Kino - german films

Scene from ”Yesterday Girl“
A PLACE FOR THE POLITICAL
When considering the relationship between film and politics, initially
our attention is naturally drawn to films with an explicit reference
to politics in the narrower sense. Their political relevance is clear
without any further context. But this does not explain film’s method
of functioning. Films that do not focus on any aspect of the state
system can also lead to wide-scale controversy, establish agreement
and trust, arouse emotions and trigger arguments. Essentially, these
potential effects of film arise through features it shares with, or
which differentiate it from other images and texts circulated in the
mass media. The majority of the films mentioned also share principles
and presumptions that structure the understanding and discussion
of a film. These discursive contexts outside of film itself are
defining factors in the political dimension of films. They cannot be
seen only as individual products, however outstanding some of
these are, for they receive their political significance in the context
of criticism, reception and public standpoints. (Stauff, 1998).
According to political philosopher Jaques Rancière, the political is a
de-regularization of the presumed, it lends new form to the space
for what must be done, seen and counted. It follows that the political
is the practice of the exception, making visible what one does
not see, making audible what one does not hear, and countable
what is not counted. (Jaques Rancière, 2003). In the spirit of
Rancière, therefore, particularly cinema can be understood as a
potential place for the political.
ON THE WAY TO THE
BERLIN REPUBLIC
The collapse of the GDR in November 1989 and the subsequent
process of unification brought far-reaching changes in all social
fields, not only in the ”new states“. The new definition of the
Federal Republic towards a ”Berlin Republic“ led to intense debates
about the changing significance of the nation and people’s relation
to their own history and identity. It was before this background that
a revival of entertainment cinema could be observed. The trends of
restoration already emerging in the 80s – which should also be
viewed in connection with a changed policy of film promotion
under Helmut Kohl’s conservative government – intensified in the
years after reunification. The result was a turn towards conventional
genre patterns including the stabilizing function of classical
narration.
With respect to form and theme, some of the economically successful
romantic comedies focusing on love, partnership and shallow
role conflicts recall West German post-war cinema. During the
90s, political ambitions in the fictional field were to be found almost
exclusively in stories that thematized the political past of the
Federal Republic. It is possible to discern three thematic fields here:
a continuing investigation into National Socialism, an attempt to
come to terms with the German reunification in film, and the dramatization
of the Red Army Faction (RAF).
NEW VIEWS OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM:
LOVE & EVERYDAY LIFE
Films were produced during the 60s and 70s, in both the GDR and
the FRG, that attempted to analyze the conditions of National
Socialism and its continuity in contemporary society. The following
examples were also outstanding in their cinematic form: the DEFA
film The Affair Gleiwitz (Der Fall Gleiwitz, 1961, Gerhard
Klein), reflecting on the aesthetics of fascism; Zwischen zwei
Kriegen (1978, Harun Farocki), tracing the support given to the
NS system by German industrialists; Not Reconciled or Only
Violence Helps Where Violence Rules (Nicht versoehnt,
1965, Jean-Marie Straub/Danièle Huillet, cf. p. 37),
examining the continuity between the German past and present;
and Yesterday Girl (Abschied von Gestern, 1966,
Alexander Kluge), sheding light on the rejection of this insight in
post-war German society.
By contrast, many of the currently produced films set in the framework
of National Socialism make use of conventional genre film.
Ranging from melodrama to nostalgic studies of milieu, personal
destinies – rather than societal trends – are frequently the center of
interest. Before a historical setting, some recent German films
indulge themselves in mainstream values such as nostalgia, glamour
and great emotions.
While many films of the New German Film era were concerned
with the continuing effects of history in the present, such as
Fassbinder’s post-war trilogy The Marriage of Maria Braun
(Die Ehe der Maria Braun, 1979), Lola (1981) and
Veronika Voss (Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss,
1982), or Herbert Achternbusch’s The Last Hole (Das letzte
Loch, 1981), the political past often becomes a remote world
kino 4 focus on politics in german film
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