Historical Turns (University of California Press, 2024) reassesses Weimar cinema in light of the “crisis of historicism” widely diagnosed by German philosophers in the early twentieth century. Through bold new analyses of five legendary works of German silent cinema—The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Destiny, Rhythm 21, The Holy Mountain, and Metropolis—Nicholas Baer argues that films of the Weimar Republic lent vivid expression to the crisis of historical thinking. With their experiments in cinematic form and style, these modernist films revealed the capacity of the medium to engage with fundamental questions about the philosophy of history. Reconstructing the debates over historicism that unfolded during the initial decades of moving-image culture, Historical Turns proposes a more reflexive mode of historiography and expands the field of film and media philosophy. The book excavates a rich archive of ideas that illuminate our own moment of rapid media transformation and political, economic, and environmental crises around the globe.
Selected Reviews
“Weaving together incisive analyses of philosophical/theoretical treatises and critical films of the Weimar period, Historical Turns offers a potent challenge to contemporary film philosophy and the ‘historical turn’ of film studies in the 1970s. Baer presents a compelling argument that Weimar film vividly engages the crisis of historicism that characterized German thought of the early twentieth century.”—Mary Ann Doane, author of Bigger Than Life: The Close-Up and Scale in the Cinema
“Film and media studies often divides into practices of history and theory, but this ambitious work reminds us that there is a theory of history and a history of theory. In a series of highly original reconsiderations of classics from the silent Weimar cinema, ranging from Caligari and Metropolis to Richter’s abstract film Rhythm 21, Baer demonstrates how cinema staged its own encounter with issues of history in the modern era. His epilogue asks us to consider the way these films offer distant mirrors of our contemporary rethinking of history and media in the Anthropocene.”—Tom Gunning, author of The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity
“Elegantly written and exhaustively researched, this is a remarkable achievement, destined to play a critical role in rethinking questions of history and historiography in cinema and media studies while simultaneously expanding the field of film philosophy.”—Patrice Petro, author of Aftershocks of the New: Feminism and Film History
