When Heimat Meets Hollywood: German Filmmakers in America, 1985-2005 (review)

When Heimat Meets Hollywood examines four contemporary German filmmakers who engage in different ways with Hollywood, with American film traditions, and with representations of America. It situates Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer and their respective filmic oeuvres in the context of transnationalism, a growing theoretical trend that is also being discussed among German Studies scholars. Transnationalsim as a new analytical approach invites us to consider, as did the editors of the 2006 H-German forum on the topic, "whether transnationalism offers new insights, or whether it is [...] describing in trendier terms what older tools handily explained" (<http://www.h-net.org/~german/discuss/Trans/forum_trans_index.htm>).

Haase's study begins with a short introduction to situate itself within a growing body of works in German film studies that looks at film as a hybrid product of the globalizing process, situated between, rather than within national cultures. Surprisingly, then, chapter 1, rather than putting forward an argument regarding the relationship between film and globalization or outlining the parameters of transnational film, provides a factual overview of German and American film relations starting in the late nineteenth century and leading up to present times. This chapter functions as a film history, providing a production history of American and German national cinemas and highlighting influential filmmakers and producers who manoeuvred their careers successfully between the two cinemas and national film industries. Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 are then dedicated to a film-maker each.

In chapter 2. Haase follows Wolfgang Petersen's German career to his 1981 hit, Das Boot, and scrutinizes the films that made his career as a blockbuster director in Hollywood. Haase sees Petersen's American films as not particularly engaging with Germanness, but highlights a continuous line of political consciousness that lets him explore the complexities and conflicts of social relationships. On the one hand his American films are firmly rooted in the cinematic traditions of Hollywood blockbusters; on the other Petersen cautiously questions these narratives from the perspective of otherness and difference, enough to appeal to both American and international audiences. Chapter 3 investigates the cinematic works of Roland Emmerich, who, like Petersen, can be considered a blockbuster director of Hollywood movies and whose recent films include hits such as Independence Day (2005). Emmerich's films, as Haase argues, do not reflect at all the director's German background, but buy wholeheartedly into Hollywood's most clichéd, stereotypical, and most conservative constructions of a fictitious Americanness that Emmerich borrows, quotes, and cites from Hollywood cinema. The regressive gender and ethnic politics of his films exhibit a predilection for conservative societal solutions.

Chapter 4 discusses Percy Adlon's work, focussing on the art-house cult hits Out of Rosenheim (1987), Rosalie Goes Shopping (1990), and Salmonberries (1991). Although Adlon has been accused of perpetuating German and American stereotypes in his films, Haase finds his films playful, both examining and confirming national stereotypes in a critical and humoristic manner. While Adlon's work always begins with a decidedly German perspective on America, it arrives at emphasizing hetero-geneity, multiculturalism, hybridity, and cross-national dialogue. His films, explains Haase, comment on America as a social, cultural, and political entity and as a repository for the imaginary. Chapter 5 explores Tom Tykwer, whose 1998 success Lola rennt catapulted him and the lead actors in the film into international stardom. Haase reads Tykwer's films as a successful fusion of German and American filmmaking strategies. They reference locally specific cultures of the everyday (Haase emphasizes Tykwer's fondness for European modes of transportation), while at the same time they quote, investigate, and subvert American filmic icons and Hollywood genres, yet refrain from engaging with America as a cultural and sociopolitical entity.

When Heimat Meets Hollywood concludes with a brief summary that compares the works of these four filmmakers and links them loosely to theoretical coordinates, such as globalization, cultural hegemony, transnationalism, popular entertainment, and...