A terrific film. Blau Jeans is colorful, controversial, and full of life, and it is a great introduction to the joys and pains of modern Germany’s uncertain engagement with America, all seen through the sparkling lens of Berlin, the German city where that relationship has — for better or worse — mattered most. The film weaves together remarkable archival footage with revealing and provocative present-day interviews from ordinary and not-so-ordinary Germans. It all adds up to a picture that does justice both to the vibrant contemporary scene in Berlin and to the long shadows of history that, to this day, still shape German-American relations. An artful and sensitive documentary in its own right, Blau Jeans is also an unusually effective presentation, at once engaging and serious, for younger audiences that have not grown up with the Cold War and the grim imagery of the Berlin Wall burned into their minds as basic, inescapable facts of European daily life. All in all, a superb teaching tool.
Prof. Patrick Patterson
Department of History, University of California, San Diego
Enlightening, On what Germans think about America and why.
Rolf Schütte
Consul General of San Francisco
The American experience is quite familiar with the colorful blending of cultures brought by the historical maze of ships arriving from foreign lands. Meaghan’s film leads us on a new journey through painfully touching scenarios and interviews with various local German experts faced with confronting their own melting pot of Bratwerst and Denim.
Corey Boutilier
Journalist, IndependentFilm.com
A perceptive documentary about the new, young generation in Germany and how it has adapted many of the characteristics of its American contemporaries. Meaghan spent enough time living in Germany to watch its young people and observe how they live, and convey what she saw into a film that informs her audiences. It is an excellent teaching tool for informing classes about the differences and similarities in two different cultures.
Sumner Jules Glimcher
Professor Emeritus, NYU
Once an American student lands in Europe, he/she is surprised for the American cultural influence on the Old World: fast foods, music, clothes etc. Blau Jeans — an essential, well-constructed documentary — helps to introduce students to the cultural and symbolic heart of Europe: Berlin. Then the course starts.
Pierluca Birindelli
Cultural Globalization: a Euro-American Perspective, Gonzaga University in Florence