Outwitting Censorship: Stylistic Paradigms, Cinematic Techniques and Narrative Strategies of Weimar Queer Cinema

• Main Authors: Yuan-tsai Chen, 陳源材
• Other Authors: Zhen-ya Li
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/km23sh

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 英美語文學系 === 102 === The first gay film in the world, Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919) and the first film adopting lesbianism as the main theme, Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, 1931), were both born in the Weimar Republic of Germany from 1919 to 1933. Thus, Weimar Cinema invented the subgenres of “gay film” and "lesbian film," enriching the main genre of “queer cinema.” This paper introduces the four paradigms, various cinematic techniques and narrative strategies of Weimar Queer Cinema. Through the aspects: “from silent films to talkies,” “from the censorship-free status to the dominance of film censorship,” and “from films with inter-titles to films without inter-titles” and so on, this paper analyzes Weimar gay, lesbian and horror films as well as the films directed by F. W. Murnau. Furthermore, this paper illustrates how the paradigms, techniques and strategies of Weimar Queer Cinema were transformed to outwit Weimar censorship, to inherit the mission of the Weimar queer social movement, to fight against German conservative power’s political, juridical, and religious oppressions over the homosexuals, and to create a new artistic peak of Weimar Cinema.