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Weimar Film and Modern Jewish IdentityEpilogue

Weimar Film and Modern Jewish Identity: Epilogue [In his survey on “how the Jews invented Hollywood,” Neal Gabler famously notes several possible explanations for the conspicuous presence of Jewish immigrants in the American film industry. He convincingly relates their success in the film business to their social and cultural background (Jewish producers had, for instance, a background in retail trade and an intimate, empathetic knowledge of “the dreams and aspirations” of the target audience). However, Gabler emphasizes, “in order to understand what may have been the chief appeal of the movies to these Jews, one must understand their hunger for assimilation and the way in which the movies could uniquely satisfy that hunger.”1 In many respects, this injunction may likewise be applied to Jewish involvement in the pre-1933 German film industry. Just as in Hollywood, assimilation was a key component in the works of Weimar Jewish filmmakers; and, like the “American Dream,” the defining collective “dream” of post—World War I Germany was often formulated and displayed through the narratives and visual imagery contrived by (first and second generation) immigrant Jews. But whereas Hollywood’s moguls “wanted to be regarded as American, not Jews,” the Jews who worked in the studios on the outskirts of Berlin explicitly promoted the “Bourgeois Dream.” They contemplated and advocated assimilation within the (arguably imagined) class of progressive, educated urbanites, rather than within the German national community.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Weimar Film and Modern Jewish IdentityEpilogue

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2012
ISBN
978-1-349-34419-2
Pages
149 –153
DOI
10.1057/9781137010841_6
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In his survey on “how the Jews invented Hollywood,” Neal Gabler famously notes several possible explanations for the conspicuous presence of Jewish immigrants in the American film industry. He convincingly relates their success in the film business to their social and cultural background (Jewish producers had, for instance, a background in retail trade and an intimate, empathetic knowledge of “the dreams and aspirations” of the target audience). However, Gabler emphasizes, “in order to understand what may have been the chief appeal of the movies to these Jews, one must understand their hunger for assimilation and the way in which the movies could uniquely satisfy that hunger.”1 In many respects, this injunction may likewise be applied to Jewish involvement in the pre-1933 German film industry. Just as in Hollywood, assimilation was a key component in the works of Weimar Jewish filmmakers; and, like the “American Dream,” the defining collective “dream” of post—World War I Germany was often formulated and displayed through the narratives and visual imagery contrived by (first and second generation) immigrant Jews. But whereas Hollywood’s moguls “wanted to be regarded as American, not Jews,” the Jews who worked in the studios on the outskirts of Berlin explicitly promoted the “Bourgeois Dream.” They contemplated and advocated assimilation within the (arguably imagined) class of progressive, educated urbanites, rather than within the German national community.]

Published: Nov 6, 2015

Keywords: Private Sphere; Modern City; Film Industry; Jewish Immigrant; Preceding Chapter

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