Screening Transcendence: Film under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope, 1933-1938 - Hardcover

Dassanowsky, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253033624 ISBN 13: 9780253033628

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2018

Synopsis

During the 1930s, Austrian film production companies developed a process to navigate the competing demands of audiences in Nazi Germany and those found in broader Western markets. In Screening Transcendence, film historian Robert Dassanowsky explores how Austrian filmmakers during the Austrofascist period (1933–1938) developed two overlapping industries: "Aryanized" films for distribution in Germany, its largest market, and "Emigrantenfilm," which employed émigré and Jewish talent that appealed to international audiences.
Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences.
Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Dassanowsky is Professor of German/Austrian Studies and Film at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He is author of Austrian Cinema: A History, and editor of World Film Locations: Vienna, and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metafilm. He is also an independent film producer.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253033624
• ISBN 13: 9780253033628
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 444