Rice film series to feature East German ‘Westerns’

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

As part of its film series ”Kino-Dienstag,” the Department of German Studies will screen three films made in the former East Germany that are set in the U.S. West. This semester, the series focuses on “Westerns From the Wild East: Re-writing the Hollywood Genre in East Germany of the 1960s and the 1970s.”

	All three films that will be shown deal with traditional Western themes, which gained popularity among younger audiences behind the Iron Curtain.

All three films that will be shown deal with traditional Western themes, which gained popularity among younger audiences behind the Iron Curtain. Like the famous spaghetti Westerns, these films were created far from the American West by Communist East Germany’s legendary DEFA Film Studios. Turning the traditional American cowboy movies on their head, these stories make the Native Americans the heroes and cast the U.S. Army and white settlers as villains. The films are thus examples for the quick adaptation of the classical Hollywood genre for ideological purposes in the heyday of the Cold War.

The first film, “The Sons of Great Bear” (Joseph Mach, 1964), will be shown Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. in Rayzor Hall, Room 123. On Oct. 4, the series will feature “Chingachgook: The Great Sneak” (R. Groschopp, 1967) at 7 p.m. in the Humanities Building, Room 117. The series ends Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. with “Apaches” (Gottfried Kolditz, 1973), also in the Humanities Building, Room 117.

The series is free and open to Rice students, faculty and staff. All films will be shown in their original German with English subtitles.

For more information, contact Beverly Konzem at german@rice.edu.