1 - The Stock Exchange as a Space of Modernity and Labour of Representation

Summary

Abstract: Chapter 1 establishes central debates and cultural codes specific to the context of this study – in particular the close association of finance capital with anxieties surrounding France, Jews, and the importance of the historical separation of gambling from speculation. It lays the groundwork for the critical examination of these codes in Weimar cinema. This chapter also lays out two key claims: firstly, that stock exchanges have been overlooked as central spaces of modernity alongside more canonical examples such as the late nineteenth-century shopping arcade, the railroad, the street, and the cinema; and secondly, that financial markets are engaged in the creation of an image of the world – a labour of representation – the history of which parallels the development of the cinema itself.

Keywords: Speculation and Gambling, Finance Capital, Imperial Germany, Architecture and Urban Space, Modernity and Cinema, Nineteenth- Century Globalization

The Stock Exchange as a Space of Modernity

Introduction

Before moving to a discussion of the cinema of the Weimar Republic, the primary goal of this chapter will be to show how the stock exchange should be considered a central space of modernity within the ranks of other key spaces, such as the cinema and the arcade, that have been outlined in the introduction. In order to do this, I will begin in the nineteenth century and describe some of the salient architectural and historical features of German exchanges and, in particular, the ways in which the official exchanges interacted with both the unofficial Winkelbörsen (‘bucket shops’) and the space of the city, and Berlin in particular. I show how this architectural and spatial history intersects with cultural codes and practices surrounding gambling, speculation and the production of the boundaries of the nation itself. I will then discuss how, already in the nineteenth century, the spatial and cultural practice surrounding financial activity constituted a vast labour of representation – the creation of an image of the world economy and its inhabitants – to which the films under discussion in later chapters would become a part. This groundwork provides the essential cultural context in which the tropes and codes of the films and texts examined in later chapters become suddenly and vividly legible. In addressing these key developments of the nineteenth century, I also aim to recount a history of spaces and spatial practices that have been overlooked within the discourse of modernity and the city.