Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film Andrea Schmidt a Dissertation
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Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film Andrea Schmidt A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee James Tweedie, Chair Jennifer M. Bean Leroy Searle Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Comparative Literature ©Copyright 2016 Andrea Schmidt University of Washington Abstract Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film By Andrea Schmidt Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor James Tweedie Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media This dissertation interrogates the relationship between heritage visual culture and its ability to present an alternative individual and collective past. Expanding on Gavriel D. Rosenfeld’s concept of an alternate history, this dissertation suggests that a nation’s citizens can appropriate identities from other cultures to attempt to avoid or work through their own national past. It uses the categories of the museum, transnationalism, and authenticity as points of departure. The dissertation is divided into four chapters based on the works of a primary auteur. The first chapter, “Film on Museum, Museum on Film: Reexamining the Heritage ‘Museum Aesthetic,” examines the representation of Andrew Higson’s “museum aesthetic” through films set in museums. It focuses primarily on the museum films of Alexander Sokurov, and his desire to portray European sites of memory, often with a measure of historical erasure. The second chapter, “The Alternative Heimat : Herzog and Reitz’s Representations of the Indianer ,” examines Herzog’s and his films’ participation in the Indianerkultur present in Germany since the nineteenth century. The chapter uses the case study of the media controversy surrounding the production of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) ii as a lost moment of reflexivity in Germany’s appropriation of indigenous identities through film and print culture over the past two centuries. The second half of the dissertation then gradually shifts from an emphasis on appropriated visual culture to a focus on auteur authenticity, authorship, and adaptation. “An American in Paris, London, and Barcelona: Woody Allen’s Take on European Heritage” examines Allen’s latest series of films set in Europe in terms of an outsider identification with the American tourist living abroad. His desire to produce a cosmopolitan pastness in his artistry results in the reinforcement of racialized and gendered stereotypes. The second chapter in this section and final in this dissertation, titled “My Wuthering Heights:” Jane Campion and Immersive Heritage,” examines Campion’s adaptation of nineteenth century novels, and how they influence the imagery and narrative structures of her films. Moreover, it interrogates how she negotiates her own status as an auteur and the appropriation of canonical heritage texts. Focusing primarily on transatlantic movements (German, British, French, and American) across a variety of media, this dissertation draws on a variety of texts from the nineteenth century novel to the contemporary heritage serial. Its framing of the intersections of continuous pasts and the dynamic exchange of transnational identities emphasizes the importance of heritage studies in a globalized w o r l d . iii Acknowledgements My greatest thanks to my committee: James Tweedie, my chair, whose encouragement and support has proven invaluable since my first cinema course with him; Jennifer M. Bean, whose work as an admired feminist film scholar greatly influenced, in particular, the Campion chapter; Leroy Searle, whose generosity of spirit and intellectual wisdom remains an inspiration for me; Richard J. Dunn whose mentorship as a Dickens scholar I shall forever cherish. I would like to also extend a special thanks to Jane K. Brown for challenging me in my analysis and reading of literature, and for giving one of the most stirring defenses of the humanities I have ever heard. Thank you, as well, to Charles LaPorte for his wit, warmth, and support. I would like to further extend thanks to professors who have greatly influenced me, including Eric Ames, Míċeál Vaughan, Cynthia Steele, Yomi Braester, Klaus Brandl, Eve Levin, and Marshall Brown. Yuko Mera is, I am convinced, the most amazing graduate advisor in existence, and, on top of that, a phenomenal human being. I am forever indebted to her for her kindness, intellectual support, and understanding. Marcia Feinstein-Tobey has been a rock of experience and friendship, particularly during my transitions in France and Portland. I would also like to thank the Feinstein family, in particular, Judy. Excerpts from the Conclusion have appeared in “The Imaginative Power of Downton Abbey Fanfiction.” Upstairs and Downstairs: The British Historical Costume Drama on Television . Eds. Julie Taddeo and James Leggot. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2014. Thank you very much to Julie Taddeo and James Leggot for their helpful feedback and editing. iv My deepest gratitude goes to Will Arighi and k@ Wong, my best friends in Seattle. Your friendship has changed my life, both professionally and as a human being. I am so glad I had the privilege of meeting you at that first potluck so many years ago. Thank you, also, to Japhet Johnstone, Gloria Man, Lena Heilmann, Sabine Noellgen, Eric Scheufler, Kathy Morrow, Stephanie Welch, Katy Masuga, Julie Ault, Milan Vidakovic, Annie DeSaussure, Virginia Dunn, Amber Lehman Myers, and many, many others for your encouragement and support. My interest in film started with a unique and dynamic filmmaking community in the Midwest. Thank you to the countless friends with whom I have braved 30 below weather to see a new film at the Fargo Theater. The majority of this dissertation was written while living in Germany and France. Thank you to the German Department at the University of Washington, as well as the Humboldt University in Berlin for the research year opportunity. A special thank you to the Department of English at Paul Valery in Montpellier, France. I would also like to express my gratitude to my support system in Montpellier: Paul, Patrick, Agathe, Simon, Alice, Coffee Club. Merci beaucoup to my French tutor, Mays, whose amazing talent as a French teacher is boundless and who became a cherished friend. I would also like to say thank you to my friends in the United Kingdom, Jessica and Joe Pates-Beckett. Germany is my “home away from home.” To my family in Bavaria and the North, thank you for allowing to share the holidays with you and for welcoming me into your homes. The Schneemann family, particularly, Mamma Schneemann, has been so kind and generous to me. Nic and Ina—your friendship is a constant for me even across the world. Marie, it is great to have a Berlinale film buddy. Thank you to Elisa Lange and family for their continued support and introducing me to the wonders of my future retirement city. v I would like to extend a special thanks to the German and Russian Department at Willamette University, in particular, Aili Zheng, for her encouragement and understanding in the final stages of the dissertation writing process. I have been blessed with a wonderful and supportive family: To my twin sister, Allison. You are my best friend, and I am so glad you got on that bus to Prague. To my parents, Helmut and Lori Schmidt, whose love and support have been unwavering. Thank you for reading to me when I was little! To my younger sisters, Melinda and Stephanie, thank you for always challenging your big sister. My grandparents, Oma and Opa, have always encouraged me in everything I do, especially to go out and experience the world. Grandma Betty and Grandpa Roy, your unconditional support has meant the world to me. Grandpa Schmidt, the copy of Pride and Prejudice I inherited started me on the path to a career in the humanities. vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Chapter One 22 Film on Museum, Museum on Film: Reexamining the Heritage “Museum Aesthetic” Chapter Two 53 The Alternative Heimat : Herzog and Reitz’s Representations of the Indianer Chapter Three 87 An American in Paris, London, and Barcelona: Woody Allen’s Take on European Heritage Chapter Four 121 “My Wuthering Heights :” Jane Campion and Immersive Heritage Conclusion 152 Bibliography 157 vii Introduction: Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film Heimat meets the ashes of the past in Lore In an interview at the Australian Film Festival, director Cate Shortland explained what drew her to a project on the German experience of World War II, her 2012 film Lore: “I was interested as an Australian in terms of our history and how it is not dealt with.” 1 Throughout press for the film, Shortland drew comparisons with the brutal European colonization of indigenous peoples in Australia to the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe. Representing a convergence of both auteur cinema and heritage film, her second feature navigates the genres of literary adaptation and historical drama. Like the director’s last feature film, Somersault (2004), Lore tells the coming-of-age story of a young girl. Taking place in immediate post- World War II Germany, the film makes the controversial move of using the children of Nazis as its protagonists. Past attempts to convey the experience of non-Jewish Germans during World War II have led to accusations of forgetting or diminishing the suffering of Holocaust victims. Furthermore, the mise-en-scène of Lore draws on a German/Austrian heritage film 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIqV6DksOgw 1 tradition criticized for its erasure of the Nazi past, the Heimatfilm . This particular genre often features countryside settings notably absent of any historical trauma. In Lore , these traumatic events enter into the idyllic everyday, beginning when the title character sees photographs of the massacres in Belarus taken by her father. Shortland’s desire to work through her own nation’s history, as well as her family’s Jewish-German background, led her to apply her distinct understated filmmaking style to the historical drama.