Notes for October 20, 2003

Post war films before the Oberhausen manifesto 1945-1962

Early Post-war films:

            The Murderers Are Among Us (W. Staudte, 1946)

            Somewhere in Berlin (G. Lamprecht, 1946)

            Heidelberger Romanze(P. Verhoeven, 1951)

            Am Brunnen vor dem Tore( 1952)

            Children, Mothers and a General( L. Benedek, 1954)

            Der Forster vom Silberwald( 1954)

            Sissi(1955)

            Sissi, der junge Kaiserin(1956)

            Sissi-Schicksalsjajhre einer Kaiserin(1956)

            Sharks and a Small Fish( F. Wisbar)

            Das Dreimiiderlhaus(K. Hoffman, 1959)

            Leibesgrube aus der Lederhose

                        ( and other sex comedies, 1960)

            Wir Wunderkinder( K. Hoffman, 1959)

Themes:

            Escape into the countryside (so-called Heimat films)

            Escape into history (historical romances)

             Escape into comedy and comic erotics (sex faroes)

            War films

Types of films:

            Heimat films

            Sex Films

            Kreigs Films

            Trummer films/ Rubble Films

Criticisms of Pre-Oberhausen films:

            Misery glossed over

            Nazis seen as anonymous power

            Nazism seen as personal sin of Hitler

            Lack of critical stance to the past

            Confirmed prejudices and biases

            Restoration of Nazi Directors

Why the Public Liked Heimat Films:

            Healthy World

            Love

            Emphasis on Good Fortune

            Sunny

The war films of this time did not depict the Germans as fighting for Nazism, but fighting for a cause. Many people felt these films excused the military.  Indeed that may have been part of the intent, that is to rehabilitate the German military at a time when Germany was joining NATO.

Watched clips From: The Murderers Are Among Us

            U.S., England, and France refused to approve films like this fear of vigilante style justice taken against Nazi’s. The Soviets did approve this movie being made with a changed ending.

Next clip from: Sharks and Little Fish  Ending scene reveals how emphaisis on heroics of fighting men and not on the issue of what the men were fighting for.

Oberhausen Manifesto and After 1962-1982

Ober-Manifesto

-         26 signatories

-         best known: Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz

-         declared old style of movies dead (commercial, dependent on major studio funding)

Young German Cinema

-         R.W. Fassbinder

-         Wim Wenders

-         Werner Herzog

-         Volker Schlondorff

-         Margrethe von Trotta

-         Ula Stocki

New German films not well received in America, at first.  Critics complained that films were:

-         amateurish (not polished)

-         technically clumsy

-         obscure

-         distanced/ detached/ cool (cold)

-         very low budget

-         lacked entertaining quality of French films

-         lacked sweetness of Czech films

-         lacked philosophical depth of Bergman

Critic’s Comments:

-         (On the Young Toreless by Schlondorff)- “It is cold, hard, gray and monotonous in pictorial tone and quality.”

-         ( On the Chronicle of Anna Magdalene Bach by Jean- Marie Straub) –“Static in its stylization and some will find it deadly dull.”

-         ( On Artists Under the Bigtop-Confused by Kluge)-“At the conclusion of this West German whatzit…. An actor stoically looks at the camera and begins outlining the plot of Il Trovatore. That one we know. Good old Verdi.”

-         ( On Even Dwarves started small by Herzog)- “Obnoxious, revolting, an atrocity.”

-         ( On Pioneers in Ingolstadt by Fassbinder)-“The clumsiest most mannered movie ever made about soldiers and their girls.”

Reasons for the critics comments:

-         low budgets

-         new (unskilled) directors

-         wanted to be different from studio products

Found Popularity by Seventies:

-         winning awards at film festivals

-         found critics to defend them

-         seemed fresh and daring

Some critics continued to criticize (Pauline Kael/ John Simon)

-         Simon called Herzog’s Kasper Hauser “An offense against God and man.” Frank Rich wrote that it was “Herzog’s insult to intelligence.” Kael called the film “a garbled, pop-abstract enigma.”

Last we watched a clip from Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher, a film whose style could best be described as anti-cinema.