Jews have been well represented in the cinema industry from the beginning of the film era: behind the screen, as producers, distributors, directors, script-writers, composers, set designers; and on the screen, as Jewish actors and as named Jewish characters in the film’s plot. Some of these characters are fictional; others, ranging from Rabbi Loew of Prague to Ferdinand Lassalle and Alfred Dreyfus, have a historic original. This book examines how a variety of German and Austrian films treat aspects of Jewish life, at home and in the synagogue, and Jewish interaction with fellow Jews in different cultural environments; conflicts and accommodations between Jews and non-Jews at various times, ranging from the medieval to the contemporary. The author, one of the best known scholars in film history, theory and criticism, offers the reader a rich panorama of the many Jews involved in all spheres of the cinema and who, as the author reminds us repeatedly, together with their non-Jewish contemporaries, created a great industry and new forms of art.
Table of Content
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Preparing the Ground
Chapter 2. Dramas and Melodramas of the ‘Silent’ Period
Chapter 3. Comedies of the ‘Silent’ Period
Chapter 4. ‘Enlightenment’ Films (Sittenfilme)
Chapter 5. 1929: A Year of Transition
Chapter 6. Ironic Realism
Chapter 7. Late Comedies
Chapter 8. Confrontations and Enmities
Chapter 9. A New Film Musical
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
About the author
S. S. Prawer (1925-2012) was a Fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, the British Academy, and the German Academy of Language and Literature.
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