This study examines through textual and contextual analysis how the texts and the biography of Heinrich von Kleist have been appropriated in three West German films since 1975. The author brings to bear at least three areas of expertise - Kleist studies, film semiotics, feminist theory - in a work that closely analyzes Eric Rohmer's Die Marquise von O... , Helma Sanders-Brahms' Heinrich , and Hans Neuenfels' Heinrich Penthesilea von Kleist . Rather than discussing the loyalty of a particular film to the original texts of Kleist, Rhiel looks at each film's discursive construction of authorship and analyzes its participation in the formation of the film's textual and narrative strategies.
"A careful and well-informed analysis of the transposition of literary texts into films. It sheds light on questions of adaptation that have been troubling film scholars for years." (Brigitte Peucker, Yale University)
"Mary Rhiel's 'Re-viewing Kleist' offers a provocative and original reading of Heinrich von Kleist as he and his works have been represented in recent cinema. By situating Kleist within the discourses of feminism and 'new subjectivity' emerging in the 1970s, Rhiel negotiates masterfully a fascinating interchange between textual and intertextual materials. This book is as important for its interpretive and theoretical insights as it is for the questions it raises concerning cultural concerns within contemporary Germany." (David Bathrick, Cornell University)
"Weil es der Verfasserin gelingt, die Vielzahl beachtenswerter Einzelergebnisse stringent auf umfassende Zusammenhänge zu beziehen, sollte ihre Untersuchung eine Grundlage weiterer Auseinandersetzungen mit Verfilmungen Kleistscher Texte werden." (Ulrich Kriest, Germanistik)
"Mary Rhiel's 'Re-viewing Kleist' offers a provocative and original reading of Heinrich von Kleist as he and his works have been represented in recent cinema. By situating Kleist within the discourses of feminism and 'new subjectivity' emerging in the 1970s, Rhiel negotiates masterfully a fascinating interchange between textual and intertextual materials. This book is as important for its interpretive and theoretical insights as it is for the questions it raises concerning cultural concerns within contemporary Germany." (David Bathrick, Cornell University)
"Weil es der Verfasserin gelingt, die Vielzahl beachtenswerter Einzelergebnisse stringent auf umfassende Zusammenhänge zu beziehen, sollte ihre Untersuchung eine Grundlage weiterer Auseinandersetzungen mit Verfilmungen Kleistscher Texte werden." (Ulrich Kriest, Germanistik)