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September 03, 2007

L.A. EVENT - WWII GERMAN EMIGRE ARTISTS IN LA

USC Libraries writes in to let us know about this fascinating event which is open to the public.  You can RSVP by contacting Michaela Ullmann at 213-740-8185 or via email.  Details herewith:

The USC Libraries and the Pacific Palisades-based Villa Aurora will host the Feuchtwanger & Film conference from September 5-7. Film and literature academics from Europe and the United States will gather to investigate film adaptations of works by the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger and other prominent exiles who settled in Los Angeles after fleeing Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 40s. Sponsored by the International Feuchtwanger Society and the USC Libraries, the conference will explore the many contributions of German émigrés who helped to transform L.A. into a global center for culture and the arts.

Austrian Consul Bernhard Faustenhammer said, "I am very satisfied to be able to lend my support to Feuchtwanger and Film. It is an outstanding opportunity for international scholars to take a fresh look at the sizable contributions made by German-speaking émigrés such as Lion Feuchtwanger and Franz Werfel to the culture of the western United States and—through the wide distribution of Hollywood's productions—to the world.”

German Consul Lars Leymann said, “We welcome the opportunity to facilitate a greater awareness of a significant period of German-American relations. There could be no better location imaginable for the conference than the ‘movie capital of the world.’”

German émigrés from the World-War-II era worked for Hollywood studios as writers, directors and musical composers. Ironically, German-exile actors found roles as Nazis in Allied propaganda movies. The émigrés brought considerable knowledge and experience from the Weimar-era German film industry, influencing American film productions and assisting with the war effort.

The Southern California exile community also included some of the best-known German artists and intellectuals of the early 20th century. Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Fritz Lang, Arnold Schoenberg, Theodor Adorno and other prominent émigrés frequently gathered at the home of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, which soon became known as Villa Aurora. There, they exchanged ideas about art and politics with American writers, musicians and filmmakers.

The intellectual ferment made Los Angeles a postwar destination for European academics and artists. Instead of viewing America through the lens of New York, they increasingly took note of L.A.’s cultural significance. Over the next decades, this helped to establish the global reputation of the city’s museums, universities and creative professions. In addition, German émigrés shaped the film-noir aesthetic that furnished some of L.A.’s most iconic cultural imagery.

The Feuchtwanger & Film conference will draw an international audience to USC’s Doheny Memorial Library—home of Lion Feuchtwanger’s correspondence and personal collection of rare books—and the Villa Aurora. Panelists will discuss how the novels of Feuchtwanger, Alfred Döblin, Anna Seghers and other émigrés were adapted to film—as well as the powerful influence of the film medium on their literary work. The conference will feature screenings, a literary reading and presentations about everything from exiled German writers in Hollywood to 1970s East German film and television productions based on Feuchtwanger’s work.

Feuchtwanger began his career as a theater critic in Germany before winning international recognition for “Jud Süss,” his 1925 historical novel condemning anti-Semitism. He escaped imprisonment by the Nazis with the help of his wife Marta and the U.S. vice consul Hiram Bingham and emigrated to Los Angeles in 1941. As a celebrated novelist, Feuchtwanger assisted other German-Jewish and antifascist writers with income from the film rights to his books. In addition, he worked closely with Charlotte Dieterle and the European Film Fund, which helped German exiles find positions with American film studios during the 1940s.

The USC Libraries and Villa Aurora last hosted the biennial conference in 2003. The event is intended to increase awareness about the life and work of the Feuchtwangers and other German exiles.

Feuchtwanger & Film will take place September 5 – 7, 2007 at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library and the Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades. Throughout the conference, an exhibit of film posters and other rare materials will be on display in USC’s Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, which houses the personal archives of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, Heinrich Mann, Hanns Eisler, Ludwig Marcuse and other prominent Los Angeles-area émigrés.

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