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pp.501-506.
' Papers from this workshop have been published in
Exemplaria: A Journal of Theoty in Medieval and Re-
naissance Studies v.2, no.2 (October 1990), pp.687-715.
Hayden White, Tmpics of Discourse: Essays in Cul-
tural Criticism (l3altimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1978) and The Content of the Form: Narrative
Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
Pomata, "History," p.28.
lo The most explicit discussion of this is Denise Riley,
Am I That Name?": Feminism and the Categoty of
FEMINIST VISIONS
COMMITMENT IN VON TROTTA'S
MARIANNE AND JULWVE
by Marilyn Gottschalk
Marianne and Juliane, Margarethe von Trotta's
powerful and provocative film about two sisters in post-
war Germany, is oneof the new additions to the Women's
Studies Consortium Audiovisual Collection housed at
University of Wisconsin-Platteville's Kanmann Library.
Von Trotta, a member of the New German Cinema
movement is one of the best known and most sucessful
of West &rmany's women film directors. Early in her
career she worked inParis with different film collectives.
Returning to Germany in the late 1960's. she acted in
film and television. She codirected her first two films, A
Free Woman (1973) and The Lost Honor of Katherina
Blum (1975), with her husband, German film director
Voker Schlondofi. Their artistic differences resulted
'Women ' in Histoty (Mi~e3poliS: University of Minnesota
Press, 1988).
" The phrase is from Davis' presidential address as president
of the American Historical Association, "History's
'bo Bodies," reprinted in The American Historical Review,
v.93 (1988), pp. 1-30. Davis uses the "two bodies"
concept to explore the ideas of five historians, male and
female, about the tension between the enduring field of
history and their own work. By using female practitioners
of "universal" history as well as male, however, and
by ending with a call for a multiple vision, Davis also
points out the need for including both sexes in the body
of historians.
that directly addresses the intertwining of the political
with the personal is the historical context. The two sis-
ters have spent their childhood in Nazi Germany during
World War 11 and their adult lives in the turbulent years
of 1970's postwar Germany. In fact the character of
Marianne is based on the life of Gudrun Ensslin, a mem-
ber of the Bader Meinhof revolutionary group. Juliane,
from whose perspective the story is told, is based on
Ensslin's sister Christiane, to whom von Trotta dedicates
her film.
Using flashbacks, von Trotta gives a sense of some
of the shaping forces in the lives of the two sisters. In
childhood, the two are close. Thiy share the terror of the
WWII bombings, the rigidity of middleclass Christian
upbringing, a dominating father, the awareness of the
horrors of the holocaust, and a shared sense of moral
obligation. Juliane, the older, rebels against patriarchal
authority. Marianne, on the other hand, is shown as the
in her decision to work alone. She subsequently wrote more passive sister, the one who intercedes between her
and directed The Second Awakening of Christa Klages sister and the angry, unforgiving father.
(1978), Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness (1979),
Marianne and Juliane (1981), Sheer Madness (1983), As adults, the sisters choose seemingly very differ-
Rosa Luxembu~ (1985), and Love and Fear (1987). ent political commitments. Juliane, the rebel, becomes a
journalist for a feminist magazine and an activist for
A common theme that runs through all of von women's rights. Marianne, the father's dutiful, favorite
Trotta's films is the close relationships that women form daughter, joins a revolutionary terrorist group and acts
with each other, despite the complexities and problems out her commitments with the same uncompromising,
the relationship entails. These relationships are often fierce devotion that mirrors her father's rigid Christian
between two women who are in some sense opposites. In morality. Marianne becomes involved in a bombing in-
Marianne and Juliane, the two women are sisters whose cident, is hunted by the police, jailed, and dies in prison,
lives have taken very different paths. The film tells of
their struggle to come to terms with their political differreportedly
a suicide.
ences while coping with their respective political and Juliane, who rejects her sister's radical politics, who
personal commitments. An added dimension to the film argues with her over the effectiveness of terrorist tactics,