“Home can’t be define as a property,” says Edgar Reitz. A conversation with the film Director about his famous movie series of 1984, about the homeland-term and Horst Seehofer’s Ministry.
In the past twelve months, much has been discussed about the concept of “home”. On the one hand, due to the ongoing debate on refugees and radical right-wing violence. Ostensibly because of the decision of Horst Seehofer’s, the Ministry of the interior in order to complement the addition of “home”.
The term “home” had asked the German Director Edgar Reitz in 1984 in the focus. Through its worldwide successful Film series of “home” discussed the Germans suddenly back on a long-taboo concept. An interview with Edgar Reitz, 34 years after the world premiere of “homeland,” in the face of new, current home debates.
Deutsche Welle: you are now something of a home-expert. You feel yourself in the role actually?
Edgar Reitz: I Sometimes regret that I called my Film “home”. I was of the opinion that we note, as a Nation, “this thing” (nationalism, xenophobia, etc.,. d. Red.) have overcome, and I could swear stone and bone, something like that never happens again, not nearly as dangerous. In this respect, I tire held the at that Moment, in 1984, to be feasible: The subject outside of the policy, to discuss the home as an elementary human feeling and need. Home, as a fact, that with the own biography bonds result, which consist not only of the expediency, or for rational reasons, but where there is a deep emotional bond to the landscape, to the way of life of a people to certain places, to the language. For me, the dialect, for example, was always something very Important, because in the dialects just emotional things to Express, in the high-level language do not exist.
Schabbach in the Hunsrück region was in 1984 the scene of a German story about home
As was discussed your title of “home”? And what has changed since then?
In 1984, it was published as the “home” was a hot topic. The question to be answered: Can we touch, or better yet, is it not? It large gave back attitude, even at the WDR (broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Co-producer of “homeland” – ed. d. Red.), there were intense discussions: Can we call it “home”? Or arouses too many emotions or feelings that we want to overcome?
Today, exactly what we have at the time, fears is blazing, again. I no longer “today would call my movie home”. Against this anbrandende force of possession that takes place, can not defend a single movie. Also, a single artist can’t do that.
“Today I would call my movie ‘home'” – Edgar Reitz in the DW-interview
To what extent is alienated from the notion of purpose?
Because he is used to the exclusion. Home in this sense is not a possession. You can define as property. But that is what is happening. It is a garden fence ideology. It’s not the, what you call home, all around the fence a garden and says: Everyone who enters the crossing, so to speak, my sphere, which is divisible with other people. And I was never so: For me, home is the house whose doors are never closed.
In the case of my grandmother there was no front door key. You have not closed the door. If really bad people came, and there were always, there were wars, plundering hordes that have invaded the country, helped there is no door lock. So, the door has always been open and everyone came and went. And this feeling, to be in the house of the grandmother, was always a feeling that There’s somebody enters the room at any Moment. This is also the first scene in “home” from 1984.
This is not a feeling of a certain coexistence, of course, conflict-free. Home was never a conflict-free place, it was never a Paradise, or an Idyll, but it was just the space of life. And each man knew the other, that the other also has his home.
Home one must never be confused with a Nation, it shouldn’t be confused with any kind of politically definable space. It is a maternal space. This is not the Fatherland, but to the mother country. It is also home to.
Venue for Munich: Edgar Reitz and his Team of “The second Heimat – Chronik einer Jugend” (1992)
You have varied the theme of home Yes then in 1992, in “The second home”, by letting their protagonists from the Hunsrück to Munich. What is that you: the second home?
What we call the second home, which is based on the fact that we are not only born in the bosom of the family, but also in our head, where we feel freedom. Where we stand on the own feet, and us in the world to move on, we are able to make a second home. The more or less conscious decisions, at least from me-dependent decisions. Who is my brother, I can’t decide. Who my friend is, I can decide. Relationships in adulthood, and the tie, also in the choice of a partner, are an expression of freedom.
This second home has become very much important for us today than the first. The first home is sinking, so to speak, to the Mythological. Surrounded by darkness, or hard-to-define feelings, therefore, also an ideological machine, and misused.
Film strip as a gateway to the world: Reitz in the section of “The second home”
What we call the second home, we can define at any time. To do this, we can take at any time, and we can change also. For example, if the political situation or living conditions in a country are unbearable, as I described in my last Film (“The other home”, 2013), what is happening today in thousands of places in the world, can the people decide to seek out a new habitat. And to find this, in turn, is not only a rational act. Also, since it is not just a question of whether the living conditions, but also emotional ties must be allowed to arise, as also peace and security.
Since Johann Wolfgang von Goethe we call the “elective affinities” (Goethe’s novel of 1809), and That one feels a certain number of people as close as parents or siblings. This can even go deeper. The self-selected affiliation, to other people can engage in our modern world, deep in the heart and in the mind. Therefore, the establishment of second homes is a cultural achievement, quite a lot of productivity. Wherever we have observed, where people can do that, you will also be productive. They are both economically and culturally active.
Destination Brazil – German emigrants in the 19th century. Century: “The other home” (2013)
Home is regarded as a term of the German language is difficult to translate. How have you dealt with this?
At the time, we had, of course, the Problem is to translate the title. Since the film series “homeland” went from 1984 to the world level in many countries, faced with the question: Is there an Equivalent to the German word? It is obvious, that there is in the romance languages and also in English no Equivalent. It can not be translated. In Russian or in Polish there is, in Islamic languages. So it comes naturally to Think in such discussions. Why might that be?
We are started to translate it. The Film was shown in all of the countries at the time, also with the German title home. What that then led to the much discussed was: What does this mean for homeland?
Triggers home in the Stranger a Reflex, to deal much more with the home?
Yes, as the home expands. So if one is born somewhere in Turkey, then you might not have the sense of Nation, but rather a loyalty to the village and to the family that is in the foreground. As soon as you but far away, shrinks the country, and the idea of it, and at some point the concept of “homeland” is then identical with the Nation.
2016 Reitz Horst Seehofer got the Bavarian kings Maximilian order. Seehofer’s home Ministry is facing Reitz critical
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) has called this Ministry to home Ministry. What went through your head?
Because I was scared (laughs). I don’t think such a term, when used by politicians, really helps. So if, for example, the CSU understands including, rural regions, technological upgrade, and the international consumer-electricity to connect – because home is destroyed or, at least, this term is hollow. A definition of the term Home for this Ministry I don’t like it at all. The banal definition of this term in such a ridiculous way that I say I would rather have no home than to be under the Horst Seehofer.
The interview was conducted by Jochen Kürten.