Der Herrscher (The Sovereign) is a fascinating film for a variety of reasons. The popular idea of cinema in the Third Reich is that is that every film was rife with propaganda. In fact, most films of the period were purely escapist fare, with minimal propaganda content. When propaganda was present, it often took the form of allegory (as in Kolberg), rather than speechifying or preaching. (more…)
Tag: Derek Hawthorne
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4,361 words
Sex and Religion
D. H. Lawrence argues that through the sex act, individuals participate in some kind of mysterious power running through nature. But does this momentary experience have any kind of long-term effect on them? Lawrence directly addresses this question. When the sex act is over, he writes, “The two individuals are separate again. But are they as they were before? Is the air the same after a thunderstorm as before? No. The air is as it were new, fresh, tingling with newness. (more…)
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4,925 words
D. H. Lawrence is best known to the general public as a writer of sexy books. In his own time, his treatment of sex made him notorious and caused him to run afoul of the authorities on a number of occasions. I have no desire to rehearse in detail the well-known history of Lawrence’s troubles with censorship, (more…)
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4,086 words
The Origin of Evil
D. H. Lawrence believed in the reality of evil, but he believed that its source lay in the human soul. “Abstraction is the only evil,” he wrote.[1] By abstraction he does not refer to the process of making generalizations or forming concepts. Instead, he means the tendency of human beings to abstract themselves from feeling, from intuition, from nature, and from the present. Abstraction is fundamentally evil, for Lawrence, because it makes most of humanity’s crimes possible. (more…)
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August 13, 2013 Derek Hawthorne
D. H. Lawrence’s Critique of Idealism
3,603 words
“We are now in the last stages of idealism,” Lawrence writes in Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, and he goes on to claim that psychoanalysis is conducting us through those last stages.[1] Furthermore, he also tells us that idealism is “the one besetting sin of the human race.”[2] What does Lawrence mean by idealism, and why is he so opposed to it?
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Lawrence and Psychoanalysis
Without question, the most unusual books D. H. Lawrence ever produced were his two “psychological” works: Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1921) and, especially, Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922). These texts are absolutely crucial for understanding Lawrence, for in them he sets forth an entire philosophy.
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Many people consider F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: Song of Two Humans (1927) to be the greatest film of the silent era. But most are unaware that it was remade under Hitler as Die Reise nach Tilsit (1939), and directed by the notorious Veit Harlan.
Both films were based upon a novella – titled Die Reise nach Tilsit (The Journey to Tilsit) – by Hermann Sudermann. (more…)
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August 31, 2012 Derek Hawthorne
Nacionalismo & Racialismo na Filosofia Alemã:
Fichte, Hegel & os RomânticosEnglish original here
1 – Fichte e o Destino da Nação Alemã
J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), o primeiro dos grandes idealistas alemães pós-kantianos, é uma figura importante na ascensão do nacionalismo alemão – e tem sido muitas vezes acusado de ser um dos pais fundadores do Nacional-Socialismo.
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4,354 words
Portuguese translation here
1. Fichte and the Destiny of the German Nation
J. G. Fichte (1762–1814), the first of the great post-Kantian German Idealists, is an important figure in the rise of German nationalism – and has often been accused of being one of the founding fathers of National Socialism.
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6,105 words
1. Introduction
I learned about Opfergang from an unlikely source: a documentary on the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. In one segment he is shown browsing in Kim’s Video in Manhattan (at its old location on St. Mark’s Place). As he does throughout the documentary, Žižek engages in a kind of frantic monologue, and at one point he names his three favorite films: King Vidor’s The Fountainhead (this really surprised me), Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, and Veit Harlan’s Opfergang. (more…)
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Editor’s Note:
This is the fourth and final part (for now) of Derek Hawthorne’s series on the German “mountain films” of the 1920s and 30s. See the author’s review of North Face for an overview of this genre, its principal characteristics, and why it should interest readers of Counter-Currents.
1. Introduction: From Vertical to Horizontal
S.O.S. Iceberg is not a mountain film. (more…)
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Part 4 of 4
11. Death on Mont Blanc
Act III of Storm over Mont Blanc begins in the aftermath of the death of Hella Armstrong’s father. Hella and Prof. Armstrong had come to visit Hannes, the lonely Wetterwart, atop Mont Blanc. (more…)
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Part 3 of 4
7. Ascending and Descending
Storm over Mont Blanc divides neatly into three acts. (more…)