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Light
Motives
German Popular Film in Perspective
Edited by Randall Halle and Margaret McCarthy
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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. |
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"Abandon
any preconceived notion that popular cinema is escapist, unpolitical, naive,
kitschy, big-budget, propagandistic, or for the uneducated! Forget equating
German cinema with Teutonic demonism or morose self-introspection! This superb
collection sweeps away tiresome cliches with path-breaking, sophisticated analyses
of films from 1919 to the present, including contributions on the much neglected
cinema of the 1950s and 1960s."
—Alice Kuzniar, University of North Carolina
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