ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the cinematic representation of the destroyed, the ruined, and the divided city and relates films about war and postwar moments to the conditions for production in destroyed, occupied, and divided film industries. In order to capture and put analytical pressure on the relationship of historical conditions of destruction and their aesthetic manifestations, the chapter is organized around the figure of the ruin on the one hand and the spatial topography of the divided city on the other. Ruins can have two different functions, which are rooted in distinct traditions: on the one hand, they mark precise historical moments, for example in the rubble film of the immediate German postwar moment. In these films from 1946-48, Berlin in ruins becomes the site for
negotiating guilt, redemption, and rebuilding in regard to the Holocaust and the Second World War. On the other hand, ruins as a postmodern cipher invoke historical moments and iconic images but empty them of their historical and geographical specificity in what I call the retro-rubble film.10 Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen (1991) and Lars van Trier’s Zentropa (1991) are postmodern fantasy reworkings of the city in ruins that conjure up iconic images of war-torn urbanity but without being bound by historical accuracy. The latter half of this chapter deals with films about divided cities, which in contrast to rubble films do not constitute a cycle. Instead, the topography of division relates to films set in a relatively small number of cities that represent political and historical anomalies, and here the chapter focuses on films about Berlin, Beirut, and Belfast.
