Papers by Daniela Berghahn
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Mar 1, 2011
that pick up Irish content, mostly via the presence of Irish actors. Where did these films play, ... more that pick up Irish content, mostly via the presence of Irish actors. Where did these films play, I wonder? Did their exhibition pattern fit with what Kinematograph Weekly described as the ‘cloth cap’ market? Others will pursue their own interests – gender, genre, aesthetics, acting styles – and use this initial archaeology as the starting point for their own further research. Chibnall and McFarlane have done British film scholarship another remarkable service.
Screening War, Jul 30, 2010
In 1988, Isaac Julien, a black British artist and filmmaker, and Kobena Mercer, an art historian ... more In 1988, Isaac Julien, a black British artist and filmmaker, and Kobena Mercer, an art historian and critic who has widely written on black British art and culture, wrote the introduction to ‘The Last Special Issue on Race’, published in the journal Screen. It was entitled ‘De Margin and De Centre’ and has inspired the title of this chapter and many of the arguments I shall develop. Julien and Mercer argue that the 1980s represent a significant juncture in the cinematic representation of ‘cultural difference, identity and otherness — in a word, ethnicity’ (1988: 2), which emerged as a key issue of contestation and public debate at the time. White and black-authored films at the opposite end of the spectrum of artistic practices, including the big budget film The Colour Purple (Steven Spielberg, 1985) and artisanal productions such as Handsworth Songs (John Akomfrah, 1986) and The Passion of Remembrance (Maureen Blackwood and Isaac Julien, 1986) offer competing versions of black expe...
The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration
Fatih Akin, one of the most prominent directors of contemporary German-Turkish cinema, describes ... more Fatih Akin, one of the most prominent directors of contemporary German-Turkish cinema, describes himself as a German filmmaker and-at least until the international success of Gegen die Wand/Head-On (2004)-downplayed the relevance of his ethnic background for his creative career. And yet, his feature films exhibit most of the characteristics associated with 'accented cinema', a type of cinema which has been identified by Hamid Naficy as an aesthetic response to displacement through exile, migration or diaspora. The underlying theme of Akin's films is the migrant's experience of rootlessness and the redemptive promise inherent in the return to ones Heimat. This paper examines chronotopes of homeland in Kurz und schmerzlos/Short Sharp Shock (1998), Solino (2002) and Head-On and asks to what extent the preoccupation with Heimat, alongside the eclectic mix of generic templates which have informed Akin's films, underscore the cultural hybridity of his oeuvre. Following the critical and commercial success of Fatih Akin's melodramatic love story Gegen die Wand/Head-On (2004), the first German film in eighteen years to win the Golden Bear at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 2004, Young German-Turkish Cinema is being promoted with increased fervour with the slogan 'The New German Cinema is Turkish' (Kulaoglu 1999). As this reference to New German Cinema suggests, German filmmakers of Turkish origin, such as Thomas Arslan, Yüksel Yavuz, Ayse Polat and Fatih Akin, 2 are perceived as the next wave of auteurs who will once again help German cinema to reach the level of international acclaim that was hitherto associated with the likes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Alexander Kluge. Yet, like any self-respecting new generation of filmmakers, Turkish-German filmmakers reject the cinema of their forebears. That is on the one hand the West German Autorenkino with its culturally elitist aspirations and its disdain for mainstream entertainment. That is on the other hand what has been variously labelled the 'cinema of duty' (Malik 1996) or the 'cinema of the affected' (Burns 2006: 148) as represented in the German context by the first generation Turkish-German filmmaker Tevfik Başer and German filmmaker Hark Bohm, who in the 1980s explored the problems faced by Turkish labour migrants and, in particular, Turkish women in Germany. These films take what Rob Burns (2006: 132) describes as a '"social worker approach" to ethnic relations', articulating social problems of marginalized groups of society in a documentary-realist fashion. Tevfik 1 I gratefully acknowledge the funding I received from the British Academy, which enabled me to present a shorter version of this paper at the conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in Vancouver in March 2006. This article is part of a larger project on Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe, generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the Diasporas, Migration and Identities Programme. 2 Yüksel Yavuz and Ayse Polat are, in fact, Kurds, who were born in Turkey and moved to Germany as children.
Far-Flung Families in Film
This article explores the critical reassessment of one particularly prevalent ethnic stereotype i... more This article explores the critical reassessment of one particularly prevalent ethnic stereotype in Turkish-German cinema: the stereotype of the oppressive Turkish partriarch. Comparing Yasemin (1988), a much-cited, early coming-of-age film made by German film-maker Hark Bohm, with three recent features made by young Turkish-German film-makers-Sülbiye Günar's Karamuk (2002), Ayse Polat's Tour Abroad and Züli Aladag's controversial Rage (2006)-it examines father-daughter and father-son relationships and traces how these films reaffirm or invert the clichéd image of the domineering Turkish father who is out of touch with German majority culture. Drawing on Kobena Mercer's concept of the dialogic imagination, the article investigates whether these cinematic representations of the vilified or idealized father promote social change through 'a multiplication of critical dialogues' or whether they simply reiterate dominant 'discourses of domination' (Mercer 2003). Some of the most prominent directors of the New Turkish-German Cinema have put the destabilization and critical investigation of ethnic stereotypes of 'the Turk', or rather, the Turkish-German migrant, high on their artistic agenda. In fact, Fatih Akin, currently the most high-profile of the 'Young Turks', who started his career in the film industry as an actor, decided to make his own films because he was no longer prepared to the play the 'stereotype Turk', that is the Turk who is either a victim or a social problem (cited in Dehn 1999). By scripting and directing his own films, including such success stories as Kurz und schmerzlos / Short Sharp Shock (1998), Im Juli / In July (2000) and Gegen die Wand / Head-On (2004) he hoped to avoid these stereotypes (arguably creating other ones instead) and to move films about migrants out of the 'guest-worker niche' and into the mainstream of German film culture (Akin 2004). 1 Thomas Arslan, best known for his Berlin Kreuzberg Trilogy, expresses a similar disaffection with clichéd portrayals of Turks. By releasing Turkish characters from 'the burden of representation' (Mercer 2003: 251), 2 he endeavours to utilize cinema as a space for shifting public perception: 'If it is already no longer possible to avoid clichés altogether, one can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order, gradually to dismantle them in such a way as that 1 The term 'guestworker' (Gastarbeiter) refers to labour migrants who were 'invited' by the West German government during the economic boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Like 'guests' they were expected to stay only temporarily but many, in particular, Turkish labour migrants were joined by their families and stayed for good. Films about Turkish and other labour migrants were first made by German film-makers during the 1970s and, from the 1980s on, also by Turkish film-makers living and working in 55
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2018
This essay aims to critically reassess and, ultimately, rehabilitate exoticism, understood as a p... more This essay aims to critically reassess and, ultimately, rehabilitate exoticism, understood as a particular mode of cultural representation and a highly contested discourse on cultural difference, by bringing it into dialogue with cosmopolitanism. It offers a theoretical exploration of exoticism and cosmopolitanism alongside associated critical frameworks, such as the contact zone, autoethnography, authenticity and cultural translation, and brings them to bear on two awardwinning films that aptly illustrate a new type of exoticism in contemporary world cinema. Using Tanna (Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, 2015) and Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2015), both made in collaboration with Indigenous communities, as case studies, this essay proposes that exoticism is inflected by cosmopolitan, rather than colonial and imperialist, sensibilities. It therefore differs profoundly from its precursors, which are premised on white supremacist assumptions about the Other which legitimised co...
Far-Flung Families in Film, 2013
Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium
Screening European Heritage, 2016
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Papers by Daniela Berghahn
Daniela Berghahn provides a detailed and entertaining account of the film’s production history and the contests, scandals and debates that surrounded Head-On in the German and Turkish media. She demonstrates that much of the critical reception detracted from Akın’s remarkable artistic achievement because it used the film to address fervently debated socio-political issues such as immigration, integration and the success or failure of multiculturalism.
Berghahn purposely avoids the discourse of Turkish German identity politics and, instead, situates Head-On in the critical contexts of global art cinema and transnational melodrama. Her sophisticated analysis convincingly illustrates that Head-On revitalises the generic conventions of melodrama by drawing on a diverse range of artistic inspirations, ranging from Douglas Sirk over Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Turkish arabesk music and film. This comparative transnational approach excavates new layers of meaning and offers highly original insights into Akın‘s landmark film.
(forthcoming BFI Film Classics, May 2015)
In the age of globalisation, diasporic and other types of transnational family are increasingly represented in films such as East is East, Le Grand Voyage, Almanya – Welcome to Germany, Immigrant Memories, Couscous, When We Leave, Monsoon Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. While there is a significant body of scholarship on the representation of the family in Hollywood cinema, this is the first book to analyse the depiction of Black and Asian British, Maghrebi French and Turkish German families from a comparative transnational perspective.
Drawing on critical concepts from diaspora studies, anthropology, socio-historical research on diasporic families and the burgeoning field of transnational film studies, this book is an essential read for Film Studies scholars and students who are researching families and issues of race and ethnicity in cinema, the media and visual culture.
"Far-Flung Families in Film explores the conflicted tensions sustaining its key terms "diasporic" and "family". Giving full scope to the centrifugal and centripetal forces at work, Daniela Berghahn admirably proves that the 'transnational turn" has energised not only filmmakers, but invigorated debate among the academic community as well." THOMAS ELSAESSER, UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM, AUTHOR OF EUROPEAN CINEMA: FACE TO FACE WITH HOLLYWOOD
"Daniela Berghahn provides a timely, wide-ranging, and engaging analysis of diasporic family films made by key directors from around the world living in Europe and identifies a new European cinema in the new multicultural Europe." HAMID NAFICY, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF AN ACCENTED CINEMA: EXILIC AND DIASPORIC FILMMAKING
‘An important contribution filled with original work and insightful analyses.’ – Randall Halle, Klaus W. Jonas Professor of German Film and Cultural Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA
‘A welcome edition to European cinema studies and a timely contribution to the growing fields of diasporic, migrant and transnational cinemas. This thought-provoking collection, which manages to be both diverse and coherent, will be consulted for years to come.’ – Elizabeth Ezra, Professor of Cinema and Culture, University of Stirling, UK
‘In the first chapter ‘Locating migrant and diasporic cinema in contemporary Europe’ the volume’s editors themselves offer an impressive discussion which achieves a precious reconceptualization of contemporary migrant and diasporic film. … The discussion provides a particularly clear and detailed account which covers extensively the aesthetic, historical and social issues sourrounding hybrid cinema, and it thus constitutes a crucial point of reference for any related project in years to come’ (Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 19:2 2011)
‘European Cinema in Motion is a refreshing and bold contribution to knowledge' (Transnational Cinemas, 2:2, 2011)
'… the volume provides a necessarily multidimensional view on migrant and diasporic film' (Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World, 8:1, 2012)
In this comparative study Daniela Berghahn is able to demonstrate that East German cinema occupies an ambivalent position between German national cinema on the one hand and East European and Soviet cinema on the other. On an imaginary map of national cinemas, German cinema is at the epicentre of the ideological divide between communism and capitalism. The cinema of the divided Germany, therefore, emerges as a microcosm that throws the fault lines of Cold War tensions and ideological contexts into stark relief.
Hollywood behind the Wall addresses issues that have proved central to critical debates on national cinema, but that take a rather specific inflection in the context of Germany's split screen. It examines the signifying practices and narrative strategies employed by East and West German feature films in the construction of nation-building myths and competing national identities.
The book's scope and its critical consideration of archival materials and scholarly literature make it an authoritative compendium for scholars and students in film studies, German studies, cultural studies and modern European history.