Rubble Films: German Cinema in the Shadow of the Third Reich

Rating:
Summary: A look at a forgotten era of German cinema
Review: "Rubble Films" examines the fictional films made in Germany between 1946 and 1949. These "rubble films" dealt with how the defeated Germans were to come to grips with the Nazi past. Shandley examines about ten films in close detail.

I found this a very useful book, because this era of German filmmaking is so little covered in English. Usually most histories skip from 1933 to 1968. While the Nazi Cinema and East German cinema have gotten a little more attention in the last decade, the "rubble film" era remains overlooked.

Shandley organizes his book around themes (treatment of Jews, those films set in the Third Reich, relationship between the sexes). I would have preferred a chronological approach. Also, he constantly compares these films to Italian Neorealism, and I would have liked some comparison to Soviet-bloc films of this same era. But apart from these objections, Shandley succeeds in the major task I ask of any book on film: that it creates a desire to see the movies in question. He has opened a useful window into a forgotten room of German film history.

Rating:
Summary: A look at a forgotten era of German cinema
Review: "Rubble Films" examines the fictional films made in Germany between 1946 and 1949. These "rubble films" dealt with how the defeated Germans were to come to grips with the Nazi past. Shandley examines about ten films in close detail.

I found this a very useful book, because this era of German filmmaking is so little covered in English. Usually most histories skip from 1933 to 1968. While the Nazi Cinema and East German cinema have gotten a little more attention in the last decade, the "rubble film" era remains overlooked.

Shandley organizes his book around themes (treatment of Jews, those films set in the Third Reich, relationship between the sexes). I would have preferred a chronological approach. Also, he constantly compares these films to Italian Neorealism, and I would have liked some comparison to Soviet-bloc films of this same era. But apart from these objections, Shandley succeeds in the major task I ask of any book on film: that it creates a desire to see the movies in question. He has opened a useful window into a forgotten room of German film history.

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: A lucid and thought-provoking examination of German films in the immediate post war era. This book makes a worthy contribution to the understanding not only of German cinema, but provides useful guidelines and insights regarding cinema in general. It is difficult to recommend this book more highly.