GER 3009/INS 3056: 

From WWII to Unification: The Cinema of East and West Germany

                                         Prof. Gabriele Wickert/  Tuesdays 5-9pm

 

In this course we will view 16 German films produced between 1946 and 2000.  About half of them will be from the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the other half from the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).  In viewing and discussing these films, we will try to accomplish four things:     

1.      To appreciate each film as a work of cinematic art, but one produced in a particular historical-aesthetic context.  (In the East this often meant looking to Soviet and East European film models, while in the West, the models tended to be American or French.)

2.      To appreciate each film’s contribution to the debate on that period’s particular socio-political issues.  (In East German films, e.g., a good deal of attention is paid to the analysis of fascism and to the problems of building socialism, while in the West the focus tends to be on problems associated with the “economic miracle”, with a social order perceived by the postwar generation as authoritarian, hypocritical and blind to the Nazi past, and with the threat of American cultural imperialism.)

3.      To investigate issues of film production in the two German systems. (In the East this will include an examination of censorship and its effect on the arts, while in the West the effect of the market economy on cultural production will be considered.)

4.      To examine the role of these films in projecting a specific German national identity and the extent to which that identity sets itself off from the German “other” across the Cold War Wall.

 

Weekly reading assignments focusing on German film and the politics of the particular period or issue under discussion will prepare students to better appreciate the films.  The required text for the class, available for purchase in the bookstore and on reserve in the library, is Daniela Berghahn:  Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany.  Various handouts on West German film will supplement this.  A list of other useful books on reserve is attached at the end of this description.

 

The course grade will be based on 1) class participation (20%); 2) four short (3-4 pages) critical reviews of four of the assigned films—two from the GDR list and two from the FRG list, due before class of the day on which the particular film will be discussed (30%); 3) an independent project (6-8 pages) on one or more related films not on the required viewing list, due by the last day of class (20%); and 4) a final exam (30%), given during exam week. 

 

FILMS

(Bolded titles indicate required viewing; others are for additional viewing and for independent projects.  All films [except the two indicated as rentals] will be on reserve at the circulation desk. Students are urged to see required films and films for independent projects more than once.) 

 

GDR Films

[Analysis of fascism and life in the immediate post-war era]

• The Murderers Are Among Us (Staudte, 1946)
• Somewhere in Berlin (Lamprecht, 1946)
• Carbide and Sorrel (Beyer, 1963)
• Turning Point (Beyer, 1983) [rental]
• Jacob the Liar (Beyer, 1974)
• The Gleiwitz Case (Klein, 1961)
• Naked Among Wolves (Beyer, 1963)
• Your Unknown Brother (Weiss, 1982)
• The Second Track (Kunert, 1962)

 

 

[Building socialism and the realities of GDR life]

• Divided Heaven (Wolf, 1963) [DEFA rental]
• Berlin – Corner Schönhauser (Klein, 1957)
• A Berlin Romance (Klein, 1956)

• The Rabbit is Me (Maetzig, 1965)
• Trace of Stones (Beyer, 1966)
• Born in ’45 (Böttcher, 1966)
• Her Third (Guenther, 1972)
• Solo Sunny (Wolf, 1979)
• The Apprehension (Warneke, 1981)
• The Bicycle (Evelyn Schmidt, 1982)

 

 

 

FRG Films

• The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979)
• Fear eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1973) 
• Lola (Fassbinder, 1981)
• Germany, Pale Mother (Sanders-Brahms, 1980)
• Redupers [The All-round Reduced Personality] (Sander, 1978)
• The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Schlöndorff/von Trotta, 1975)
• The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff, 1979)
• Circle of Deceit (Schlöndorff, 1981)
• The American Friend (Wenders, 1977)
• Alice in the Cities (Wenders, 1974)
• Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984)
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
• The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog, 1974)
• Stroszek (Herzog, 1977)
• Even Dwarves Started Small (Herzog, 1970) 
• Marianne and Julianne [Die Bleierne Zeit] (von Trotta, 1981)
• The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (von Trotta, 1977)
• Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness (von Trotta, 1979)
• Germany in Autumn (Fassbinder, Schlöndorff, Kluge, Reitz et al., 1978)

 

Post-Unification Films

• The Architects (Kahane, 1990)

• Sun Alley (Haussmann, 1999, but depicts GDR in 1973)

• Goodbye, Lenin! (Becker, 2003)

 

 

Books on reserve for this course at Manhattanville Library Circulation desk:

Daniela Berghahn, Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (main text for class)

Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film

Thomas Elsaesser, New German Cinema

Hans Günther Pflaum/Hans Helmut Prinzler, Cinema in the Federal Republic of Germany

 

 

 

GER 3009/INS 3056 

From WWII to Unification:  The Cinema of East and West Germany

(Professor Wickert, Fall 2006, Tuesdays 5-9pm)

 

 

SYLLABUS

Week 1  (August 29)         

 

Intro to course: syllabus and course requirements. 

 

Introductory lecture:

·        Film and history: the special situation of Germany. 

·        Aftermath of WWII: the two Germanys. 

·        Overview of film developments in the two Germanys 

·        Film in the occupied sectors:  Soviet vs American policies. 

·        Intro to W. Staudte and “The Murderers are Among Us”: “Trümmerfilme/Rubble Films”.

·        Viewing of “The Murderers are Among Us”

 

 

Assignment:        Read:  W. Kohlhaase, article on GDR films (ERes)

 

               D. Berghahn, p.11-34 [East German Film Industry and the State]

 

  Prepare study questions on “Murders Are Among Us”

 

 

Week 2  (September 5)

 

• Discuss “Murders are Among Us”. 
• Overview of GDR history and GDR Cinema: DEFA.
• GDR Film in the late 40’s and 50’s:

                -- Cold War and film

           -- Heroic socialism and antifascism

• The GDR and its anti-fascist identity.  Antifascism in GDR film.  [Gleiwitz Case, Second Track, Naked among Wolves, Jacob the Liar, Turning Point, I was 19]. 
• Viewing of “Turning Point” + some of “Gleiwitz Case”

           

 

Assignment:              Watch “Jacob the Liar”

 

Prepare study questions for “Jacob the Liar” and “Turning Point”

 

Read:  D. Berghahn, pgs. 35-38 [Socialist Realism and the boundaries of aesthetic orthodoxy] + pgs 55-94 [Coming to terms with the Nazi legacy: DEFA’s anti-fascist films]

 

 

 

Week 3  (September 12)

 

• Discuss “Turning Point” + “Jacob the Liar”. 
• Socialist realism in the GDR: its traditions and problems.  Experimentation in the late 50’s and early 60s.  European film influences: Italian neo-realism, French “nouvelle vague”, Czech New Wave.
• Intro to Klein’s “Berlin – Corner Schönhauser”: Neo-realism in the GDR.
• Construction of the Wall and its effect on internal GDR affairs and the arts. 
• Intro to Konrad Wolf and “Divided Heaven”
• Viewing of “Divided Heaven”

           

 

Assignment:            Watch Klein’s “Berlin – Corner Schönhauser”

 

Prepare study questions for “Divided Heaven” and “Berlin – Corner Schönhauser”

 

                    Read:   D. Berghahn, pgs. 134-173 [The forbidden films]

 

 

Week 4   (September 19)

 

• Discuss “Berlin – Corner Schönhauser” and “Divided Heaven”.
• The “Bitterfeld Way” and its importance for literature and film in the GDR. 
• GDR films of the early 60’s:  From heroic socialism to “real socialism”
• The XI. Plenum and the aftereffects.  
• Intro to “Trace of Stones” and “The Rabbit is Me” 
• Viewing of “The Rabbit is Me”

           

 

Assignment:             Watch “Trace of Stones”

 

                        Prepare study questions for “The Rabbit is Me” and “Trace of Stones”

 

Read:  Sabine Hake, German National Cinema, pgs 132-143  [The 1970’s in the GDR: Discovery of Everyday Life + The 1980’s: Decline of Cinema as a Public Sphere] (ERes)

 

 

Week 5   (September 26)

 

• Discuss “The Rabbit is Me” + “Trace of Stones”.  
• More on banned films of the 60’s and the aftereffect: the advent of the apolitical adventure film and the historical film.
• Films of the 70’s and 80’s:  The turn to everyday life and the needs of the individual. 
• Intro to Heiner Carow and “The Legend of Paul and Paula”

• Viewing of “The Legend of Paul and Paula”

 

 

 

Assignment:            Prepare study questions for “Legend of Paul + Paula”

 

Read:  D. Berghahn, pgs. 175-209 [Women on film, or How political is the private sphere?]

 

 

Week 6   (October 3)

 

·        Discuss “Legend of Paul and Paula”. 

·        Women in GDR film. [Discuss Berghahn chapter]

·        Intro to Egon Günther and “Her Third”

·        Viewing of  “Her Third”  

                                   

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions on “Her Third”

 

Read:  Sabine Hake, German National Cinema, Chapter 6, 146-174 [West German Cinema, 1962-89] (ERes)

 

 

Week 7   (October 17)

 

• Discuss “Her Third”.  
• The FRG and the post-war years. 

-- The “economic miracle”. 

-- The Cold War: “Americanization” in East and West Germany 

• FRG Cinema in the 50’s: the “Heimat” film. 
• The emergence of “New German Cinema”:  The Oberhausen Manifesto.  The “Autor” director.  Creating an audience: distribution problems and the Verlag der Autoren. 
• Intro to Fassbinder and “The Marriage of Maria Braun”.   New uses of old melodrama.
• Viewing of “The Marriage of Maria Braun”

 

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “Marriage of Maria Braun”

 

                        Read:  Anton Kaes, From Hitler to Heimat, Chapter 3 [The Presence of the Past], pgs. 73-103 (ERes)

 

 

Week 8  (October 24)

 

• Discuss “Marriage of Maria Braun”. 
• The major directors (Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders, Schlöndorff, Sanders-Brahms, von Trotta) and the main concerns of New German Cinema:  cinema and history; cinema as provocation.
• Relation of New German Cinema to socio-political developments.  The Student Movement of the 60’s.
• Facing the fascist past and the new feminist perspectives:  Intro to Sanders-Brahms and “Germany, Pale Mother”. 
• Viewing of  “Germany, Pale Mother”

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “Germany, Pale Mother”

 

Read:  Anton Kaes, From Hitler to Heimat, Chapter 5 [Our Childhoods, Ourselves], pgs 137-160 (Eres)

 

 

Week 9  (October 31)

 

• Discuss “Germany, Pale Mother”. 
• Background on Schloendorff.  The socially critical art film achieves popular success.  German Cinema at home and abroad.
• Intro to “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum”. 

-- Heinrich Böll’s story. 

-- The Springer Press 

• Viewing of “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum”

                                   

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “Katharina Blum”

                                   

                        Read:   Jack Zipes: “The Political Dimensions of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum”  (Eres)

 

 

Week 10  (November 7)

 

• Discuss “Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” 
• FRG’s love-hate relationship with America.  Review of reception of “America” in Germany.   
• Intro to Wenders and “The American Friend”
• Viewing of “The American Friend”

 

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “The American Friend”

 

                        Read:  Wim Wenders:  “The American Dream” [pgs. 116-146] (Eres) 

 

 

Week 11  (November 14)

 

• Discuss “The American Friend”. 
• Background on Herzog and his films.  Cinema as “mission”.  Visions of unknown nature.  Exploration of fascism and colonialism.
• Intro to “Aguirre, the Wrath of God”.
• Viewing of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God”

                                   

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “Aguirre”

 

                        Read:  Daniel Zalewski:  The Ecstatic Truth: Werner  Herzog’s Quest [pgs 1-19] (Eres)

 

 

 

Week 12  (November 21)

 

• Discuss “Aguirre”.  
• The Student Movement of the 60’s and its radicalization: the Red Army Faction. 
• Intro to Margarethe von Trotta and “Marianne and Juliane”. 
• Viewing of “Marianne and Juliane”

 

 

Assignment:            Prepare study questions for “Marianne and Juliane”

 

Read:  Olaf Hoerschelmann, “ ‘Memoria Dextera Est’:  Film and Public Memory in Postwar Germany” (ERes)

 

 

Week 13  (November 28)

 

• Discuss “Marianne and Juliane”. 
• Culture in the late 80’s in the GDR.  The East and its cultural legacy: What DEFA did and didn’t achieve. 
• Intro to Kahane’s “The Architects”.
• Viewing of Kahane’s “The Architects”

                                   

 

Assignment:      Prepare study questions for “The Architects”

 

                        Read:  Barbara Kienbaum and Manfred Grote: “German Unification as a Cultural Dilemma: A Retrospective” (ERes)

 

 

Week 14  (December 5)

 

• Discuss “The Architects”. 
• The fall of the Wall and its aftermath for the GDR. 
• Unification and its discontents: Culture and film in a united Germany.  Ostalgie.
• Intro to “Goodbye, Lenin”. 
• Viewing of “Goodbye, Lenin”

 

 

 
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