Jacqueline Vansant, University of Michigan, Dearborn

Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hollywood’s Austria

When Maria von Trapp watched the final scene of The Sound of Music as “her” family escaped into Switzerland, she allegedly exclaimed, “Don’t they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not border on Switzerland!” (quoted in Hirsch 1993:75). Questioned later on set design in general, director Robert Wise blithely replied, “In Hollywood you make your own geography” (quoted in Hirsch 1993: 75). One could just as easily say, “In Hollywood you make your own Austria.” But as Hollywood is not know for its accuracy, to state that Hollywood representations of Austria stray from the historical reality is certainly not a startling revelation.

Likewise, international screen representations of Austria are equally removed from reality. Indeed, Hollywood’s “Austria” shares many characteristics with international screen representations of Austria, most particularly the central role of music in the narrative and the preference for turn-of-the-century Austria as the backdrop for the screen stories. Internationally and domestically, Austria, and Vienna in particular, is seen as the home of fictional and historical composers and a place of gaiety, music, and love. Nonetheless, Hollywood’s constructions of the former empire and its citizens have a unique quality, which is perhaps most evident in those films in which celluloid Americans find themselves in Austria.

I propose to look at three Hollywood films with three very distinct Austrias. In the 1932 film Evenings for Sale by Stuart Walker, Austria is a haven of romance and fantasy; in the 1937 film Champagne Waltz by A. Edward Sutherland Austria appears the home of a rich musical tradition endangered by a foreign influence; and in the 1948 film The Emperor Waltz by Billy Wilder Austria is a pretentious dinosaur and morally bankrupt. To understand the complexity of Hollywood’s Austria, its uniqueness, and the influence of cultural and historical contexts, I focus on the protagonists’ purpose for travel, their interaction with Austria and its citizens, and the knowledge gained.

The anthropologist James Clifford writes:

“Travel” […] is an inclusive term embracing a range of more or less voluntarist practices of leaving “home” to go to some “other” place. The displacement takes place for the purpose of gain—material, spiritual, scientific. It involves obtaining knowledge and/or having an “experience” (exciting, edifying, pleasurable, estranging, broadening). (1997, 66)

In this paper, I attempt to answer the following questions: Why do these Americans leave home and go to Austria, what do they hope to gain, and what do they go home with?

In Evenings for Sale, the female protagonist travels to Austria in search of romance. In Champagne Waltz and in The Emperor Waltz, the male protagonists travel to Austria solely for material reasons. In each of these films, the original purpose of the American protagonists’ trip changes to a more profound one. The female discovers her true self and the men find true love. If we look more closely at these journeys, we will see that they ultimately reveal commentary on the United States and on Austria.

My investigation will extend the discussion of the role Austria has played historically in Central Europe to the role Austria has played in the American imagination in Hollywood.