A New History of German Cinema ed. by Jennifer M. Kapczynski and Michel D. Richardson (review)

In focusing on the year 1932 in their introduction to A New History of German Cinema, editors Jennifer M. Kapczynski and Michael D. Richardson model as well as explicate the logic of their event-centered contribution to German film historiography. They acknowledge that the year might appear an obvious choice for investigation: located on the brink of the 1933 National Socialist takeover, 1932 was a year of significant events for the German film industry that can be read in the context of contemporary social and political trends and forces. But they urge against such a purely retrospective reading of history and emphasize the value of considering less obvious meanings and contributions of the year, noting that contradictory impulses continued to coexist in German film culture, and tracing potential alternative trajectories for the cinema—avant-garde as well as mainstream—that yet remained viable. They highlight not only how 1932 was remarkable or how some cinematic trends indeed foreshadowed the fascist regime ahead—for example, the increased production of short documentaries by the National Socialists or the emigration of Jewish and leftist artists—but also how it was ordinary and how some developments related less to the the rise of fascism and more to pressures of international competition or to technical innovations, such as the introduction of Agfacolor, Germany’s answer to the American Technicolor, or the end of some actors’ successful careers with the coming of sound. By juxtaposing the well-known with the forgotten, by foregrounding key moments or events that had been previously obscured or overlooked, that might be productively seen anew or that heralded significant transformations, breaks, continuities, or aesthetic developments, Kapczynski and Richardson together with the volume’s 85 international contributors succeed in offering a “fresh perspective on the moments that have shaped German cinema” between 1895 and 2011 (8).

A New History of German Cinema aims to provide an alternative to more traditional and linear approaches even as it explicitly enters into dialogue with and builds upon them. The editors situate their work in relation to a number of key texts: Hans Helmut Prinzler’s Chronik des deutschen Films, 1895-1994, with its wealth of essential information about names, dates, and filmographies; Sabine Hake’s German National Cinema, which demonstrates how film participated in shaping German history as well as reflecting it and which explores the tension between the cinema’s multiple roles as art, entertainment, and propaganda; Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter, and Deniz Götürk’s A Critical History of German Film, which provides, among other things, a new emphasis on previously neglected subjects, such as early cinema or the role of genres and stars; and Stephen Brockman’s A Critical History of German Film, which features extended discussions of key films in historical context., Unlike these works, however, this volume seeks neither to craft an overarching narrative nor to present and explore a series of canonical films. By eschewing an ideal of completeness and by taking the “event”—conceived broadly in Foucaudian terms—as a point of departure, “A New History of German Cinema seeks to follow the lead of earlier research while also carving out room for new approaches and probing the very meaning of film history itself—striving to elucidate less obvious connections and to pursue those moments of collusion and contradiction that mark any historical moment” (7).

The volume is organized in seven chronologically delineated sections, each preceded by a brief contextual introduction that concludes with a rich and suggestive selected bibliography. Individual entries take a key date as a point of departure for launching a 4-6-page investigation of the contextual significance of a film or actor, a set of films, a key document, trend, or cinematic approach. Some entries use a film’s premiere as the starting point for exploration, such as the March 28,1935 opening of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, a powerful, staged media event...