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Transnational American Studies look beyond the geographical boundaries of the United States to explore the global entanglements of, and to include non-US perspectives on, US culture. With this perspective in mind, the seminar will look at German and US American filmmaking and interrogate the idea of national cinema in the light of the international dimension of the production and reception of movies. We will investigate the extent to which Transnational Cinema is a critique of nationalist discourse and allows for oppositional readings, and the extent to which it helps analyze the global spread of dominant narratives and images.
In the course of the seminar, we will use the example of (predominantly) German filmmaking in its relation to US cinema to explore the ways in which cinema cultures coexist within the broader context of globalization. How “American” is Hollywood? How “German” is the Neue Deutsche Film (as one example of various German film movements addressed in class)? In how far do “Hollywood” and the Neue Deutsche Film represent their respective national film cultures? How have US and German film cultures enriched one another? What are the fantasies of “America” in German film, and what are the fantasies of Germany in US cinema? What impact has the economic power of Hollywood had on German filmmaking and which strategies has German film developed to approach this economic imbalance? One object of analysis will be the close relationship between the Babelsberg and Hollywood film studios in the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What were the historical contexts of these moments of cooperation?
Additionally to the discussion of these questions, the seminar will have a visitor from the University of Zaragoza, Spain. Professor Hilaria Loyo’s discussion of Spanish film and its relationship to Hollywood will help us broaden the perspective from a German to a European focus.
Course requirements include one response paper and one in-class presentation.
Films under consideration: A Foreign Affair (B. Wilder, 1946), Alice in den Städten (W. Wenders 1974),
Berlin, Sinfonie der Großstadt (W. Ruttmann, 1927), The Bourne Supremacy (P. Greengrass, 2004),
Der verlorene Sohn (The Prodigal Son, Luis Trenker, 1934), Elegy (I. Coixet, 2008), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (J. C. Mitchell, 2002), Inglourious Basterds (Q. Tarantino, 2009), Lola rennt (Run, Lola Run, T. Tykwer, 1998), Manhatta (C. Sheeler/P. Strand, 1921), Schindler’s List (S. Spielberg, 1993). |
