Introduction: German-Language Film Criticism—History and Practice

Abstract

For more than a century—dating as far back as 1907, when the first Germanlanguage film publications were initially established—Filmkritik (criticism, historiography, all manner of cultural discourse on cinema) has been a prized form of expression, a thriving intellectual, journalistic, and professional enterprise. More limited in scope at the start, it quickly blossomed during the Wilhelmine and Habsburg Empires, through the interwar and postwar periods, and into the twenty-first century. Over the years it has faced numerous challenges: the political rifts of the twentieth century (including the Third Reich and the East-West divide), the technological shifts of the medium and the modes of writing about it (from silent to sound pictures, print to digital), the exigencies of archival initiatives and film preservation. At the same time, from its beginnings Filmkritik has been a relentlessly international affair, traversing national borders and transcending the limits of language and origin. Moreover, Filmkritik has persistently crossed the Atlantic due not only to the migration of prominent critics and filmmakers themselves but to the receptive audiences and readerships on both sides. Even today, a good century since the first pieces of film criticism appeared inGerman andAustrian newspapers and journals, the diversewriters and texts discussed in this dossier retain their timeliness. Having once held a