Framing Totalitarianism: Language and Film in 1930s Nazi Germany

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My doctoral research examines the structural relationship between language and film in 1930s Nazi Germany. This thesis demonstrates the interdependence of language and film, elucidating the more complex mechanisms by which a totalitarian regime used the two most widespread means of communication for ideological coercion. By examining the language of public discourse and policy, and selected films including Luis Trenker's fables, Leni Riefenstahl's documentaries, and Veit Harlan's epics, the research demonstrates the different ways in which natural language was structurally manipulated in the public sphere and then transferred into film language, where it attained its maximum ideological effect. This effect goes beyond propaganda, constituting the aesthetics of negation: the visual manifestation of the inherently negative totalitarian ideology of the regime. This research will contribute to Linguistics and Film Studies by being the first to examine how language and film structurally interacted in 1930s Nazi Germany. The thesis will offer a more comprehensive understanding of how totalitarianism operated in the public sphere, providing a basis for further research on how we understand totalitarianism, from obvious totalitarian models to more implicit applications of totalitarian principles in language and film today.