New Austrian Film

Van Dassanowsky (German and film studies, U. of Colorado) and Speck (film studies, Virginia Commonwealth U.) present a collection of 27 essays that provide methodologically and stylistically variable explorations of the "New Austrian Film" (which is not strictly defined, but seems to have emerged largely in the 1980s and become established in the 1990s). The contributions include close readings and psychological studies, sociopolitical and semiotic analyses, and formalistic examination and impressionistic reportage and interview, among other approaches. Among the film makers that receive sustained attention are Barbara Albert, Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Gotz Spielmann, Michael Glawogger, and Hubert Sauper. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Robert von Dassanowsky is Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and also works as an independent film producer. He is the author of Austrian Cinema: A History (2005), the first English language survey of that nation's film art. Other books include The Nameable and the Unnameable: Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s "Der Schwierige" Revisited (co-ed., 2011), Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metafilm (ed., 2012), World Film Locations: Vienna (ed., 2012), and Screening Transcendence: Film Under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope 1933–38 (2014).