People on Sunday

Menschen am Sonntag

Jon Hughes

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English

BFI Publishing
15 May 2025

Film theory & criticism; Film movie guides & reviews

Series: BFI Film Classics

Directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, and with a script by Billy Wilder, People on Sunday

(Menschen am Sonntag) (1930) is now widely recognised as a landmark of Weimar cinema, which influenced Italian Neorealism and the New Wave cinemas of the 1960s, and set the template for ‘indie’ filmmaking as we now know it. This is the first study in English of this multi-faceted film, which not only launched the careers of renowned filmmakers, but which continues to influence contemporary culture, with references to it in popular television (Babylon Berlin), a playful remake, and a new score by experimental pop group Múm. Jon Hughes' study places the film in its historical context – Berlin in the Weimar Republic – and untangles the fascinating story of the making of People on Sunday, drawing on new archival research to challenge some of the misconceptions that surround it. Hughes provides fresh interpretations of the film’s depiction of space and its play with contemporary gender and sexual politics, and situates it within both Weimar cinema and the later output of the filmmakers.

By: Jon Hughes
Imprint: BFI Publishing
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 188mm, Width: 134mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 166g
ISBN: 9781839027550
ISBN 10: 183902755X
Series: BFI Film Classics
Pages: 104
Publication Date: 15 May 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. ‘Just like that. Without a studio. Without money’: Making People on Sunday 2. ‘A film without actors’? Reality and Fiction in People on Sunday 3. Time and Space in People on Sunday 4. Gender and Sexuality in People on Sunday 5. ‘Say Cheese!’ Photography and the Human Face in People on Sunday 6. ‘This little film is simply perfect’: The Critical Reception and Legacies of People on Sunday Credits Bibliography

Jon Hughes a Reader in German and Cultural Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and the author of Max Schmeling and the Making of a National Hero in Twentieth-Century Germany, (2017) and Facing Modernity: Fragmentation, Culture and Identity in Joseph Roth’s Writing of the 1920s (2006).