The Primetime Television Series Luftsprünge (1969–70): Luis Trenker and Transnational Bergfernsehen.

Luftsprünge, a 13-episode television series from 1969-70, represents an early color series. The co-production of the Second German Television (ZDF) and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) not only occupied a prominent broadcasting slot, but also represented a kind of high-quality mainstream program designed to meet the diverse expectations of transnational audiences. Alongside the young Tyrolean ski instructor Toni (Toni Sailer), 77-year-old South Tyrolean Luis Trenker plays the temperamental hotelier and ski school owner Hannes Kogler. In the area of tension between sporting pleasure and tourist work, the light-hearted series strategically brings together atouts from different generations, genres and media sectors. The analysis of Luftsprünge thus explores the question of how television adapts the genre of the mountain film. This adaptation process is closely related to Trenker’s notoriety. Due to his advanced age, he skillfully used the new medium of television from the late 1950s on to change his public image. Luftsprünge is a prime example of this strategy. We argue that the television series takes key elements of the mountain film and remediates the genre according to the advanced age of its protagonist, the affluence achieved in Western Europe, and the changing media landscape. The televisual reappraisal leads to a different mode of representation that deviates from the narrative concerns of the classic mountain film. While earlier mountain films glorified masculinity and self-discipline in the context of conquering pristine mountain peaks, what we call mountain television softens these outdated values by staging the Alps as a site of transnational tourism and tourist labor. Mountain television softens the inherent drama of the mountain film genre, replacing alpine life-and-death struggles with comedy and love stories between the slopes and the hotel. In Luftsprünge, the mountains are no longer conquered, but consumed by relaxed vacationers. Aesthetically, mountain television adopts the conventions of the conventions of the television play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]