- Title Pages
- Author’s Note
-
Introduction Individualist in a Totalitarian State -
1 The Father -
2 The Son -
3 Youth Culture -
4 Lights, Camera, Action -
5 Kunz versus Cohn -
6 The Interview -
7 Telling Others How to Act -
8 Learning the Alphabet -
9 Prestige -
10 Politics -
11 The Girl in the Water -
12 Adultery -
13 The Trap -
14 The Catastrophe of Success -
15 Blood and Soil -
16 The German Soul -
17 Frenzy -
18 Opfergang -
19 Perseverance -
20 In the Ruins of the Reich -
21 The Trial -
22 The Second Trial -
23 Heimatfilm Noir -
24 Exile -
25 Youth Culture Revisited -
26 Exhaustion - Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
-
Appendix Quotes on Harlan - Bibliography
- Index
- Series Information
- Plates
The Girl in the Water
The Girl in the Water
- Chapter:
- (p.118) 11 The Girl in the Water
- Source:
- Veit Harlan
- Author(s):
Frank Noack
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
This chapter deals with the debut of Swedish actress Kristina Söderbaum in Nazi cinema and her impact on Harlan’s life. After choosing her to play the female lead in Jugend (Youth, 1938), the adaptation of the play that had provided him with his breakthrough in the theater, he not only falls in love with and marries her but also chooses her to be the dominant presence in his future films. In the play, the character Söderbaum plays is shot, but in the film she drowns herself, earning her the nickname “Reich’s Water Corpse.” In Jugend and in its follow-up Verwehte Spuren (Lost traces, 1938), Harlan directs her in a sadistic and often voyeuristic manner. Thematically, both films are more personal than Harlan’s previous ones. They deal with the early loss of parents, inherited sin, incest, religious dogma, and distrust in a relationship. Both are costume films set in the previous century and, despite their apolitical nature, are admired by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.
Keywords: Jugend, Adolf Hitler, drowning, incest, Joseph Goebbels, Kristina Söderbaum, Reich’s Water Corpse, sadism, religious dogma, theater adaptation, voyeurism, Verwehte Spuren
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- Title Pages
- Author’s Note
-
Introduction Individualist in a Totalitarian State -
1 The Father -
2 The Son -
3 Youth Culture -
4 Lights, Camera, Action -
5 Kunz versus Cohn -
6 The Interview -
7 Telling Others How to Act -
8 Learning the Alphabet -
9 Prestige -
10 Politics -
11 The Girl in the Water -
12 Adultery -
13 The Trap -
14 The Catastrophe of Success -
15 Blood and Soil -
16 The German Soul -
17 Frenzy -
18 Opfergang -
19 Perseverance -
20 In the Ruins of the Reich -
21 The Trial -
22 The Second Trial -
23 Heimatfilm Noir -
24 Exile -
25 Youth Culture Revisited -
26 Exhaustion - Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
-
Appendix Quotes on Harlan - Bibliography
- Index
- Series Information
- Plates