Nazi cinema as enchantment : the politics of entertainment in the Third Reich

Author(s)

    • O'Brien, Mary-Elizabeth

Bibliographic Information

Nazi cinema as enchantment : the politics of entertainment in the Third Reich

Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien

(Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture / edited by James Hardin)

Camden House, 2006

[Repr. pbk. ed.]

  • : pbk

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-285) and index

1st published 2004

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Explores how entertainment cinema served everyday fascism in Nazi Germany. Hitler's regime not only terrorized its citizens; it also seduced them, offering stability, a traditional value system, a sense of belonging, and hope of a better standard of living. Nazi cinema was part of this seduction, expressing positive social fantasies and promoting the enchantment of reality, so that one would want to share in the dream at any price. This interdisciplinary study, based on exhaustive research in German archives, examines how thirteen films from five genres - the historical musical, the foreign adventure film, the home-front film, the melodrama, and the problem film - enchanted audiences and enacted shared stories that can tell us much about how family, community, history, the nation, and the war were imagined in Nazi Germany. Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien is Professor of German at Skidmore College.

Table of Contents

Introduction History, Utopia, and the Social Construction of Happiness: The Historical Musical Mapping German Identity: The Foreign Adventure Film The Celluloid War: The Home-Front Film Discontented Domesticity: The Melodrama The Forbidden Desires of Everyday Life: The Problem Film Epilogue Works Cited Index

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