Minutes from class-June 4, 2002

Note:  Topic for today’s class—German New Wave

Reimer began class with a brief introduction and description of West German Cinema of the 1950’s, which the New Wave directors criticized. 

West German Cinema had an escapist quality to its films.  They did not deal with social problems or issues that young Germans considered important.  Films ran away from the past, ignoring WWII, the Holocaust, the Economic Miracle, etc.  There were several main types of West German films:  Heimat films, uncritical war films, and sex farces.

Heimat films romanticized the past, going back to the 19^th century to find an ideal world to portray to it’s audience.  These films skipped the periods 1914-1918 and 1933-1945.

War films also idealized the military movements of the Germans.  They portrayed the German military as idealistic, doing its patriotic duty.  These films completely divorced the German military and people from the Nazi party and Hitler.  They did not show the historical perspective on Germany’s role in WWII. In a sense the films helped the german viewer accept the idea of a German military, at a time when Germany was rearming.

New Wave directors, commonly called the Oberhausen group went back to the directors of the 1920’s for inspiration, looking to both their early films and their contemporary films coming from Hollywood. 

The most important names in the New Wave movement were R.W. Fassbinder, W. Herzog, and Völker Schlondorff.  Fassbinder made more than forty films, many of which are still played today.  The high period of the movement is considered to be the time that Fassbinder was making films, 1969-1982, and was considered to have died after Fassbinderäs death.

Film clips:

Film #1:  Katzelmacher

Katzelmacher was Fassbinderäs first film.  The title was referring to guest workers and their tendency to have a lot of children.  The term Katzelmacher is a derogatory term.

The 3 main scenes of the opening appear unrelated; there is a man and a woman sitting at a table, a man and woman in bed, and a group of people in front of  a wall, who later become people sitting at a table.  The women in relationships with men appear very clingy, while the men are the opposite, not wanting the women near them, creating unhealthy relationships.

The people don’t connect to each other at all, even when speaking to each other.

The camera never moves, it stays in one place.  All the movement comes from people entering or exiting the camera’s view.   The director is trying to force people to recognize what film is and what its limitations are.

Fassbinder used this film to comment on society, and young people disconnection with themselves and each other. 

At the same time as this movie, Andy Warhol and minimalism were making a big impact in New York.

Film #2:  Stroszek

Herzog uses a schizophrenic man as the main character in this film to show how people, and in the clip we watched, animals, are conditioned to behave in a certain way, to believe certain things.  In Stroszek’s case, he and his wife are conditioned by the American bankers, lenders, and creditors into believing that they can have the American dream, when they are really sinking deeper into debt. 

Herzog uses the theme of going around in circles to make a statement about humankind and the circles we keep going around in.

Film #3:  Woyzeck

This was a low budget film, with no money for special effects.

The clip we saw shows how Herzog makes us believe that Woyzeck is really killing his wife with no special effects to create the illusion.  Herzog places the killing off camera, so that we see the knife plunging downward, and we know that he’s killing, but we don’t actually see the blade stabbing Woyzeck’s wife.  He puts the camera into slow motion, but not the music, aestheticizing the scene, making something that is truly horrendous somehow seem beautiful.