To aid in the selection of video's for your class and research needs, we've created a large number of filmographies on many subject areas. If you'd like to suggest a new filmography or ask that an existing one be updated, please contact mediaservices@american.edu.
Anthropology and American Studies
Art and Art History
Business and Public Administration
Communications and Journalism
Economics
Education
Film Studies, Film Genres and National Cinema
Foreign Languages and Area and Regional Studies
Health and Fitness
History
International Service, US Foreign Policy and Peace and Conflict
Jewish Studies
Justice and Law
Literature
Math, Statistics and Computer Science
Performing Arts
Philosophy and Religion
Physical Sciences and Environmental Science
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Women's and Gender Studies
Titles available as of December 2009.
This is a selective list of video holdings in the American University Library. Filmographies are created by doing multiple keyword searches in the ALADIN catalog to capture as many titles on a topic as possible. For complete up-to-date holdings please refer to the library ALADIN catalog (www.catalog.wrlc.org)
Related Titles:
Burden of dreams. USA. 1982. (95 min.). Goes behind the scenes in the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man's attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. Filmmaker Les Blank captured the production, made perilous by Herzog's determination not to use models or special effects. DVD 1766, VHS 1838
Cinema Europe: the other Hollywood. UK. 1995. (360 min.) Pt. 1: focuses on the earliest beginnings of film in France, Denmark, Italy, Great Britain and Germany and how the advent of World War I changed the direction of the burgeoning film industry. Pt. 3: examines the German filmmaking technique which flourished after World War I, providing an escape from the harsh conditions suffered by the German people directly after the war. Pt. 6: examines the impact of the advent of sound in motion pictures on the silent film industries of Britain, France and Germany and the first sound motion pictures produced in these countries. It concludes with the new Nazi regime of Germany in 1933 and the mass exodus of Jews from Germany which enriched the film industries of France, the U.S. and England.
The Damned = Götterdämmerung. Germany. 1969. (146 min.). Beginning on the night of the Reichstag fire in February 1933 and ending shortly after th infamous 'Night of the Long Knives' in June 1934, the film follows a German family's decline as the Nazi party rises. Dirk Bogarde stars as a scheming businessman who makes a murderous, Macbeth-like move to take over a steelworks and munitions empire on the eve of Hitler's ruthless campaign to eliminate all opposition. VHS 3957
France, Germany and Scandinavia. (114 min.). 2x50 years of French cinema' laments the way that cinema has been forgotten. It is a work of sadness, but also of mischievous and quirky humor. 'Night of the filmmakers' is an hallucinatory excursion into virtual realities. A stellar assembly of filmmakers are brought together to discuss Germancinema, including Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlondorff and Leni Riefenstahl. In 'I am curious, film' actress Lena Nyman is Bjorkman's guide on a journey through Nordic cinema history, attempting to discover the special elements of Swedish, Danish, Norweigian, Finnish, and Icelandic cinema. Her journey is richly illustrated with film clips and includes conversations with filmmakers such as Lars von Trier, Stefan Jarl, Liv Ullman and Aki Kaurismaki. VHS 7232
The haunted screen: German film after World War One : a film essay. Germany. 2000. (60 min.). In this film essay, critic Peter Buchka explores the German cinema of the 1920s, ranging from the disquieting images of Fritz Lang's Metropolis to the castrating sexuality of Marlene Dietrich in Die Blaue Engel. The program provides an introduction to Weimar cinema, with Buchka's essay narrated over the images from film clips of 1920s-era German films. VHS 6426
Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin. Austria. 2002. (87 min.). The astonishing true story of Hitler's private secretary coming to terms with working for unspeakable evil after remaining silent for nearly 60 years. Traudl Junge was Adolf Hitler's secretary from 1942 until the end of the war. He dictated his last will and testament to her. She refused to speak publicly about her memories, keeping silent about her life, her trials and tribulations, until now, the end of her life. DVD 647
Kolberg. Germany. 1945. (118 min.). Three years in the making, film is one of the Third Reich's most ambitious spectaculars as it re-creates the true story of a Prussian town's rebellion against Napoleon's army of the occupation. Laced with National Socialist ideology, the film is a mirror of Nazi Germany'sown war for survival during the final years of World War II. In its characterizations of Kolberg's besieged citizenry, the epic allegorically reflects the spirit of fanatical resolve to fight on that Nazi propaganda was attempting to instill in the German populace. VHS 6068
The wonderful, horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl. France/UK/Germany/Belgium. 1993. (188 min.). Interviews with Leni Riefenstahl, now in her nineties, flash- backs and modern film sequences tell the story of the most famous woman film director of all time. Known for her films made during the Third Reich, Riefenstahl's story is a controversial one. Best known for her film Triumph of the will, the film made of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress, it proved to be her undoing. DVD 731
Other German Language Titles:
Dog days = Hundstage. Austria. 2001. [2004]. (121 min.). Through six intertwined narratives, Austrian director Ulrich Seidel weaves together extravagantly sordid tales of everyday people in suburban Austria during a heat wave. DVD 850
The educators AKA Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei! Austria. 2004. [130 min.]. Three radical activists like to make their point by breaking into the homes of the wealthy, rearranging their belongings and leaving cryptic messages. When one such break-in goes wrong, they are forced to kidnap a wealthy businessman. DVD 2349
Europa = Zentropa. Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany/Switzerland. 1991. (112 min.). In this Hitchcock-like thriller, Leo Kessler, an American visiting devastated postwar Germany, is seduced by a beautiful woman and suddenly finds himself caught in a never-ending web of mystery and intrigue. VHS 5762
Europa Europa. Germany/France/Poland. 1990. (115 min.). The true story of a Jewish teenager who survived World War II by living as a Nazi for 7 years and through 3 countries. VHS 2030
Free radicals = Böse Zellen. Austria. 2003. (120 min.). Austrian housewife Manu narrowly escapes from an airplane accident only to die six years later in a car accident. The results of the accident transform Manu's young family, the lives of the teenagers in the other car, and the entire community. The film explores the Butterfly Effect and the randomness of fate. DVD 1262
Workingman's death. Austria. 2005. (122 min.). Glawdogger deconstructs contemporary conceptions of work - by showcasing six of the most grueling and dangerous professions he could find. At once a rejoinder to those predicting the death of manual labour and a ground-level lesson on globalization, the film makes the efforts of these impoverished men something heroic. They represent a forgotten kind of courage. All of this work is captured in Glawogger’s characteristic stunning compositions, with an eye for the harsh grandeur of elemental and industrial environments. DVD 3645