Cinematic Histospheres On the Theory and Practice of Historical Films Rasmus Greiner Cinematic Histospheres Rasmus Greiner Cinematic Histospheres On the Theory and Practice of Historical Films Dr. Rasmus Greiner Inst. f. Kunstwissenschaft – Filmwissenschaft – Kunstpädagogik Universität Bremen Bremen, Germany SKY WITHOUT STARS: neue deutsche Filmgesellschaft mbH / Beta Film, screenshots (cover, 1.1–1.4, 2.1–2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1–4.4, 5.2–5.15, 6.1–6.8, 7.5)—KU’DAMM 56: UFA Fiction GmbH, screenshots (2.7-2.10, 3.3-3.7, 5.1, 5.16, 5.17, 5.19–5.23, 6.11–6.18, 8.1)—YEARS OF HUNGER: Jutta Brückner-Filmproduktion / ZDF, screenshots (2.11–2.16, 6.9, 6.10, 7.3, 7.6) – Berlin 1967: Manfred Niermann, Commons Wikimedia CC-BY-SA-4.0 (5.18)—THE PIANO: Jan Chapman Production, screenshots (7.1, 7.2)—THE RULES OF THE GAME: Nouvelle Édition Française, screenshot (7.4) ISBN 978-3-030-70589-3 ISBN 978-3-030-70590-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70590-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021. This book is an open access publication. 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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland ABSTRACT In this open access book, flm scholar Rasmus Greiner develops a theoreti- cal model for the concept of the histosphere to refer to the “sphere” of a cinematically modelled, physically experienceable historical world. His analysis of practices of modelling and perceiving, immersion and empathy, experience and remembering, appropriation and refguration combine approaches from flm studies, such as Vivian Sobchack’s phenomenology of flm experience, with historiographic theories, such as Frank R. Ankersmit’s concept of historical experience. Building on this analysis, Greiner examines the spatial and temporal organization of historical flms and presents discussions of mood and atmosphere, body and memory, and genre and historical consciousness. The analysis is based around three his- torical flms, spanning six decades, that depict 1950s Germany: Helmut Käutner’s SKY WITHOUT STARS (1955), Jutta Brückner’s YEARS OF HUNGER (1980), and Sven Bohse’s three-part TV series KU’DAMM 56 (2016). v So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. F. Scott Fitzgerald vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book, including all quotations from German works not previously translated into English, was translated by Andrew Godfrey, with revisions by Hilla Czinczoll and the author. In the original German, much of the argu- ment revolves around a distinction between two aspects of experience that is diffcult to capture in English. The term “experience” has generally (though not exclusively) been reserved here for the sense of Erfahrung/ erfahren, which focuses on perceptual/cognitive access to the external world gained through experience (and can sometimes be rendered in terms of “learning,” “discovering,” or “fnding out”). Erlebnis/erleben, mean- while, which focuses on the inner lived or felt quality of an experience, has typically been rendered as “living encounter” or “live” (as transitive verb). The writing, translation, and open access publication of this book were funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. ix CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Fiction Film and History 17 3 Audiovisual History 37 4 Film/History/Experience 49 5 Modeling and Perceiving 75 6 Immersion and Empathy 115 7 Experience and Remembering 151 8 Appropriation and Configuration 183 9 Refiguring Historical Consciousness 205 Bibliography 211 Index 223 xi ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rasmus Greiner is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Bremen, Germany. He is founder and general editor of the open access journal Research in Film and History. His areas of research comprise audio-visual history, global flm culture, war movies, genre studies, and flm aesthetics. His recent publications include the edited volumes Reality Unbound: New Departures in Science Fiction Cinema (ed. with Aidan Power et al., Berlin 2017) and Film and History: Producing and Experiencing History in Moving Images and Sound (ed. with Winfried Pauleit et al., Berlin 2015), and the article “Sonic Histospheres: Sound Design and History” (in: Research in Film and History, www.flm-­ history.org, Bremen 2018). xiii LIST OF FIGURES Figs. 1.1–1.4 Subjectivized experience and close identifcation with the protagonist in SKY WITHOUT STARS 3 Figs. 2.1–2.4 Narrative organization of signs in SKY WITHOUT STARS 18 Figs. 2.5–2.6 Audiovisual metaphor for the war in SKY WITHOUT STARS 22 Figs. 2.7–2.10 A personalized historical experience in KU’DAMM 56 24 Figs. 2.11–2.12 Cinematic time travel in YEARS OF HUNGER 27 Figs. 2.13–2.14 The car as status symbol in YEARS OF HUNGER 27 Figs. 2.15–2.16 Use of archival footage in YEARS OF HUNGER 28 Figs. 3.1–3.2 Incorporation of a photograph into the framing and montage of SKY WITHOUT STARS 39 Fig. 3.3 Synchronization of image and sound in KU’DAMM 56 41 Figs. 3.4–3.7 Subway ride and suicide attempt in KU’DAMM 56 42 Figs. 4.1–4.4 The death sequence in SKY WITHOUT STARS 58 Fig. 5.1 1950s fair in KU’DAMM 56 76 Figs. 5.2–5.5 Image space and perspective in SKY WITHOUT STARS 82 Figs. 5.6–5.9 Spatial orientation in SKY WITHOUT STARS 83 Figs. 5.10–5.11 East German surveillance and West German consumerism in SKY WITHOUT STARS 85 Figs. 5.12–5.15 A flmic space in SKY WITHOUT STARS in which spectators can “move around” 87 Fig. 5.16 Staging of history in KU’DAMM 56 92 Figs. 5.17–5.18 Faded colors in KU’DAMM 56 and in a contemporary photograph 94 Figs. 5.19–5.22 Dance class or military drill? Mise-en-scène in KU’DAMM 96 Fig. 5.23 The flm’s historical world in KU’DAMM 56 96 xv xvi List of Figures Figs. 6.1–6.4 Menacing atmosphere in SKY WITHOUT STARS 116 Figs. 6.5–6.8 Change in atmosphere in SKY WITHOUT STARS 122 Figs. 6.9–6.10 Differing material qualities: aesthetics of New German Cinema and archive footage in YEARS OF HUNGER 123 Fig. 6.11 The moving camera in KU’DAMM 56 124 Fig. 6.12 Iconic symbols of the 1950s in KU’DAMM 56 126 Figs. 6.13 and 6.14 Aesthetics of memory in KU’DAMM 56 131 Figs. 6.15 and 6.16 Imaginative empathy: Monika’s dance in KU’DAMM 56 133 Fig. 6.17 Aesthetic experience in KU’DAMM 56 134 Fig. 6.18 Empathy and “social feld” in KU’DAMM 56 136 Figs. 7.1–7.2 Remembering personal bodily experience: the view through the protagonist’s fngers in THE PIANO 154 Fig. 7.3 Tactile resonance: fabrics in YEARS OF HUNGER 155 Fig. 7.4 Documentary consciousness: the dead rabbit in THE RULES OF THE GAME 158 Fig. 7.5 A children’s game in SKY WITHOUT STARS 166 Fig. 7.6 Universally relatable settings in YEARS OF HUNGER 168 Fig. 8.1 Plurimedial constellations: Elvis on the cover of Spiegel in KU’DAMM 56 194 CHAPTER 1 Introduction The flm opens with shots of a barbed wire fence, warning signs, and bar- riers, accompanied by a dramatic score and an omniscient voice-over that embeds the historical situation depicted on screen within a particular nar- rative. The narrator explains that the flm is the story of East German fac- tory worker Anna Kaminski (Eva Kotthaus) and West German border guard Carl Altmann (Erik Schumann). The year is 1952, and the two lovers are separated by the inner German border. Following a series of almost static shots, the camera pans slowly, awakening the flm to life. Finally, human fgures appear: refugees making their way along an over- grown path on the bank of a border river. As we watch Helmut Käutner’s SKY WITHOUT STARS (HIMMEL OHNE STERNE, 1955), we construct a spatiotemporal structure out of moving images, sound, and words that allows us to experience the history of Germany’s division.