From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film is a book by film critic and writer Siegfried Kracauer, published in 1947. The book is considered one of the first major studies of German film between World War I and World War II. Among other things, the book is known for proposing a link between the apolitical and escapist orientation of Weimar-era cinema and the totalitarianism which followed in German society.
The book was a survey covering four major periods: The Archaic Period (1895–1918), The Postwar Period (1918–1924), The Stabilized Period (1924–1929) and The Pre-Hitler Period (1930–1933). The book also includes Propaganda and the Nazi War Film, a critical and psychological analysis of Nazi propaganda film. That particular section was a reprint of a pamphlet of the same name released by the Museum of Modern Art in 1942. As Kracauer was a film critic at the time many of the films he discusses were first released, he melds his theory of trends in the film market with political tendencies within the German social politics.
Funded by Museum of Modern Art as well as a Rockefeller Foundation grant, From Caligari to Hitler was considered by many to be one of the most important works on the subject of German cinema, standing with Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960) as classic scholarship.
Famous quotes containing the words history, german and/or film:
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)