Film and the Third Reich

Catalog description

This course explores the cinema of the Third Reich as well as filmic responses to World War II and the Holocaust. Sections will be dedicated to propaganda films by Leni Riefenstahl and others; to the relationship between Third Reich cinema and Hollywood; to propaganda films produced by the Allied forces, and to movies about the Holocaust such as Shoah and Schindler’s List. We will discuss key concepts of film theory, cinema’s political efficacy, Holocaust representation in film, music, and language, and questions of trauma, commemoration, and victimhood. [Taught in English; students from diverse fields welcome.]