The Old Man and the Glass Booth: Adolf Eichmann and the Migration of an Under- and Overdetermined Iconography

<span class="TextRun SCX21162076" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX21162076">This article discusses the image of Adolf Eichmann, which has haunted the screen ever since his spectacular kidnapping in Argentina. Characterized by a lack of archive...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matthias Steinle
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Associação de Investigadores da Imagem em Movimento 2015-07-01
Series:Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento
Subjects:
Online Access:http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/article/view/161
Description
Summary:<span class="TextRun SCX21162076" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX21162076">This article discusses the image of Adolf Eichmann, which has haunted the screen ever since his spectacular kidnapping in Argentina. Characterized by a lack of archive images from the Nazi era and an abundance of images from the trial in Jerusalem in 1962, the man in the glass booth is an interesting example of the role of archive images in cultural memory and the </span><span class="SpellingError SCX21162076">mediality</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCX21162076"> of history. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCX21162076" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX21162076">Eichmann as a “media phenomenon” is analysed in his different dimensions: first a </span><span class="SpellingError SCX21162076">semiologic</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCX21162076"> study of the two iconic images which became “super signs” of the Holocaust, generating contradictory narratives; then an exhaustive overview of the films produced about Adolf Eichmann with their thematic and narrative approaches; the analysis of three films made after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and their link to German national memory; and finally a discussion of the central motive of the glass booth and its migration toward other filmic contexts, giving Eichmann a wider presence in popular culture.</span></span><span class="EOP SCX21162076"> </span>
ISSN:2183-1750