‘Als Hitler und der Tonfilm kamen’: Cinematic, Technological, and Historical Narratives in Gert Hofmann's Der Kinoerzähler

Author: Paver C.E.M.

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 97, Number 3, 1 July 2002 , pp. 632-652(21)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

In this narrative about narrative, the pithy film summaries placed in the mouth of the eponymous cinema explainer (courtesy of Reclams Filmführer) expose underlying narrative models: the barer the plot the more visible its skeleton. When the novel as a whole is stripped to its bare bones, one finds a classic Third Reich narrative, of a kind that may soon be extinct. Indeed, the novel attests to the fading of memory in its stylization of the Nazi era. In place of authentic detail it offers (pace the author) a moral stance on the Third Reich and a refusal of the myth of the ‘good German’.

Keywords: Third Reich; Nazi

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Exeter

Publication date: 2002-07-01

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