Wilder's Dietrich: Witness for the Prosecution in the Context of the Cold War

초록

The two collaborations between Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich-A Foreign Affair (1948) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957)-are landmarks in developing and fixing postwar national stereotypes of Germany in the American collective imagination. Unlike its precursor, however, Witness for the Prosecution speaks specifically to American Cold War anxieties, examining scenarios of betrayal, disloyalty, and duplicity against the national need for transparent, reliable, and morally defensible alliances. Curbing his trademark satiric nihilism, Wilder frames Dietrich's exotic and enigmatic remoteness as an opportunity to confirm the moral integrity and solidity of American Cold War alliances.