Anneliese’s House by Lou Andreas-Salomé (review)

Abstract

The book’s conclusion takes its discussion of special effects as a mode of cinematic expression into the present, noting the persistence of technoromantic attitudes in films made with the latest digital effects. Loew shows us that the formation of the genre of cinematic technological dystopia was internally driven by innovations in special effects as much as by the narratives of screenwriters, and that German film trick pioneers gave shape to the field from the very beginning. More than a history of a single facet of the German cinema industry, Loew’s book reveals the wide-ranging impact of material practices that shaped the forms of wonder that we continue to experience in our technologically mediated world.