Lisa Conrad

July 15, 2004

FORL 3160

Minutes

Dr. Reimer discussed the midterm with the class.  We then discussed the homework assigned to us the night before. 

Run Lola Run

1.      Run Lola Run tells the same episode three times.  What are the differences and similarities? 

Lola is always able to get the money she needs.  The mother always says the same thing as Lola runs out the door.  The director simply loops the scene.  He also shows us that the mother, not only the father, is being unfaithful.  The adults in this movie are seen as irrelevant, immoral and superfluous.  This is not an adult world; the parental generation is portrayed similar to a youth film.  The director is using a convention, having fun with the film.  Lola also runs past the same things and the animation starts off the same way each time, not changing until Lola meets the dog. 

2.      Tykwer’s film uses the conceit of being able to relive a day.  Groundhog Day (1993) and Butterfly Effect (2004), two Hollywood films, also ask the question of “what if I could do that again?  If you have seen either of these films or both, describe similarities and differences in the films. 

We could also add Sliding Doors, The Family Man and Peggy Sue Got Married.  In Groundhog Day, the main character realizes that the same day is repeating itself.  This is a comedy, as opposed to the serio-comedic tone of Run Lola Run.  He also has more episodes of his one day (he spends months in Groundhog Day), and he is more unwilling to repeat his day.  However, in Tykwer’s film, we can see hints that perhaps Lola did remember (or at least learn from) her previous days.  The first hint is when she knew how to unlatch the safety on the gun.  The second hint is when the officer says, “It’s about time you got here” to Lola.  When she hears this she is a bit confused, but there is a slight residual (“maybe I have been here before”).  Butterfly Effect is about chaos theory, like Run Lola Run.  When one tiny thing changes, everything changes. 

3.      Describe the music.  When is techno music used in the film?  What is the difference in the text of the predominate song that accompanies the three runs?  What other styles of music can you identify in the film? 

The entire movie is driven by its soundtrack.  Without the soundtrack, we would not have this movie.  Why?  It sets the pace, heightens the tension and produces the urgent feeling of time.  The techno music expresses tension, excitement and worry.  It also helps foreshadow.  As soon as the techno music is absent, we focus on the film more, such as when we hear the lyrics “what a difference a day makes.”  Techno music has redundant beats, just like the three repetitive sequences.  The lyrics are also important.  The third time, the lyrics present Lola as a stronger character; now she is presented as the hunter.  There is also a ten second insert of Charles Ives’ “Unanswered Question,” a musical piece that repeats six times, each time answering the music with the sound of a horn.  However, the last time it plays, the horn that we expect to play at the end does not answer to the music.  The absence of music during the death scenes causes us to focus on the dialogue. 

4.      Describe the scenes in this film which follow run one and run two when Lola and Minni are lying in bed.  What function do they play in the structure of the film?  What function do they play in the story?

There is humor in the death scenes, in the questions the couple discusses while lying in bed.  Besides humor, the scenes show Lola’s development.  She is weaker with the first question than Manni.  She asks if he loves her, but in the second one he asks her what she would do if he died.  The scenes also determine that she’s the one in charge.  She says, “I think I have a decision to make” in the first one; in the second she replies “You’re not dead yet.”  The conversations also reflect on what events are going on.  This is not a political film; it is more focused on young people and “hipness.” 

5.      Why is beginning the film with a soccer match an appropriate way to introduce the film’s story? 

A soccer match involves many cause/effect relationships.  This is an obvious metaphor.  A soccer player has a time limit to score.  Soccer also does not allow for breaks or timeout.  Other sports have time limits, but they can also pause.  They do not have as much chance for chaos.  The entire play will be different in a soccer match if the ball is kicked half of a foot further to the side.  Also, at the end of the game, you start over and the outcome may be different.  You can learn from your previous game and change your strategy.  How is Lola growing?  Not by learning, but her character changes.  She has not learned through experience, but she takes more control of her life.  The director reconstructs her entire character.  A piece of cultural information about the film is that the person who introduces the soccer match is known for telling fairytales.  The German viewer would recognize his voice as someone who is about to tell a fairytale. 

6.      What role do the various cartoon elements play in the film?

Why have animation?  It is the focal point of the movie, to make us notice things more.  It could also be to lighten the mood of the film.  Cartoons are also not reality, just like you cannot really repeat a day.  It could also represent that Lola feels separated from reality during those desperate twenty minutes.  Cartoons are generally something at which to laugh.  This could be used as though time were laughing at her.  Also, time may be an allusion, and there is something that we do not see about time.  The cartoons show the style.  We see the clock in the beginning, then go through a mouth, then we see the spiral effect.  The animation emphasizes the spiral as Lola runs down the staircase.  The spiral is important throughout the movie.  The bar is called the Spiral, and the bun on the woman’s head in the painting is a spiral. 

7.      Does Lola change at all in the course of the three running sequences?  Why does Tykwer reward her with success at the end?

We already discussed the first of these two questions.  There were various ideas for the second.  Lola was steadfast in her love for Manni.  She did not do anything illegal.  Overall, Lola had a good heart and is not wrapped up in criminality.  There is a certain criminal element that produces the “hip” in this movie to create rebels and still make us be on their side.  The romanticism of rebels creates empathy for characters that older people may not approve of.  This appeals to the under-thirty crowd mostly.  Why do we forgive these two characters?  The actor who plays Manni is a huge star in Germany, so the audience immediately roots for him.  In fact, the blind woman is played by this actor’s real mother.  The affection between them on screen, therefore, is humorously real. 

8.      Does the film treat feminist concerns?  If so, in what respect?  If not, why not?

The class did not know if the film meant to support feminism, but at times it seemed as though a feminist could claim so.  Lola has to help her boyfriend out.  The director probably did not have feminist concerns in mind, but he also does not counter feminism.  Both Manni’s and Lola’s attitudes improved.  They both solved their problems and were not as dependent on one another.  In Winter Sleepers, the people in their thirties were seen sleeping and they did not really know what they wanted.  In Run Lola Run, the director depicts people in their early twenties as the ones who know what they want, while the adults are the ones who do not have things together.  How do we know this film takes place in Berlin?  Any mention of the divided Berlin is absent, and we can tell by the subways.  The director claims that this is a “very German film,” but when he talks to foreign newspapers, he says that it is a “very international film.”  The film avoids central locations that would clue the audience in to where it is filmed.  Perhaps the director wants to create a new visual for Germany, not East and West divisions.

Blind Chance (directed by Kieslowski)

The director had a very political intent in the film.  It takes place at the time of the solidarity movement.  The ship strikes were occurring and the government had to make appeasing gestures while clamping down s so it would not lose its grip on the structure of the country.  In the first take, the young man catches his train, then end up a communist.  In the second take, he misses his train but starts a scuffle with the trainmaster and ends up in jail.  He becomes a resister to the government.  In the third take, the young man misses the train but sees his ex-girlfriend and falls in love again.  They end up getting married and he realizes that politics are irrelevant; the only thing that matters are his wife and children.  Each take ends up with solidarity.  In the first, he hears about it when he is about to return home.  He cannot leave Poland because of the strikes.  In the second, he hears the news of the strikes on the radio with his grandmother.  In the third, his plane blows up.  We first enter the film through the screaming mouth of the main character.  Kieslowski tells us that one could not be politically neutral at that time in Poland. 

German Film

Run Lola Run was the start of a German cinema that didn’t reference to its political past in any way.  However, before this era, there were certain movies that gave German film its reputation.  German silent film became popular after World War 1, around 1919, when the studio took charge of creating artistically demanding films.  Germany needed to step up to Sweden, Italy, France and Hollywood.  For money’s sake, Germany created demanding but popular movies to sell abroad.  The first of these films was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a horror film.  It merged horror with expressionism.  It was very artificial, the background looked like a stage set, the actors were overly made up and their gestures were overly exaggerated.  The set had diagonal lines, black and white contrast and many shadows.  Nos Faratu was the second movie of this type.  Dracula was the first well-known movie in this genre.  The director, Murnau, converted the story of repressed sexuality into one of evil loneliness.  The vampire in Stoker was a metaphor of the danger of rampid sexuality, here he is associated with desease, rats and separation from society.  All of these things were associated with postwar Germany, including unemployment, amputated veterans and disease.  The horror movie really did depict horror.  In the end, pure love defeated the vampire when a woman sacrificed herself.  This high point of cinema was followed by the movies of the Third Reich, not overly propaganda films in nature but not always very good either.    From the late 40’s to the 60’s, the Germans did not face their past and avoided war issues, making mostly nostalgia films, light comedies, sex farces, and musicals.  The Oberhausen Manifesto is 1962 proclaimed a new cinema to be created by a new set of directors..  They tackle social issues and look to the Twenties directors for inspiration in order to make films not to make the audience feel good, but to make them think.  Fassbinder was the most important director in the “new German cinema.”  Schlondorff was also well-known because he took German classics and made them into demanding films.  His most famous was The Tin Drum.  Herzog, another famous German director, thought that filmmakers should show things that the audience had not seen before.  He liked to study people psychologically, how an individual gets to a point at the edge and what he does when he gets there. 

Stroszek 

This story follows a schizophrenic who goes to Germany, where he is harassed by his girlfriend’s pimps.  Although he is not able to speak English, he moves to Wisconsin to start a new life.  There he spends too much money and goes into debt.  His wife finally cannot take it anymore and runs off.  The man and his friend in turn rob a store.  Although his friend is caught, the man runs to Cherokee, NC, where he commits suicide while a mechanical exhibit of animals running in circles goes out of control.

Woszek

This film takes place in 1830.  It is the story of a poor, psychologically damaged soldier.  His captain insults him and tells him that his girlfriend is cheating on him, and his doctor treats him like a guinea pig.  His girlfriend finally does cheat on him and he kills her by a lake.  Just before the murder, the woman tells a story of a girl who has no one in the world to love her.  The girl in her story lives in a world with nothing real—no real sun, moon, stars or even earth.  This film is an example of a country-side film (one of nostalgia), but with a morbid twist that deconstructs the idyll.

Dr. Reimer reminded us to study for our mid-term coming up on Monday.