Recht und Ordnung oder “Come and Shoot in Austria”: Österreichische KriminalFilmGeschichte(n) by Christoph Fuchs (review)

As the title suggests, Christoph Fuchs’s Recht und Ordnung is a scholarly study of crime, film, and Austrian (hi)story, with its double sense of a history of and stories about. Surprisingly, this book is the first thoroughgoing analysis of this popular film genre in its Austrian context. Fuchs’s study thus stands out in the small body of Austrian film scholarship that focuses either on individual time periods, films or directors or on Austrian film in general, most notably Robert Dassanowky’s eminent Austrian Cinema: a History (2005). Fuchs fills this significant gap by familiarizing readers with fifty Austrian crime films from 1918 to 2009. Fourteen chapters introduce many lesser-known films such as Frauenehre (1918) and shed new light on well-known films such as Funny Games (1997), Revanche (2008), and Der Knochenmann (2009). The main goal of the book, however, goes beyond the illumination of specific films. By discussing central themes in crime films in their historical contexts, the study tackles the weighty question: what is typically Austrian? Arguing with Joseph Roth, Fuchs proposes that the essence of Austria is to be found not in its centers but in its periphery. He thus uses a cinematic study of a society’s criminal fringes to reveal and destroy presuppositions about Austrian identity as a whole. The analyses lead “sowohl zu einer Reproduktion des Idylls, des Klischee-Österreichs und der Sehenswürdigkeiten seiner Hauptstadt, als auch zu dessen Zerstörung, zu der Entzauberung des Mythos” (8).

Fuchs‘s quest to unmask the typically Austrian navigates more than ninety years of Austrian crime cinema. Following an insightful introduction, the fourteen chapters are structured as individual essays on major themes such as gender roles, police inspectors and detectives, scientists, music, Vienna, and the Austrian Alps. Presented in the approximate chronology of the films‘ release, the chapters also encompass numerous subgenres from the classic whodunit, thriller, and spy films to the jealously drama and the revue crime film. While each chapter focuses on two to five films, the analyses also present a wide range of related information. A film historian by training, Fuchs exhibits his expertise in enlightening anecdotes about the writers, directors, and actors; in details about the films’ reception; and in frequent references to analogous films and books, most notably Carol Reed’s The Third Man. The links between specific films and their historical contexts are particularly successful. For example, Fuchs analyzes police films of the 1920s alongside the contemporaneous crime, inflation, and social unrest, and he discusses crime films of the 1940s and 1950s against the historical backdrop of protests against Allied occupation. Especially when discussing Austria’s “brown past,” Fuchs skillfully interweaves historical events, themes of National Socialism in the films, and experiences of directors and actors as members and victims of the Nazi Party.

Generally convincing in its arguments, Recht und Ordnung unveils a multifaceted image of Austrian (hi)story through its crime films. The wide range of topics and genres proficiently emphasizes social issues and key images in Austria’s self-portrayal. Chapter 1, for example, convincingly shows how the portrayal of silent females from Frauenehre (1918) to Die Fremde (2000) reflect beliefs about gender roles, family, and honor in Austrian society. Through the film analyses Fuchs also confronts stereotypical associations with Austria, such as its music. Discussions of crime revue films in the 1930s and 1940s (chapter 3) and of recurring waltz scenes throughout Austrian film contrast images of an idyllic, musical land with those of a sinister and criminal music scene. Fuchs similarly uses the film analyses to question the prototypical Austrian. In chapters 10 to 12 he convincingly draws a line between depictions of Austria’s most popular detectives and the Austrian character: whether the “korpulanter Grantler” Kottan in the 1970s and 1980s or the “fremden- und frauenfeindlicher Polizeimajor” Polt and the “aus dem Polizeidienst gefeuerter Dauermigräniker” Brenner in the 2000s (11). Indeed, these chapters revive Fuchs’s rhetorical question...