Read more
Collection of essays on film icon Marlene Dietrich.
List of contents
Acknowledgments vii
Prelude
Introduction: Marlene Dietrich’s Appropriations / Mary R. Desjardins and Gerd Gemünden 3
Falling in Love Again / Steven Bach 25
I. The Icon
Dietrich’s Face / Lutz Koepnick 43
The Legs of Marlene Dietrich / Nora M. Alter 60
Marlene Dietrich: The Voice as Mask / Amy Lawrence 79
II. Establishing the Star Persona
Playing Garbo: How Marlene Dietrich Conquered Hollywood / Joseph Garncarz 103
Seductive Departures of Marlene Dietrich: Exile and Stardom in
The Blue Angel / Elisabeth Bronfen 119
The Blue Angel in Multiple-Language Versions: The Inner Thighs of Miss Dietrich / Patrice Petro 141
Marlene Dietrich in
Blonde Venus: Advertising Dietrich in Seven Markets / Mary Beth Haralovich 162
Marlene Dietrich: The Prodigal Daughter / Erica Carter 186
III. “Marlene Has Sex But No Gender”
Marlene Dietrich and the Erotics of Code-Bound Hollywood / Gaylyn Studlar 211
“It’s Not Often That I Want a Man”: Reading for a Queer Marlene / Alice A. Kuzniar 239
Get/Away: Structure and Desire in
Rancho Notorious / Mark Williams 259
IV. (Auto-) Biography and the Archive
The Order of Knowledge and Experience:
Marlene Dietrich’s ABC / Amelie Hastie 289
Dietrich Dearest: Family Memoir and the Fantasy of Origins / Mary R. Desjardins 310
An Icon between the Fronts: Vilsmaier’s Recast
Marlene / Eric Rentschler 328
“Life Goes On without Me”: Marlene Dietrich, Old Age, and the Archive / Judith Mayne 347
“Is That Me?”: The Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin / Werner Sudendorf 376
Bibliography 385
Contributors 401
Index 405
About the author
Gerd Gemünden is the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Framed Visions: Popular Culture, Americanization, and the Contemporary German and Austrian Imagination and coeditor of The Cinema of Wim Wenders: Image, Narrative, and the Postmodern Condition.
Mary R. Desjardins is Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at Dartmouth College.
Summary
Few movie stars have meant as many things to as many different audiences as the iconic Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich has long been a flashpoint in Germany's struggles over its cultural heritage, having renounced and left Nazi Germany, assumed American citizenship, and entertained American troops.
