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  • Doppelte Ökonomien/Double Bound Economies: Vom Lesen eines Fotoarchivs aus der DDR, 1967–1990/On Reading a Photographic Archive from the GDR, 1967–1990 ed. by Doreen Mende, Estelle Blaschke, and Armin Linke, and: Bilder des Jahrhunderts: Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR 1955–1990. Erinnerungen ed. by DEFA-Stiftung
  • Barton Byg
Doreen Mende, Estelle Blaschke, and Armin Linke, eds. Doppelte Ökonomien/Double Bound Economies: Vom Lesen eines Fotoarchivs aus der DDR, 1967–1990/On Reading a Photographic Archive from the GDR, 1967–1990. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2013. 448pp. €36.00 (Paperback). ISBN 978-3-940064-46-2.
DEFA-Stiftung, ed. Bilder des Jahrhunderts: Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR 1955–1990. Erinnerungen. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer Verlag, 2015. 372pp. €19.90 (Paperback). ISBN 978-3-86505-405-0.

Double Bound Economies represents both an archive and a challenge to the idea of archives, but it is also a model for archives of the future, or outside of time. [End Page 301] Bilder des Jahrhunderts, on the other hand, is a testimony to the uniqueness and singular historical role of the State Film Archive of the GDR (1955–1990), one of the largest film collections in the world.

These are thus two very different books, but together they provide a compelling impetus for consideration of GDR visual culture as an essential example of the importance of the archive. Both have a personal, biographical aspect to them, although each takes this in a different direction. The approach of the State Film Archive book is institutional, anecdotal, and intensive while Double Bound Economies is artistic, multifaceted, theoretically nuanced, and extensive.

In addition to documenting certain technical and historical aspects of the State Film Archive itself, Bilder des Jahrhunderts is a belated and extremely welcome celebration of the extraordinary career of Wolfgang Klaue, published by the DEFA-Stiftung on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Klaue worked at the Archive from the 1950s until its incorporation into the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv; he was its director from 1969 until 1990, president of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives) from 1979 until 1985, and founding director of the DEFA-Stiftung from 1998 until his retirement in 2003.

The book thus fulfills a number of tasks. Not incidentally, it functions partly as a personal and fascinating “guest book” with entries by many colleagues who were invited to reminisce about the significance of the State Film Archive and Klaue’s long career for their own work. The book is also striking evidence of what a multifaceted crossroads Berlin was for film culture during the Cold War. And the number of unexpected and often landmark encounters and rediscoveries that the State Film Archive and Klaue made possible is not only a key aspect of this book, but it would form the basis for numerous publication and research projects in the future. One example might be the various interactions between the State Film Archive and the Cinémathèque Française, especially the work in East Berlin of Henri Langlois and Lotte Eisner. This was possible partly because some French cultural leaders had less aversion to cultural exchange with the GDR than officials of other countries, even in the 1950s. This book focuses more on East and West Berlin, and reveals yet again that the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain were quite porous where film culture was concerned. Among the many topics that would deserve books of their own (aside from Klaue’s career itself) are the “60 Years of Cinema” and Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti exhibitions/retrospectives in East Berlin, the impressively eclectic programming of the Archive’s own cinema, “Camera,” and the remarkable documentary films that were independently produced by the Archive’s “Staatliche Filmdokumentation”—but that were not for public distribution.

Due to its “reminiscence” format, the book does not supply an overview of its subject. Anyone unfamiliar with East German cinema, Berlin film institutions, or the role of the State Film Archive will find it frustrating reading. A prerequisite that does provide the needed context would thus be the excellent overview of the State Film Archive’s history that Wolfgang Klaue published in the year-book of the DEFA-Stiftung.1 I find this book also too...

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