Producing German Cinema for the World : Global Blockbusters from Location Germany

Abstract

Extending attention to the relevance of Deleuze’s film theory for the German cinema of neoliberalism, this chapter builds on influential approaches to recent German film in analyzing Das Boot (1981); Run Lola Run (1998); and The Lives of Others (2006). The chapter focuses on strategies employed by German blockbusters to address international audiences while affirming the victory of global capitalist imperatives over local film traditions; it demonstrates how the predominance of commercial imperatives underpins the emergence of particular formal, aesthetic, and generic traits, which aim to subsume and diffuse the heterogeneity and variety of Germany’s legacy of counter-hegemonic filmmaking. A feminist analysis of the films emphasizes how their affirmative vision is based on an ambiguous and often misogynist gender politics.