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This book analyses the film industries and cinema cultures of Nazi-occupied countries (1939-1945) from the point of view of individuals: local captains of industry, cinema managers, those working for film studios and officials authorized to navigate film policy. The book considers these people from a historical perspective, taking into account their career before the occupation and, where relevant, pays attention to their post-war lives. The perspectives of these historical agents" contributes to an understanding of how top-down orders and haphazard signals from the occupying administration were moulded, adjusted and distorted in the process of their translation and implementation. This edited collection offers a more dynamic and less deterministic approach to research on the international expansion of Third-Reich cinema in World War Two; an approach that strives to balance the role of individual agency with the structural determinants. The case studies presented in this book coverthe territories of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the Soviet Union.
List of contents
1. Making Decisions: Occupied Film Industries from the Perspective of 'Middle-Men', Pavel Skopal and Roel Vande Winkel.- 2. 'Hero and Villain': Leif Sinding as a Mediator of Cinema Politics in Occupied Norway, Thomas V. H. Hagen.- 3. Goebbels' Propagandists at Work: From Training the Film Elite at Home to Film Policy in Occupied Norway, Thomas V. H. Hagen and Tobias Hochscherf.- 4. Jan Vanderheyden and Edith Kiel: 'Leading' the Belgian Film Sector While Taking Orders from the German Propaganda Service, Roel Vande Winkel.- 5. How to Mediate the Bohemian-Moravian Film Culture? Role of Sudeten German Historical Agents in the Protection of Local Culture During Occupation, Tereza Czesany Dvoráková and Volker Mohn.- 6. Offers Difficult to Refuse: Milos Havel and Clientele Transactional Networks in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Pavel Skopal.- 7. In the Sound of Time: The Fate of Ukrainian Inventor Ivan Nikitin, Tatiana Manykina.- 8. Jan Teunissen, the Self-Proclaimed 'Film Czar'of the German-Occupied Netherlands (1940-1945), Egbert Barten.- 9. Jan Fethke: The Artist's Lot in the Shadow of the Swastika,Krzysztof Trojanowski.- 10. Managing Cinemas in German-Annexed Territories: The Case of Heinrich Meisenzahl in Moselle, Anthony Rescigno.
About the author
Pavel Skopal is Associate Professor and department head at the Department of Film Studies and Audio-visual Culture, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His recent books include
The Cinema of the North Triangle (2014) and
Cinema in Service of the State (2015, co-edited with Lars Karl). Skopal has published in international journals including
Film History,
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and
Convergence.
Roel Vande Winkel is Associate Professor in Film & TV Studies at KU Leuven and at LUCA School of Arts, Belgium. He is associate editor of
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and his recent books include
Researching Newsreels. Local, National and Transnational Case Studies (2018, with Ciara Chambers and Mats Jönsson),
Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (2013, with Daniel Biltereyst) and
Cinema and the Swastika: The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema (2011 revised, with David Welch).
