Use and Abuse of Cinema

Eric Rentschler is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and the chair of the Film and Visual Studies Program at Harvard University.

• Introduction: History Lessons and Courses in Time Part I. Critical Venues 1. How a Social Critic Became a Formative Theorist 2. Hunger for Experience, Spectatorship, and the Seventies 3. The Passenger and the Critical Critic 4. The Limits of Aesthetic Resistance 5. Springtime for Ufa Part II. Serials and Cycles 6. Mountains and Modernity 7. Too Lovely to Be True 8. The Management of Shattered Identity 9. After the War, Before the Wall Part III. From Oberhausen to Bitburg 10. Remembering Not to Forget 11. Many Ways to Fight a Battle 12. How American Is It? 13. The Use and Abuse of Memory 14. A Cinema of Citation 15. The Declaration of Independents Part IV. Postwall Projects 16. An Archaeology of the Berlin School 17. The Surveillance Camera's Quarry 18. Heritages and Histories 19. Life in the Shadows 20. Two Trips to the Berlinale Acknowledgments Notes Index

Rentschler's command of individual filmmakers' oeuvres, from the unjustly forgotten and overlooked to the internationally recognized and celebrated auteurs, and of historical periods from the silents to the evolving present is as impressive as his ability to 'drill down' analytically and uncover significant details, motifs, or patterns. Throughout this book, he carefully historicizes its materials, finding an excellent balance between history, theory, and close analysis across a broad range of films. -- Johannes von Moltke, University of Michigan Written in highly readable, elegant prose, Rentschler's volume is an authoritative study of the history of German film from the 1920s to the present day by one of the foremost scholars in the field. This is the work of an expert at the peak of his craft. -- Gerd Gemunden, author of Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933-1951 [The Use and Abuse of Cinema] offers inspired juxtapositions and an authoritative range of knowledge, and is also a very good read. -- Martin Brady Modern Language Review The Use and Abuse of Cinema showcases the scope of Rentschler's work and provides a tantalizing introduction to his sensitive, far-reaching approach to film history... More broadly, the book argues for the importance of Germany as a case study for the ability of film as a medium to reflect, influence, and even shape the course of history. -- Lisa Wells Jacobson Film Quarterly