The Return of the Undead
Abstract
The article is a chapter taken out of Anton Kaes’ book Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War (2009). The author deals with the topic of the influence of the traumatic experiences of the World War I on German film of the Weimar Republic era. He argues that although we do not find direct references to battles or soldiers taking part in combat in such masterpieces as The Cabinet of dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Die Nibelungen or Doctor Mabuse, these films are suffused with the echo of wartime experiences and the tragic consequences of war. In the published chapter Kaes combines context analysis with analysis of rich archive material and sees the dark shadow of war in the emotions of the protagonists: grief, fear or paranoia. They are also felt by mad scientists and the tortured and besieged community. The author notes that films such as Nosferatu or Doctor Mabuse show a society touched by neurosis in search for an enemy which one can blame for losing the war. In Kaes’ view this kind of post-traumatic cinema, as for example Die Nibelungen, was driven by the need to regain and rework the painful past.
- The text is a translation of the chapter (The Return of the Undead) from the book Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War by Anton Kaes, Princeton University Press, Princeton – Oxford 2009. Copyright © 2011 Princeton University Press.
Due to copyright restrictions the article is available in the print version only.
Keywords:
cinema of the Weimar Republic, World War I, traumaReferences
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Authors
Anton Kaeskwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of California United States
Profesor na Uniwersytecie Kalifornijskim w Berkeley, gdzie wykłada historię kina niemieckiego, zagadnienia kina niemego, film noir; wykładał też w Berlinie, Wiedniu, Tokio, Tel Awiwie i Amsterdamie. Od 1990 r. współredaktor serii „Weimar and Now: German Critical History”. Wydał m.in.: Expressionismus in Amerika. Rezeption und Innovation (1975), Deutschlandbilder. Die Wiederkehr der Geschichte als Film (1987), From „Hitler” to „Heimat”: The Return of History as Film (1989), Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War (2009). Zajmuje się kinem Republiki Weimarskiej, związkami między filmem a pamięcią, a także kinem dokumentalnym i teorią krytyczną szkoły frankfurckiej.
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