The Emergence of Film Culture
Knowledge Production, Institution Building, and the Fate of the Avant-Garde in Europe, 1919–1945
Edited by Malte Hagener
Average rating:
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Between the two world wars, a distinct and vibrant film culture emerged in Europe. Film festivals and schools were established; film theory and history was written that took cinema seriously as an art form; and critical writing that created the film canon flourished. This scene was decidedly transnational and creative, overcoming traditional boundaries between theory and practice, and between national and linguistic borders. This new European film culture established film as a valid form of social expression, as an art form, and as a political force to be reckoned with. By examining the extraordinarily rich and creative uses of cinema in the interwar period, we can examine the roots of film culture as we know it today.
About the Author:
Malte Hagener is Professor of Media Studies at Philipps Universität Marburg. He is the author of Moving Forward, Looking Back: The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919-1939 (Amsterdam UP 2007) and with Thomas Elsaesser of Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses (Routledge 2010).
Press Reviews:
2014 PREMIO LIMINA PRIZE FOR BEST FILM STUDIES BOOK (IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ITALIAN)
"…the book offers a rich and articulated picture of the organization and building of film culture in interwar Europe, and proves to be very keen in disclosing unexplored corners of well-known national film histories (as the Italian and German ones), but also of little explored scenarios (such as Swedish film culture or the Yugoslavian case)." · Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
"[C]ontributes significantly to...a welcome turn among film historians who increasingly inscribe individual films, directors, and national practices within transnational, regional, and global film cultures...has the potential to become a key reference for critical approaches to film cultures in interwar Europe." · Steven Ungar, University of Iowa
"This newest anthology is a wonderful contribution to the field...offer[ing] valuable takes on the development of European film culture in the interwar period...[I]t goes beyond the usual suspects (say, France and Germany) to examine the flourishing of a new film culture in many other contexts throughout Europe. There is an opening up of film historiography here in a way that is quite exciting and quite productive." · Dana Polan, New York University
See the publisher website: Berghahn Books
> From the same author:
How Film Histories Were Made (2023)
Materials, Methods, Discourses
Dir. Malte Hagener and Yvonne Zimmermann
Subject: History of Cinema
Film Theory (2015)
An Introduction through the Senses
by Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener
Subject: Theory
> On a related topic:
Chromatic Modernity (2019)
Color, Cinema, and Media of the 1920s
by Sarah Street and Joshua Yumibe
Subject: History of Cinema
Hollywood on the Hudson (2010)
Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff
Subject: History of Cinema
The History of the British Film 1918 - 1929 (2011)
Volume IV
Dir. Rachael Low
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
The Enchanting Kinora (2025)
Domesticating Moving Images in Edwardian Britain
by Elizabeth Evans and Llewella Chapman
Subject: History of Cinema
Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War (2025)
The Struggle for Hearts and Minds Goes Global
Dir. Stefano Pisu, Francesco Pitassio and Maurizio Zinni
Subject: History of Cinema
The Routledge Companion to American Film History (2025)
Dir. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Paula J. Massood
Subject: History of Cinema
The Story of Victorian Film (2023)
by Bryony Dixon, Mark Duguid and Patrick Russell
Subject: History of Cinema
The Soundies (2023)
A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940s
by Mark Cantor
Subject: History of Cinema