This is the speech Ms. Schulze from the U.S. Consulate General Hamburg had prepared for the opening of our Undergraduate Conference:
"Dear Ms. Loock,
Dear Professor Rabkin,
Dear students and faculty of the University of Göttingen and the University of Siegen,
On behalf of the U.S. Consulate General in Hamburg I would like to congratulate you on having put together such an impressive conference on a fascinating topic. We are very happy that we were able to support your scholarly exploration of an important genre of American movies as well as the political, social, ecological and cultural background of American society they reflect on. Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment. Going to the movies it still by far the most popular family activity in the United States – movie theaters continue to draw more people than all theme parks and major U.S. sports combined. In fact, there are more than 40,000 screens in the U.S. (including 718 drive-in screens) and in 2008, the number of films produced in the U.S. rose to 610.
As far as the genre you focused on is concerned, the award-winning website Filmsite.org, provides a great summary of the incredible diversity of this genre: “Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters , either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc.” In sum, you picked a great subject with no final frontiers. Let me close with a quote from the 1956 movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” when Dr. Dan Kaufmann (played by Larry Gates), comments on the benefits of being taken over by aliens.
“Desire, ambition, faith – without them life is so simple.”
Thank for your attention and have a great and productive conference."
Dear students and faculty of the University of Göttingen and the University of Siegen,
On behalf of the U.S. Consulate General in Hamburg I would like to congratulate you on having put together such an impressive conference on a fascinating topic. We are very happy that we were able to support your scholarly exploration of an important genre of American movies as well as the political, social, ecological and cultural background of American society they reflect on. Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment. Going to the movies it still by far the most popular family activity in the United States – movie theaters continue to draw more people than all theme parks and major U.S. sports combined. In fact, there are more than 40,000 screens in the U.S. (including 718 drive-in screens) and in 2008, the number of films produced in the U.S. rose to 610.
As far as the genre you focused on is concerned, the award-winning website Filmsite.org, provides a great summary of the incredible diversity of this genre: “Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters , either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc.” In sum, you picked a great subject with no final frontiers. Let me close with a quote from the 1956 movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” when Dr. Dan Kaufmann (played by Larry Gates), comments on the benefits of being taken over by aliens.
“Desire, ambition, faith – without them life is so simple.”
Thank for your attention and have a great and productive conference."
