ClassInfo

This course investigates films made by some of the most famous film artists who were born in Germany or Austria(-Hungary) and who came to Hollywood in the years before World War II, including these six film directors: Michael Curtiz (Mihaly Kertesz, 1886-1962), Fritz Lang (1890-1976), Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947), Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969), Robert Siodmak (1900-1973), and Billy Wilder (1906-2002), as well as these three actors: Conrad Veidt (1893-1943), Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), and Peter Lorre (1904-1964).

Lorre, Lang, Siodmak, and Wilder emigrated to the U.S. after 1933 to escape the Nazi regime both because they were Jewish or part-Jewish and because they had political differences with the Nazi regime. Veidt and Dietrich were not Jewish but they rejected the Nazis on political (and other) grounds. Lubitsch and Curtiz came to Hollywood already in the 1920s, but as Jews, it would have been dangerous - and ultimately fatal - to return to Germany or Austria after the mid-1930s. Lubitsch, who left Germany for Hollywood in 1922 when he was the most successful film director in Germany, was especially hated by Hitler and the Nazis. (Sternberg is unique in this group, because, although born in Austria to Jewish parents, he emigrated with them to America as a boy, and he learned his art as a filmmaker in America; he only directed one - very famous - film in Germany: The Blue Angel (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich, whom he brought back to America with him.)

We will watch films that these artists made in Germany and then films they made in Hollywood. All German films will have English inter-titles or subtitles.

Participation (includes attendance), 20%; Moodle responses, 25%;
essay: 25%; group presentation, 5%; final exam, 25%. No unexcused absences will be allowed. There will be some opportunities for earning extra credit.

Students taking the course as Jewish Studies 3601 will write an extra, short paper, also due during finals week.