The enquiry sheds new light on three blockbusters produced under National Socialism: Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda piece Triumph of the Will (1934), Veit Harlan's anti-Semitic hate film Jew Süss (1940) and Josef von Baky's fantasy comedy Münchhausen (1943). In their frequent use of collective imaginative geographies, all three movies approach 'truth' and 'authenticity' via depictions of geographical patterns. My reading of these films popular in the Third Reich highlights the how and why of place manipulation. The article further explores Nazi (...) cinema's complex amalgam of visual aesthetics and geopolitics, yielding possible insights into the regime’s specific contradictions. (shrink)

Traditionally in Film Studies, the idea of cinema being able to put the truth on screen has been associated with one particular film theorist, namely André Bazin. However, only 6% of Bazin’s almost 2600 articles has been republished in anthologies or edited essay collections and reading the remaining 94% of these writings (which to date basically remains widely unread) makes it clear that Bazin was not so naïve. This paper focuses on an essay from 1947, one of Bazin's first and (...) most important, "Tout film est un documentaire social" ["Every Film is a Social Documentary"]. It suggests that fiction films can tell the truth, but mainly in the way that dreams do, by revealing what people really think, or their collective unconsciousness, regardless of their conscious awareness. What is this truth which is told by any fiction film? How can one reconcile this theoretical perspective with Bazinian ontological theory of cinema in general? This article seeks to answer these questions by means of an in-depth analysis of that essay and of a wide range of examples taken from other, mostly unknown writings by Bazin. (shrink)

This essay considers the claims to historical or social truths made by four contemporary Italian films: The One Hundred Steps (Marco Tullio Giordana, 2000), Romanzo Criminale (Michele Placido, 2005), Il divo (Paolo Sorrentino, 2008) and Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008). Posing them first as historical texts, it then identifies two techniques of engaging with or rejecting a claim to historical accuracy, based on notions of performativity and of historiographic metafiction. By locating these models in a period of postmodernity, it seeks ultimately (...) to offer some insight into contemporary Italian cinema more widely, in particular on the constant recourse made to realism. (shrink)

Biographical fiction films often raise questions about the accuracy of a story, the plausibility of a mise en scène or an actor's performance. If a genre is understood as a complex system of expectations and production, the idea of cultural verisimilitude becomes a central feature in the genre of biographical fiction film. Film criticism typically considers the problems that such a generic rule causes. In contrast to that approach, this article discusses the pleasures of verisimilitude. Using one of the first (...) Finnish biopics, Runon kuningas ja muuttolintu (1940) as an example, it examines how verisimilitude forms an essential feature of the film, understood as a biography, and how it ensures an enjoyable cinematic experience. Firstly, I shall suggest that the reconstruction of well-known historical moments in the film creates effects similar to those of the cinema of attractions (Gunning): they revitalise bygone days. Secondly, I shall demonstrate how the film challenges viewers to a knowing game (Rosen), a pleasurable quiz in which they can demonstrate their cultural competence. I suggest that these pleasures of verisimilitude, evident at the time when the genre was just emerging in Finland, could also explain the current persistent fascination with biographical films. (shrink)

This article investigates narrative strategies and forms of representation in one German biographical film: Hunger auf Leben [Hunger for Life]. This 2004 biopic dramatises the life of author Brigitte Reimann (1933-73), who wrote in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Particular attention will be paid to the question of how her diaries are transformed onto the screen. Exploration of the film's narrative structure reveals a set of tensions between the author’s diaries on the one hand, and on the other, the historical (...) and documentary material in, for example, the author's Stasi files. By examining the film's design, the modifications it makes to its sources and the attention it pays to certain scenes, this enquiry seeks to elucidate the film's key strategies. (shrink)