Movies

Beginning and end: the retrospective of the 66. Berlinale:

“Germany 1966 – Cinematic perspectives in East and West” is the historic Show at the Berlin film festival. It illuminates a cultural intersection of German cultural history and holds Surprises.

Look in the West German present of the year 1966 : May Spils Film “The Portrait”

In the West, started the cinematic awakening – in the East took up the censorship of the sceptre in the Hand. So could you briefly summarize what, exactly 50 years in the German Film took place. To the – from filmhistorischer point of view – the exciting 1966, is turning the big
Retrospective of the 66. The Berlinale. (11.2.-21.2.)

A look back at the Situation of the Directors in the East and the West since the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, the film-historical Look at the film festival every year organized, a lot of made. Two at first glance, quite different developments of German cinema will be presented.

On the way to new cinematic Shores: “goodbye to yesterday” by Alexander Kluge

“1966 is a pivotal year in the history of the Federal Republic, but also for the GDR – for entirely different reasons,” says Rainer Rother, artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek, in an interview with Deutsche Welle: “It is the year in which the young German Film, his first successes on the national and international stage.” Rother recalls, in this context, particularly at the Silver lion in Venice for Alexander Kluge’s “Abschied von gestern”.

In the West: kick-off with the “Oberhausen Manifesto”

Four years before, had about two dozen young Filmenthusiasten the so-called “Oberhausen Manifesto” adopted – a treatise, with which the traditional, aesthetics and content, portly German post war film on the public life should be passed. The young Directors (in addition to Wise were, among others, Edgar Reitz and Peter Schamoni) wanted new stories to tell, more realistic and closer to the people in it. They wanted these stories but also different tell, formally more sophisticated, more experimental, more surprising.

New images for a new cinema in West Germany: a scene from Vlado Kristls Film “The letter”

So you adapted to European cinema Trends: “influences are, of course, the Nouvelle Vague has been recorded, but also of the Erneuerungsbewegungen of the film in Poland and Czechoslovakia,” said Rother. The everyday life of the people was in the focus have been placed, you have “on location” shot. “For the first Time the filmmaker deliberately went on the street, one also sees the dark side of the economic miracle,” says Rother. It was in the shipping companies have been turned into quarries, we have over the wall in the East is looked at, as well as “on the break out in West Berlin”.

Was the German audiences for many years with the healing world of the Heimatfilms and later with Winnetou and Edgar Wallace movies to be entertained and distracted been acquisitions in the mid-1960s the “Oberhausen” the rudder. 1966 was the year that the first fruits of this cinematic awakening brought.

In the GDR in 1966, was forbidden: “miss butterfly” by Kurt Barthel

In the East the dawn with abrupt end

And in the East? Since the development was initially quite similar to that experienced then, but a sudden rupture: “Because the films in 1966 in the GDR cinemas have had to come to, and of which an impulse of renewal should go out, in consequence of the 11. Plenum of the Central Committee was prohibited”, said Ralf Schenk, for several years on the Board of the DEFA Foundation, in the DW interview. The Deutsche Film AG, or “DEFA” was a volkseigenes film company of the GDR.

Also there were the Directors in the first half of the ’60s, the thoughts of innovative cinema-forms and a more realistic view of society. “This started a few years earlier than ’66, with films such as ‘The divided sky’ by Konrad Wolf,” recalls Schenk: “these were movies that, with a kind panoramic views with the society of the GDR after the 2. World war, workers and various sections of the society under the magnifying glass took.” The Directors would have on the Economy looked (“spring takes time” or “The trace of stones”), on the education of the people and the school system (“Karla”, “When you grow up, dear Adam”), as well as on the judiciary (“The rabbit is me”).

Rebellious youth in the GDR: “Vintage 45” by Jürgen Böttcher

The Stalinists prevailed

But then came the shock. On the now infamous 11. Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED, set the dogmatists on a whole line against the reformers. “You has found that very many, especially the Gegenwartsfilme, trends a critical consideration of the present showed,” was her verdict on the GDR Film. These tendencies have the dogmatic wing of the party leadership have nothing to do, says Ralf Schenk.

In 1966, a total of 12 films in the GDR banned, the were 75 per cent of the annual production of the DEFA. The cinema of the GDR stood in front of a pile of rubble. Many Directors were not allowed to continue working, two had the DEFA-Studio leave. Some found shelter in the Theater, the other to the TV. Some were later again at a movie career to build, some, however, only with harmless Lustspielen. For a few of the geschassten Directors have the year 1966 is the end of artistic career, says Schenk. Others later found a job in the West.

A brilliant departure from the GDR movie with an abrupt end: “The trace of stones by Frank Beyer

The Parallels between the GDR and the FRG cinema

Rainer Rother is the year of ’66 is also so interesting, because it is not only the differences but also the similarities: “The films tell very much of a generational conflict.” There were films, of movements, acting on a premonition of a little later beginning of the student revolt gave the year 1968 to come. In the GDR have it “generation conflict” Yes, officially not allowed, says Rother. According to the Motto: “The heritage of the great fighters from the young Generation to be accepted and solved.” That the young Generation but very different ideas than had the “old fighters”, was liked by the SED-Upper is not.

West German cinema: dawn of a new era

“In the Federal Republic, there were not really rebels, but rather seekers, ‘Drifter’, as we call it,” says Rainer Rother on wesensverwandte Filmcharaktere in the West, and is called “Jimmy Orpheus” by Roland Klick, or “soft run” of the recently deceased Director Haro Senft as an example. “The figures not to know exactly how you are in this restaurant miracle time of fitting, sometimes to compromise tend to sometimes just let you go, but you have to feel that there is an underlying dissatisfaction there.”

Bruno Ganz in Haro Senfts Film “The gentle race”

Still another feature of the FRG-Film speaks Rother: women were in the West German Film is much more offensive approach than men, would have been much clearer claims: “It is perhaps the first Time in the West film history that such women in cinema, show up.”

So unites the historical Filmschau the Berlinale 2016 lot of differences, but also similarities in the GDR and the FRG-Film of the year: “This as a synopsis to enable, that is the concern of the retrospective, because that is usually Yes together”, says Rother.

The catalogue for the retrospective exhibition is in the Bertz + Fischer Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86505-245-2