New Book on German Cinema features Louise Brooks

A book on German cinema has recently been published in Italy which features Louise Brooks. Cinema tedesco: i film (or German Cinema: the films) edited by Leonardo Quaresima, was published at the beginning of 2019, but just came to my attention when I received a message from one of the contributors, Giuliana Disanto. She wrote, "I'd like to inform you about a publication of my essay, "Il vaso di Pandora di Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Dalla parola alla visione," or "Pandora's Box by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. From word to vision." Disanto, who teaches at the University of Salento, added that her 21 page essay interest to the members of the Louise Brooks Society. She is right. More information about the book is available (in Italian) HERE.

According to the publisher in Italian: "Lungo l’arco della sua traiettoria, il cinema tedesco ha avuto a più riprese grandissimo rilievo, esercitando anche un ruolo di punta sul piano internazionale. Il volume ripercorre questa storia attraverso una selezione dei film che ne sono stati protagonisti: dalla stagione del “cinema d’autore” degli anni Dieci, in cui il nuovo mezzo si avvalse della collaborazione dei più noti protagonisti della scena letteraria e teatrale dell’epoca, al periodo weimariano, caratterizzato dalle invenzioni del cinema espressionista e dalla messa a punto di un complesso, raffinato sistema linguistico; dalla fase che accompagna gli anni del nazismo, in cui si fa portavoce delle parole d’ordine del regime, ma anche delle sue, ancor oggi dibattute, contraddizioni, al periodo apparentemente più provinciale dell’immediato dopoguerra, oggetto peraltro di riletture e riconsiderazioni in anni recenti; dall’exploit del Neuer Deutscher Film, che riporta il cinema tedesco a una posizione preminente nel contesto europeo, alla situazione degli ultimi decenni, orientata verso gli standard del racconto internazionale, ma non senza varchi verso modelli autoriali e sintesi tra questi due ambiti."

According to the publisher in English: "Over the course of its trajectory, German cinema has been important on several occasions, exercising a leading role on the international level. This volume traces this story through a selection of the star films: from the "auteur cinema" of the 1910s, in which the new medium made use of the collaboration of the best known protagonists of the literary and theatrical scene of the time, to the Weimar period, characterized by the invention of expressionist cinema and the development of a complex, refined linguistic system; from the phase accompanying the years of Nazism, in which it spoke the slogans of the regime, but also of its still debated contradictions, to the apparently more provincial period of the immediate post-war period, the subject of re-readings and reconsiderations in recent years; from the exploit of Neuer Deutscher Film, which brings German cinema back to a pre-eminent position in the European context, to the situation of the last decades, oriented towards the standards of international narrative, but not without gaps towards authorial models and synthesis between these two areas." The book includes essays by Paolo Bertetto, Francesco Bono, Lorella Bosco, Sonia Campanini, Simone Costagli, Giulia A. Disanto, Luisella Farinotti, Antioco Floris, Matteo Galli, Massimo Locatelli, Francesco Pitassio, Leonardo Lent, Luigi Reitani, Giovanni Spagnoletti, Domenico Spinosa, and Anita Trivelli.

Leonardo Quaresima, the editor, is Senior Professor at the University of Udine. In Germany, he curated, in particular, the revised and expanded edition of From Caligari to Hitler by Kracauer (2004), the Italian edition of The Visible Man by Balázs (2008), and the writings of Joseph Roth on cinema (2015). His other publications are focussed on Leni Riefenstahl (1985), Edgar Reitz (1988), Walter Ruttmann (1994).

Cinema tedesco: i film is available on amazon in Italy, France, Germany, England and elsewhere including either as a print book or as an ebook. I just ordered the ebook / kindle version from amazon in the United States.