Abstract
Gemunden, Gerd. Continental Strangers. German Cinema, 1933-1951. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. 278 pp. $30.00 (paperback).Gerd Gemunden's Continental Strangers. German Cinema, 1933-1951 features excellent close readings of six films directed by German-Jewish filmmakers in 1930s and 1940s, contextualizing their work at intersection between Hollywood studio production and their experience in film industries of Berlin and Vienna. However, conceptually, Gemunden adds little that is new to landscape ofGerman exile studies, given that his book is almost exact remake of a special issue of New German Critique, Film and Exile (2003), edited by Gemunden and Anton Kaes.Both publications comprise introduction and six essays. The special issue comprised analysesofGermanexile filmsby well-knownGermanists-KaesonFritzLang's Fury(1936), Gemunden onErnst Lubitsch's To Be or Not toBe (1941),LutzKopnick on Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror (1946), Edward Dimmendberg on Kraucauer and film noir, and Jennifer Kapczynski on Lorre's Der Verlorene (1951)-and a reprint of essay by Siegfried Kraucauer that was subject of Dimmendberg's contribution. Gemunden, as sole author of present volume, replicates special issue's focus on individual films as representatives of various genres. He discusses Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934),William Dieterle's The Life ofEmil Zola (1937),Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not toBe (1941),Fritz Lang's HangmenAlso Die(1943),FredZinnemann's Act ofViolence (1948), and PeterLorre'sDerVerlorene (1951). In two cases, then, films discussed in two publications overlap.It is gratifying to see Gemunden follow my earlier lead in my work on intersection between German-speaking exiled filmmakers, national industries, and film genres, in declaring that the study of genres is key to understanding exile cinema (14). He focuses on genres of horror, biography, anti-Nazi film comedy and drama, film noirs, and Trummerfilme, curiously ignoring musicals, a genre in whichGerman emigres were more prolific than any other, comedies apart.One might wonder, though, aboutGemunden's definition of German exile as an English-language cinema, made byAmerican studios for American audience (11). If one took this definition literally, his inclusion of Der Verlorene, for which he provides no explicit justification, would be problematic. It was a German film, shot in Germany with German money that exiled producerArnoldPressburger received as Wiedergutmachung. But more importantly, what of almost twenty years of German exile research by Kathinka Dittrich van Weringh, Helmut Asper, Kevin Gough-Yates, Tim Bergfelder, Christian Cargnelli, or Francis Guerin, to name only a few, who have analysedGerman exile filmsmade in Austria, Hungary, Great Britain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Russia, etc. …
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
