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Review

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A Good Read about Nazi-era FilmsBy John ColaresiLaura Heinss Nazi Film Melodrama is a well written book thats easy to read because it doesnt bog down readers with heavy philosophical and psychological interpretations like some that are a chore to read and instead relies on facts to support her points. She examines how National Socialist ideals shaped three types of melodrama (romance; domestic; and home front) and compares them to their Hollywood equivalents including their stylistic differences. Nazi melodramas had "a more theatrical acting style; less dynamic camera movements and editing; a greater emphasis on voice and dialogue than on facial expression and mise-en-scene; a more restrained use of music to punctuate emotional moments; and more overtly voyeuristic physical displays" including brief shots of nudity. Film roles for women no longer reflected Wilhelmine empire and bourgeois morality policies detested by Hitler and Goebbels who considered them "virtually synonymous with Christian prohibitions against extramarital sexuality and the religiously motivated valuation of chastity and self-denial" and outdated for their new Germany.Heins states that although the Nazis fostered the Mother Cult; they were not pro-family and prudish as believed. In Third Reich romance melodramas that featured an affair or love tirangle; "adultery generally appears more attractive than monogamous marriage depicted with dull housewives and children rarely seen. In a Hollywood story a woman was punished when she had an affair and worse off if she gave birth to an illegitimate child in contrast to where it was socially acceptable for any German woman to give birth to a baby who would eventually grow up to become a soldier or become the mother of a soldier as Rudolph Hess wrote in 1939 stating that unmarried mothers should also be "honored... because the highest service a woman can render to the community is the gift of racially healthy children for the survival of the nation."When women were shown not content in staying home as hausfraus and having careers in spite of "gender inequality in education and the workplace" its because they "anticipated the labor needs of an expanding regime." Heins compares Nazi home front films like AUF WIEDERSEHEN FRANZISKA and especially DIE GROSSE LIEBE to Hollywood fare like MRS MINIVER. which Goebbels instructed filmmakers to use as a propaganda model; and SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. These American films stressed how the war was being fought to defend family and religious values: "The stability of the home and nuclear family was equated the security of the nation... and the threat of fascism was depicted as a threat to the integrity of marriage." Here we see faithful women waiting patiently for their men in uniform to come safely home. In contrast Nazi home front films promoted their aggressive policy of Lebensraum or territorial expansion and "did not posit stable familial relations as the precondition for victory. Instead domesticity is imagined as an impediment to war aims... rather than a support for military men" whose duty "provides an escape from a domesticity that threatens to entrap them in the banal maintenance rituals of daily life." Eventually enough viewers complained how these films belittled marriage and motherhood; and near the end of the war; films were produced to reverse that trend.Surprisingly melodramas traditionally labeled as womens films enjoyed a popularity with men but were designed with a specific political purpose for both genders: "Historical documents show that Goebbels encouraged the display of the female body and erotic attractions were deliberately cultivated" as a distraction to subdue political criticism and jokes. Although these films drew large audiences at home and abroad because of their liberal sexual content unlike Hollywood productions; they met opposition from churches and conservative groups.This book removes many preconceptions about Nazi melodramas and their relationship to society; and Heinss description of films are detailed enough where you can easily follow her interpretations without having seen them. Her analysis of DIE GROSSE LIEBE is penetrating and probably definitive. I only wished she covered more films such as MAZURKA but then we would have a thicker book and thats more than OK with me because of her compelling writing. This is a must own book for anyone interested in a little explored area of Nazi films.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. German Popular Film under the Nazi RegimeBy Albert A. NofiA summary of the review on StrategyPage.Com:Prof. Heins (UVa) demonstrates that the most popular motion picture genre under the Nazi regime was not war or propaganda films; as one might expect; but rather domestic and romantic melodramas. There are many surprises in her analysis. Films often were in conflict with official Nazi ideology; frequently being ldquo;much more permissive about desire and sexualityrdquo;; even more so than in contemporary American films; in part because the regime viewed the films as furthering the war effort. There are a number of other such surprises in this book; including Goebbels critical commens about a film being too overtly patriotic. Although not directly about the war or military matters; this will be of particular interest to students of war films; as German servicemen and the Second World War form the backdrop of most of these pictures.For the full review; see StrategyPage.Com