Abstracts
Sixth Annual Conference on Austrian Literature and Culture
"Visions and Visionaries in Literature and Film of Modern Austria"
October 2001

Mary Wauchope, San Diego State University
"Perception and Identity in 38: Vienna Before the Fall

The film 38: Vienna Before the Fall (Wolfgang Glück, 1986) deals with the interrelationship of identity and perception. It shows how the Characters perceptions of themselves as Austrians contribute to their blindness to the significance ofthe events leading up to the Anschluß. The film also challenges its audience to reassess its own postwar image of Austria and its Third Reich past. While the film presents nostalgic images of an Austria of music andBaroque gardens, these images are seen to mask the "other Austria" to which thefilm's original German title Das war auch Wien refers. Through hindsight, the audience is aware of the meanings of events in the film, which the characters either misunderstandor choose to ignore. Watchingthe characters passively march toward their tragic end in spite of the many obvious warnings, the viewer is moved to recognize an aspect of Austria the characters do not want to see. Particularly effective is the function of the film's soundtrack in this film about the "land of music" to highlight the role of music in coloring perceptions.

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