German
228-0-20: The German Film :

Instructor: Bradley J Prager
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Expected Enrollment: 75

COURSE DESCRIPTION: • German films are now more than ever engaged in representing the German past, particularly the Second World War and the Holocaust. This course investigates how today’s German cinema screens its confrontations with issues of history and memory. It analyzes how contemporary German film negotiates questions of German responsibility and the violence that the Third Reich enacted on those around it. How do twenty-first century German films such as Denis Gansel’s Before the Fall and Volker Schlöndorff’s The Ninth Day address a past of perpetration? How do box-office friendly “thrillers” engage with the past, either directly or indirectly? How do recent German films, about those who were persecuted for religious reasons, address or elide contemporary German empathies with Jewish victims of the Holocaust? This course examines these questions in light of both German history and film history.

TEACHING METHOD: Lecture and discussion. Secondary reading materials will be posted on blackboard and available in English. Screenings on Mondays. (note: some films may be exceed the 2 hour screening time)

EVALUATION METHOD: Class participation; take-home exams; final paper.

READING: Screenings include:
Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
The Ninth Day (Volker Schlöndorff, 2004)
Before the Fall (Denis Gansel, 2004)
Das Experiment (Oliver Hisrchbiegel, 2000)
Two or Three Things I know about Him (Malte Ludin, 2005)
With additional films by: Lukas Stepanik, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Konrad Wolf, Wolfgang Staudte and others.

[Course Descriptions for Spring 2009] [Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences] [GERMAN German]