| My dissertation examines the street concept in a spatial context in the cinematic representation of Berlin from the era of the Weimar Republic to the present. The dissertation will provide a close reading of the street trope as cinematic means. One major goal is to examine how postwar German cinema relies on the attraction of the cinematic street. The street trope has been the focus of much attention in prewar German culture, when modernity transformed urban streets into a visual spectacle. The scarcity of research on the street concept in postwar German culture, however, does not correlate with the "spatial turn", the new significance of spatiality in social and cultural studies. The street concept and various extensions, such as borders and public transportation, enable me to analyze and reassess spatiality, national identity, transnational culture and mobility. I will reveal how postwar German films revive the phenomenon of the observer-wanderer in the streets of the modern city, the 'flaneur', and place it well beyond the setting of modernity. The 'flaneur' serves as a tool for filmmakers to often critically highlight a potential tension between a changing city and its inhabitants. Moreover, the street trope mirrors social structures and developments. The case of Berlin's urban space is particularly illuminating considering the city's changing roles in the 20th Century from the capital of imperial Germany to the new capital of a reunited Germany. Streets, urban grids, squares, and representational spaces have always played a conspicuous role in Berlin's self-inventions.Among the main arguments in my project is the revelation of a significant tension between the city's desired image by urban planners, investors and politicians, and its subsequent cinematic representations. Based on the works by theorists of space such as Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, my project applies spatial theories on Berlin with a focus on the street, and on the tension between global and local space. In times of globalization, cultural productions have often used the local street to juxtapose a local idyll to an increasingly estranged surrounding area. |
