Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film Andrea Schmidt A dissertation submitted in partial fulfil

183 Pages·2016·2.48 MB·English

Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film

Andrea Schmidt

A dissertation

submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Washington

2016

Reading Committee
James Tweedie, Chair
Jennifer M. Bean
Leroy Searle

Program Authorized to Offer Degree:

Comparative Literature
©Copyright 2016
Andrea Schmidt
University of Washington

Abstract

Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film

By Andrea Schmidt

Chair of the Supervisory Committee:
Professor James Tweedie
Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media

This dissertation interrogates the relationship between heritage visual culture and its
ability to present an alternative individual and collective past. Expanding on Gavriel D.
Rosenfeld’s concept of an alternate history, this dissertation suggests that a nation’s citizens
can appropriate identities from other cultures to attempt to avoid or work through their own
national past. It uses the categories of the museum, transnationalism, and authenticity as
points of departure. The dissertation is divided into four chapters based on the works of a
primary auteur. The first chapter, “Film on Museum, Museum on Film: Reexamining the
Heritage ‘Museum Aesthetic,” examines the representation of Andrew Higson’s “museum
aesthetic” through films set in museums. It focuses primarily on the museum films of
Alexander Sokurov, and his desire to portray European sites of memory, often with a measure
of historical erasure. The second chapter, “The Alternative Heimat: Herzog and Reitz’s
Representations of the Indianer,” examines Herzog’s and his films’ participation in the
Indianerkultur present in Germany since the nineteenth century. The chapter uses the case
study of the media controversy surrounding the production of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982)
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as a lost moment of reflexivity in Germany’s appropriation of indigenous identities through film
and print culture over the past two centuries.
The second half of the dissertation then gradually shifts from an emphasis on
appropriated visual culture to a focus on auteur authenticity, authorship, and adaptation. “An
American in Paris, London, and Barcelona: Woody Allen’s Take on European Heritage”
examines Allen’s latest series of films set in Europe in terms of an outsider identification with
the American tourist living abroad. His desire to produce a cosmopolitan pastness in his
artistry results in the reinforcement of racialized and gendered stereotypes. The second
chapter in this section and final in this dissertation, titled “My Wuthering Heights:” Jane
Campion and Immersive Heritage,” examines Campion’s adaptation of nineteenth century
novels, and how they influence the imagery and narrative structures of her films. Moreover, it
interrogates how she negotiates her own status as an auteur and the appropriation of canonical
heritage texts. Focusing primarily on transatlantic movements (German, British, French, and
American) across a variety of media, this dissertation draws on a variety of texts from the
nineteenth century novel to the contemporary heritage serial. Its framing of the intersections
of continuous pasts and the dynamic exchange of transnational identities emphasizes the
importance of heritage studies in a globalized world.
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Acknowledgements

My greatest thanks to my committee: James Tweedie, my chair, whose encouragement
and support has proven invaluable since my first cinema course with him; Jennifer M. Bean,
whose work as an admired feminist film scholar greatly influenced, in particular, the Campion
chapter; Leroy Searle, whose generosity of spirit and intellectual wisdom remains an
inspiration for me; Richard J. Dunn whose mentorship as a Dickens scholar I shall forever
cherish. I would like to also extend a special thanks to Jane K. Brown for challenging me in
my analysis and reading of literature, and for giving one of the most stirring defenses of the
humanities I have ever heard. Thank you, as well, to Charles LaPorte for his wit, warmth, and
support. I would like to further extend thanks to professors who have greatly influenced me,
including Eric Ames, Míċeál Vaughan, Cynthia Steele, Yomi Braester, Klaus Brandl, Eve
Levin, and Marshall Brown.
Yuko Mera is, I am convinced, the most amazing graduate advisor in existence, and,
on top of that, a phenomenal human being. I am forever indebted to her for her kindness,
intellectual support, and understanding.
Marcia Feinstein-Tobey has been a rock of experience and friendship, particularly
during my transitions in France and Portland. I would also like to thank the Feinstein family,
in particular, Judy.
Excerpts from the Conclusion have appeared in “The Imaginative Power of Downton
Abbey Fanfiction.” Upstairs and Downstairs: The British Historical Costume Drama on
Television. Eds. Julie Taddeo and James Leggot. New York: Rowman and Littlefield
Publishers, 2014. Thank you very much to Julie Taddeo and James Leggot for their helpful
feedback and editing.
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My deepest gratitude goes to Will Arighi and k@ Wong, my best friends in Seattle.

Your friendship has changed my life, both professionally and as a human being. I am so glad I
had the privilege of meeting you at that first potluck so many years ago. Thank you, also, to
Japhet Johnstone, Gloria Man, Lena Heilmann, Sabine Noellgen, Eric Scheufler, Kathy
Morrow, Stephanie Welch, Katy Masuga, Julie Ault, Milan Vidakovic, Annie DeSaussure,
Virginia Dunn, Amber Lehman Myers, and many, many others for your encouragement and
support.
My interest in film started with a unique and dynamic filmmaking community in the
Midwest. Thank you to the countless friends with whom I have braved 30 below weather to
see a new film at the Fargo Theater.
The majority of this dissertation was written while living in Germany and France.

Thank you to the German Department at the University of Washington, as well as the
Humboldt University in Berlin for the research year opportunity. A special thank you to the
Department of English at Paul Valery in Montpellier, France. I would also like to express my
gratitude to my support system in Montpellier: Paul, Patrick, Agathe, Simon, Alice, Coffee
Club. Merci beaucoup to my French tutor, Mays, whose amazing talent as a French teacher is
boundless and who became a cherished friend. I would also like to say thank you to my
friends in the United Kingdom, Jessica and Joe Pates-Beckett.
Germany is my “home away from home.” To my family in Bavaria and the North,
thank you for allowing to share the holidays with you and for welcoming me into your homes.
The Schneemann family, particularly, Mamma Schneemann, has been so kind and generous
to me. Nic and Ina—your friendship is a constant for me even across the world. Marie, it is
great to have a Berlinale film buddy. Thank you to Elisa Lange and family for their continued
support and introducing me to the wonders of my future retirement city.
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I would like to extend a special thanks to the German and Russian Department at
Willamette University, in particular, Aili Zheng, for her encouragement and understanding in
the final stages of the dissertation writing process.
I have been blessed with a wonderful and supportive family: To my twin sister,
Allison. You are my best friend, and I am so glad you got on that bus to Prague. To my
parents, Helmut and Lori Schmidt, whose love and support have been unwavering. Thank you
for reading to me when I was little! To my younger sisters, Melinda and Stephanie, thank you
for always challenging your big sister. My grandparents, Oma and Opa, have always
encouraged me in everything I do, especially to go out and experience the world. Grandma
Betty and Grandpa Roy, your unconditional support has meant the world to me. Grandpa
Schmidt, the copy of Pride and Prejudice I inherited started me on the path to a career in the
humanities.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iv
Introduction 1
Chapter One 22
Film on Museum, Museum on Film: Reexamining the Heritage “Museum Aesthetic”
Chapter Two 53
The Alternative Heimat: Herzog and Reitz’s Representations of the Indianer
Chapter Three 87
An American in Paris, London, and Barcelona: Woody Allen’s Take on European Heritage
Chapter Four 121
“My Wuthering Heights:” Jane Campion and Immersive Heritage
Conclusion 152
Bibliography 157
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Introduction:

Screening the Museum Aesthetic: Auteurs in Transnational Heritage Film

Heimat meets the ashes of the past in Lore

In an interview at the Australian Film Festival, director Cate Shortland explained what
drew her to a project on the German experience of World War II, her 2012 film Lore: “I was
interested as an Australian in terms of our history and how it is not dealt with.”1 Throughout
press for the film, Shortland drew comparisons with the brutal European colonization of
indigenous peoples in Australia to the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe. Representing a
convergence of both auteur cinema and heritage film, her second feature navigates the genres
of literary adaptation and historical drama. Like the director’s last feature film, Somersault
(2004), Lore tells the coming-of-age story of a young girl. Taking place in immediate post-
World War II Germany, the film makes the controversial move of using the children of Nazis
as its protagonists. Past attempts to convey the experience of non-Jewish Germans during
World War II have led to accusations of forgetting or diminishing the suffering of Holocaust
victims. Furthermore, the mise-en-scène of Lore draws on a German/Austrian heritage film

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIqV6DksOgw
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tradition criticized for its erasure of the Nazi past, the Heimatfilm. This particular genre often
features countryside settings notably absent of any historical trauma. In Lore, these traumatic
events enter into the idyllic everyday, beginning when the title character sees photographs of
the massacres in Belarus taken by her father. Shortland’s desire to work through her own
nation’s history, as well as her family’s Jewish-German background, led her to apply her
distinct understated filmmaking style to the historical drama. Lore illustrates how the heritage
film, defined as strongly associated with a specific representation of the nation, can also have
dynamic transnational and personal applications. Shortland succeeds in her correlation of the
psyche of a young girl to that of a nation facing defeat and disillusionment. Hence, a concern of
German historical cinema, namely the depiction of the German perpetrator in World War II,
has been taken on through transnational production efforts, based on a strong national genre,
using a distinctive auteur style. Adapted from The Dark Room, a novel by British author
Rachel Seiffert, and funded through British, German, and Australian resources, the film is a
German language production featuring an all-German cast. Lore demonstrates that heritage and
auteur cinema have points of intersection that prove useful in interrogating heritage culture.
This dissertation focuses on transnational trends where directors draw on others’
national histories to create their own visual and literary heritage. These “alternative heritages”
then permeate everyday life, and, in turn, project themselves back onto visual/literary culture.
The term “alternative heritage” is used in a much different sense than previous critics, such as
Phil Powrie, as I shall illustrate shortly. Alternative heritages make reference to the pluralistic
and imaginative nature of heritage culture. The original idea for this study came from the
French heritage film Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1981). Arriving at the first wave of
European heritage films in the 1980’s, the film starred Gérard Depardieu and was a hit with
international audiences. The story, based on a historical event, takes place in a sixteenth
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