Word: kracauer
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Does a nation subconsciously reveal itself through the movies it turns out? An expert who thinks so, and has written a book to prove his point, is German-born Dr. Siegfried Kracauer, who apparently knows a good bit about both psychology and German movies. As sociology, Dr. Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler (Princeton University Press; $5) depends pretty heavily on historical hindsight. As movie lore, it may fascinate cinemagoers who know little about German films except that they gave the world Marlene Dietrich, Peter Lorre, Emil Jannings and Director Fritz Lang...
...Kracauer looks at German films for the answer to a hard historical question: Why did the Germans so readily accept Hitler? "Their strange preparedness for the Nazi creed," Dr. Kracauer has concluded, "must have originated in psychological dispositions stronger than any ideological scruples. The films of the pre-Hitler period shed no small light on the psychological situation...
...Composer Offenbach was a Parisian among Parisians, a gay, bespectacled, cane-toting boulevardier, a wit, a capricious poseur. Musically, he was a past master of delightful superficialities. Published last week was his first adequate biography in English,* a carefully documented but humorless and solemn book by ex-Journalist Siegfried Kracauer...