Staying Local, Going Global

Streaming technology has facilitated the global distribution of foreign language shows such as Netflix’s Dark. The worldwide popularity of Dark, the streaming giant’s first original series made in Germany, raises questions about Netflix’s business strategy of producing “local stories with global appeal” as well as the international allure of German culture today. This article examines how Dark’s pop-cultural engagement with nuclear power connects to Germany’s post-war policies on atomic energy and the circulation of the country’s sustainability politics on the international stage. The show’s particular blend of local and global aesthetics of nuclear power, sustainability, and climate change demonstrates how German culture is now viewed as a fitting medium to reveal, correspond to, and have an impact on today’s zeitgeist globally. It also signals a shift in the dynamic between local and global media forms, and thus German film.

Multiple-Music Versions?

With the advent of sound film in the early 1930s the German film industry produced so-called multiple-language versions as a part of its internationalisation strategy. These versions were produced for the French, English, and Italian markets (often) with a new cast of actors. Despite the importance of music in these films, a systematic study on the role of music in these multiple-language versions is still lacking. This article offers a first case study on the topic by comparing the German, Italian, and French versions of the sound film-operetta Paprika (1932/1933). It will be illustrated that the music (rather than sound) as well as the use of the musical material in the versions of Paprika differed significantly. Musical adaptation was used as an important means to shape the film’s narrative and to create a distinct aesthetic for each of the film’s versions. Historically, there are evident parallels to the adaptation practice of opera and operetta over the past centuries.

Giving Voice to a Foxtrot from Auschwitz-Birkenau

The Collections Department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum preserves a number of manuscripts of popular songs arranged by members of the Auschwitz I Men’s Orchestra. These songs, written with great care in black ink on Beethoven Papier brand music paper, often bear highly ironic, but also tragically relevant titles, such as “Letters That Never Arrived,” “Hours That One Can Never Forget,” “Sing a Song When You’re Sad.” In this article I describe the complex process of realizing a 2018 concert performance and recording of one of these songs, “Die schönste Zeit des Lebens” (The Most Beautiful Time of Life), based on a manuscript deposited in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 1975. Originally a 1941 popular song composed by the German film composer Franz Grothe with a text by Willi Dehmel, and scored for a jazz ensemble, it was arranged by the Auschwitz I prisoners for four first violins, five second violins, a viola, two clarinets, a trombone and a tuba. Through this dramatic change in orchestration, errors were occasionally introduced; in this article, I detail the analytical processes involved in correcting these errors and making “micro-interventions” in the score.

Non-Verbal Communication of German Language in a German Film: A Coffee in Berlin

Non-verbal behaviour is very important in conversations, yet it is not given much attention. Foreign language learners who are not exposed to these pivotal non-verbal communications will find it difficult to recognise it during a conversation which consequently could lead to confusion. In addition, it will also affect the flow of the conversation especially among language learners that have less access to real language situations or native speakers. This article begins with analysing a German language conversation in a German film “A Coffee in Berlin” by Jan Ole Gerster, to detect the non-verbal turn-taking signals as well as to interpret the function and purpose of the signals based on the Stenstrom’s theory (1994) of turn-taking. This article uses Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem 2 (discourse and conversation- analytic transcription 2) or also recognised as GAT 2 by Selting (2009) for the data transcription as it is highly adaptable in transcribing data of German language to detect the non-verbal turn-taking signals in the conversation. Qualitative descriptive is chosen as the method of this study as it is detailed, comprehensive and makes sense to the reader. Using the method and theories stated bring results of the non-verbal turn-taking signals such as gaze, gestures and facial expression which are used in German conversation when yielding, continuing and taking the floor of conversation. Keywords: Non-verbal behaviour, turn-taking, conversation analysis, German language, language learners.

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Jayne separates from Mickey, has an affair with singer Nelson Sardelli, quickly reunites with Mickey, and gives birth to Mariska Hargitay on January 24, 1964. Jayne makes the German film Heimweh nach St. Pauli, and the violent film noir Dog Eat Dog in Dubrovnik.

Wizerunek Niemców w polskich obrazach filmowych okresu transformacji ustrojowej

In Poland, the changes started with the Round Table talks and June elections, and in the GDR with the fall of the Berlin Wall. They gained momentum with the transformation of the Polish People’s Republic into the Republic of Poland and the accession of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany. These processes were reflected in literature, film, music, and even computer games. Artistic attempts to face the new reality acquired a special dimension in Germany, where the term “breakthrough literature” appeared. The international success of such productions as The Lives of Others or Goodbye, Lenin! indicates the great interest of German film directors in the subject as well. Similar attempts were made in Poland. Films appeared in which German characters – refugees from the GDR, businessmen, tourists, regime officials, or criminals – were presented in connection with the native heroes (usually in the background). An analysis of these characters allows us to look at the Polish experience of the last thirty years from a different perspective and to make a certain relativization of the changes that have occurred in Poland. In accord with Marcin Kula’s concept, the author treats selected films as “historical memory carriers” and analyzes the image of Germans in films created during the political transformation in Poland or in films that concern this period: Psy (Dogs, directed by Władysław Pasikowski), Dwadzieścia lat później (Twenty Years Later, directed by Michał Dudziewicz), Sauna (directed by Filip Bajon), Obcy musi fruwać (The Foreigner Must Go, dir. Wiesław Saniewski), Yuma (dir. Piotr Mularuk) and Wróżby kumaka (Call of the Toad, dir. Robert Gliński).

GDR Cinema on Swedish Television

This article studies the import of East German films by Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio, and their reception in the Swedish public sphere. While few GDR films reached theatrical distribution, Swedish television imported and broadcasted over 30 productions by the state-owned film studio DEFA during the 1970s and 1980s, making this the primary distribution window for East German film in Sweden. Relying on sources such as Sveriges Radio’s in-house correspondence and screening reports, the weekly Sveriges Radio magazine Voices in Radio/Television (Röster i Radio/TV) and the public service corporation’s annual reports, this study sheds light on the political, economic and ideological considerations involved in the cultural exchange between Sweden and the GDR.

Imagining Technological Art: Early German Film Theory

As a form of popular mass entertainment and an apparatus for the automatic reproduction of material reality, cinema’s artistic aspirations seemed futile. Some early commentators nonetheless asserted that the new medium could be a legitimate object of aesthetic scrutiny. In an attempt to fathom cinema’s immaterial values, early film theorists including Herbert Tannenbaum and Georg Lukács explored cinema’s kinship with folk art, mental processes and the fantastic. They argued that film technology, specifically special effects, could articulate ideas in a sensual form and thus provide a pathway to a spiritual dimension. As this chapter shows, their techno-romantic lines of argument conceptualized the medium within established aesthetics and set the stage for the recognition of cinema as the first technological art.