Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema And The Crisis of Historicism

By Nicholas Baer

"What medium can bring us closer to Ranke's past 'as it actually happened' than film? So what medium is better suited to comment on 'the crisis of historicism'? In this remarkable book, Nicholas Baer exploits to the full the coincidence of the birth of film with the loss of trust in historiography as a discipline after World War I. He does so in a wonderful analysis of the interaction between both while focusing on its historical as well as its systematic aspects."—Frank Ankersmit, author of Sublime Historical Experience

"Elegantly written and exhaustively researched, this is a remarkable achievement, destined to play a critical role in rethinking questions of history and historiography in cinema and media studies while simultaneously expanding the field of film philosophy."—Patrice Petro, author of Aftershocks of the New: Feminism and Film History

Historical Turns reassesses Weimar cinema in light of the "crisis of historicism" widely diagnosed by German philosophers in the early twentieth century. Through bold new analyses of five legendary works of German silent cinema—The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Destiny, Rhythm 21, The Holy Mountain, and Metropolis—Nicholas Baer argues that films of the Weimar Republic lent vivid expression to the crisis of historical thinking. With their experiments in cinematic form and style, these modernist films revealed the capacity of the medium to engage with fundamental questions about the philosophy of history. Reconstructing the debates over historicism that unfolded during the initial decades of moving-image culture, Historical Turns proposes a more reflexive mode of historiography and expands the field of film and media philosophy. The book excavates a rich archive of ideas that illuminate our own moment of rapid media transformation and political, economic, and environmental crises around the globe.

Paperback
272 Pages
University of California Press, 2024 
6 x 9 inches
ISBN 9780520398825
Cinema, Theatre, Historical Criticism