Introduction to German Masterpiece Cinema

From the moment moving images were first shown in Germany at the exhibition of Max and Emil Skladanowsky's invention at the Berlin Wintergarten in 1895, German cinema had a meteoric rise with a prolific output. Prior to the Great War, domestic film production made its mark with so-called autorenfilms, but it was the unparalleled innovation and creativity of Weimar filmmakers that ushered in the golden era of German filmmaking after 1918. The extraordinary experimental play with the possibilities of the medium in expressionist films established Germany at the forefront of the international film scene. During the mass exodus after the Nazis' rise to power, many filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood, including directors F. W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, Douglas Sirk, and Billy Wilder, along with a number of actors, writers, set designers, cinematographers, and composers. Not only were they eagerly embraced by Hollywood, they also went on to lay the foundation of crucial genres such as noir, horror, the gothic melodrama, the political thriller, and the comedy of manners. In the hands of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who preferred a subtle, artistic cinematic style, tightly controlled Third Reich films often became revered at home and abroad for their artistry. Postwar cinema culminated in the avant-garde experiments of the New German Cinema, whose new generation of directors embraced the Oberhausen Manifesto to create edgy, political, and poetic films. Later, post-unification films and exponents of the Berlin School grappled with German identity in the context of an increasingly multicultural reality and globalization, in ways that regularly garner prestige and recognition at film festivals abroad and Oscar wins in Hollywood. In this course, we trace these developments and examine cinematic masterpieces including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), Metropolis (1927), M (1931), Olympia (1938), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943), The Murderers Are Among Us (1946), The Bridge (1959), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Jacob the Liar (1974), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Himmel über Berlin (1984), Europa, Europa (1990), Run, Lola, Run (1998), Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), Head-On (2004), The Lives of Others (2006), Yella (2007), Transit (2018), and Toni Erdmann (2016).