scholarly journals Playing with the Camera. Critical Notes on Two Films by Austrian Director Willi Forst

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Francesco Bono

This essay aims to critically reflect on the work of Austrian film director Willi Forst, devoting special attention to two of Forst’s films of the 1930s, Mazurka and Allotria. Forst’s career developed successfully in both Austria and Germany between the 1930s and the end of the 1950s and Forst has been widely counted among the major figures in German-speaking cinema of the time. In scholarly works on the history of Austrian film, Forst’s name has been typically associated with the musical genre and the so-called Viennese Film, of which Forst has been regarded as the indisputable master. In this association of Forst’s work with the Viennese Film and the musical genre, long predominant among film historians, one may detect a reason for the scant consideration dedicated so far to films such as Mazurka and Allotria which, not belonging to the above genres, have been usually regarded as of minor relevance in Forst’s work. With the aim of correcting this assumption, the present essay intends to critically focus on Mazurka and Allotria, placing them within the wider context of Forst’s work. Though the two films belong to different genres, Mazurka being a melodrama, Allotria a comedy, they appear to have a significant number of points in common, and through their discussion and comparison, this essay hopes to contribute to a better understanding of Forst’s oeuvre, shedding light on a number of facets of Forst’s work to which scarse attention has been devoted so far.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (193) ◽  
pp. 92-99
Author(s):  
Mariia Ivanytska ◽  

The article investigates the Ukrainian-German literary translation of the 1950s from the viewpoint of the sociology of translation (P. Bourdieu, S. Bassnett, N. Bachleitner) and the theory of rewriting and manipulation by A. Lefevere. Therefore, the emphasis is placed on the factors affecting approaches to translation, particularly ideology, patronage, poetics. Translation as rewriting is analysed based on short stories from the anthology “Aus dem Buch des Lebens. Ukrainische und estnische Novellen”, published in the GDR in 1951. Rewriting strategies are classified into two groups: a) strategies used in paratexts (foreword, comments, explanatory notes, information about the author, history of the Ukrainian culture and literature); b) strategies used by a translator in the main text: 1) simplification, 2) neutralization of regional and national flavour, 3) substitution of the Ukrainian flavour with the Russian one (russification of the work). As a result of the analysis, it can be concluded that the most frequent translation transformation encountered in the text is replacement of realia words, dialecticisms and colloquialisms with neutral lexemes (often hyperonyms), which is defined as neutralization strategy. It correlates with the simplification strategy, based on the omission of sentences and paragraphs, which are not desirable for translation, particularly textual elements with religious themes and Ukrainian realia. Substitution of the Ukrainian national flavour with the Russian one is mostly represented with the rendering of onyms (anthroponyms and toponyms) according to the norms of Russian phonetics, which marked the Ukrainian literature as part of the Russian cultural space. This kind of rewriting had the effect of German-speaking readers forming a corresponding impression of the Ukrainian culture.


Transfers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Torma

This article deals with the history of underwater film and the role that increased mobility plays in the exploration of nature. Drawing on research on the exploration of the ocean, it analyzes the production of popular images of the sea. The entry of humans into the depths of the oceans in the twentieth century did not revitalize myths of mermaids but rather retold oceanic myths in a modern fashion. Three stages stand out in this evolution of diving mobility. In the 1920s and 1930s, scenes of divers walking under water were the dominant motif. From the 1940s to the 1960s, use of autonomous diving equipment led to a modern incarnation of the “mermen“ myth. From the 1950s to the 1970s, cinematic technology was able to create visions of entire oceanic ecosystems. Underwater films contributed to the period of machine-age exploration in a very particular way: they made virtual voyages of the ocean possible and thus helped to shape the current understanding of the oceans as part of Planet Earth.


Author(s):  
Travis D. Stimeling

Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first history of record production during country music’s so-called Nashville Sound era. This period of country music history produced some of the genre’s most celebrated recording artists, including Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Floyd Cramer, and marked the establishment of a recording industry that has come to define Nashville in the national and international consciousness. Yet, despite country music’s overwhelming popularity during this period and the continued legacy of the studios that were built in Nashville during the 1950s and 1960s, little attention has been given to the ways in which recording engineers, session musicians, and record producers shaped the sounds of country music during the time. Drawing upon a rich array of previously unexplored primary sources, Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first book to take a global view of record production in Nashville during the three decades that the city’s musicians established the city as the leading center for the production and distribution of country music.


Author(s):  
Katherine Bode

This chapter on the history of book publishing in Australia divides Australian novel publishing since 1950 into three periods: the 1950s and 1960s, the 1970s and 1980s, and the 1990s to the present. During the 1950s and 1960s, British companies dominated the publication of Australian novels and publishing decisions were predominantly made overseas, but the period also witnessed a ‘local publishing boom’, driven by the belief in the importance of Australian literature and publishing. The 1970s and 1980s saw the growth of a vibrant local publishing industry, supported by cultural nationalist policies and broad social changes. At the same time, the significant economic and logistical challenges of local publishing led to closures and mergers, and — along with the increasing globalization of publishing — enabled the entry of large, multinational corporations into the market. This latter trend, and the processes of globalization and deregulation, continued in the 1990s and beyond.


Author(s):  
Laura U. Marks

In the twentieth-century Arabic-speaking world, communism animated anticolonial revolutions, workers’ organizations, guerrilla movements, and international solidarity. The communist dream was cut short by Arab governments, deals with global superpowers, the rise of religious fundamentalism, and historical bad luck. But recently a remarkable number of Arab filmmakers have turned their attention to the history of the radical Left. Filmmakers from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have been urgently seeking models for grassroots politics in the labor movements, communist parties, and secular armed resistance of earlier generations. This coda explores two strata of communist audiovisual praxis: the radical cinema that supported labor movements and guerrilla actions from the 1950s to the 1980s, and recent films that draw on that earlier movement. The coda argues that the Arab audiovisual archive holds flashes of communism that have been neither fulfilled nor entirely extinguished. The new films release their unspent energy into the present, diagnosing earlier failures of Arab communism and making plans for new forms of solidarity.


2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei N. Lankov

This article, based on newly declassified material from the Russian archives, deals with the fate of non-Communist parties in North Korea in the 1950s. Like the “people's democracies” in Eastern Europe, North Korea had (and still technically has) a few non-Communist parties. The ruling Communist party included these parties within the framework of a “united front,” designed to project the facade of a multiparty state, to control domestic dissent, and to establish links with parties in South Korea. The article traces the history of these parties under Soviet and local Communist control from the mid-1940s to their gradual evisceration in the 1950s.


2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-65
Author(s):  
Ben Lieberman

The history of the Federal Republic of Germany is closely connected with economic achievement. Enjoying a striking economic recovery in the 1950s, the FRG became the home of the “economic miracle.” Maturing into one of the most powerful economies in the world, it became known as the “German model” by the 1970s. Now, however, the chief metaphor for the German economy is “Standort Deutschland,” and therein lies the tale of the new German problem.


1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl L. Hutterer

The purpose of the present essay is not to present a history of Philippine archaeology; several preliminary attempts have been made in this regard which may be consulted. Rather, the aim of this paper is to pause for a moment and look across the landscape of Philippine archaeology to assess what has been accomplished to date, to ponder strength and weaknesses of the field at this time, and to consider future directions. Nevertheless, the shape of any landscape is the result of historical events and processes that need to be taken into account if we want to understand its present form and assess its future potential and development. Thus, it will be necessary to include in the following thoughts historical perspectives which will help to explain how and why certain concepts, methods and research practices arose in the context of Philippine archaeology and came to determine our picture of Philippine prehistory.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-352
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY SCOTT BROWN

‘In Search of Space’ explores the history of Krautrock, a futuristic musical genre that began in Germany in the late 1960s and flowered in the 1970s. Not usually explicitly political, Krautrock bore the unmistakable imprint of the revolt of 1968. Groups arose out of the same milieux and shared many of the same concerns as anti-authoritarian radicals. Their rebellion expressed, in an artistic way, key themes of the broader countercultural moment of which they were a part. A central theme, the article argues, was escape – escape from the situation of Germany in the 1960s in general, and from the specific conditions of the anti-authoritarian revolt in the Federal Republic in the wake of 1968. Mapping Krautrock's relationship to key locations and routes (both real and imaginary), the article situates Krautrock in relationship to the political and cultural upheavals of its historical context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John Worsley

Robson in 1983 and 1988 in his reconsideration of the poetics of kakawin epics and Javanese philology drew readers’ attention to the importance of genre for the history of ancient Javanese literature. Aoyama in his study of the kakawin Sutasoma in 1992, making judicious use of Hans Jauss’s concept of “horizon of expectation”, offered the first systematic discussion of the genre of Old Javanese literary works. The present essay offers a commentary on the terms which mpu Monaguna and mpu Prapañca, authors of the thirteenth century epic kakawin Sumanasāntaka and the fourteenth century Deśawarṇana, themselves, employ to refer to the generic characteristics of their poems. Mpu Monaguna referred to his epic poem as a narrative work (kathā), written in a prakṛt, Old Javanese, and rendered in the poetic form of a kakawin and finally as a ritual act intended to enable the poet to achieve apotheosis with his tutelary deity and his poem to be the means of transforming the world, in particular to ensure the wellbeing of the readers, listeners, copyists and those who possessed copies of his poetic work. Mpu Prapañca described his Deśawarṇana differently. Also written in Old Javanese and in the poetic form of a kakawin—he refers to his work variously as a narrative work (kathā), a chronicle (śakakāla or śakābda), a praise poem (kastawan) and also as a ritual act designed to enable the author in an ecstatic state of rapture (alangö), and filled with the power and omniscience of his tutelary deity, to ensure the continued prosperity of the realm of Majapahit and to secure the rule of his king Rājasanagara. The essay considers each of these literary categories.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document