Vom Premake zum Remake: Gender-Diskurse und intermediale Bezüge in den Deutschen Verfilmungen der Kinderromane Erich Kästners by Tao Zhang

Abstract

Reviewed by: Vom Premake zum Remake: Gender-Diskurse und intermediale Bezüge in den Deutschen Verfilmungen der Kinderromane Erich Kästners by Tao Zhang Sebastian Schmideler VOM PREMAKE ZUM REMAKE: Gender-Diskurse und intermediale Bezüge in den deutschen Verfilmungen der Kinderromane Erich Kästners [From Premake to Remake: Gender-Discourses and Intermedial References in German Film Adaptations of Erich Kästner's Children's Books] By Tao Zhang. Series: Studies in European Children's and Young Adult Literature; 3. Universitätsverlag Winter, 2018. 213 pages. ISBN: 978-3-8253-6661-2 From the very outset, Erich Kästner's stories have been explored in many different media, with Kästner himself participating in this intermedial rewriting. Film was one of the most important media for Kästner. The first film adaptation of Emil and the Detectives from 1931, based on a screenplay by Billy Wilder, even wrote film history because it was the first-ever full-length feature sound film for children. Since then, countless film adaptations have followed, many of them media-historical milestones. In her doctoral dissertation, Tao Zhang looks at a representative selection of Germanlanguage adaptations of four of Erich Kästner's novels for children (Emil and the Detectives, Anna Louise and Anton, The Flying Classroom, and Lottie and Lisa / The Parent Trap) from the perspective of cultural studies and analyzes them using the category of gender, "from premake to remake." Given that Erich Kästner continues to be one of the best-known German authors in general and [End Page 71] for children especially, Zhang's study is relevant far beyond German studies. In recent years, the German-language film adaptations of Kästner's books attracted a fair amount of critical attention in German studies and education. The focus, however, has been on their didactic application in classroom settings, while the filmic quality of these adaptations has remained largely neglected. And yet, the filmic dimension of these books is particularly strong and the potential for broader scholarship remarkable. This is borne out not only by the genesis of Lottie and Lisa but also by the strong presence of filmic narratives in Emil and the Detectives and its sequel. In fact, one often has the impression that the books themselves were conceived from the very beginning to be used on many media platforms, which would explain why Kästner's children's books have almost magically attracted the attention of the film industry for almost a century now, with the various adaptations always reflecting the specific aesthetic of their times. The different film adaptations reveal the changes in mentality and popular culture just as the novels themselves, so both can be viewed as historical documents of popular culture and be analyzed as such: with her gender-conscious focus on film theory and cinematographic narration, Zhang allows for a new, convincing reconstruction of gender aspects in children's film. Moreover, she addresses central questions of media change, transformation, and intermediality within the context of current scholarly debates on popular culture and children's literature and thus opens up new perspectives on Kästner's otherwise intensively studied work. Zhang's analysis of the specific referential structures between premake and remake within the context of intermedial studies is truly original. Zhang tends to have a somewhat one-sided focus on the story level concerning genderspecific character behavior and misses out on the many media-specific features of the film adaptation, which seem difficult to capture from this methodological vantage point. With a few exceptions, production and reception contexts, such as film programs, critical essays, or reviews, are not taken into consideration. Some of the detailed analyses are missing the time stamps. Despite a promising approach to the filmic portrayal of the characters, overall Zhang could have given more prominence to the film-specific formal qualities of the adaptations (such as film music, aesthetics, and cinematographic context). Given that Kästner himself actively promoted the film adaptations of his children's books, it would have been relevant to describe his role in the original film adaptations, both as scriptwriter and collaborator, in relation to gender questions. Many questions still remain unanswered; however, the results of this precise...