The history of German literature on film (2023)

Abstract

Film adaptations of German literature occupy a significant place in German studies classrooms. They engage students with culture, provide a visual dimension to sociohistorical and sociopolitical aspects of German-speaking countries, and foster new strategies and literacies to support and enrich learning. While there has appeared an exciting range of publications on film adaptations in recent years, including a few focusing specifically on the pedagogical integration of film adaptations in the classroom (e.g., Cutchins et al., 2010; Maiwald, 2015), Christiane Schönfeld's The History of German Literature on Film (HoGLoF) represents a phenomenal new resource situating over 100 years of film adaptation production and reception in German-speaking countries within the broader contexts of shifting sociohistorical, sociopolitical, and technological developments. Whether approached as a whole or through individual chapters, the monograph proves an indispensable and enjoyable read for anyone seeking to uncover the rich, transformative interplay between written and cinematic narratives in German-speaking cultures.

Schönfeld's monograph provides a comprehensive treatment of German film adaptations from 1897 to the present. Building on insights from earlier edited collections (e.g., Rentschler, 1986; Schönfeld & Rasche, 2007), HoGLoF stands out for its coherence, depth, and narrative focus. This makes it an excellent choice as a textbook for German film studies survey courses or for period-specific units on topics such as “Early Cinema and Narrative,” “Fascism and Adaptation,” “New German Cinema: Auteurs and Adaptations,” or “Screening Post-Wall Literature.” Additionally, select chapters are well suited to enrich theme-based courses on gender, censorship, propaganda, children's literature, high versus popular culture, independent filmmaking, the German film industry, and transnational auteurship. Schönfeld's ability to seamlessly connect historical analyses with detailed close readings of pertinent films makes HoGLoF versatile and user-friendly. While the book is not explicitly designed to support language teaching, it nonetheless provides invaluable and ample material to inform the objectives, course design, and the scaffolding of classroom tasks and activities to foster students’ language abilities and deepen their intercultural competence through film. The monograph's breadth and depth make it an indispensable resource for anyone engaging with German film adaptations in an educational context, whether in English or German.

The book's structure follows a conventional film-historical trajectory, charting the relationship between German literature and film across nine chronologically arranged chapters. The study begins with an overview of single-scene adaptations of the Faust legend and other canonical literary borrowings that proliferated across Europe in the 1890s (Chapter 1) and concludes with an analysis of the renewed interest in German film adaptations—both mainstream and independent—during the neoliberal era, coinciding with the cultural impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns (Chapter 9). In between, Schönfeld traces the production and reception of adaptations across the major epochs of German film history. She moves from early silent cinema (Chapter 2) to its “golden age” (Chapter 3) before exploring the adoption of sound in early German talkies (Chapter 4) and the impact of exile and censorship as German cinema came under the fascist regime (Chapters 5 and 6). Subsequent chapters explore the immediate postwar period (Chapter 7), the contrasting film cultures of East and West Germany (Chapter 8), and the development of neoliberal filmmaking in the current post-Wall era (Chapter 9).

Throughout the book, Schönfeld balances a bird's-eye perspective of larger trends and transitions with a detailed discussion of specific sociohistorical, political, and technological factors, illustrating how these elements collectively elevate literary works for cinematic transposition, most notably during times of cultural crisis. In her discussion of the post-WWII period as a time of widespread desperation and historical reckoning, for example, she demonstrates how the selection of classical literary works for adaptation in both East and West Germany reflected anxieties about memory, guilt, and national identity. Schönfeld (2023) observes: “The German and Austrian film and adaptation industries during this era contributed actively to the ‘conspiracy of silence’ after the Second World War. They did, however, help to (re)construct the literary canon and to highlight aspects of contemporary literary culture via cinema screens” (p. 404). The book's chronological structure thus highlights the progression of adaptation filmmaking while revealing important periods of non-linearity, stasis, and regression. This approach underscores the dynamism of the relationship between literature and film across epochs of German history.

Throughout, Schönfeld's macro-level historical narrative is firmly anchored by detailed close readings of select films. Drawing on a range of disciplinary and theoretical frameworks—including cultural studies, gender studies, psychoanalysis, and star theory—she demonstrates how sociohistorical, political, and technological shifts become tangible in the micro-level details of the moving screen image. For readers new to film studies, her interpretations provide exemplary models of film analysis, addressing elements such as narrative, sound, editing, mise-en-scène, screenplay, the star system, intertextuality, and more. In Chapter 5, Schönfeld's reading of Gustaf Gründgens's 1938/1939 adaptation of Effi Briest (Der Schritt vom Wege/The Step Off the Path) stresses the importance of analyzing not just the filmic narrative but also the paratextual elements that affect viewer interpretations. Her interpretation shows how the altered title's moral judgment of Effi's life choices aligns Fontane's text with the conservative and nationalistic ideology of fascist Germany. This analysis is further contextualized through comparisons with three subsequent adaptations of the same Fontane work, which Schönfeld later explores in Chapters 7–9: Jugert's Rosen im Herbst (Roses in Autumn) (1955), Fassbinder's Fontane Effi Briest (1972–1974), and Huntgeburth's 2009 Effi Briest. As Schönfeld shows, each director modifies the source text's narrative focus and ideological subtexts, occasionally even retitling the work in ways that reflect the sociopolitical concerns of their respective times. Jugert's immediate postwar adaptation thus amplifies the melodramatic love story, situating the narrative in an idyllic, regional setting that avoids confronting questions of moral culpability. In contrast, Fassbinder's later adaptation employs a deliberately minimalistic mise-en-scène and restrained editing style, exposing the oppressive conventions of 19th-century bourgeois society as the driving force behind Effi's tragic fate. Moving then up to the present era, Schönfeld unpacks how Huntgeburth's feminist reinterpretation foregrounds Effi's agency and resistance through a variety of aesthetic choices that present Fontane's original protagonist as a trailblazing figure who pushes back against the confines of 19th-century patriarchal social structures in ways that (proleptically) anticipate the feminist activism of the 20th century. Schönfeld's nuanced engagement with shifting cultural attitudes, as exemplified here, typifies her approach throughout the monograph, which consistently interrogates how German film adaptations reflect—and at times contest—hegemonic narratives of gender, class, and national identity. By tracing recurring patterns of exclusion and revision across epochs, HoGLoF continually underscores adaptation's evolving role as a site of cultural and ideological negotiation, making the monograph a most timely contribution to German film and literary studies.

As a result of its remarkable depth and breadth, HoGLoF stands apart from other scholarly treatments of German film adaptations as a compelling historical survey, a practical reference for scholarly and educational use, and an essential guide for future research in the field.