DISMANTLING THE DREAM FACTORY

...convincing in its arguments, Baers Dismantling the Dream Factory is a nicely structured work that offers a good mixture of historiography and close analysis. Baer effectively draws on contemporary press and advertising materials to highlight extradiegetic discourses surrounding the films, particularly to show how they made their appeals to female viewers. Baers book is clearly and accessibly written, making it equally useful for teaching purposes and for more advanced scholars of German cinema. German Quarterly Baer has written an original critical view of German cinema after WWII...Unique to this study is Baers attempt to ground her inquiry in gender theory...The result is a book that reopens the era by examining it from a fresh angle. Baer supports this important study with well-chosen stills. Choice This is a great book, well grounded in the critical literature and contemporary archival sources. The author has an extraordinary eye for detail in her close readings of the films and a profound understanding of the interplay between the diegetic and extra-diegetic elements that make up the meaning of a given film text, as she ranges from discussion of the use of sound to the marketing strategies employed to sell the films under investigation, all of which is located in a detailed understanding of the broader historical context and the German national trauma of the time. Scope ...[a] fascinating study...[that] makes a major contribution to a burgeoning field dedicated to the investigation of what was once dismissed. Monatshefte ...makes a significant and original contribution, is well researched as well as written, and would lend itself conveniently to the teaching of any of these films...[It] bring[s] to bear theories from Anglo-American film studies as well as German cultural studies and history. The result is a felicitous mixture of theory, cultural-historical context, and informed film re