The Film Explainer

By Gert Hofmann

It is the early 1930s in Limbach, an industrial village suffering from the depression. Karl Hofmann narrates silent movies at the local cinema. The job pays poorly and is largely unnecessary, as the films have subtitles and the crowds are small, but Karl sees himself as an artist: he is convinced only his explanation will make the movies accessible to the ever-shrinking audience. When the "talkies" arrive and he loses his job after a quarrel with the Jewish theater owner, Karl loses his sense of purpose and joins the Nazi Party--the first step toward his horrible end.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810112930
• ISBN13: 9780810112933
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

This book deserves more attention

This book has so much to recommend it. The really outstanding thing is the child narrator's voice - it's always exactly appropriate to the child's purported age. Nothing precocious - only what the child could really know and say.