Cinema from Weimar to the Third Reich: Power and "Nationalcharakter"

• Autor(a) principal: Bär, Gerald
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34640/universidademadeira2016bar
• topic: cinema de Weimar; terceiro Reich; poder; Nationalcharakter; Weimar cinema; Third Reich; power; Nationalcharakter; Cinéma de Weimar; Troisième Reich; pouvoir; Nationalcharakter; Cine de Weimar; Tercer Reich; poder; Nationalcharakter

Although the Volksempfänger radio and the Hugenberg press functioned as preferred vehicles of political propaganda even before the Third Reich, cinema was also used for these purposes. After the seizure of power and against the resistance of its Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, Hitler chose Leni Riefenstahl as principal director of the staging of the ideology of Nazism. With the help of UFA the new way was exploited to 'document' both the alleged 'German spirit' and the influences considered negative and harmful to the 'soul of the people'. The film, as a "collective" product (Eisenstein, Vertov, Brecht), has always been consciously instrumentalized, both by Nazi and Soviet propaganda and by the politics of other countries. However, there are approaches byhistorians, sociologists, and film critics who link certain trends in German filmmaking during the Weimar Republic to the rise of Nazism (Kracauer, De Caligari to Hitler, 1947, Eisner, The Demonic Screen, 1952). This communication proposes a critical look of these approaches.