Koepnick's argument seems to be that German cinema used the American west to represent what Germany was dealing with at the time, for example, in terms of the value of technological progression (with the cowboys over the Indians) of German at the time. While I can see the application of the settlement of the west to concerns about urbanization, I don't really see the use of the west as part of any sort of Nazi rederict "which promoted the vision of a new man in the service of the new political order. " I just see the idea of a new frontier being explored, and the conversion from wilderness to urban centers and states. Perhaps I'm missing something, but...I just don't get it.
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.
Germany's Fantasy of the Old West
Focus on the Koepnick article Unsettling America: German Westerns and Modernity (on OAK). What is Koepnick's argument? Is it convincing? What do you agree or disagree with?
The piece by Koepnick that we read was very interesting in its examination of the way the German film industry used the Western film genre. Koepnick begins by pointing out, "Transculturated through the cinema, the imagery of the American frontier provided, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, symbolic resources for assessing Germany's abrupt step into the age of machines, urban traffic, democratic will formation, and mechanical reproduction." In other words, as Koepnick shows in this piece how the Western genre was used primarily as a way of navigating the harsh terrain of Germany's confrontation with modernism, which many believed was embodied in Americanization. As he states, although making Westerns was a way of constructing their own national cinema, Germany used "Western imagery...as a catalyst to negotiate the meaning of Americanization and urbanization, and thus to contest the value of technological progress, mass culture, and democratization." Going on, he remarks that "the American past, imagined or real, could return forever through technological mediation, a spectacle for mass audiences, a simulacrum open for an ample set of different political agendas and conflicting ideological inscriptions." In essence, as Koepnick demonstrates, the Western genre, in its ability to help navigate modernism, presented an opportunity, using a modern tool (the cinema) to present mass audiences with a particular political or ideological point of view.
If I am reading Koepnick correctly, he is showing that this genre presented a much different and simpler view of the world that was opposed to modernism. In doing so, audiences would be viewing a fantasy. Koepnick alludes to this when he writes that "Portraits of bucolic homeland settings and idealized images of the American West became focal catalysts of fantasy production, offering imaginary redemption from cultural discontent: they sketched places 'of epic action, heroic individualism and liberated wildnerness,' helping to release the disenfranchised urbanite from the iron cage of modern routinization." This being the case, by opening oneself up to this and partaking in the fantasy, the audience member would also be opening themselves up to any type of political or ideological agenda that was inherent in that fantasy. This is why Koepnick points out later in the piece that films like Trenker's and others in the Western genre could be used, particularly during the Nazi period, to promote "the vision of a new man in service of the new political order."
The piece by Koepnick that we read was very interesting in its examination of the way the German film industry used the Western film genre. Koepnick begins by pointing out, "Transculturated through the cinema, the imagery of the American frontier provided, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, symbolic resources for assessing Germany's abrupt step into the age of machines, urban traffic, democratic will formation, and mechanical reproduction." In other words, as Koepnick shows in this piece how the Western genre was used primarily as a way of navigating the harsh terrain of Germany's confrontation with modernism, which many believed was embodied in Americanization. As he states, although making Westerns was a way of constructing their own national cinema, Germany used "Western imagery...as a catalyst to negotiate the meaning of Americanization and urbanization, and thus to contest the value of technological progress, mass culture, and democratization." Going on, he remarks that "the American past, imagined or real, could return forever through technological mediation, a spectacle for mass audiences, a simulacrum open for an ample set of different political agendas and conflicting ideological inscriptions." In essence, as Koepnick demonstrates, the Western genre, in its ability to help navigate modernism, presented an opportunity, using a modern tool (the cinema) to present mass audiences with a particular political or ideological point of view.
If I am reading Koepnick correctly, he is showing that this genre presented a much different and simpler view of the world that was opposed to modernism. In doing so, audiences would be viewing a fantasy. Koepnick alludes to this when he writes that "Portraits of bucolic homeland settings and idealized images of the American West became focal catalysts of fantasy production, offering imaginary redemption from cultural discontent: they sketched places 'of epic action, heroic individualism and liberated wildnerness,' helping to release the disenfranchised urbanite from the iron cage of modern routinization." This being the case, by opening oneself up to this and partaking in the fantasy, the audience member would also be opening themselves up to any type of political or ideological agenda that was inherent in that fantasy. This is why Koepnick points out later in the piece that films like Trenker's and others in the Western genre could be used, particularly during the Nazi period, to promote "the vision of a new man in service of the new political order."
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
September 29-October 1
Reading: Focus on the Koepnick article Unsettling America: German Westerns and Modernity (on OAK). What is Koepnick's argument? Is it convincing? What do you agree or disagree with?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)