COML269 - Fascist Cinemas

Status
O
Activity
REC
Section number integer
405
Title (text only)
Fascist Cinemas
Term
2019C
Subject area
COML
Section number only
405
Section ID
COML269405
Course number integer
269
Registration notes
Course is available to Freshmen and Upperclassmen.
All Readings and Lectures in English
Registration also required for Lecture (see below)
Meeting times
F 01:00 PM-02:00 PM
Level
undergraduate
Description
Cinema played a crucial role in the cultural life of Nazi Germany and other fascist states. As cinema enthusiasts, Goebbels and Hitler were among the first to realize the important ideological potential of film as a mass medium and saw to it that Germany remained a cinema powerhouse producing more than 1000 films during the Nazi era. In Italy, Mussolini, too, declared cinema "the strongest weapon." This course explores the world of "fascist" cinemas ranging from infamous propaganda pieces such as The Triumph of the Will to popular entertainments such as musicals and melodramas. It examines the strange and mutually defining kinship between fascism more broadly and film. We will consider what elements mobilize and connect the film industries of the Axis Powers: style, genre, the aestheticization of politics, the creation of racialized others. More than seventy years later, fascist cinemas challenge us to grapple with issues of more subtle ideological insinuation than we might think. Weekly screenings with subtitles.
Course number only
269
Cross listings
ITAL257405, GRMN257405, CIMS257405
Use local description
No