Gegen die Wand

For all you movie buffs, here's one of the films we missed out on this week. "Gegen die Wand" or "Head On"(2004) is a film written and directed by Fatih Akin, a German director of Turkish descent. It shows a more multicultural Germany and the prominent Turkish culture and population which exists there. It's a film concerning search for belonging, tragedy, and ultimately love (though certainly not the kind you find in Hollywood!)

Here's the trailer. Enjoy!

Post-Wende Films: A Comparison of "Good Bye, Lenin!" and "The Lives of Others"

I found this article on MUSE that you all might be interested in. It compares the two highly influential post-Wende (after the  fall of the Berlin wall) films, "Good Bye, Lenin!", which we saw this week, and "The Lives of Others." While both were filmed within the last 10 years and focus on the former GDR and  German unification, this article observes how the films differ greatly "in cinematic strategies, ideological positioning of the spectator, and the narrative function of gender."


Most interesting for me was the discussion on gender and how it created alternate views of the former East.


While the narrative and cinematic organization of The Lives of Others provide the viewer with an ideologically distinct, nostalgic reconstruction of a Cold War narrative of the GDR, in which the female protagonist and the GDR are clearly vilified, Good Bye, Lenin!’s narrative and cinematic strategies position the viewer as simultaneously sympathetic and critical, constructing the female protagonist as the site of contradiction between real existing socialism and the utopian impulse at its heart.

Goodbye Lenin Flash Site

Hey guys! While browsing around the internet looking for something interesting to read about Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye Lenin, I came across this nifty site!



Along with having bits about the cast and director himself, there's a "Director's Note" section which I found particularly interesting. The first section, "An Important Character of German History," is as follows:

I was fascinated by the idea of a son trying to save his mother's life, trying to keep death at bay with a lie and getting more and more entangled in his lie about an East Germany that no longer exists, and that he wants to make his mother continue to believe in. This is something that's universal and could be totally separated from this specific past, this whole East German story and the fall of the Wall and reunification. I was excited by the idea of combining both aspects and relating an important character of German history as well, or least having it as a background. That's what's so wonderful about this topic. It's a slice of German history, but it's told incidentally and not placed in the forefront of the story.

He also gave little snippets of insight into other aspects of the film.
--each of the main characters
--The Narrative Quality of Props
--A West German Take on an East German Topic
--Use of Existing Archival News Material
--On Comedy
--Tragicomic Element
--Bad Luck on the Set
and X Filme

If any of these topics spark your interest, I'd suggest checking out the site. The graphics are cool, the quotes are short, and all that beguiling jazz.

A note from Wolfgang Petersen

This was included in the uncut edition of Das Boot that I have:

My vision for Das Boot was always to show the gritty and terrible reality of war, and to combine it with a highly entertaining story and fast-paced action style that would pull audiences into the experience of these young men out there. The mini-series represents my complete version of that experience. Thanks to new technology, Das Boot now comes even closer to revealing the shocking realities of life in a U-boat-- the way it sounded, the way it felt, the way it affected people so strongly-- and I think that this DVD presentation of the fully restored, six-hour miniseries will be even more shocking and affecting for audiences.

Just to extend a little on what I talked about in class on Tuesday.

Haneke's Take on Inner Violence

Seems we’re not the only ones without the appetite for Haneke.

An interview between Lawrence Chua and Michael Haneke starts with the sentence: “After seeing my first Michael Haneke film, I left the theater sick to my stomach.”



The violence in his films, La Pianiste at the forefront of my mind here, stands out the most. Violence against others, violence against the self, violence as an expression of love, of confusion, of feeling lost – violence as the only true form of expression.

One of his other films, Benny’s Video, contains themes of violent imagery obsession and a disconnect from any moral sense of reality. I found this, also, to be true in La Pianiste. The main character had long since been dreaming of being beaten up, and was a self-proclaimed personage of no emotions. This disconnect from her emotions probably is what drove her to such lengths as cutting herself (which was a horrendously greusome scene, I might add), and eventually stabbing herself in the heart.
Quite the literal metaphor.
I obviously haven’t checked out the majority of Haneke’s films. But if this turns out to be a frequently recurrent set of themes (as I have a hankering it is), it makes me wonder if Haneke himself was in a similar state of mind.

He brings up a German expression, “destroy the things that have destroyed you,” even though it turns out that they have built those things themselves. This German tendency to self destruction is personified in the character of Erika, the piano teacher. Through her, Haneke is exposing a darker part of the German character than just the collective propensity to fascism –he is exposing the darkness within the individual.

Side note for Ashley: Haneke mentions in this interview that he thinks that the piano is often used to hide the flaws in a film.

To cheer everyone up

So true! maybe it's not just German Films....
Anywho, between the depressing Rent Boys, the twisted La Pianist, the nihilist Fitzcarraldo and Maria Braun, I felt the need to cheer everyone up. Here are some uplifting things for everyone to watch, even if they have almost nothing to do with the course.

Extr@ auf Deutsch-This is the first part of the first episode of a great show the intermediate German II class has been watching, about an American visiting his pen pal in Berlin. It is pretty funny, but unfortunately, in German with German subtitles. However, it is pretty easy, and with the subtitles, if you have some german knowledge, you can do it! Sorry to anyone who doesn't speak german.

Keinohrhasen

a romantic-comedy (apparently Germans can do it without making you want to cry, go figure! haha) about a Paparazzi journalist who gets sentenced to community service working in a kindergarten, where he falls in love with the teacher. I might add, this has the funniest ending to a movie I've seen in a long time. 

Amelie

a french film starring the woman from "The DaVinci Code", about a quirky woman and her life as a Parisian waitress. 

Sorry, but I felt this had to be done. Everyone needs to laugh sometimes.

And now back to your regularly scheduled depressing German programming. ;-) haha

P.s. Feel free to add comments with other more positive things

On a lighter note: Goodbye Lenin!

Here is another movie I love that treats of the Est-West separation but in a much lighter way. A woman falls into a coma a little before the fall of the wall , when she eventually wakes up, the world she is in is nothing like the world she left. In the hospital room, the doctors tell her son to avoid any shocking situation as she might die this time. He therefore decides to reconstitute life as it was before the fall of the wall. Here is a preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIjSaHUKD5I

Das Leben der Anderen

     Spree Day being in the way, we did not have time to discuss last weeks movie. Even though I am guessing most of you have already seen it, lets refresh our memories with a brief summary. The story is set in East Berlin six years before the fall of the Wall. Captain Wiesler, a zealous and devoted Stazi officer is given the mission to spy on a prolific East German writer named Georg Dreyman. Dreyman is being suspected of collaborating with the West and of helping fellow artists that are opposed to the regime. Wiesler a lonely and dull man, spends his days listening to Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa-Maria (she is the real trigger for the investigation on Dreyman, in fact, the Culture Minister is infatuated with her and wants to get rid of Dreyman for that reason). He eventually gets attached to the couple and decides to not only ignore the numerous insinuations of treason but he also goes as far as protecting them. His efforts will not save Christa-Maria but the writer gets away free of charge. Eventually, Wiesler's actions are suspected by his superiors and he is retrograded to the lowest post possible. However, after the wall has collapsed and the surveillance files are open to the public, Dreyman discovers the truth and decides to write a novel about the man who saved his life. 

      This movie is remarkable for several reasons. The tension is palpable from end to finish and the viewer gets sincerely attached to the morbid Wiesler character. However, what makes it really stand out is its account on human nature. It shows that no matter what the greater cause is, personal gain and human greed are the motivation of many political actions. The minister is a perfect example of that. Dreyman would've been left alone if it was not for the minister interest in Christa-Maria. Also, the fact that the minister is able to comfortably reposition himself in the government makes the whole, East-West conflict almost a risible political issue, instead it becomes more a coq match between men of power whose only interest is to maintain this power. This of course can be tied to our discussion on Adorno and Horkheimer: the ruling minority uses the good of the people as an excuse for personal gain. Feel free to elaborate on that!

The Dialectic of Enlightment

Friends, I feel like it is that time of the year, we can not avoid it any longer... We have to talk about the Dialectic of Enlightenment, also referred to as the most depressing and pessimistic essay of all time.  Adorno and Horkheimer's text may make you wonder if any of the choices you ever made in your life are actually your own. It might also make you feel like any of the taste you may have are the consequence of the domination mainstream media has over all of society. It will finally make you feel like every illusion of freedom of thought you may have has actually been implemented by the dominant minority that rules the world and that makes sure that you (as the proletarian majority) remains in servitude. Finally, if you are a Jazz fan there simply is no way out for you.
Despite the slight will to hang yourself you might feel after reading it, the essay makes great observations about society and the way it works. This is why I will try to go over some of the main points that are being conveyed by citing some of their most relevant comments.

"Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed."
"...the basis on which technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic hold over society is greatest."
"...any trace of spontaneity from the public in official broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent scouts, studio competitions and official programs of every kind selected by professionals. Talented performers belong to the industry long before it displays them."
(talking about entertainment such as film, radio and television) "The man with leisure has to accept what the culture manufacturers offer him. Kant’s formalism still expected a contribution from the individual, who was thought to relate the varied experiences of the senses to fundamental concepts; but industry robs the individual of his function. Its prime service to the customer is to do his schematising for him."
This is a very interesting part of the essay that directly relates to us because it treats of film: "The details are interchangeable. ... the hero’s momentary fall from grace (which he accepts as good sport), the rough treatment which the beloved gets from the male star,..., are, like all the other details, ready-made clichés to be slotted in anywhere; they never do anything more than fulfil the purpose allotted them in the overall plan. Their whole raison d’être is to confirm it by being its constituent parts. As soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished, or forgotten(...) Though concerned exclusively with effects, it crushes their insubordination and makes them subserve the formula, which replaces the work."
"In the culture industry this imitation finally becomes absolute. Having ceased to be anything but style, it reveals the latter’s secret: obedience to the social hierarchy". 


You get the general picture: repetition in film, popular music or television shows contribute to giving a false impression of reality and therefore make the masses easier to manipulate. By making the 99 percent believe in a reality that matches fiction, the dominant class can keep its hegemony. In fact, it feeds the masses, through media, with images of what it wants them to believe what constitutes happiness. The system works and soon the masses become blind to their servile state and their lack of freedom. Overall, this is how the two author justify the reason why Marxism failed and probably will always fail: people have been convinced to think that materialistic good and the comfort it brings are sufficient and more important than class equality and social justice.


If you are interested in reading the whole article, it is called Cultural Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception. 
Here's the link: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm

Die Weisse Band (2009)

More film recommendations...

I was reminded by Daphne's post of this film I saw a few years ago in a German course. If you've ever seen any of Michael Haneke's films, you won't be surprised to know that this one is especially bizarre and creepy... and quite a commentary on the pre-war German life.

Die Weisse Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (The White Ribbon, A German Children's Story) follows the lives of the citizens of a suppressed Protestant north German village, Eichwald, in a period just before World War I (July 1913-August 1914). Strange murders, gorey deaths, and suicides accompany intense sexual and physical abuse of the children in the town.

In Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Julia Evers called the film "an oppressive and impressive moral painting, in which neither the audience nor the people in the village find an escape and a valve from the web of authority, hierarchy and violence. [...] Everything in The White Ribbon is true. And that is why it is so difficult to bear."

I often try to avoid the Kracauer-ian analysis, but it is easy to suppose that Haneke created with this film a prequel to the story of Nazi Germany. It is fairly easy to predict that the dark, abused, oppressed 14 year-old boy growing up under violent authoritarianism (his father was an abusive pastor) in 1913 could have made an excellent violent, authoritarian Nazi in his 30's. Haneke comments on the allusion of the film to Nazism.

A must-see, I think.

Napola

Those in the Intermediate German class will have watched this recently during an evening film screening. "Napola," or "Before the Fall" as its English title goes by, is a film about an elite school for boys in Nazi Germany and the boy Friedrich Weimer's struggle to find acceptance and success in its harsh environment. I saw it for the first time several years ago and it remains a favourite of mine and something you all should see. Dennis Gansel directs, though his best known film is "The Wave" based on a adolescent novel.

Perhaps the most touching part of the film is the close, semi-homoerotic relationship that Friedrich (Max Riemelt) forms with Albrecht (Tom Schilling), another boy at the elite school. Their friendship exists despite immense differences in their personalities and forces within the school that threaten to tear them apart. Ultimately, this friendship leads Friedrich to discover that Napola is not all he had thought it to be and that he in fact rejects many of the school's teachings. Here's the trailer for those that are interested, as well as one of the more touching scenes with Friedrich and Albrecht.

The Piano Teacher

Tis the season for film recommendations. After reading Arianna's post, I have a few more films I think you all might enjoy. We'll just choose one to start with. As Arianna mentioned in the comments, "The Piano Teacher" or "La Pianiste" is another superb piece directed by Michael Haneke that captures obsession, sexual repression, and the human condition of loneliness and suffering. I don't know what it is about the insane artist completely consumed with their work, but this seems to a theme popping up in many on the films I've viewed recently. Proving herself to be one of the best actresses of our time, Isabelle Huppert is marvelous in the role of the masochistic piano teacher and really brings the character to life. Haneke is quoted saying "[Huppert] has such professionalism, the way she is able to represent suffering. At one end you have the extreme of her suffering and then you have her icy intellectualism. No other actor can combine the two."

Take a look at the trailer here. Music plays an important role in the film, the music being that composed by Schubert and Schumann with some of the songs even containing German lyrics (see, there's still the German connection and this post, therefore, does not deviate completely from the purpose of this blog!). I'll warn you however, this film is seriously disturbing. Know that before casually loading it on Netflix some evening.

Funny Games

This post was inevitable, right?

I picked up a copy of the American version years ago, watched it sometime last semester. (It should be noted you need to kind of be in the right mood for this film. Like, totally down for a disturbing night. So it took me quite a while to get around to it.) Now with a bit of German under my belt I decided to watch it auf Deutsch.
For those who don't know, this is a film by Michael Haneke first made in Germany in '97 then remade shot-by-shot with American actors - Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Brady Corbet & Michael Pitt.

I'm currently watching the last 15 minutes and it is making just as little sense as the American version. I literally have no idea what you are thinking, Haneke! But it's perfect. I don't think there's enough written about this by real film scholars. There are some so-so reviews. This one is good but I am utterly unfamiliar with this "Brechtian" influence.
It all makes a lot more sense with some thought and this interview, but at surface value the style of this film just kills me. And the perfection of the shot-by-shot remake is incredible.

My mom watched this because she loves really sick horror films - but she didn't really like it that much or appreciate it. I was only ever interested in it for two reasons - the fact it was a shot by shot remake, and the fact that Michael Pitt is in it. I called her up after I watched it the first time and went on and on about the self-reflexivity and how confused I was about the whole ending. She didn't get it. But anyone who has ever taken a film class should be intrigued by this film.

Also, I really, really love the opening sequence.

PS
The most curious thing ever - I watched this streaming on Netflix and you know how when you scroll backwards it goes frame by frame? Well, it was suddenly Michael Pitt and Naomi Watts even though I'm watching the German version. WHAT?!

interview with Rosa Van Praunheim on Rent Boys

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,747267,00.html

Rent Boys

Rent Boys is a documentary directed Rosa Van Praunheim and a particularly complicated film to digest. It introduces its viewers to the often dark lives of "Rent Boys" boys that hustle or sell their bodies. The film begins with the "Zoo" and other rent boy spots around West Berlin, but then makes its way into Romania attempting to explore the complex relationship that seems to exist between the sex trade immigrant poverty. There is no doubt that this film keeps with Van Praunheim's theme of gay rights, especially AIDS awareness, but it also falls in some ways into doubt as a form of exploitation. The work of activists is featured, but to a degree it can be said that he pursues the drama of individual characters as well as presents shocking scenes that could very well alienate a large portion of the viewer demographic. This feature is counter intuitive to the idea of documentary for awareness. However towards the end of the film the stories told, work create a extensive view of that life is like and exactly what elements are at work that keep "hustling" alive in todays society.

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

Kuzniar also discusses at length Praunheim's film, "Ich bin meine eigene Frau" (1993), which tells the astonishing story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1928-2002), who apparently lived fairly openly as a gay transvestite in the Nazi era, in the German Democratic Republic, and in newly unified Germany.

Here you get a sense of the cadences of the "real" Charlotte:

After Praunheim's film, the American playwright Doug Wright wrote an important play also called "I Am My Own Wife," which further complicated the story:

It turns out very little of Mahlsdorf's story can be corroborated, which made it seem like it was possible that she wasn't such a hero after all ... But Kuzniar's discussion of how Rosa von Praunheim's film prevents the spectator from feeling that he or she really "knows" Mahlsdorf suggests that Praunheim's film anticipates these kinds of concerns.

"Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sonder die Situation, in der er lebt" (1971)

Alice Kuzniar talks at length about this important film, arguably the first gay activist film worldwide. The improbable title means, "It's not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives."

I have a rare English copy of the video, but I can't find it!!! Ack! Here is a clip from youtube without subtitles. Even if you don't know German, you should be able to recognize two voice overs. The first is a regular narrator who explains that Daniel, the protagonist who is making his way through the gay world, has taken up with a rich man. Then comes the shrill voice over of the Marxist sociologist Martin Dannecker, denouncing wealthy "faggots" for their willingness to use their class privilege to exploit others.

Rosa von Praunheim's Webpage

Here's Rosa's webpage!

Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo

The title of Rosa's film, "Rent Boys, Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo," alludes to a famous film about prostitution at West Berlin's main train station (Bahnhof Zoo), "Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" [We Children of Bahnhof Zoo]. It was released in English as "Christiane F."

Wim Wenders for the Record

I shared some of this information in class today, but for those of you who were absent or just want the information for your own record, here are a few tidbits about the life and career of Wim Wenders!

Born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders in Dusseldorf (1945), there is little current information about hist childhood. Between 1963 and 1965 he studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg. After a few short years he dropped out of university and moved to Paris with the intention of becoming a painter. By '67 he had developed a fascination with cinema however, and after rejection from French national film school, he moved back to Germany and enrolled in “Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München”.

Between 1967 and 1970 he worked as a film critic for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Twen Magazine and Der Spiegel. His film career would take of in the early '70s and he would emerge as one of the most influential figures of the New German Cinema along with directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. Characterized as the “existentialist” of New German Cinema, his films combine Hollywood with elements of counter-cinema and explore states of consciousness-loneliness, yearning, irresolution and anxiety. Many of his films also look at the impact of American culture on Germany. His notable movies include The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972), Alice of the Cities (1974), Kings of the Road (1976), Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987). In 1975 he was even able to establish his own production company "Road Movies" in Berlin.

Desolate landscapes and open roads would play a role in many of Wenders' films. He also had an affinity for American culture. This fascination, as well as his successes in Germany, afforded him the opportunity to take on American Cinema (of course the significantly more money there was to be made in America was likely a factor as well).

Wenders' notable documentaries include Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and, most recently, Pina (2011), an incredible look into the world of dance. Both earned him Oscar nominations. For a more complete look at Wenders' life and work, take a gander at his official website.

A few questions on the Weber text

Here are a few of the questions I had last week for our speaker but that I was unfortunately unable to answer. If maybe some of you guys can help me answer them it would be great!


My first question is about the plane example on page three and the idea that with modernity there is an accessibility that was unthinkable barely a century ago. This idea can be extended to internet and social media of course. My question was if maybe he could extend on that concept and tie it to some of the main ideas of the Franfurt School, notably the concept that modernity is what keeps the lower classes enslaved to the dominant minority.

Secondly, this is more of an observation. It seems that Heidegger's idea of shadows is very close to Althusser's concept of Ideology and the idea that the Truth is never accessible because it is wrapped in Ideology, just as Truth is here covered with shadows. 


Finally, on page 92, Weber refers to a quote made by Benjamin were he claims that the spectator of a movie is an absentminded one. What do you think of this claim, especially since we are taking a course about German cinema and intellectualizing the movies that we watch? Do you believe this refers to every type of cinema? 

Into the Abyss

Sophie listed Herzog's films in an early post. The most recent is "Into the Abyss," about death row inmates in the United States. It got a very positive review in the New York Times.

A.O. Scott, the reviewer, links it to some of the films we have been discussing:

Mr. Herzog is an excellent listener, a quality that distinguishes his recent documentaries, notably “Grizzly Man,” “Encounters at the End of the World” and “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” All of those, come to think of it, could have been called “Into the Abyss” — the title would also suit “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and just about anything else starring Klaus Kinski — and this film is linked to its predecessors by a fascination with human behavior in extremis. What is most disconcerting for an American viewer is how close to home the extremity is, as if the heart of darkness lurked among your friends and neighbors.

Natassja Kinski (born 1961)

Klaus Kinski's daughter Natassja continued in the provocative, scandalous, outrageous footsteps of her father for a while. This poster, taken when she was 20, adorned many a college wall in the 1980s.
At 15, she had an affair with the acclaimed director Roman Polanski (right about the time he had to flee the United States on charges of statutory rape with another underaged girl). She eventually broke with her father and did not attend his funeral. In the 1990s she lived with Jazz musician Quincy Jones; they had a child together. She has been in 60 films, most recently with a cameo in David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006).

Music from Fitzcarraldo

As I noted in an earlier post, Herzog has quite a history of involvement in the musical arts. He directed 14 operas during his career, and even though he has noted on several occasions that Fitzcarraldo is primarily a visual movie, the music is still a major focus.
The music of the film is done primarily by the German Band Popol Vuh (who broke up in 2001). Popol Vuh, who take their name from an Ancient Mayan story and are described as "electronic avantgarde," partnered with Herzog on a number of films, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Cobra Verde, Heart of Glass, and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (in which group founder and keyboardist Florian Fricke appears on screen).

Here is the link to an interesting analysis of the role of music in Herzog's films: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3557489

If you are interested in hearing some more of Popol Vuh's music, here is a playlist that someone created on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=AL94UKMTqg-9C1qv5ar77lBehMBF7UHC7Y

The Making of Fitzcarraldo

Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, the film of the week, has an interesting production background. The inspiration for the film was a real-life Peruvian rubber baron from the 1890s, Carlos Fermin Fizcarrald. Fizcarrald also managed to drag a tanker over a hill between two rivers (like what happens in the film), but unlike in the film, Fizcarrald disassembled his ship and dragged it across in smaller pieces, then reassembled it when every piece had crossed.


The most famous scene from this film is undoubtedly the part where a 320-ton steamship over a hill without using any special effects. Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".


Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.

The part of Fitzcarraldo himself was particularly difficult to cast due to issues with the various actors that were involved. Originally the part was played by Jason Robards, but after 40 percent of the filming was finished, Robards came down with dysentery and was forbidden by doctors to return to set. Herzog attempted to get Jack Nicholson and even considered playing the role himself before it was accepted by the German actor Klaus Kinski.


Kinski was born in 1926 in Zoppot in the Free City of Danzig (now Poland). He is half Polish and half German. In 1943, he was conscripted into the German army. He actually deserted and was captured by the British army and sent to a POW camp in England. In the camp, he got his first taste of acting in camp theatrical productions. He returned to Germany in 1946, and acted with a small theatrical troupe, but was fired for unpredictable behavior. He was jobless in Vienna until the early 1950s, when he began playing small parts in both German and American films. His big break came when he partnered with Werner Herzog for five films: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), Woyzeck (1978), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and finally Cobra Verde (1987). Ironically, Kinski was a huge source of tension on the set of Fitzcarraldo, arguing constantly with Herzog and various crew members and angering local people who were living in the areas of Peru where filming took place. Herzog was obviously not deterred by this behavior, however, because he continued to work with Kinski for another film (Cobra Verde, 1987).

Fitzcarraldo Literature

After watching Fitzcarraldo, I was left with the vague feeling that he was a very self--centered character.
Sure, he remembered the armchair for the pig, and he wanted to bring Opera to the masses so they could experience the joy that he did -- but he exploited his undefined partnership with Molly to fund his whims. When she asked if he loved her, he gave an indirect answer. She would gaze longingly at him, but he would always seem to be somewhere else...
Another example of his (probably unintended and unconscious) self-centered-ness is when the native died in the attempt to move the ship up the mountain. He ignored the warnings and continued jumping around, and didn't even seem that upset until he wasn't able to get the rest of the tribe to stop staring at the river.

This movie was very different from the others that we've watched so far in class, so I took the liberty of searching through a few Jstor articles for interesting sections to share with you guys.

From Gitlin's review of the film:
After rumors spread that Werner Herzog was going to work them to the bone and steal their land, even boil them down into lard, angry Amazonian Indians drove him and his crew from their first encampment.

In one memorable sequence, late in the film, Herzog fulminates against the very Nature he went halfway around the world to find. Just as the Romantic idetfies with Nature's unspoiled qualities, its wildness or peace, now the thwarted Herzog inverts the image, and some decidedly unpretty themes leap out of the German past: "I see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and rotting. The trees here are in misery. the birds here are in misery - they don't sing, they just shriek in pain. Erotic? No! There is an overwhelming fornication! There is a curse on this landscape, and whoever goes too deep into t has a share of this curse! We are cursed for what we are doing here! It is a land that god, if He exists, has created in anger!

(He goes on about the lack or order and harmony, but you get the point. Herzog was not a fan of the Amazon. This quote reminds me of the other articles we've read about the underlying fixation with eroticism in Germany.)

[About the sacrifice of the ship to the angry river god] The conquistador has met his match; he has defeated nature but been defeated nevertheless. Momentarily, he's crushed.

From Davis and Jenkins' Exotic and Perverse

Both the historical figure of Fitzcarraldo and Herzog himself were brutally motivated aliens penetrating deep inside a strangely vibrant environment. It is not accidental that the maps of the region, shown in close-up three times during the course of the film, suggest fertility symbols, nor that Fitzcarraldo is given precisely nine months to exploit the jungle's natural resources.

(See the similarities?)

There are a number of disturbing similarities between Fitzcarraldo and Herzog's relations to Indian affairs. They both used the Indians to drag a ship over a hill. They both took Indians from a variety of areas to work a long way from home. They both paid the Indians very little. In short, they both exploited the indigenous people for personal gain...Herzog himself underwent the hazards faced by his protagonist, sharing the same mental and physical agony.

Without scripts or cutting-room access, the Indians souls are literally stolen in the sense that their image can now be flashed onto a screen anywhere in the world without their knowledge and without them having any say in how they are portrayed, or even how their occasionally subtitled speech is interpreted.

(Related to Walter Benjamin, perhaps?)


From Koepnick's Colonial Forestry

[The film] staged a colonial enterprise destined to fail due to the hero's inability to escape his Western imagination, to relate to the semantic multiplicity of the jungle, and to demarcate the kind of boundaries that provide for personal and collective identities in the first place.

Werner Herzog

Here's a little background on Werner Herzog, the director of this week's film, Fitzcarraldo.


Herzog was born Werner Herzog Stipetić in 1942 in Munich, Germany. His family moved to a Bavarian village after their house was destroyed during bombing late in WWII. His father abandoned the family early in his life: however, Herzog chose to adopt his father's last name later in life because he thought it sounded more impressive for a filmmaker.
Herzog studied at the University of Munich despite earning a scholarship to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In the early 1960s, Herzog worked nightshifts as a welder in a steel factory to help fund his first films. He has spoken of how, even before leaving school, he bought a house in the UK, in what was likely the Moss Side area of Manchester, relating how it was there that he learned to speak English.

Herzog has been married three times and has three children. In 1967, he married Martje Grohmann, with whom he had a son in 1973, Rudolph Amos Achmed, who is a film producer and director as well as the author of several non-fiction books.


Herzog has a prolific filmography that includes both documentary and fiction feature films. They include:

• Signs of Life (1968)
• Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
• Fata Morgana (1972)
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
• Heart of Glass (1976)
• Stroszek (1977)
• Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
• Woyzeck (1979)
• Fitzcarraldo (1982)
• Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)
• Cobra Verde (1987)
• Scream of Stone (1991)
• Invincible (2001)
• The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
• Rescue Dawn (2007)
• Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)

His documentary work includes these films:

• The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969)
• Handicapped Future (1971)
• Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
• The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
• How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
• Huie's Sermon (1980)
• God's Angry Man (1980)
• Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
• The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984)
• Wodaabe – Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
• Echoes From a Somber Empire (1990)
• Jag Mandir (1991)
• Lessons of Darkness (1992)
• Bells from the Deep (1993)
• The Transformation of the World into Music (1994)
• Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
• My Best Fiend (1999)
• Wings of Hope (2000)
• Wheel of Time (2003)
• The White Diamond (2004)
• Grizzly Man (2005)
• Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
• Into the Abyss (2011)

He has also written and acted in numerous films. He has directed numerous operas and theatrical productions. He also wrote three books, all on film.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982)

Fassbinder is one of the great auteurs of the New German Cinema. Incredibly productive, he directed something like 40 feature films before he died of a drug overdose in 1982.

Some of my favorites include:

• "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" (1972), a highly stylized depiction of a lesbian love affair between a fashion designer and a working class girl.
• "Fox and His Friends" (1975), about a working class gay man who strikes it rich in the lottery and is mercilessly exploited by his new friends.
• "Satan's Brew" (1976), an absurdist comedy about a modern poet who decides to recreate the cultic world of Stefan George. (This one is a bit of an inside joke, so you probably won't like it unless you know about Stefan George.)
• "Lili Marleen" (1981), like "Marriage of Maria Braun," a melodramatic film about a strong woman. Lili is a successful actress in Nazi Germany ... with a Jewish boyfriend.

Douglas Sirk (1897-1987) and Melodrama

Douglas Sirk was born Hans Detlev Sierk in 1897 in Denmark. He grew up in Germany and was involved in the arts scene in Weimar Germany. Married to a Jewish woman, he left Germany in 1937, and started directing films in Hollywood.

He is known for amazing melodramas, such as "All That Heaven Allows" (1952), about a woman who chooses to defy convention and fall in love with her gardener, and "Imitation of Life" (1959), about a Black woman who passes as white.

Sirk's melodramatic style fell out of fashion, but Fassbinder loved it. Fassbinder visited Sirk (who had moved to Switzerland) and the two frequently discussed cinematic matters.

Zarah Leander (1907-1981)

Maria and her friend Betty sing the chorus to "Nur nicht aus Liebe weinen" (don't cry because of love), which is a big hit by Zarah Leander, a Swedish actress who was very successful in Nazi film.

After the War, Leander became something of a cult figure in the gay scene in Germany, in part perhaps because of the erotic playfulness of many of her songs. This one, for instance, asks, "Kann denn Liebe Suende sein?" (Can love be a sin?)

Comparison between The Marriage of Maria Braun with Lola and Veronica Voss

Hey everyone. Looking up stuff I ran into this comparison a guy did on these three German movies, The Marriage of Maria Braun, with Lola, a resembling movie to The Blue Angel and as well the main characters share the name, and Veronica Voss. These movies are made during the time of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland or West Germany and have the same theme reoccurring on them. They portray the German woman being seen as an object, at a time when everything and everyone was for sale. All the movies tell a different story on them but the one thing in common is the general suffering witnessed from the population and the price that these women had to pay in order to go on and live a semi-normal life.

Check this link for more info.

The article I read talks about the consequences of war on the post-war Germany. As the people lived in harsh conditions and with the thought they had lost their most beloved ones, they sought for a living, the foreign armies that had come into Germany were seen as an opportunity to make a living from. Many German ladies turned to paths of prostitution and forms of selling themselves to earn their food and shelter. The article talks about what was left after this era in Germany, and it specifically talks about children of brown color born in Germany to German mothers and foreign fathers, in this case, African American men. It relates to our movie,particularly to the first half of the movie where the main character Maria Braun meets a black colored guy with whom she goes to bed to. She ends up getting pregnant by him, and decides she will bare the child. Her plans change when her husband comes, and she gives off pregnancy so that she can go on with her plans for her future life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DguhskrdFok&feature=related

Click here for the link to the article.

Namibia - Genocide and the Second Reich

I just saw this advertised for tonight, and it reminded me of Kracauer's article about the bourgeois disposition of Germans, and how unchanged it seems to be. I think it'd be an interesting film to see.

"Between 1904 and 1908, three quarters of the Herero people were killed, many in concentration camps, under German colonial rule. Not only does this documentary show that the German government was genocidal years before the Holocaust, but it also highlights an extremely overlooked tragedy in history. This genocide still impacts Harero today, as the descendants of the survivors are seeking reparations from the German government."

When: Wednesday, March 14, 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Location: Sackler 121

Elisabeth as Joan of Arc

Remember at the end of Ehe im Schatten, after Elisabeth drank her coffee and started going on about rainbows?

It sounded too much like a reference for me to let it go, so I looked into it. The quote is from play Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans) by Friedrich von Schiller, the same playwright who wrote Intrigue and Love, acted out in the beginning of the film. The quote is as such:

Seht ihr den Regenbogen in der Luft? Der Himmel öffnet seine goldnen Tore, im Chor der Engel steht sie glänzend da, sie hält den ew'gen Sohn an ihrer Brust, die Arme streckt sie lächelnd mir entgegen. Wie wird mir? Leichte Wolken heben mich - der schwere Panzer wird zum Flügelkleie. Hinauf - hinauf - Die Erde flieht zurück. Kurz ist der Schmerz, und ewig ist die Freude.

Spoken by the character Johanna (Joan of Arc), it roughly translates to:

Do you see the rainbow in the sky? The heavens open their golden gates, in the choir of angels she stands so shiny, she holds the eternal Son in her bosom, she stretches her arms toward me, smiling. How will I? Light clouds lift me - the heavy armor becomes the winged dress. Up - up - the earth flies back. Short is the pain, and eternal joy.

In Schiller's play, this quote comes after "Joan prays that she be granted strength like Samson to break her bonds and destroy her enemies, and her prayers are granted: she tears her heavy chains apart and rushes forth to join the fighting. Her intervention in the battle turns the tide decisively in favour of the French, but she pays the price of this triumph with her life. She rouses momentarily, long enough to recognize Charles and the banners of France; she calls for her own banner, and is granted a final, ecstatic vision of her patroness, the Virgin Mary" (Kerry's Friedrich Schiller: Playwright, Poet, Philosopher, Historian, p281).

I don't even have to stretch to find parallels between this scene and the final scene of Ehe im Schatten. Both women are being persecuted and punished, yet both manage to die in an ecstatic state. Neither has abandoned her country: Joan is granted a flag for her loyalty, but Elisabeth's loyalty gives her only a sense of "decency." And both women pay the price of this loyalty with their lives.

Casting the character of Elisabeth as a "Joan of Arc"-esque heroine seems to clash with Kracauer's statment that no German was decent enough. Elisabeth was, after all, a German. And what could be more decent than a hero?

What do you guys think?

Germany in 1947 and 1949

Immediately after the War, Germany was divided into 4 zones, each occupied by a different one of the Allies:

In 1949, the areas occupied by the Western Allied powers became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD), known in English as the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The zone occupied by the Soviet Union became the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), known in English as the German Democratic Republic (GDR):

Kurt Maetzig (born 1911)

Kurt Maetzig is a highly esteemed director, who worked primarily under the German Democratic Republic.

Here, he is talking about his disappointment with the censorship in the GDR:

Hildegard Knef (1925-2002)

Hildegard Knef, who went on to an international career as an actress, singer, and memoirist, made her first big appearance in "Murderers are among Us," the first film to be made in Germany after the War.


Here is an English-language cover of Knef's world-famous song, "Fuer mich soll's rote Rosen regnen" (For me, let red roses rain), with great footage from "Murderers are Among Us":

And here is Hildegard singing the song herself:

"Decent" Suicide

I was really struck by Kracauer’s conclusion that suicide was the only decent response to the events that took place during the Nazi era.

Does this mean that Germans see pride as more important than life? I find this hard to believe, because the predominating religion at the time was Christianity, which preaches that suicide is a sin, from what I understand. So doesn’t that negate the “decent” aspect of it?

I also looked up (on Wikipedia, so apologies if you have issues with this as a source) the suicide rates in Germany following this era, and apparently there were three waves of mass suicides in the final days of the Nazi regime, suggestive of “fear and anxiety [as] common motivations.”

Fear and anxiety of what was to become of them for their previous indecency toward the Jews? Or fear and anxiety over what a new regime would be like? Or something else all together?

Quite the article, Kracauer. It made me think a lot. The farther I got into the essay, the more shocked I grew. I may have freaked out a bit when I read that the “mentality has not really changed” and that it was very possible that a similar situation could arise again.