Description
He focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as he traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today. Throughout, he shows how cinema both reflects and engenders interzones that explore the important questions of Europe's social order: imperialism and nation-building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; "first contact" between former adversaries (such as East and West Germany) following World War II and the Cold War; and migration, neo-colonialism, and cultural imperialism in the twenty-first century.
Ultimately, Halle argues that today's cinema both produces and reflects imaginative communities. He demonstrates how, rather than simply erasing boundaries, the European Union instead fosters a network of cultural interzones that encourage cinematic exploration of the new Europe's processes and limits of connectivity, tolerance, and cooperation.
About the Author
Randall Halle is the Klaus W. Jonas Professor of German and film studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of German Film after Germany: Toward a Transnational Aesthetic.
Reviews
"An original and ground-breaking view of the post-Wende central European landscape, drawn from a remarkable abundance of sources. Halle's writing is intelligent and even amusing--I couldn't put the book down until I had read it to the last page."
--Janina Falkowska, author of Andrzej Wajda: History, Politics, and Nostalgia in Polish Cinema
"Fascinating. The book's meticulous, insightful, and effective writing, which illuminates the ideational spaces of cinematic interzones from a European context, should have no trouble finding several imaginative communities of active readers."--Council For European Studies
"An intelligent and innovative study."--Journal of Contemporary European Studies
Book Information
ISBN 9780252079955
Author Randall Halle
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 33mm