94 Besprechungen / Reviews tions of ‹Strandhafer› with the Chinese grave, the dunes where Effi and Crampas pursued their affair, and the site of the duel between Crampas and Instetten - illicit love, banishment, and sacrifice» (133). A special feature of the Rügen narrative is Effi’s and her husband’s excursion to the Herthasee, echoing the name of Effi’s playmate, recalling the legend of the Germanic goddess Hertha with its sacrifice of slaves who witnessed the religious ceremony, and including the two ominous «Opfersteine» that one actually finds there. A photograph reproduces Fontane’s sketch of the geography that leads from the shore to the lake, including the stones (already by Fontane’s time a tourist trap) and his own comment, employing his favorite adjective: «Alles kolossaler Schwindel» (140). Who wouldn’t want to know what Fontane really thought about the «Opfersteine»? With this volume Germanists have an eminently useful reference and interpretive work to press into the hands of students wishing to approach this author. A final question, however, addresses the entire Fontane project. Back during the seven «fat» (or at least «fatter») years, my university library sprang for both post-war West German editions, the Nymphenburger (green) and the Hanser (yellow), where they now occupy considerable shelf space. Although using them when necessary (he cites Meine Kinderjahre twice, once from green and once from yellow - 43, 56), Bade employs the Grosse Brandenburger Ausgabe now produced in Berlin by Aufbau, along with its commentary. The Hanser, at least, certainly aspired to scholarly completion, and I wonder how this new edition, made possible by the Wende, will fare; during these lean years, I surely cannot justify asking my library to buy it. University of Kentucky Michael T. Jones H ANS -M ICHAEL B OCK AND T IM B ERGFELDER (E DS .): The Concise Cinegraph. Encyclopedia of German Cinema. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009. 574 pp. $ 150. The recent interest in German film in the United States has produced a host of publications, among them Sabine Hake’s German National Cinema, Tim Bergfelder’s essay collection The German Cinema Book, Stephen Brockmann’s forthcoming Critical History of German Film, and Reinhard Zachau and Robert Reimer’s German Culture through Film, all of which provide essays on representative German films. Only Robert and Carol Reimer’s Historical Dictionary of German Cinema is an encyclopedia similar to The Concise Cinegraph. The Concise Cinegraph is based on Cinegraph, a German-language encyclopedia published by edition text + kritik in Munich. Cinegraph began in 1984 and consists of biographies and filmographies of actors and directors in German cinema history collected as loose-leaf entries in a ring binder that are updated at regular intervals. The idea for Cinegraph was copied from the Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur (KLG), the benchmark publication for keeping information on contemporary authors current by supplying biannual updates. At forty-eight updates the sister publication Cinegraph now has swollen to eight binders containing more than one thousand biographical entries on nearly twelve thousand pages. It is CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 94 CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 94 19.08.11 17: 57 19.08.11 17: 57 Besprechungen / Reviews 95 the most authoritative and comprehensive encyclopedia on German film. The German Cinegraph also collaborates with the Deutsches Film Institut in Frankfurt to supply information for the website filmportal.de. Hans-Michael Bock, one of the editors of Cinegraph and also of The Concise Cinegraph, developed the Hamburgisches Centrum für Filmforschung as a research institution as part of Cinegraph. The Concise Cinegraph represents a selection of more than twenty-five years of Cinegraph’s data collection. As the editors state, the English-language publication is part of Cinegraph’s international outreach program for «promoting a better understanding of German film history across borders.» (X) In order to condense the more than twelve thousand pages of the original publication to a volume of less than six hundred pages, the lengthy biographies had to be condensed to compact entries for the English-language book. The filmographies constituting the main achievement of this encyclopedia with their impressive detail were not condensed. Another major difference from the German Cinegraph is the attempt to edit the texts for a non-German readership to give a clearer idea of major figures and their positions in German culture. An appendix with short essays on German, Austrian, and Swiss-German film history establishes the context for the biographical data. These essays are accompanied by suggestions for further reading. This edition makes the Cinegraph resources available to English-language students and researchers for the first time. It offers a representative historical overview through biographical entries on major figures in German film from the beginning to the present day. Included are directors, actors, writers, cameramen, composers, production designers, film theorists, critics, producers, distributors, inventors, and manufacturers. The editors chose to include canonical names in their selection, such as Lang, Murnau, Dietrich, Kluge, and Fassbinder, which constitute a starting point for American and British audiences. Beyond the canonical names the book also gives readers the opportunity to discover a wide range of lesser-known names in German cinema. Because of the lack of information on the GDR film in the United States the inclusion of a wide selection of DEFA filmmakers and actors will be especially useful for an American readership. What is missing however for beginning film connoisseurs, is a list of significant German films as Reimer’s Historical Dictionary provides. There is no question that the German database of The Concise Cinegraph established an excellent foundation for this book. In fact, the Cinegraph project constitutes the most reliable information reservoir for German film available today. Its Internet base mentioned above far surpasses in accuracy and scope commonly available resources such as the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), All Movie Guide (AMG), or Wikipedia. The reviewer of The Oxford Times writes that after working with the Cinegraph one only wishes that more German cinema was available on DVD in English-speaking countries. And the film historian Kevin Brownlow remarks that «hardcore information [such as presented in this volume] is incredibly important for film historians and film students and sometimes even the filmmaker.» (VI) For students of German film The Concise Cinegraph will serve as an excellent introduction. However, it would be desirable to add an online English-language database to this book similar to filmportal.de to supplement the current german-films.de or the web portal for the Goethe Institute (www.goethe.de/ kue/ flm/ enindex.htm). CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 95 CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 95 19.08.11 17: 57 19.08.11 17: 57 96 Besprechungen / Reviews Internet-based encyclopedias have the advantage of linking to film clips, an essential element in immediate film appreciation. University of the South Reinhard Zachau CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 96 CG_42_1_s1-96_End_Korr.indd 96 19.08.11 17: 57 19.08.11 17: 57