Berber in the title role of Dida Ibsens Geschichte (1919) from a promotional still printed in Die Filmwelt (1919). Anno/Austrian National Library.
Dr. Ervin Malakaj, Associate Professor of German Studies and CENES Department Head, published a chapter titled “Managing Scandal: Richard Oswald’s Collaborations with Anita Berber.”
The chapter appeared in the volume Eine Wiener Schule in Berlin, 1900–1933, edited by Elana Shapira.
Abstract
By the mid-1920s, Richard Oswald had established himself as a leading filmmaker in the German film industry. Among the factors supporting his success was an intimate understanding of cinema not as a vehicle for erudite aesthetic experimentation but as a commercial enterprise resonant with the masses.
Drawing on the links between Oswald’s theatre experience in Vienna and the extensive range in his oeuvre that spans different popular cinematic genres in the 1910s and 1920s in Berlin, this chapter examines his interest in and capacity to manage scandal as a means to stimulate mass interest for his creative work.
Collaborations with the performer Anita Berber emerge here not as haphazard relations as much as they were strategic. In deploying a storied collaborator in advertisement materials for his film, Oswald helped shape the infrastructure for producing and marketing popular Weimar cinema.
