Böcker av Timothy K Conley

Dreaming Vienna begins with a quote from Missouri's Mark Twain on how novels carry their authors away, and a preface from Conley listing 36 kinds of dreams discussed by Vienna's Sigmund Freud. These openers foreground a tension between objective and subjective realities. How, exactly, does one believe a novel or interpret a dream? And what exactly does Vienna symbolize, especially for Americans? In Dreaming Vienna, subjective reactions generally prevail over conventional expectations. Conley is especially adept at painting the shadows and fogs which surround his characters, creating moments of confusion, chaos, despondency, acceptance, and wisdom. Thus, Felix Kulpa ("Happy Fault" in Latin) struggles to find meaning in St. Louis, MO, first in his family's Catholicism, then in philosophical systems, and finally in Vienna where, in a joyous explosion of passionate folly, he dies. Kulpa's experiences resonate. His cousin Victor barely escapes sexual abuse by a priest, but carries scars from Missouri to Vienna, where he "researches the priesthood." The very word, "research" changes meaning as Viennese students quarrel over versions of stories or mock pretentious mentors. There's a carnival feel to large sections of Dreaming Vienna as characters pass near one another without quite meeting--leaving traces, overlapping moods, fragrances, fragments, memories of bickering brothers, a guilt-ridden veteran, snow-covered children and orange-clad streetcleaners. To tour guides, Vienna may symbolize cultural depth, artistic aspiration, and human achievement, but for Conley those interpretations are radically incomplete. Only the gold-tipped cane of the mysterious Herr Winklemann can offer reliable direction; only rugs handmade by a one-armed feminist can keep readers fully warm.

Vienna has been the locale for nearly one hundred and fifty films and television productions in English, from 1920s through the first years of this century, with imaginative representations of Freud, Strauss, Franz Josef, Mozart, Beethoven, and Klimt; mad scientists, assassins, spies, refugees, romantics, and American professors; historical dramas, cartoons, documentaries, and Hitchcock's only musical comedy. The "City of Dreams" has appeared as an imperial court, a center of scientific and medical research, a Jewish and Catholic homeland, a locus of international espionage and domestic crime, the destination for innocents abroad, the birthplace of the waltz, a stage for performances and performers, and the site for romantic rendezvous. For many in English-language audiences, such productions have constituted the most significant representations of Vienna, a city that historically has been the capital of one of Europe's largest empires, one of the most important centers for classical music and opera, both a victim and an accomplice of Nazi Germany, and the home of international diplomacy. Cultural historians and Austrian writers have provided significant commentary on the city, but their influence has seldom reached such an extensive audience as the films and television productions screening Vienna for English-language audiences. Screening Vienna thus analyzes the representation of Vienna and the Viennese in English-language film and television, reviews the critical reception of these productions, and measures the representations against the cultural and historical contexts and the writings of contemporary Austrian writers.The book is unique in its scope (over one hundred and fifty productions from the 1920s to 2013) and in its inclusion of leading reviews of many films, references to cultural and historical studies of Vienna, and references to modern and contemporary Austrian fiction.Thus the analysis is more extensive in its coverage and more intensive in its analysis of each film than any previous study, with a focus on scene, language, plot, characterization, and the reception of these films. Scholars and students in American cultural studies, film studies, Austrian and Viennese history, and popular culture will find the book informative and essential for studies of Vienna in the American and British imagination. Given the extensive coverage and filmography, many libraries should also view the book as a reference work, in addition to its status in cultural and film studies. The book will also be useful for film studies and American popular culture studies courses at advanced or graduate level.