Austrian cinema, following the development of the industry chronologically through the nation's various transformations since 1895.
Berlin Alexanderplatz: radio, film, and the death of Weimar culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PT 2607 .O35 B51353 2006ISBN: 9780520243637This fascinating exploration of a work that was the epitome of German literary modernism illuminates in chilling detail the death of the Weimar Republic's left-leaning culture of innovation and experimentation. Peter Jelavich examines Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), a novel that questioned the autonomy and coherence of the human personality in the modern metropolis, and traces the radical discrepancies that came with its adaptation into a radio play (1930) and a film (1931). Jelavich explains these discrepancies by examining not only the varying demands of genre and technology but also the political and economic contexts of the media--in particular, the censorship practices in German radio and film. ...
Directory of world cinema. Germany by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781841504650From bleak expressionist works to the edgy political works of the New German Cinema to the feel-good Heimat films of the postwar era, Directory of World Cinema: Germany aims to offer a wider film and cultural context for the films that have emerged from Germany--including some of the East German films recently made available to Western audiences for the first time. ...
From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of the German film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 K7 2004ISBN: 9780691115191Publication Date: Rev. and expanded ed.A landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic, From Caligari to Hitler was first published in 1947. Siegfried Kracauer--a prominent German film critic and member of Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's intellectual circle--broke new ground in exploring the connections between film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. ...
German national cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 H28 2008ISBN: 9780415420983German National Cinema is the first comprehensive history of German film from its origins to the present. In this new edition, Sabine Hake discusses film-making in economic, political, social, and cultural terms, and considers the contribution of Germany's most popular films to changing definitions of genre, authorship, and film form. ...
Historical dictionary of German cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 R417 2008ISBN: 9780810856233German film is diverse and multi-faceted; its history includes five distinct German governments (Wilhelmine Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Democratic Republic), two national industries (Germany and Austria), and a myriad of styles and production methods. Paradoxically, the political disruptions that have produced these distinct film eras, as well as the natural inclination of artists to rebel and create new styles, allow for the construction of a narrative of German film. While the disjuncture generates distinct points of separation, it also highlights continuities between the ruptures. Outlining the richness of German film, the Historical Dictionary of German Cinema covers mainstream, alternative, and experimental film from 1895 to the present through a chronology, introductory essay, appendix of the 100 most significant German films, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on directors, actors, films, cinematographers, composers, producers, and major historical events that greatly affected the direction and development of German cinema.
Selected book titles
The BFI companion to German cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. PN 1993.5 .G3 B44 1999ISBN: 9780851707518The BFI Companion to German Cinema is a concise and authoritative source of reference. With over two hundred entries on film actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, critics, film industry, film movements and festivals, it covers the entire spectrum of German-speaking cinema from the 1890s to the popular comedies of the 1990s. ...
Cinema and social change in Germany and Austria by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781554582259During the last decade, contemporary German and Austrian cinema has grappled with new social and economic realities. The 'cinema of consensus'; a term coined to describe the popular and commercially oriented film-making of the 1990s, has given way to a more heterogeneous and critical cinema culture. Making the greatest artistic impact since the 1970s, contemporary cinema is responding to questions of globalization and the effects of societal and economic change on the individual.
DEFA: East German cinema, 1946-1992 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1999 .D4 D34 1999ISBN: 9781571817532Western scholars have not lost any of their fascination for East German culture. Cinema in particular continues to attract interest. This volume, the first one in English, traces the development of the main institution, the state-sponsored Deutsche Film Anstalt (DEFA), which was primarily responsible for film production in the former GDR from 1946, ceasing to exist in 1992. Although largely ignored outside the former GDR, the DEFA produced a number of excellent films and scriptwriters that are examined here for the first time. ...
Film and memory in East Germany by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 P47 2008ISBN: 9780253219671Anke Pinkert explores films produced in the Soviet Occupation Zone and East Germany from the end of World War II through the early 1960s, offering new insights into how Germans dealt with the aftermath of the war. In her cultural analysis of the relationship between modern historical violence, cultural memory, and cinematic representation, Pinkert argues that the cinematic productions of East Germany offer a corrective to misperceptions about German responses to the legacy of the war. ...
Film front Weimar: representations of the First World War in German films on the Weimar period (1919-1933) by Call Number: Baker-Berry D 522.22 .K4713 2003ISBN: 9789053565971How was Germany's experience of World War I depicted in film during the following years? Drawing on analysis of the films of the Weimar era--documentaries and feature films addressing the war's causes, life at the front, war at sea, and the home front--Bernadette Kester sketches out the historical context, including reviews and censors' reports, in which these films were made and viewed, and offers much insight into how Germans collectively perceived World War I during its aftermath and beyond.
The Lives of Others and contemporary German film: a companion by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9783110268102This volume will offer the first book-length academic investigation of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others (2006).
Spatial turns: space, place, and mobility in German literary and visual culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PT 148 .S717 S7 2010ISBN: 9789042030015The phrase 'spatial turns' signals the growing importance of space as an analytical as well as representational category for culture. The volume addresses such emerging modes of inquiry by bringing together, for the first time, essays that engage with spatial turns, spatiality, and the theoretical implications of both in the context of German culture, history, and theory. ...
Take two: fifties cinema in divided Germany by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 T35 2007ISBN: 9781845452049The demise of the New German Cinema and the return of popular cinema since the 1990s have led to a renewed interest in the postwar years and the complicated relationship between East and West German cinema in particular. A survey of the 1950s, as offered here for the first time, is therefore long overdue. Moving beyond the contempt for "Papa's Kino" and the nostalgia for the fifties found in much of the existing literature, this anthology explores new uncharted territories, traces hidden connections, discovers unknown treasures, and challenges conventional interpretations. ...
West German film in the course of time by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 R44 1984ISBN: 9780913178003
Finding scholarly journal articles
Articles and other writings about German and Austrian films can be found in many publications. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
- Montage/av: Zeitschrift für Theorie & Geschichte audiovisueller KomunikationCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993 .M66 Jan. 14, 2005 -
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about these national cinemas.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie titles
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10470ISBN: 9781934121986Set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, this film is the story of Franz Biberkopf, a man who has just been released from prison where he served four years for a violent act. He returns to his old neighborhood resolved to go straight but finds he cannot escape the influence of his criminal cohorts. When Franz refuses to pay "hush money" to the mob, his wife is murdered. As a result, Franz returns to a life of crime.
Böse Zellen = Free radicals by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3855Austrian housewife Manu narrowly escapes from an airplane accident only to die six years later in a car accident. The results of the accident transform Manu's young family, the lives of the teenagers in the other car, and the entire community. The film explores the Butterfly Effect and the randomness of fate.
Das Leben der Anderen by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5535ISBN: 9781424837427A 1984 East Berlin simple surveillance assignment: Capt. Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi officer and a specialist in surveillance, has been assigned to keep an eye on Georg Dreyman, a respected playwright, and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland. Though Dreyman is known to associate with blacklisted director Albert Jerska, a known dissident, Dreyman's record is spotless. Wiesler discovers that Minister Hempf has an ulterior motive in spying on this seemingly upright citizen. Wiesler's sympathies shift from the government to its people - or at least to this one particular person.- Die dritte Generation byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #3174A black comedy about a gang of well-heeled terrorists.
Divided heaven = Der geteilte himmel by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10364After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him.
Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler = Dr. Mabuse, the gambler by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5043Sinister Dr. Mabuse maintains his wealth through counterfeiting, manipulating the stock exchange and bending weaker minds to his will. In part 1, Mabuse builds his empire and casually ruins Count Told while entrancing the thrill-seeking Countess. In part 2, Mabuse turns from criminal to villain, murdering the Count and kidnapping the Countess.
Fuehrer ex by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6147The chilling allure of neo-Nazism is exposed in this unflinching portrait of a young man's transformation from a sensitive teenager living in Germany in the 1980s to a hate-filled fascist thug. Based on the autobiographical experiences of co-screenwriter and ex-neo-Nazi Ingo Hasselbach, this harrowing drama looks at the still vibrant underworld of the neo-Nazi movement in Germany.- In gefahr und größter Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod & Der starke FerdinandCall Number: Jones Media DVD #6706 discs 1-2In gefahr und grösster Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod: A female prostitute and thief makes her way through Frankfurt am Main with a female GDR spy in 1974 during carnival time. Der starke Ferdinand: A fundamentalist of the security forces, the chief of plant security Rieche has more proficiency in his job than his superiors permit. He needs to somehow demonstrate that his position is valuable.
Katzelmacher by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1275ISBN: 9780794202156Follows the lives of an aimless group of friends who spend their days outside their Munich apartment smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and sleeping with each other. Their lives take an interesting turn when a Greek immigrant moves in and evokes extremely hostile reactions from the men in the group who beat him up when he begins dating one of the German women.
Lebenszeichen = Signs of life by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5305ISBN: 9781567304152An injured German soldier is sent to recuperate at a remote Greek island during the Second World War. The islands beauty tempts him with the promise of peace, but ultimately he can't accept the potential of this enchanting place.
Willenbrock by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5697Bernd Willenbrock is a used car dealer in the newly unified Germany. In the nascent free market of Central Europe, the former East German engineer seems to be the paradigm of the new world: a successful businessman, an owner of real estate, a generous husband. Prosperity seems assured by a steady stream of cash-only clients from Eastern Europe, and plans for a glitzy new show room are under way. Yet little by little, a series of ever-more menacing incidents -- an attempted break-in, the theft of several cars, a vicious beating -- erode his innermost certainties. No amount of locks and latches, it seems, can contain his growing obsession with external safety or stop the coming violence.
