Description
Book SynopsisConsiders anti-fascist films of the immediate post-war period, which depict the re-integration of former soldiers into society and the crisis of masculinity that accompanied the aftermath of the war. This work argues that the cinematic productions of East Germany offer a corrective to misperceptions about German responses to the legacy of the war.
Trade Review[F]or advanced scholars in the fields of film history and cultural theory Pinkert's study opens up a range of new and important perspectives. 27. 4 2009
* German History *
Film and Memory in East Germany is an important addition to the literature in this rapidly growing area of investigation for a number of reasons. . . . This is an excellent study and will be required reading for all students and scholars of this period in German film history.Spring 2010
* Slavic Review *
. . . These accounts give rise to new psychoanalytical approaches to the study of post-WW II German cultural identity and East German film. The book concludes with a critical reexamination of altered patterns of loss after the collapse of communism. A good resource for those interested in film (East German in particular) and trauma studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, researchers, faculty, and professionals. —ChoiceMay 2009
-- B.Tautz * Bowdoin College *
These accounts give rise to new psychoanalytical approaches to the study of post-WW II German cultural identity and East German film. . . . A good resource for those interested in film (East German in particular) and trauma studies.May 2009
* Choice *
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction: Cinematic Specters of History as Memory
Part 1. Vanishing Returnees: War Trauma, Antifascism, and the Crisis of Masculinity (1940s)
1. Flashbacks and Psyche—The Murderers Are among Us
2. Grieving Dead Soldiers—Somewhere in Berlin
3. Psychotic Breaks and Conjugal Rubble—Wozzeck
4. Suicidal Males and Reconstruction—Our Daily Bread
Part 2. Fantasmatic Fullness: Strained Female Subjectivity and Socialist Dreams (1950s)
5. Silent Mothers: Air War as Intimate Memory—Rotation
6. Stalin's Daughters on the Verge—The Story of a Young Couple and Destinies of Women
7. Missing Smile: Psychic Paralysis and Production—Sun Seekers
Part 3. Germany, Year Zero: Recasting the Past in the Present (1960s)
8. Postmelancholic Memory Projections—I Was Nineteen
9. Modern Loss and Mourning Plays—Born in '45
Epilogue: Vacant History, Empty Screens—Postcommunist Films of the 1990s
Filmography
Notes
Works Cited
Index
