Film Dossiers
FEATURED CLASSICS
The Featured Classics project takes an in-depth look at the history and legacy of several Weimar films that have become part of the global canon. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and Metropolis are considered prototypes of international genre cinema and are usually viewed in isolation from their original context. The present project aims to recover and reconstruct the historical moment in which these classics first emerged. It restores the initial signifying power of these films and their rich resonances, while also charting their appropriations and ongoing presence in contemporary culture.
Drawing on Walter Benjamin's archival approach in The Arcades Project and extending it to the digital era, the dossiers assemble various primary sources, including historical essays and reviews, posters, photographs, and film clips, as well as websites and other online materials. The dossiers allow the archival documents to speak for themselves and enter into dialogue with each other. This method suggests a non-linear, conceptual film history based on juxtaposition and montage. The ever-changing constellations between the past and present spark new insights and invite users to engage with a film's evolving historicity (Geschichtlichkeit). In this way, a dossier represents a film's own dynamic archive that is open to the future.
Each Featured Classics dossier consists of the following six sections:
PRODUCTION & RESTORATION
includes the film's full credits, its production and restoration history, and recommended DVD editions for home viewing;
HISTORICAL ESSAYS & REVIEWS
presents archival documents to reconstruct the historical context of the "timeless" classics and recover buried references lost through time and canonization;
CONCEPTS & CONSTELLATIONS
illuminates some of the key social and philosophical discourses embedded in the films and brings them into dialogue with the present;
RELATED FILMS
provides links to films of the period to illustrate stylistic and thematic traditions;
AFTERLIVES
provides links to remakes, adaptations, and cross-media appropriations;
RECOMMENDED READINGS
provides a brief and up-to-date bibliography in chronological order.