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The Demands of Holocaust Representation: Formal Considerations in Margarethe von Trotta's Rosenstraße
Author(s) -
Cormican Muriel
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the german quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.11
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1756-1183
pISSN - 0016-8831
DOI - 10.1111/gequ.10218
Subject(s) - narrative , the holocaust , framing (construction) , german , normalization (sociology) , reflexivity , sociology , aesthetics , representation (politics) , literature , epistemology , psychoanalysis , history , art , philosophy , psychology , linguistics , law , anthropology , political science , politics , theology , archaeology
In this essay, I elucidate formal aspects of Rosenstraße (framing, mise‐en‐scène , cinematography, and narrative conceits), arguing that von Trotta invites viewers to, among other things, reflect critically upon cinematic representations of the Holocaust. With her formal decisions, she comments on Hannah's normalization narrative and invites viewers to question normalization narratives in general. Von Trotta encourages a distanced stance toward the multi‐faceted construction of the story through the way Ruth refuses to narrate, and Hannah insists on seeking her mother's story from another source. A self‐reflexive product, Rosenstraße is not just about two generations of Jewish and German mothers and daughters and their relationships to the Holocaust, Germany, and their German heritage. It is about the normalization discourse itself, the representational process by which atrocities of the past are rationalized, universalized, and de‐emphasized in and for the present. Ultimately, von Trotta reveals and probes both the attractions and omissions any such process would entail.