The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder

Paul Dobryden is an assistant professor in the department of Germanic literatures and languages at the University of Virginia. His book The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder (Northwestern University Press 2022) traces how the environmental effects of industrialization reverberated through the cinema of Germany's Weimar Republic. In the early twentieth century, hygiene encompassed the myriad attempts to create healthy spaces for life and work amid the pollution, disease, accidents, and noise of industrial modernity. Examining classic films—including The Last Laugh, Faust, and Kuhle Wampe—as well as documentaries, cinema architecture, and studio practices, Dobryden demonstrates how cinema envisioned and interrogated hygienic concerns about environmental disorder.