Fannie and Alan Leslie Center for the Humanities at Dartmouth College

Thomas Elsaesser: The Ubiquitously Invisible Walter Reisch

The talk revolves around the largely unrecognzied yet profound contributions of screenwriter and director Walter Reisch, an exiled Austrian and frequent collaborator of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder, to the Hollywood cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. The particular focus of the talk will be The Song of Scheherazade (1947), which Reisch directed. Elsaesser's work is supported by extensive interviews he conducted with Reisch in the late 70s and early 80s. Even though biographical in approach, the talk will have serious theoretical implications for the study of exile and diaspora filmmaking. A public film screening will be organized in conjunction with the talk.

Professor at the University of Amsterdam, and Chair of the Department of Film and Television Studies (1991-2001), now Research Professor, Department of Media and Culture, Thomas Elsaesser's essays on film theory, film genre, film history and television have appeared in well over two hundred collections and anthologies, with essays translated into in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Polish, Slovenian, Czech, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Co-Sponsors: Film and Television Studies, German Studies, Leslie Humanities Center, Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities