Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Searching for a Nazi theme

I thought it was interesting how Koepnick addressed the acceptance of the American Western as an acceptance of modernism. Even though Germany was in very many aspects 'Anti-American', the collaboration of the Western theme with the Nazi ideals is somewhat ironic. I feel that to look The Emperor of California, 1936 & say that it displays concrete 'Nazi' themes would be to over analyze the product. Although there are subtle clues that working as one will lead to more success that individual efforts, the film is in essence more of a western that a Nazi tool for propaganda. I think the most important question asked by Koepnickf is "If genres such as the Western cross borders, and national film industries 

other than Hollywood's even decide to produce their own, the decisive question is not: is this really a Western?" Are the ideals found in Hollywood's westerns constricted to American actors or can they cross the international borders. I believe that this film has less Nazi themes than any film we have watched so far, and because we are used to the symbolic and metaphoric themes in movies before this, we tend to search and almost beg for the Nazi themes to appear where they really don't. 

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