Cinema is a medium of light. And during Weimar Germany's advance to technological modernity, light - particularly the representational possibilities of electrical light - became the link between the cinema screen and the rapid changes that were transforming German life. In Frances Guerin's compelling history of German silent cinema of the 1920s, the innovative use of light is the pivot around which a new conception of a national cinema, and a national culture emerges. Guerin depicts a nocturnal Germany suffused with light - electric billboards, storefronts, police searchlights - and shows how this element of the mise-en-scene came to reflect both the opportunities and the anxieties surrounding modernity and democracy. Guerin's interpretations center on use of light in films such as Schatten (1923), Variete (1925), Metropolis (1926), and Der Golem (1920). In these films we see how light is the substance of image composition, the structuring device of the narrative, and the central thematic concern. This history relieves German films of the responsibility to explain the political and ideological instability of the period, an instability said to be the uncertain foundation of Nazism. In unlocking this dubious link, A Culture of Light redefines the field of German film scholarship.
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Book Description
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Book Description
Cinema is a medium of light. And during Weimar Germany's advance to technological modernity, light - particularly the representational possibilities of electrical light - became the link between the cinema screen and the rapid changes that were transforming German life. In Frances Guerin's compelling history of German silent cinema of the 1920s, the innovative use of light is the pivot around which a new conception of a national cinema, and a national culture emerges. Guerin depicts a nocturnal Germany suffused with light - electric billboards, storefronts, police searchlights - and shows how this element of the mise-en-scene came to reflect both the opportunities and the anxieties surrounding modernity and democracy. Guerin's interpretations center on use of light in films such as Schatten (1923), Variete (1925), Metropolis (1926), and Der Golem (1920). In these films we see how light is the substance of image composition, the structuring device of the narrative, and the central thematic concern. This history relieves German films of the responsibility to explain the political and ideological instability of the period, an instability said to be the uncertain foundation of Nazism. In unlocking this dubious link, A Culture of Light redefines the field of German film scholarship.
About the Author
Frances Guerin is a lecturer in film studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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tripartite use, technological light, nological modernity, diegetic reality, technological entertainment, manipulated light, diegetic audience, stylistic explorations, technological spectacle, technical light, electrical light, industrial entertainment, melodramatic narrative, film within the film, modern technological world, industrial modernity, film lighting Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Die Straße, Der Golem, The Electrification of Life, The Spell of Light, Reformulations of Space, Profusion of Lights, Das Stahlwerk, Bringing Cinema, World War, Rabbi Loew, Licht Erlosch, Das Bacchanal des Todes, United States, New Year's Eve, Robert Herne, Electric Bar, Weimar Republic, Courtesy Photofest, Carl Hoffmann, Rose Day, Das Recht, Der Bettler, Karl Freund, Franz Hofer, Jewish Question New!
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tripartite use, technological light, nological modernity, diegetic reality, technological entertainment, manipulated light, diegetic audience, stylistic explorations, technological spectacle, technical light, electrical light, industrial entertainment, melodramatic narrative, film within the film, modern technological world, industrial modernity, film lighting Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Die Straße, Der Golem, The Electrification of Life, The Spell of Light, Reformulations of Space, Profusion of Lights, Das Stahlwerk, Bringing Cinema, World War, Rabbi Loew, Licht Erlosch, Das Bacchanal des Todes, United States, New Year's Eve, Robert Herne, Electric Bar, Weimar Republic, Courtesy Photofest, Carl Hoffmann, Rose Day, Das Recht, Der Bettler, Karl Freund, Franz Hofer, Jewish Question New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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