The Trenker Film

The Emperor of California combines the rugged travails of a man as well as his economic success. Prior to learning about the genre of Trenker films, I watched the movie in terms of it being a Western and a Nazi film. The Western aspects were obvious; the landscape, the danger faced by the characters, and the political strife surrounding gold mining all point to the Western Genre. The Nazi cinema aspects of the film are more difficult to detect. I would argue that Nazi ideals come into play at the end of the film when the life Sutter has created for himself and thousands of foreigners is destroyed because of individual greed. As a group of hard working laborers they survived, as individual thieves they were destroyed.

As a Trenker film, it is also interesting to note that in the end, Sutter does not return to his Heimat; rather, his sons are killed and everything he has worked for is destroyed. This could speak to the idea that Sutter should have returned home rather than attempt to keep the land for himself. Other aspects of the “Trenker” genre are also obvious in the film. The viewer sees Sutter take control of the situation when a traveling partner passes out and Sutter also takes to the mountains to find water. It is clear why Sutter was idealized by the German nation; the ease with which he scales the mountain is admirable and he conquers the western landscape with ease. While there are Nazi themes that can be extracted from the film, the aspects of the Trenker film are clearer. Although Sutter does not return to his Heimat, the movie puts forth the idea that he probably should have rather than staying on the land.