Books by Robert Dassanowsky
During the 1930s, Austrian film production companies developed a process to navigate the competin... more During the 1930s, Austrian film production companies developed a process to navigate the competing demands of audiences in Nazi Germany and those found in broader Western markets. In Screening Transcendence, film historian Robert Dassanowsky explores how Austrian filmmakers during the Austrofascist period (1933–1938) developed two overlapping industries: "Aryanized" films for distribution in Germany, its largest market, and "Emigrantenfilm," which employed émigré and Jewish talent that appealed to international audiences.
Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences.
Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.
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This provocative and unique anthology analyzes Quentin Tarantino's controversial Inglourious Bast... more This provocative and unique anthology analyzes Quentin Tarantino's controversial Inglourious Basterds in the contexts of cinema, cultural, gender, and historical studies. The film and its ideology is dissected by a range of scholars and writers who take on the director's manipulation of metacinema, Nazisploitation, ethnic stereotyping, gender roles, allohistoricism, geopolitics, philosophy, language, and memory. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/quentin-tarantinos-inglourious-basterds-9781441138217/#sthash.FQQ9artA.dpuf
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This volume presents a comprehensive, inter-disciplinary re-evaluation of Hofmannsthal's most suc... more This volume presents a comprehensive, inter-disciplinary re-evaluation of Hofmannsthal's most successful play and, more widely, on his contribution to literary modernity and its aftermath . Der Schwierige marks Hofmannsthal's attempt to depict and overcome the language crisis he himself recognized in the 'Letter' to Lord Chandos. Written between 1909 and 1920, the play reflects Hofmannsthal's experience of the atrocities of war, unnameable but constantly present behind the chatter in the Viennese salons. The volume looks at the relationship between poetological and poetic texts, and sheds new light on the position of Der Schwierige in Hofmannsthal's work. Contributions address central motifs of the play (community, identity, gender) as well as the way in which it positions itself as a tragic comedy after the end of a catastrophic war. Translations into other languages, its performance on stage and on screen, philosophical reception, and Hofmannsthal's reaction to the downfall of the Habsburg Empire and his views on the role of marriage, are recurrent themes that are investigated from various perspectives.
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Out of a film culture originally starved of funds have emerged rich and eclectic works by film-ma... more Out of a film culture originally starved of funds have emerged rich and eclectic works by film-makers that are now achieving the international recognition that they deserve: Barbara Albert, Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, and Stefan Ruzowitzky, to give four examples. This comprehensive critical anthology, by leading scholars of Austrian film, is intended to introduce and make accessible this much under-represented phenomenon. Although the book covers the full development of the Austrian new wave it focuses on the period that has brought it global attention: 1998 to the present. New Austrian Film is the only book currently available on this topic and will be an essential reference work for academics, students and filmmakers, interested in modern Austrian film.
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This first comprehensive English survey of Austrian film introduces more than a century of cinema... more This first comprehensive English survey of Austrian film introduces more than a century of cinema, following the development of the industry chronologically through the nation’s various transformations since 1895. Important industry movements, genres and films are highlighted with sociopolitical, cultural and aesthetic details. An analysis of the economic trends that have influenced Austrian film is also provided. The survey considers the directors, actors, producers, writers, cinematographers, editors, composers and other film artists who have been essential to the development and influence of Austrian cinema. The closing chapter anticipates new faces of the Austrian film industry in the 21st century.
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As Alexander Lernet-Holenia's (1897-1976) Mars in Aries had received magazine serialization but w... more As Alexander Lernet-Holenia's (1897-1976) Mars in Aries had received magazine serialization but was immediately banned upon its publication in book form in 1941 (republished in 1947 based on a found manuscript proof). Although this story of a romance between an aristocratic Wehrmacht officer and a mysterious woman in Vienna set against the 1939 invasion of Poland was deemed unacceptable fare for Third Reich readership due to its ambiguity, lack of heroic military images, and the sympathetic portrayal of a suffering Poland, the novel's actual purpose and highly subversive quality were hardly suspected by the Ministry of Propaganda. Richly constructed with cultural, historical, literary, linguistic, philosophical, and metaphysical references that counter Nazism and expose the premeditation behind the attack on Poland, the novel suggests the survival of Austrian identity, the intermeshing of existentialism and fate, the duality of existence, and the qualities of resistance. Written with great formal elegance, subtlety and humanistic erudition, and presented here in its first English translation, Mars in Aries is a standout among war and resistance novels. It also underscores Alexander Lernet-Holenia's place in the Austrian literary canon alongside such writers as Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Musil and Broch.
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In this first major examination, in any language, of Lernet-Holenia's novels and critical essays,... more In this first major examination, in any language, of Lernet-Holenia's novels and critical essays, Dassanowsky explores and redefines the author's unique understanding of a problematic Austrian national identity within a restless Central Europe, a topic revitalized for the twenty-first century. Because of the readability of Lernet-Holenia's writings, he has unfairly come to be considered a popular author. In this thoughtful examination of the major novels, Dassanowsky demonstrates that Lernet-Holenia was extremely knowledgeable about the Habsburg Empire and that his writings offer important and relevant commentaries on the cultural and political nature of Austria.
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Papers by Robert Dassanowsky
The German Quarterly, 2018
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Journal of Austrian Studies, 2019
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Austrian Studies, 2005
Abstract:Alexander Lernet-Holenia's desire for a return to what he deemed Austria's true ... more Abstract:Alexander Lernet-Holenia's desire for a return to what he deemed Austria's true Central European role as a polyglot and elitist cultural nation was paralleled by his frustrated search for personal identity as either an illegitimate child of a Habsburg archduke, or the son of his father of record, whose claims to descent from French nobility remained unsubstantiated. His references to the French "ancien régime", in texts dealing with or allegorizing Austrian history, stress an Austrian identity that is culturally grounded outside its relationship with Germany. Lernet-Holenia's evocation of French elements relating to his personal history also informs his understanding and representation of Austrian identity. Alexander Lernet-Holenias Verlangen nach einer Rückkehr zur, so wie er es sah, wahren mitteleuropäischen Rolle Osterreichs als polyglotte und elitäre Kulturnation, war mit seiner frustrierenden Suche nach seiner persönlichen Identität gleichgestellt, entweder der des unehelichen Sohnes eines Habsburger Erzherzogs oder als Sohn seines in den Urkunden bezeichneten Vaters, dessen Behauptung, adeliger französischer Abstammung zu sein, unbewiesen blieb. Seine Verweise auf das "ancien régime" in Texten, die von der österreichischen Geschichte handeln oder diese allegorisieren, betonen eine österreichische Identität, die außerhalb der Beziehung zu Deutschland kulturell fundiert ist. Lernet-Holenias Heraufbeschwörung französischer Elemente, die mit seiner persönlichen Geschichte in Zusammenhang stehen, informiert auch sein Verständnis und seine Repräsentation der österreichischen Identität.
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ReFocus: The Films of Paul Schrader, 2020
The Comfort of Strangers (GB/Italy1990), directed by Paul Schrader and written by Harold Pinter (... more The Comfort of Strangers (GB/Italy1990), directed by Paul Schrader and written by Harold Pinter (from the short novel by Ian McEwan), who had supplied the 1960s with its premier parable on power and sexuality in The Servant, was no success with audiences or critics, the latter nearly completely missing the obvious redux on a sexualized and cannibalistic fascism that arrived in the 1970s with Visconti, Cavani, Bertolucci, Fassbinder, and Pasolini. This chapter argues that like The Damned (1969) and Death in Venice (1971), as well as their heirs from Fassbinder's German Woman trilogy to Szabo's Mephisto (1981), Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers locates a sociopolitical tension between high and low art.
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The Journal of Modern History, 2020
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The Journal of Modern History, 2020
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Austrian History Yearbook, 2019
Quiet Invaders Revisited: The Story of the Austrian Impact Upon America [Vienna, 1968], 102). Tel... more Quiet Invaders Revisited: The Story of the Austrian Impact Upon America [Vienna, 1968], 102). Tellingly, Spaulding’s text was published (possibly even commissioned) by the Austrian Ministry of Education. I decided to discuss Spaulding’s volume for two reasons. The editor and several authors in the essay collection refer to the 1968 volume but apparently did not read the introduction, let alone the individual chapters, critically. It would have been interesting to conceptualize the conference and essay collection as a critique of Spaulding’s biased cultural propaganda piece instead of simply revisiting a title that itself is deeply problematic. The military term “invader” suggests (falsely) that immigrants were (and are) taking something that is not theirs, like the northern armies that threatened and repeatedly overwhelmed Chinese empires in the last two millennia or European colonizers in Africa and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the perception of unwanted immigrants in the United States and Europe as “invaders” who have to be excluded by walls has recently made a major impact on the public and political discourse about immigration. In fact, in the recent federal election a majority of Austrians voted for parties advocating harsh measures against unwanted immigrants. For those favoring border walls, “quiet invaders” are even more dangerous because they cannot be easily detected or kept out by conventional means, requiring a different response. Unlike the editor, several authors in volume recognize that the term “quiet invaders” is a rather unfortunate choice. Obviously, none of the migrants discussed in this volume were invaders. Unlike some of their colonial predecessors, they did not come to conquer the New World, nor did they carry arms. They were men and women looking for better opportunities or escaping persecution. The second reason is that I struggled to devote more than a couple of sentences to an uninspiring conference volume lacking focus and a compelling agenda. The volume comprises eighteen mostly biographical essays about a wide range of “Austrian” migrants who moved to or lived for a time in the United States and Canada after 1900. Like Spaulding, Bischof decided not to define the term “Austrian,” even though some essays discuss non–German-speaking migrants from the AustroHungarian Empire and the Burgenland province. Most authors focus on individual migrants, among them economists, Catholic priests, movie directors, writers, and entrepreneurs whose only common characteristic is that they were born in “Austria.” The obvious finding is that individual experiences question general theories about the assimilation and integration of migrants. A section on non–German-speaking “Austrian” immigrants would have provided a more differentiated understanding of the pre-1914 migration to North America. As in many studies about immigrants, those migrants who were excluded by restrictive immigration policies are not mentioned. A significant number of mostly Jewish Austrians could not move to the United States and even destinations in the Caribbean after 1938 because the US State Department categorized them as potential Nazi spies or Communist sympathizers—as quiet invaders instead of the desperate refugees they were.
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Österreich 1918 und die Folgen, 2009
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Books by Robert Dassanowsky
Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences.
Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.
Papers by Robert Dassanowsky
Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences.
Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.