Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814330452 ISBN 13: 9780814330456

Publisher: Wayne State University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Critics rarely associate popular film with German cinema, despite the international success of such films as Das Boot (1981), The Never-Ending Story (1984), Run, Lola, Run (1998), and recent German comedies, all representing a rich body of work outside the parameters of high culture. This very success compels the authors of Light Motives to take an unprecedented look at German popular film across the historical spectrum and to challenge the tendency among critics to divvy up German film, like Germans themselves, into the Good and the Bad. Together the essays reexamine popular film production along with larger cultural, historical, and political meanings suggested by the term "popular."

Most critical accounts have focused on the golden era of Weimar film and the New German Cinema of the 1960s and 70s leaving much of popular film by the wayside. This volume attributes the division to such sources as Frankfurt School dictates, Goethe Haus film offerings, and state-funded film production during the 1970s, which promoted high-culture art films to broadcast the success of West German democratization.

The essays challenge the traditional shape of German film history, while offering in-depth analyses of films that have until now been beyond the pale of critical attention. What emerges is a "Never-Ending Story" of oft-repeated obsessions, overlapping generic forms, omnipresent or subtle nods to Hollywood, and myriad political concerns irreducible to a unified message or aesthetic form-all bearing witness to the vibrancy of German culture.

About this title

Book Description

Light Motives undertakes a long overdue critical reassessment of German popular cinema, challenging the traditional view of German film history and offering new ways to think about popular cinema in general.

From the Publisher

Critics rarely associate popular film with German cinema, despite the international success of such films as "Das Boot" (1981), "The Never-Ending Story" (1984), "Run, Lola, Run" (1998), and recent German comedies, all representing a rich body of work outside the parameters of high culture. This very success compels the authors of "Light Motives" to take an unprecedented look at German popular film across the historical spectrum and to examine larger cultural, historical, and political meanings suggested by the term "popular."

The essays challenge the traditional shape of German film history, while offering in-depth analyses of films that have until now been beyond the pale of critical attention. What emerges is a "Never-Ending Story" of oft-repeated obsessions, overlapping generic forms, omnipresent or subtle nods to Hollywood, and myriad political concerns irreducible to a unified message or aesthetic form—all bearing witness to the vibrancy of German culture.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0814330452
• ISBN 13: 9780814330456
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: McCarthy Margaret, Halle Randall