Description
Book Synopsis World War II irrevocably shaped culture--and much of cinema--in the 20th century, thanks to its devastating, global impact that changed the way we think about and portray war. This book focuses on European war films made about the war between 1945 and 1985 in countries that were occupied or invaded by the Nazis, such as Poland, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Germany itself. Many of these films were banned, censored, or sharply criticized at the time of their release for the radical ways they reframed the war and rejected the mythologizing of war experience as a heroic battle between the forces of good and evil.
The particular films examined, made by arthouse directors like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Larisa Shepitko, among many more, deviate from mainstream cinematic depictions of the war and instead present viewpoints and experiences of WWII which are often controversial or transgressive. They explore the often-complicated ways that particip
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction: Memories That Scar
1. Collaboration and Survival in Italian Neo-Realism
2. Memory Beyond Consolation: French Cinema in the '50s
3. Out of the Rubble: The Emergence of New German Cinema
4. French Cinema in the '60s and the Myth of Resistance
5. Postwar Perversion: Italian Cinema in the '70s
6. The Punishment Begins: The Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder
7. Pasolini's Salò and Nazisploitation
8. Innocent Children and Kafkaesque Doubles: Jewish Identity in French Cinema
9. Apocalyptic Visions: The Holocaust on Screen in Poland
10. The World Gone Mad: Czech and Slovak Cinema
11. Ordinary Fascism World War II Films Behind the Iron Curtain
Conclusion: The Trauma of Remembrance
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
