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Divided Germany in Film and Visual Culture 1949-1990

Module description

In this module, you will explore the divided Germany via film and visual culture, highlighting the differences between political systems, ideas of gender and sexuality, and stylistic differences in film. You will learn the essential skills and cultural context required to analyse German film, but this module will also appeal to students of history, film and politics as well as art history. After all, this module will not focus on just one culture, but two. Studying Germany’s division and visual culture during this time requires an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on multiple fields and approaches within cultural studies.

Module aims - intentions of the module

You will learn about the developments in politics and society of the GDR and the Federal Republic and about the films in which these events are portrayed. You will learn about the filmmakers and studios especially DEFA studios, the functioning of the media in divided Germany and political movements active in East and West.

You will cover five main topics through the medium of film: youth culture, gender and sexuality, consumerism, race and migration, and industry. Films selected for the module will have key points of crossover and many will cover more than one aspect of the course material, but you will focus in seminar discussions on the theme for the week. You are encouraged to conduct your own research so that you can develop original readings of film, analysing composition in relation to different contexts. You may specialise in one of the two states or take a comparative approach in your summative assessment e.g. to explore how race or gender are portrayed differently in films from the East and West.

You will learn essential skills to understand culture for your future studies, as well as analytical skills for understanding the media today. Other employable skills include the ability to convey information in a cogent written and oral format and the potential to learn basic video/audio editing skills.

Teaching will be research led as the convenor is an expert in DEFA cinema in three of the main themes of the module: gender and sexuality, youth culture, and the state of cultural production in the GDR (documentary cinema, censorship, the “public” sphere(s), and the changing stylistic features of cinema throughout the post-war period). Seminars will be dedicated to a combination of practical film analysis and understanding secondary literature and the historical context.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate basic knowledge of post-war German culture and apply these cultural concepts to your understanding of primary material.
• 2. Understand the major differences in culture and society between East and West and write with focus on one specialist area.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Understand and use the basic film-critical terminology and key concepts relating to different cultural contexts. Read and analyse film texts, and learn to position them within cultural movements, styles and genres.
• 4. Evaluate key critical responses to film and visual culture under guidance from the course tutor and apply these approaches to the primary material in a written argument.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Select and organise material in a logical structure, to build an argument.
• 6. Present your work in an oral and written format. Work independently to a deadline.

Syllabus plan

• Introduction to historical and cultural context
• Styles and genre of film, basic skills in film analysis
• Censorship, the public sphere and the media
• Industry and consumerism
• Gender and sexuality
• Race, migration, and minority cultures
• Documentary cinema and film festivals
• Post-unification and Ostalgie, nostalgia for the East
• Conclusion and essay writing skills, including how to create a video essay.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Pertti Arhonen, ‘Commemorating the Berlin Wall’, The GDR Remembered (Boydell and Brewer, 2011), pp. 132-54.
• Paul Cooke, ‘”Performing Ostalgie”: Leander Hausmann’s Sonnenallee’, German Life and Letters, Vol. 56(2), 2003, pp. 156-67
• Jennifer Creech, Mothers, Comrades, and Outcasts in East German Women’s Films. New Directions in National Cinemas (Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016)
• Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State (Yale University Press, 2008)
• Elizabeth Mittman, ‘Fashioning the Socialist Nation: The Gender of Consumption in Slatan Dudow’s Destinies of Women’, German Politics of Society, Vol. 23(4) 2005, pp. 28–44
• Matthias Uecker, ‘A Fatal German Marriage: The National Subtext of Fassbinder’s Die Ehe der Maria Braun’, German Life and Letters, Vol. 54(1), 2001, pp. 45-59

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

(All films available for viewing on Kanopy):

• Frauenschicksale (1953) Slatan Dudow, dir. 102 mins.
• Der schwarze Stern (1965) Joachim Hellwig, dir. 36 mins.
• Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979) Rainer Fassbinder, dir. 120 mins.
• Beethoven: Tage aus einem Leben (1976) Horst Seemann, dir. 104 mins.
• Alle meine Mädchen (1981) Iris Gusner, dir. 86 mins.
• Sonnenallee (1999) Leander Hausmann, dir. 101 mins.

• Supporting documents available on ELE

Key words search

post-war, socialism, East Germany, West Germany, film, visual culture, 20th century, documentary cinema, gender roles, performance culture, film festivals, historical drama, socialist realism