GERM 265 - German Film in English Translation

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2016/17b: Screening Terrorism: Lessons from the German Past. Though acts of international terrorism have shaped German consciousness since 9/11, Germany has a much longer and more complex relationship with terrorism dating back to the radical leftist and anti-establishment Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction), also known as RAF or Baader-Meinhof, which emerged in the late 1960s and operated into the 1990s. This course explores the early and ongoing cinematic engagement with this wave of terrorism. In addition to films by some of the most important German filmmakers of New German Cinema, such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, and Volker Schlöndorff, the course looks at important recent releases, such as Black Box by Andres Veiel, The Baader-Meinhof Complex by Bernd Eichinger, and The International by Tom Tykwer, among others. We also consider films, such as Sleepers by Benjamin Heisenberg, which try to draw connections between German reactions to RAF and more recent forms of terrorism. Silke von der Emde.

Readings and discussions are in English, and all films have English subtitles.

Open to all classes.

Two 75-minute periods and two film screenings.