Neue Bücher, neue Texte (2) – "The German Western beyond Karl May" in "Crossing Frontiers"

Anfang März 2012 ist im Marburger Schüren-Verlag der englischsprachige Sammelband "Crossing Frontiers" erschienen, der sich mit "Intercultural Perspectives on the Western" beschäftigt. Der von Thomas Klein, Ivo Ritzer und Peter W. Schulze herausgegebene Band basiert auf Vorträgen, die auf dem internationalen Symposium "The Western – Intercultural Perspectives” gehalten wurden, das an der Mainzer Johannes Gutenberg-Universität am 20. und 21. November 2009 vom Seminar für Filmwissenschaft/Mediendramaturgie und dem Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien ausgerichtet wurde.
In dem Buch werden Western-Varianten aus Europa, Lateinamerika, Afrika, Australien und Asien aus film- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive untersucht und "herausgearbeitet, wie Western-Elemente in sehr unterschiedlicher Weise zur Geltung kommen, um nationalspezifische Kulturmuster und Kommunikationszusammenhänge zu verhandeln" (Klappentext). Der Preis ist mit 24,90 Euro für eine filmwissenschaftliche Veröffentlichung angemessen, die Vielfalt der behandelten Themen hebt den Band auch im internationalen Publikationsrahmen über den Durchschnitt. Mein Artikel "The German Western beyond Karl May" findet sich auf den Seiten 58-76.

Das Inhaltsverzeichnis und eine Leseprobe sind hier über die Verlagsseite einzusehen.

Als weitere Information hier der englische Abstract meines Artikels:

Harald Steinwender: The German Western beyond Karl May. In: Klein, Thomas / Ritzer, Ivo / Schulze, Peter W. [Eds.]: Crossing Frontiers. Intercultural Perspectives on the Western. Marburg 2012 [= Marburger Schriften zur Medienforschung, Bd. 22], S. 58-76.

Abstract:

When in 1962 Harald Reinl’s "Der Schatz im Silbersee" became a smash-hit, this success seemed to arrive out of the blue. But Reinl's colorful epic, shot in Yugoslavia, was by no means the first German western. German westerns appeared as early as the silent era, starting with one-reelers set in the Wild West as well as feature films, amongst them Arthur Wellin’s two-part Leatherstocking-adaptation shot near Berlin and starring Bela Lugosi as Chingachgook ("Lederstrumpfs Abenteuer – 1. Der Wildtöter" / "Lederstrumpf – 2. Der letzte Mohikaner"; 1920). Tassilo Schneider refers to the "Isar-Western" of the 1920s, German western serials shot near the river Isar. Even the National Socialist rule saw some westerns, with the popular actor Hans Albers and films about the gold rush of 1849: Luis Trenker’s "Der Kaiser von Kalifornien" (1936), "Wasser für Canitoga" (1937; Herbert Selpin) and Paul Verhoeven’s "Gold in New Frisco" (1939). And while the offshoots of Reinl’s first Western regularly appeared on screen during the 1960s there were also – in addition to the sometimes West-German co-produced Italian westerns – new German efforts in the genre like the Friedrich Gerstäcker-adaptations "Die Flusspiraten vom Mississippi" (1964; Jürgen Roland) and "Die Goldsucher von Arkansas" (1964; Paul Martin) as well as the CinemaScope-westerns die "Schwarzen Adler von Santa Fe" (1965; Ernst Hofbauer), "Der letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz" (1964; Rolf Olsen) and "Sie nannten ihn Gringo" (1965; Roy Rowland). In the early 1970s even auteurs and directors of the New German Film like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Roland Klick perused the genre with quasi-westerns such as "Whity" (1970) and "Deadlock" (1970), with Fassbinder shooting in the actual sets of the first Sergio Leone-western. But parallel to the genre’s use as a vessel for formal experiments, melodrama and Brechtian distancing effects, the German western lost its popular appeal.

In this paper I will give a history of the western genre in (West-) Germany that will not solely focus on the oft-discussed Karl May westerns, but include neglected genre-entries. It will outline the stylistic and thematic departures from the US-western as well as from the Italian-Spanish westerns. I will argue that these “Europeanized” genre films are on the one hand prime examples of a transformative cultural transfer. The signs of American popular culture and the syntax and the semantics of the genre were re-interpreted according to national norms and codes and transformed into films aimed at German audiences. I will also argue that there have been multiple interactions between the development of the western genre in the US and in Europe, as well as certain local traditions. One significant influence on the Hollywood-western was American landscape photography, itself affected by the panorama paintings of the German-American Albert Bierstadt. On the other hand, the fixation of the German western on Native Americans (contrary to the Italian westerns) seems to root in the ethnographic inspired "Völkerschauen" of Carl Hagenbeck in the late 19th century.