Processes of Transposition. German Literature and Film. (Amsterdamer Beitrage zur neueren Germanistik 63)

Processes of Transposition German Literature and Film

63

2007

Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik

Herausgegeben von

Gerd Labroisse Gerhard P. Knapp Norbert Otto Eke

Wissenschaftlicher Beirat:

Christopher Balme (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) Lutz Danneberg (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) Martha B. Helfer (Rutgers University New Brunswick) Lothar Köhn (Westf. Wilhelms-Universität Münster) Ian Wallace (University of Bath)

Processes of Transposition German Literature and Film

Edited by

Christiane Schönfeld in collaboration with

Hermann Rasche

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007

Die 1972 gegründete Reihe erscheint seit 1977 in zwangloser Folge in der Form von Thema-Bänden mit jeweils verantwortlichem Herausgeber. Reihen-Herausgeber: Prof. Dr. Gerd Labroisse Sylter Str. 13A, 14199 Berlin, Deutschland Tel./Fax: (49)30 89724235 E-Mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. Gerhard P. Knapp University of Utah Dept. of Languages and Literature, 255 S. Central Campus Dr. Rm. 1400 Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA Tel.: (1)801 581 7561, Fax (1)801 581 7581 (dienstl.) bzw. Tel./Fax: (1)801 474 0869 (privat) E-Mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. Norbert Otto Eke Universität Paderborn Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften, Warburger Str. 100, D - 33098 Paderborn, Deutschland, E-Mail: [email protected]

Cover photo: by Tony Tracy, The Huston School of Film & Digital Media, The University of Ireland, Galway. All titles in the Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik (from 1999 onwards) are available online: See www.rodopi.nl Electronic access is included in print subscriptions. The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2284-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2007 Printed in The Netherlands

Table of Contents List of Contributors

7

Acknowledgements

9

Christiane Schönfeld: Introduction Osman Durrani: Filmed Fausts: Cardboard Cut-Outs or Blueprints of the Soul? Ricarda Schmidt: The Swan and the Moped. Shifts in the Presentation of Violence from Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O...” to Christoph Stark’s Julietta Siobhán Donovan: “Inspired by Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle”: The Intersemiotic Representation of Figural Consciousness in Eyes Wide Shut Hugh Ridley: Reflections on the Literary Antecedents of Murnau’s Tabu Gerald Bär: Perceptions of the Self as the Other: Double-Visions in Literature and Film Gilbert Carr: “Mit einem kleinen Ruck, wie beim Kinematographen”. From the Unmaking of Professor Unrat to an Unmade Der blaue Engel Yahya Elsaghe: German Film Adaptations of Jewish Characters in Thomas Mann Birgit Maier-Katkin: Literary and Cinematographic Reflections on the Human Condition by Anna Seghers and Fred Zinnemann Eoin Bourke: Two Foxes of Glenarvon Thomas Martinec: Perspective and Reality. Cinematic Transformation of the Narrative Perspective in Schlöndorff’s Die Blechtrommel Carrie Smith-Prei: “Their Adam’s Apple Put Them on Screen”: Hansjürgen Pohland’s Cat and Mouse and the Narrative of the Male Body Gisela Holfter: From Bestseller to Failure? Heinrich Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) to Irland und seine Kinder (Children of Eire) Jan Röhnert: A German Poet at the Movies: Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Alasdair King: “Literatur und Linse”: Enzensberger Goes to the Movies Muriel Cormican: Thomas Brussig’s Ostalgie in Print and on Celluloid Claudia Gremler: “But Somehow it Was Only Television”: West German Narratives of the Fall of the Wall in Recent Novels and their Screen Adaptations Juliet Wigmore: Sex, Violence and Schubert. Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste and Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Klavierspielerin Susan Tebbutt: Intermediality and the Intercultural Dimension in Karin Brandauer’s Film Sidonie based on Erich Hackl’s Abschied von Sidonie

11 27

39

59 81 89 119 133 141 157 169 191 207 223 235 251

269 293 307

6 Markus Oliver Spitz: Robert Schneider’s Novel Schlafes Bruder in the Light of its Screen Version by Joseph Vilsmaier Paul M. Malone: Transposition or Translation? Fiction to Film in Doris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me and Am I Beautiful? Peter M. McIsaac: Taking Doris Dörrie Seriously: Literature, Film, Gender Patrice Djoufack: Adaptation as a Process of Interpretation: Nowhere in Africa – From Stefanie Zweig to Caroline Link Rod Stoneman: Alexander Kluge: Utopian Cinema

319 333 347 363 375

List of Contributors Gerald Bär Departmento de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal Eoin Bourke Department of German, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Gilbert Carr Department of German, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Muriel Cormican Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA Patrice Djoufack Deutsches Seminar, Universität Hannover, Germany Siobhán Donovan School of Languages, Literatures and Film, University College Dublin, Ireland Osman Durrani Department of German, University of Kent, Canterbury, GB Yahya Elsaghe Institut für Germanistik, Universität Bern, Switzerland Claudia Gremler School of Languages & Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, GB Gisela Holfter Department of German, University of Limerick, Ireland Alasdair King School of Modern Languages, Queen Mary, University of London, GB Birgit Maier-Katkin Department of Modern Languages & Linguistics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA Paul M. Malone Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

8 Thomas Martinec Institut für Germanistik, Universität Regensburg, Germany Peter M. McIsaac Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Hermann Rasche Department of German, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Hugh Ridley Department of German, University College Dublin, Ireland Jan Röhnert Institut für Germanistik, Universität Jena, Germany Ricarda Schmidt Department of Modern Languages, School of Arts, Languages and Literatures, University of Exeter, GB Carrie Smith-Prei Department of German, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland Christiane Schönfeld Department of German, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Markus Oliver Spitz Prolingua International Language Centre, Luxembourg, Luxembourg Rod Stoneman The Huston School of Film & Digital Media, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Susan Tebbutt Department of German, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland Juliet Wigmore School of Languages, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, GB

Acknowledgements This volume of essays has grown out of ideas originally presented at the 9th Galway Colloquium on “Literature to Film – Film to Literature” hosted by the Department of German at the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2004. Sincere thanks are due to all those who helped to make this conference happen, among them, the members of the German Department, especially Eoin and Eva Bourke, Hermann Rasche, Geraldine Smyth, Vincent O’Connell, Gabriele Behrens, Sebastian Stumpf, Sarah Swift, Rosaleen O’Neill and Michael Shields, the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts John Marshall, the President of NUI Galway Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh, the Dean of Research Nicholas Canny, the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Iain Mac Labhrainn and, of course, the numerous contributors to the conference. They all helped to create a forum for intellectual exchange that was inspiring and truly enjoyable. For their generous financial assistance for the conference, I should like to express my gratitude to The National University of Ireland, Galway, Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority, Ireland West Tourism, the Austrian Embassy and the German Embassy in Ireland. In editing this volume of essays, I am especially grateful to Hermann Rasche for his encouragement and assiduous proof-reading. For suggesting and providing photographs for his book, I should like to extend a special thanks to Peter Latta at the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek. Many thanks are due to Norbert Otto Eke, Gerhard Knapp, and Gerd Labroisse for their comments and support during the production of this book. For her assistance throughout the various stages of this publication, I am very grateful to Marieke Schilling at Rodopi. As always, I am deeply indebted to my family and friends who have helped and encouraged me in my work and contributed in many different ways to the making of this volume, among them are, especially, Eoin and Eva Bourke, Elisabeth Bronfen, Isabel Capeloa Gil, Edel Langan, Karl Leydecker, Alison and Diarmaid Mulcahy, Heather and Ciaran Pope, Michael Schönfeld, Roland and Renate Schönfeld, Ernst Schürer, Ulf Strohmayer with Sebastian and Benji, Tony Tracy, and Victor Valcik. Christiane Schönfeld

DER BLAUE ENGEL - Deutschland 1930 Regie: Josef von Sternberg Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Christiane Schönfeld

Introduction The essays collected in this book focus on the relationship between German literature, the cinema screen and the many critical interfaces between. Predominantly, the papers present critical readings of the transposition of German language texts to film, while also considering the impact of cinema on literature, exploring intertextualities as well as intermedialities; the forum of discussion thus created spans from cinematic narratives based on Goethe’s Faust to Caroline Link’s adaptation of Stefanie Zweig’s novel Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa).1 When analysing a film based on a novel, short story or even poem, the comparative approach is most widely used in order to assess a film within the context of adaptation. However, as the essays in this book will show, widening the theoretical and methodological lens is essential in order to comprehend fully some of the filmmakers’ choices that shape the final cinematic product. The adaptation of prose fiction for the screen requires analysis on a number of levels. At the same time and approached from a semiotic point of view, the binary relationship between a novel (as a verbal system) and a film (as both verbal and visual system) is thoroughly central to this enquiry. It is hence no surprise that the essays in this book address adaptation first and foremost in a comparative manner. The authors of this volume focus predominantly on questions of narrative and clearly emphasise the text itself. However, they all share an awareness that adaptations are, on several levels, translations of a literary text into the language of film. Any analysis of a text transposed from one medium into another requires an understanding of both the narrative and the technological aspects of film and the particular type of transposition. Consequently, anyone who writes about a film as adaptation places him- or herself in between two texts (literary and cinematic) and their respective contexts, which renders an appreciation of the specificities of both representational forms critical. Commonly, introductions of this kind begin by examining the difference between film and literature. One of the most recent examples is Robert Stam’s introduction to his and Alessandra Raengo’s edited volume Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation,2 in which he analyses convincingly both experiential and ontological differences between the two media. 1

Caroline Link’s film Nowhere in Africa (2001) won numerous awards, among them five golden ‘Lolas’ at the German film awards (Deutscher Filmpreis) in 2002 and the best foreign film Oscar in 2003. 2 Robert Stam: Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation. In: Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Ed. by Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo. London: Blackwell 2005. Pp. 1–52.

12 While explorations of binary oppositions between a novel and its cinematic version are indeed obvious starting points for any analysis of a film as adaptation, discussions of the wider context of production and elements that might have influenced anything from the casting of the film to its reception are often ignored. When we look at Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Lola (1981) for instance, we are dealing with an adaptation of an adaptation of a novel by Heinrich Mann. Josef von Sternberg, who directed the original adaptation of Mann’s novel, in fact had little interest in exploring the contexts of Mann’s Professor Unrat (Small Town Tyrant, 1905) when preparing to film Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel ) in 1929. In contrast, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s adaptation of Sternberg’s film is performing a split between its return to the novel on the one hand, capturing its spirit much more directly than Sternberg would have ever aspired to, and its desire to comment on West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder society on the other, in which ruthless commodification and moral adjustment keep the local economy surging. Fassbinder uses the specific social and political backdrop of 1950s West Germany to position his (or Heinrich Mann’s) characters Lola (the novel’s Rosa Fröhlich) and von Bohm (Professor Rath) in reference to the original novel as well as to both Sternberg’s and his own film narrative. Fassbinder’s adaptation illustrates how film may comment simultaneously on a number of past events or contexts as well as incorporating the film-makers own present. In addition, he clearly engages as a director with the fact that cinema is, as a narrative form, literary. Fassbinder’s French colleague Eric Rohmer, who adapted Heinrich von Kleist’s Die Marquise von O… (The Marquise of O…, 1810) both as the author of the screenplay and as director of the 1976 film (as well as appearing as a Russian soldier), even referred to literature as his “mother”3 and the root of his creativity as a director. This is a view undoubtedly shared by many film-makers, especially those of Rohmer’s own and earlier generations. The camera became the director’s pen and film-making was considered écriture not only by the creative minds of the French Nouvelle Vague and the New German Cinema.4 Even today, the connection between cinema and literature is systemic. As T. Jefferson Kline points out: “Cinema has always […] been ‘literary’, if only in the sense that it wanted to tell a story, and ‘borrowed’from the novel not only many of the narrative techniques necessary to this project but most of its plots”.5 3 Quoted in Jefferson Kline’s book on intertextuality in French cinema. See Jefferson T. Kline: Screening the Text: Intertextuality in New Wave French Cinema. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1992. P. 3. 4 Already in 1946, Jean Cocteau wrote: “It is true that the author of a film is its director. Everything belongs to him. I directed La Belle et la Bête, because I wanted to be the real author of the work”. Jean Cocteau: The Art of Cinema. Trans. by Robin Buss. London: Marion Boyers 2001. P. 32. 5 Jefferson T. Kline: Screening the Text: Intertextuality in New Wave French Cinema. P. 2. See also the works by Dudley Andrew, such as: “The Impact of the Novel on French Cinema of the 30’s”. In: L’Esprit Créateur 30.2 (Summer 1990). Pp. 3–13.

13 But as much as cinema is literary, so does much of literature focus on the visual. Writers are often quite explicit in seeking to aid their readers in visualising a narrative. Joseph Conrad, for example, stated his mission as a writer as follows: “My task […] is by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is before all, to make you see”. The visualisation of a narrative is part of the reading process. Understanding of a literary text only occurs once the narrative begins to unfold ‘visually’ in our minds. We inevitably form visual images of characters, places and plots while reading a novel, short story or perhaps even a poem. And it is via this visualisation of the narrative in the mind that the emotional engagement of the reader occurs. However, making films is not just creating images on screen that might coincide with or challenge our imagination. In 1913, only a few years after Joseph Conrad’s statement, the film-maker D. W. Griffith said: “The task I’m trying to achieve above all is to make you see”.6 Seeing here implies an increased awareness and appreciation both with regard to the narrative in question and to the world around us, imagined or real. The author’s aim here differs little from the film-maker’s aspirations and underlines the proximity between the two media or narrative forms.7 Cinematic adaptations of literary texts have been the object of more or less uninterrupted scholarly investigation since the mid-twentieth century. Not surprisingly, analyses of adaptations (mostly Hollywood adaptations of well-known English and American novels and plays) predominantly focus on the absence and/or presence of similarities between the narrative of the novel and the film, i.e. on the ‘fidelity’ of the adaptation. Typically, equivalence or fidelity criticism engages in discourses of ‘loss’ and principally questions elements left out or altered during the process of transposition. The notion of absence and presence, however, is also inherent to the medium film itself, for it is the creation of an illusion that is cinema’s essence and drive. Cinema tells us stories, it sheds light on and evokes the spectre of that which is absent, creating a reality that draws the past into the present. As Robert Scholes points out, narration is also a performative act that “rests upon the presence of a narrator or narrative medium (actors, book, 6

Griffith and Conrad are quoted repeatedly in books on screen adaptations of literary text, as, for example in Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley: Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. Houndmills: Macmillan 1990. P. 1. For Joseph Conrad, see his preface to The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’. London: Dent 1897. For D. W. Griffith see Lewis Jacobs: The Rise of American Film. New York: Harcourt 1939. P. 119. 7 However, their proximity can just as well be matched by their difference, beginning with the fact that compared to the rather lonely creative process that leads to the production of a novel, films are usually collaborative projects that rely not only on the vision of a director but the technical and artistic expertise of an entire crew. See Robert Stam: Introduction. P. 20.

14 film, etc.) and the absence of the events narrated. These events are present as fictions but absent as realities”.8 What is projected onto the cinema screen is an illusion – one that is, however, experienced as a presence. The viewing of a film might present itself as entertainment, or it may take root and create a space in which we measure ourselves, to borrow Roland Barthes’thought, determining our humanity.9 This, of course, is true for works of art in general and not specific to film or screen adaptation. The question of art, however, is a pertinent one in this context. Film inspired Walter Benjamin to write his essay “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter der technischen Reproduzierbarkeit” (“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, 1935/36) in which he addresses the meaning and uniqueness of an ‘original’ work of art and the challenges but also opportunities generated during this age of technological reproducibility. Absorbed in technology and commerce, film struggles to be art. Within the context of adaptation for the cinema screen, the aspect of reproduction or reproducibility is, at least, doubled. Any serious adaptation simultaneously strives to resemble its literary source and yet endeavours to function entirely independent of it as a work of art. In this respect it is not that dissimilar to a translation, which “operates first of all under the constraint of the original […]”10 as André Lefevere tells us, while creating a seemingly original text. An original, however, that is based on another, adapted to a screenplay, filmed, copied and projected. It is only in the experience of the spectator, and possibly in the hermeneutic labour of the critic, that a film becomes entirely unique. The issue of film as art has been raised persistently but was especially evident in early criticism of adaptations for the cinema screen. Time and again, questions of independence of an adaptation from its literary source as well as queries regarding the independence of the film as work of art and/or the film-maker as artist take centre stage: If the original literary text or novel is a work of art, can the cinematic adaptation of that novel ever match its artistic quality? Can 8 Robert Scholes: Narration and Narrativity in Film and Fiction. In: Robert Scholes: Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven and London: Yale UP 1982. Pp. 57–72, here: P. 58. The quote continues: “Given this situation, it is possible to distinguish different kinds and qualities of narration by the varying extents to which they emphasize either that immediate process of narration (as an actor may draw attention to himself as performer or a writer to himself as stylist) or those mediated events themselves. Using our common critical terminology, it is possible to say that a narration is more fictional as it emphasizes the events narrated, more lyrical as it emphasizes its own language, and more rhetorical as it uses either language or events for some persuasive end”. 9 Roland Barthes: The World as Object. In: Calligram. Ed. by Norman Bryson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. P. 107. 10 André Lefevere: Why Waste Our Time on Rewrites? The Trouble with Interpretation and the Role of Rewriting in an Alternative Paradigm. In: The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation. Ed. by Theo Hermans. London: Croom Helm 1985. Pp. 215–243, here: P. 235.

15 the film-maker ever live up to the original genius of the writer? The notion of adapting a literary text for the screen seemed to imply the film-maker’s willingness to forsake his or her autonomy in order to create what could at best be labelled a mediocre product. As if a film-maker who chooses to adapt a novel for the screen must by implication lack the independence of mind and spirit required for the production of a work of art. All too often it was the outstanding quality of the novel that seemed directly to question the value of the film. In his 1948 article “Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest”11 André Bazin discusses the frequency of acts of adaptation and summary in the creation of modern art, including cinema. He views the act of adapting a novel to film as highly problematic and most efforts to transforming an excellent novel into a film of equal quality as doomed to failure. But at the same time, Bazin identifies the demand of “faithfulness” of the adaptation with respect to its literary source as misleading: ‘Form’ is at most a sign, a visible manifestation, of style, which is absolutely inseparable from the narrative content, of which it is, in a manner of speaking and according to Sartre’s use of the work, the metaphysics. Under these circumstances, faithfulness to a form, literary or otherwise, is illusory: what matters is the equivalence in meaning of the forms.12

To prove his point, Bazin argues that the style of André Malraux’s film L’Espoir, which Malraux directed in1945 and which is based on his 1937 novel of the same name (trans. Man’s Hope, 1938) “is completely identical to that of his book, even though we are dealing here with two different artistic forms, cinema on the one hand and literature on the other”.13 By praising Malraux’s “identical” versions of L’Espoir, Bazin implicitely defines the ‘perfect’ adaptation. He assumes an essence of the novel that can be reconstructed on the cinema screen firmly embedded in corresponding particulars of style, thereby creating a mirror image of the ‘core’ of the literary text. But is an identical re-presentation in the medium film, a mirror image in style albeit in a different artistic form, really what an adaptation should be expected to accomplish? Can an adaptation ever achieve that kind of “equivalence in meaning of the forms”, unless, perhaps, author and film-maker are one and the same person, as in the case of André Malraux or, as discussed in this book, Doris Dörrie? Does not the duplicity inherent in all literary discourse, be it the duplicity of the message, context or codes in general or that of the sender or 11

André Bazin: L’Adaptation ou le cinéma comme digeste. In: Esprit 16.146 (1948). Pp. 32–40. The text appears in English translation in the first part of Film Adaptation. Ed. by James Naremore. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 2000. Pp. 19–27. 12 Bazin: Adaptation. P. 20. 13 Ibid.

16 receiver, equip any text with an ambiguity that renders similitude between literary source and cinematic representation impossible? Even if a novel and film resemble one another down to allusions or small hints of irony, the privilege of abundance and flexibility of time in a novel does not normally correspond to the facilities commonly associated with the time frame of a feature film. Unless, perhaps, one looks at adaptations such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 930 minute screen version of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979/80), which captures Döblin’s world in compelling detail, tempting its viewers to believe, just one more time, in the possibility of the notion of similitude. Fassbinder’s translation of Döblin’s literary style is in numerous instances entirely convincing both in terms of the adaptation’s faithfulness to the source novel and with regard to the equivalence in meaning of the two forms or media – in more than fifteen hours of film. In this case, fidelity becomes a rather time-consuming affair and, perhaps, while not betraying the medium film, as a television series in thirteen parts and one epilogue, Fassbinder’s work here clearly circumvents the demands regarding the consumer-friendly length of feature films usually placed on adaptations for the cinema screen. So can this “equivalence” in meaning of the two forms ever be achieved by a film-maker who is not at the same time the author of the literary text as well as the screenplay? It seems real equivalence is impossible to achieve14 and most film adaptations recapitulate the basic plot but differ essentially from the multifacetted materiality of the novels or short stories they are based on.15 Bazin labels adaptations as “digests”, as “condensed versions” and “summaries” of the literary texts – usually novels – that provided the narrative springboard for the film.16 This process of condensing and summarising implies choice, and Bazin indicates a prevalence of commercial considerations when he writes: “To be sure, one must first know to what end the adaptation is designed; for the cinema or for its audience. One must also realize that most adapters care far more about the latter than about the former”.17 The consideration a film-maker might pay to the audience is often judged detrimental to the adaptor’s efforts in creating a work of art. Already in 1923, Walter Benjamin articulated a related thought in his essay “The Task of the Translator”: In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form, consideration of the receiver never proves fruitful. Not only is any reference to a certain public or its representatives misleading, but even the concept of an ‘ideal’ receiver is detrimental in the theoretical consideration of art, since all it posits is the existence and nature of man as such. Art, in the same way, posits man’s physical and spiritual existence, but in none of its 14

“There is no such transferable ‘core’ ”. Robert Stam: Introduction. P. 15. See Robert Stam: Introduction. P. 18. 16 Bazin: Adaptation. P. 21. 17 Ibid. 15

17 works is it concerned with his response. No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.18

No doubt a work of art can be commercially successful, but a film that is shaped and driven by the potential demands of its target audience will rarely be considered art. Yet film production is a costly business and the pressure to ensure large audiences is enormous. Commercial considerations in the realm of filmmaking often become blatantly obvious when a novel is turned into film, not just since Tom Tykwer’s adaptation19 of Patrick Süskind’s Das Parfum (Perfume. The Story of a Murderer, 1985) headed for a price tag of 50 million Euro. Film has been a commodity from its inception and commercial interests have shaped its productions throughout its history. Margarete Böhme’s best-selling novel Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl, 1905), for instance, tells the story of the bourgeois teenager Thymian Gotteball and her social descent after having been raped by her father’s pharmacy assistant and becoming the bourgeois family’s worst nightmare: an unwed mother. Böhme’s compassionate novel is a biting social commentary that juxtaposes bourgeois society’s hypocrisy and Victorian bigotry with the morality, intelligence and compassion of prostitutes. In the novel, the tragic heroine and victim of society’s duplicity, young Thymian, dies a prostitute, despite her best efforts to determine for herself a different path based on and achieved through education. Within the first twenty-five years after the publication of Böhme’s hugely successful novel, the literary text was adapted twice and commercial considerations not only prompted the choice of this particular narrative, but also significantly shaped the screenplay. In both adaptations of the novel for the cinema screen – by Richard Oswald in 1918 and G. W. Pabst in 1929 – the grim ending of the untimely death of an intelligent, kind and caring young woman is turned into a romantic tale of survival as Thymian is being ‘rescued’ by an elderly 18

Walter Benjamin: The Task of the Translator. In: Illuminations. Trans. by Harry Zohn. Glasgow: Collins 1973. Pp. 69–82, here: P. 69. “Nirgends erweist sich einem Kunstwerk oder einer Kunstform gegenüber die Rücksicht auf den Aufnehmenden für deren Erkenntnis fruchtbar. Nicht genug, daß jede Beziehung auf ein bestimmtes Publikum oder dessen Repräsentanten vom Wege abführt, ist sogar der Begriff eines ‘idealen’ Aufnehmenden in allen kunsttheoretischen Erörterungen vom Übel, weil diese lediglich gehalten sind, Dasein und Wesen des Menschen überhaupt vorauszusetzen. So setzt auch die Kunst selbst dessen leibliches und geistiges Wesen voraus – seine Aufmerksamkeit aber in keinem ihrer Werke. Denn kein Gedicht gilt dem Leser, kein Bild dem Beschauer, keine Symphonie der Hörerschaft”. Walter Benjamin: Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers. In: Illuminationen. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1977. Pp. 50–67, here: P. 50. 19 Perfume. The Story of a Murderer (2006), directed by Tom Tykwer, screenplay by Andrew Birkin, Bernd Eichinger and Tom Tykwer, starring Dustin Hoffmann, Alan Rickman, Corinna Harfouch, etc.

18 aristocrat. Especially Pabst’s 1929 film was not only a success due to the sex appeal of its star Louise Brooks as Thymian, but also because the film foregrounds the audience’s desire for a happy ending. The novel’s subtitle and claim of (anonymous) authorship is omitted: “Von einer Toten” (By a Dead Woman), as Thymian lives and Böhme’s social, moral and political criticism is reduced to easily consumed cinematic entertainment. But the success of Pabst’s silent film was short-lived, due to the introduction of the talking picture in the late 1920s. The question of art and the function of adaptation, however, continued to resurface. Four decades later, the study of film and, especially, adaptation began to change direction, prompted chiefly by the French film theoretician Christian Metz, who focused his semiotics of film on cinematic specificity based on filmic discourse and image discourse. In his Essais sur la signification au cinema (1967) Metz uses semiology as an analytic tool in order to understand better the relationship between art (representation) and ideology, and clearly demonstrates the vigorous kinship between film and narrative. Especially after the publication of his Essais in English (as Film Language, 1974), this discourse gained popularity and was moved forward by critics and theorists such as Robert Scholes. In his work on semiotics, and more specifically his essay on “Narration and Narrativity in Film and Fiction” (1976),20 Scholes writes: As Christian Metz has made abundantly clear, film and narrative have such a powerful affinity that their relationship assumes a supreme naturalness. When, in the eighteenth century, Lessing sought so elaborately to contrast the mimetic possibilities of verbal narration and pictorial representation, he neatly (doubtless too neatly) divided the world between them – assigning to the sequential, arbitrary signs of fiction the narration of actions, and to the simultaneous, motivated signs of painting the description of objects and persons. If he were brought back to life today he would recognize in cinema the reconciliation of the parts of his divided world, for the motion-picture film gives us objects and persons moving and enacting in a visual system of narration that combines the powers of poetry and painting in an extraordinary synthesis.21

The fascination with the medium cinema among scholars of literature is surely due, in part, to this merging of Lessing’s divided worlds. In his Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie (Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, 1766), Lessing emphasises the mimetic capacities of both 20 Robert Scholes essay was originally published as “Narration and Narrativity in Film” in the Quarterly Review of Film Studies (August 1976) and gained wide attention when it appeared in a slightly revised form in Scholes’ highly acclaimed Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven and London: Yale UP 1982. Pp. 57–72. 21 Robert Scholes: Narration and Narrativity in Film and Fiction. Pp. 65–66.

19 poetry and painting, as both make present that which is absent and tender appearance as reality.22 What divides them however, and thus separates the diachronic unfolding of meaning in poetry from the – at time shocking – immediacy of an image, is brought together in the sequentially unfolding visual tapestry of film. It is this overlapping of narrative structure and visual composition, of plot and mise-en-scène in film, which seemingly takes the mimetic capacity of art further still and perhaps accounts for the ongoing fascination with the medium of cinema. In light of this thought, any writing about filmic adaptations of literatures broadly construed can perhaps be understood as retrograde steps in the canon of film criticism: they reintroduce a purely narrative element into reflections on a medium that has, theoretically at least, moved past such singular marks of distinction. Any notion of an “original”, of “adaptation” or “fidelity” thus potentially misses what makes film distinct as a medium: the fusion of mimetic faculties within the broader horizon of art. But can cinematic representation fill our imagination in the same way as the force of vision that Lessing experienced while gazing at the monumental sculpture of Laocoon and his Sons in the Vatican museum in Rome? Laocoon is both a work of art and representative of narration. Not unlike film, the sculpture tells its own story, but its interpretation depends on the viewer’s knowledge and awareness regarding the iconography and contexts of this specific representation. When we compare a novel and a film, the mode of narration also clearly differs, but both the written text and the cinematic flow of images (with or without sound) represent narratives. Indeed, each presentational style (reading a text as a book, enacting it on the stage, filming and projecting it onto a screen) intensifies in Scholes’ view “the literariness of the experience by its own artifice: language plus enactment plus photography. And the achieved fiction is there on the screen with a specificity that the printed text alone can never hope to match. The price for this intensity is a reduction in the interpretive richness of the written text – and this happens as every level is added”. The difference between the performance of a play on stage and an adaptation of a literary text for the cinema screen is one of interpretive choice. Both narrative forms make choices for the audience, but in Scholes’ view, in a play performed on stage, new or different choices are potentially made each night. No two performances of a play will ever be identical, but “[w]hen the story is filmed, all choices are final, which suggests that one ought to be very careful about confusing interpretive richness with the quality of literariness in any given work”. Once again, questions of interpretation, representation and, most of all, art are

22

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie. Werke I. Berlin: Volksbühnenverlag 1925. P. 389.

20 central to this line of thought. An adaptation might be art if it captures not only the essence of the literary text it is based on, but connects this essence in the context of an always particular here-and-now with the experience of a viewer and thereby makes it relevant – again. Or, as Robert Scholes puts it: “Life itself, with all its quotidian contingency, provides the richest possible field for interpretation. Art reduces this field – drastically. And that is why we value it – not the only reason, but perhaps the main one”.23 Keith Cohen picked up on this idea in his book on Film and Literature: the Dynamics of Exchange (1979) in which he focuses on the word to image transfer in film adaptation. He insists that although words and images in film and literature are sets of signs that belong to different systems, they still use similar perceptual, referential and symbolic codes. And his assertion that “the same codes may re-appear in more than one system”, as Cohen states, “makes possible, then, a study of the relation between two separate sign systems, like novel and film […]”.24 This view, however, was soon disputed by Dudley Andrew, who according to Kamilla Elliott is “one of the most widely reprinted scholars of literary film adaptation”.25 In his book on Concepts in Film Theory (1984), Dudley Andrew writes of “the absolutely different semiotic systems of film and language” that can nevertheless contain “equivalent narrative units (characters, events, motivations, consequences, context, viewpoint, imagery, and so on)”.26 Here, the study of adaptation logically turns to the narrative, as this is in itself a semiotic system that is, as Andrew states, “available to both and derivable from both”27 literature and film. Therefore, according to Andrew, an examination of “the strictly separate but equivalent processes of implication which produced the narrative units of that story through words and audio-visual signs”28 will inevitably move to the centre of any analysis of a film as adaptation. Since the mid-1970s, scholars such as Michael Klein, Gillian Parker, Geoffrey Wagner and Dudley Andrew have tried to classify certain types of adaptations and create categories according to how ‘faithful’ the adaptation is in relation to the original text. They all identify three different groupings: the first category contains “transpositions” (Wagner) or films that resemble the original narrative or “give the impression of being faithful, that is, literal

23

Ibid. P. 59. Keith Cohen: Film and Literature. The Dynamics of Exchange. New Haven: Yale UP 1979. P. 4. Quoted by Robert Giddings et al.: Screening the Novel. P. 8. 25 Kamilla Elliott: Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003. P. 13. 26 Dudley Andrew: Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford: Oxford UP 1984. P. 103. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 24

21 translations”29 (Klein/Parker) of the literary text. Dudley Andrew identifies this rather “tiresome” group of adaptations with “fidelity and transformation”.30 The second category according to Michael Klein and Gillian Parker “retains the core of the structure of the narrative while significantly re-interpreting, or in some cases de-constructing the source text”. This category is identified by Geoffrey Wagner as a “commentary” and by Dudley Andrew as “intersecting”, i.e. “the uniqueness of the original text is preserved to such an extent that it is intentionally left unassimilated in adaptation”.31 The third category of adaptation “regards the source merely as raw material, as simply the occasion for an original work” (Klein/Parker). It is an “analogy” and “fairly considerable departure for the purpose of making another work of art” (Wagner). The act of “borrowing” (Andrew) of a narrative, an idea, a myth, of some material from an earlier text is, according to Dudley Andrew, the “most frequent mode of adaptation”,32 and he tells us, when studying this mode of adaptation, “the main concern is the generality of the original, its potential for wide and varied appeal; in short, its existence as a continuing form or archetype in culture”.33 While these categories are helpful, they are also problematic due to the generalisation, which they demand. An adaptation might fit into more than one category and, while slavishly transposing one particular scene onto the screen, merely intersect or comment on the original text as a whole. From the mid1980s onwards the post-colonial discourse has entered discussions on screen adaptations. As Derrida has convincingly argued in his essay on “Les Tours de Babel” (1985), the process of translation creates another original text. This is true for both translation and adaptation. As a translation, a cinematic adaptation of a literary text can be (and often is) read as a violation, a penetration and even demolition of the ‘original’ text. An adaptation is never a mirror image of the literary source, it is always already a refraction and remains a process of manipulation, potentially not only within the literary/verbal and visual systems, but also with regard to the wider political, social and historical contexts. The outstanding German pioneer of animation and silhouette film-maker Lotte Reiniger described the manipulation she undertook while adapting the 29

See Michael Klein and Gillian Parker: The English Novel and the Movies. New York: Ungar 1981. Pp. 9–10. Geoffrey Wagner: The Novel and the Cinema. Rutherford, N.J.: Dickinson UP 1975. Pp. 222–231. Dudley Andrew: Concepts in Film Theory. Pp. 98–104. A summary of these categorisations can be found in Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley: Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. Houndmills: Macmillan 1990. Pp. 11–12. 30 Dudley Andrew: Concepts in Film Theory. P. 100. 31 Ibid. P. 99. 32 Ibid. P. 98. 33 Ibid.

22 adventures of Prince Achmed from Arabian Nights for the first German feature-length animation film entitled Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1923–26) as follows: For centuries, Prince Achmed had been leading a comfortable life as a fairy tale figure in the book Arabian Nights; he was happy, loved and content. One day, a silhouette maker who wanted to use him for a film tore him from this peaceful existence. For this purpose, he needed to be reborn, just like many others of his colleagues from other literary areas. This change had to take place in a much more drastic manner than is normally required for manipulations of this kind. It was not enough to write a part for him that fit him like a glove and entrust an actor of similar stature to play it. […] He had to be physically invented, drawn, cut, wired, lit, moved and shot.34

In Lotte Reiniger’s Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, the stories of the Arabian Nights are broken apart and connected anew, others ignored or reinvented to provide the film-maker with the narrative structure suitable to her film. However, her choice was determined to a lesser degree by the narrative itself, but rather by both technical opportunities and challenges and the desire to explore the boundaries of early film-making. In her effort to show the possibilities of animation in comparison to live-action film, Reiniger first of all isolated a number of magical events from the Arabian Nights and began to weave them around Prince Achmed as the main character. It was magic, that which live-action film could at the time impossibly represent, which commanded the structure and diegesis of Reiniger’s film. When looking at her film as adaptation, there are plenty of similarities with regard to the content but also the form of the literary source. Reiniger borrowed from the original, transposed some scenes and ignored others, and in the end created a story in its own right, an analogy perhaps, and surely a work of art. As these pages are meant to introduce a volume of essays primarily focused on film adaptations of German literature, I would like to conclude with a few remarks pertaining to adaptations related to the German language environment. 34

Lotte Reiniger: Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed. Tübingen: Wasmuth 1970. P. vii: “Seit Jahrhunderten hatte der Prinz Achmed als Märchenfigur in dem Buche Tausend und eine Nacht ein behagliches Dasein geführt und war glücklich, geliebt und zufrieden. Aus diesem Frieden wurde er eines Tages aufgeschreckt als eine Filmgesellschaft auf die Idee kam, seine und viele weitere Abenteuer aus derselben Quelle zu einem Trickfilm zu verwenden. Zu diesem Zweck musste er, wie viele seiner unglücklichen Kollegen aus anderen literarischen Gebieten, ‘umgeboren’ werden. Und zwar noch gründlicher als dies sonst bei anderen Verfilmungen üblich ist, wo man Darsteller zu finden sucht, die einigermassen dem Charakter, um den es in der Geschichte geht, entsprechen und sie mit der Rolle betraut. Denn es sollte ein Silhouettenfilm werden, weil der Hersteller, der von dieser Idee besessen war, nämlich ich, nichts anderes konnte als Silhouettenfilme machen. […] Prinz Achmed selber musste zunächst körperlich erfunden, gezeichnet, geschnitten, beweglich gemacht [gedrahtet], beleuchtet, bewegt und aufgenommen werden”.

23 Adaptations of German texts went hand in hand with the birth or infancy of cinema. During the first few decades of the history of cinema, Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) was the most popular among German poets and dramatists whose works were adapted for the silent cinema screen. Already in 1898, less than three years since the first public screening of a moving picture in Berlin’s Wintergarten theatre in November of 1895, George Méliès, one of the most outstanding French pioneers of early silent cinema, adapted Friedrich Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1804). Among the Schiller adaptors that followed were Alice Guy who presented her own version of Guillaume Tell only two years later; Lucien Nonguet and Albert Capellani released their adaptations of the same play in 1903 and 1908 respectively. Italy produced its first Guglielmo Tell for the screen in 1911, the USA followed in 1913 with J. Searle Dawley and Walter Edwin’s adaptation of Schiller’s drama Die Räuber (The Robbers, 1781). In Germany, 1913 proved extremely productive with regard to cinematic Schiller adaptations. Phil Jutzi directed Fiesko, starring Wilhelm Dieterle; and Friedrich Fehér – best known for playing Francis in Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919) – directed and played the lead in both Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) and Die Räuber. In 1914, Fehér’s adaptation of Schiller’s Tell – according to archival records the fourth Tell already on German cinema screens – premiered as Die Befreiung der Schweiz und die Sage von Wilhelm Tell (The Liberation of Switzerland and the Legend of Wilhelm Tell ). How much adaptations – as much as any other cultural product – may be shaped by political concerns and ideological constraint can be easily illustrated when examining Schiller adaptations produced during the Third Reich. Already in 1934, Hanns Johst – one of the co-founders of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur and known for his revanchist poetry and nationalist prose35 – adapted Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (together with Hans Curjel, Wilhelm Stöppler and Heinz Paul) and provided the screenplay for a first Schiller film that catered to the Nazis’ desire to appropriate the German poet for their nationalist agenda: Wilhelm Tell – Das Freiheitsdrama eines Volkes (Wilhelm Tell – A People’s Struggle for Liberation). In total, three of Schiller’s plays were turned into Third Reich films in big budget and high profile productions: Wilhelm Tell, Die Jungfrau von Orleans (Jeanne d’Arc, i.e. Das Mädchen Johanna, 1935) and, indirectly in Herbert Maisch’s Schiller biopic of 1940, his play Die Räuber, turning Friedrich Schiller into a flaccid collaborator within the Nazi’s expert propaganda machine. 35

See, for example, Hanns Johst’s volume of revanchist poetry: Rolandsruf. München: Langen 1919; or his drama: Schlageter (München: Langen–Müller, 1933), which tells the story of Nazi martyr Albert Leo Schlageter and is dedicated to Adolf Hitler “in liebender Verehrung und unwandelbarer Treue”. In his powerful position as director of the Reichsschrifttumskammer, Johst was responsible for the persecution of all nonAryan and anti-Nazi literatures.

24 When interpreting these adaptations, the political context in which the film production took place is as important as the original source. André Lefevere writes: All writing of literature takes place under the two constraints […] patronage and poetics, to which two more constraints must be added. One is what linguists often call ‘universe of discourse’ these days, i.e. the knowledge, the learning, but also the objects and the customs of a certain time, to which writers are free to allude in their work. The other is the natural language in which the work is composed. For rewriters a fifth constraint must be added, namely that of the original work itself. The original is the locus where ideology, poetics, universe of discourse and language come together, mingle and clash. All rewriting of literature, be it interpretation, criticism, historiography, the putting together of anthologies, or translation, takes place under at least one of the constraints mentioned, and implies the others.36

The making of an adaptation is a form of rewriting of literature, and any interpretation of an adaptation requires awareness of these ‘constraints’ mentioned as well as those of our own history and culture. Just as the adaptation performs a movement away from its literary root, the film is projected onto a screen and therefore performs the double movement towards and away from the object (of desire).37 The relation between the literary text and the film adaptation is one based on representation not resemblance. In the history of film criticism, an effective adaptation, however, was all too often judged on the basis of resemblance. With regard to pictorial art, this battle was already fought by artists such as Courbet or Monet during the second half of the 19th century. Modern art habitually challenged the notion that pictorial representations could only be considered effective if they resembled the objects they seek to represent. Within the context of adaptation, judging any representation in terms of resemblance is, of course, highly problematic. While resemblance is reflexive and symmetrical, representation is usually neither. Even near-perfect resemblance between two objects doesn’t guarantee representation. It is the ability and the desire to interpret that provides us with the essential precondition that enables understanding. With regard to adaptation, the viewer or critic interprets a film-maker’s representation of his or her interpretation of a specific literary text. As in the essays in this book, our assessment of a film adaptation necessarily originates between the pages of a book and remains, therefore, for the most part, within this binary opposition to the literary text. 36 André Lefevere: Why Waste Our Time on Rewrites? The Trouble with Interpretation and the Role of Rewriting in an Alternative Paradigm. In: The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation. Edited by Theo Hermans. London: Croom Helm 1985. Pp. 215–243, here: Pp. 232–233. 37 See Kline: Screening the Text. P. 4.

25 But the illusion cinema creates, the absence inevitably inherent in the adaptation of a literary text and in cinema itself, also marks a stage of continued life for the original source. Walter Benjamin’s idea of Fortleben,38 the afterlife of a literary text, “usually refers to the posterity of a work of literature after dissemination through translation”39 but seems also true for adaptation and dissemination through the cinema screens. In this afterlife of a work of art, however, change is inevitable. The original work is renewed via its translation – or adaptation – and this renewal persistently demands modification and adjustment: “For in its afterlife – which could not be called that if it were not a transformation and a renewal of something living – the original undergoes change”.40 By changing, by being adapted to the screens of multiplex cinemas, literature is often injected with a new lease of life, and successful screen adaptations habitually lead to new editions and increased sales of the literary text in question. And as André Bazin believes: when the cinematic adaptation is a work of art in itself, the novel is “multiplied by the cinema”.41 Or as George Linden told us: “A successful adaptation of a novel should not be the book. Nor should it be a substitute for the book. If it is truly successful, it should be a work of art in its own right which excites the reader to go re-experience that work in another medium: the novel”.42 Perhaps the essays to follow can help to contribute to the continued life or Fortleben of both German literature and its adaptations by encouraging readers to, once again, experience the wealth of narratives and their countless textualities in both media.

38

See Walter Benjamin: The Task of the Translator. P. 71. Ibid. 40 Ibid. P. 73. “Denn in seinem Fortleben, das so nicht heißen dürfte, wenn es nicht Wandlung und Erneuerung des Lebendigen wäre, ändert sich das Original”. Benjamin: Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers. P. 53. 41 Bazin quoted by Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley: Introduction. In: Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. Houndmills: Macmillan 1990. P. 13. 42 George Linden: The Storied World. In: Film and Literature: Contrasts in Media. Ed. by Fred Marcus. New York: Chandler 1971. P. 169. Quoted in Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley: Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. P. 10. 39

LOTTE REINIGER (bei der Arbeit) Quelle: Filmmuseum Berlin - Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek

Osman Durrani

Filmed Fausts: Cardboard Cut-Outs or Blueprints of the Soul? The subject of the Faust myth has been repeatedly exploited and re-worked by the film industry from its earliest days to the present. It offers all the acknowledged concomitants of a good film: religion and social comment beside love interest and violent drama. It can be retold in many different ways, with Faust appearing as hero or villain, and treated as an example or as a warning. The current paper seeks to examine the links between Faustus’ enhancement as a character and the media in which his story is told. With few exceptions, prose fiction serves the needs of authors wishing to condemn Faustus, while drama provides opportunities for showing his more positive qualities. Faust films nearly always concentrate on the doctor’s redeeming qualities and tend to show him outwitting the devil. This may in the end have less to do with the optimistic spirit of the modern age than with the exigencies of a medium that demands heroism and fosters the adulation of star performers. Recent examples appear to register a return to the ethos of the original chapbook, in which Faustus is a naïve charlatan rather than a tragic idealist.

The story of the sage who sells his soul to the devil in return for knowledge, riches and pleasure is easily identified as one that is eminently appropriate to the demands of the film industry. Several recent studies have traced the on-screen evolution of the myth and shown that an elective affinity was quick to develop between Faust and the medium of cinema. Faust’s many adventures proved popular with movie makers and audiences long before the first fulllength ‘epic’ on the theme, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Faust. Eine deutsche Volkssage, was shot in 1926. By then, several dozen short versions had been attempted. Before World War I and even before the turn of the century, early pioneers such as Georges Méliès in France and George Smith in England had taken up the theme and produced short strips that revisited the main points of the plot in a matter of a few minutes.1 It is easy to see why the subject was so attractive from an early stage. The art of film partakes of the magical, and the earliest film-makers were professional 1

See especially Ernst Prodolliet: Faust im Kino. Die Geschichte des Faustfilms von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart. Fribourg/Switzerland: University Press 1978; Russell A. Berman: “The Masses and Margarita: Faust at the Movies”. In: Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand: Our Faust? Roots and ramifications of a modern German myth. 16th Wisconsin Workshop Papers. Wisconsin: University Press 1987. Pp. 139–152; Erik Barnouw: The Magician and the Cinema. New York: Oxford University Press 1981; Georg Seesslen: Faust – Materialien zu einem Film von Peter Gorski. Duisburg: Atlas Film 1992; Osman Durrani: Faust. Icon of Modern Culture. Mountfield: Helm Information 2004. Pp. 312–346.

28 illusionists who were well placed to recognise that any story involving magic can easily be transferred to a shadowy, flickering, unstable medium. There is also the circumstance that great actors who have performed in adaptations of the play – they include Orson Welles, Richard Burton and Gustaf Gründgens – are themselves regularly credited with Faustian or Mephistophelean qualities by their reviewers and biographers. The theme of Faust would therefore seem to be the ideal material for the movie theatre. It was demonstrably able to meet a growing demand for violent action and to produce the frisson of the inexplicable and supernatural that audiences appeared to seek. Equally important were the hero’s amorous adventures and the underlying social satire, further and no less essential ingredients of so many of today’s box office successes. Ulrich Gaier has recently shown that filmic devices are omnipresent in Goethe’s Faust; many scenes which he invented far exceeded the technical capacity of the theatre of his time and anticipated presentational techniques that could not be implemented until the advent of the cinema.2 Yet, paradoxically, the original script from which all Faust movies derive was not intended to entertain or to stimulate its audiences; far from it. The book that brought lasting fame and notoriety to Wittenberg’s deviant doctor is in essence a turgid moral diatribe, a Lutheran tract liberally supplied with biblical marginalia, closely printed without any lurid illustrations, enriched only by the addition of much sententious sermonising. In this respect it resembles a prayer-book rather than a picaresque adventure. True, the plot includes ideological debates, extensive travels across the known world and even into space, and several instances of Faust’s libidinous excesses, but the religious discourse is central to it and remains narrowly dogmatic. The travel sections are copied from encyclopaedic compilations, while the sexual conquests are never brought alive by any titillating graphic details. The view of society is illiberal by today’s criteria of political correctness. Where there is evidence of social comment, this tends to be directed against the illiterate peasantry rather than the aristocracy, with inn-keepers and Jews being held up to ridicule. In this respect, too, the Volksbuch has little to commend it to today’s readers. The violence is more often than not directed against Faustus himself, most obviously so at the end, where the doctor meets his death just like many a villain in a Hollywood ‘splatter’ movie, leaving us with no point of identification unless, like Blake’s Milton, we are of the devil’s party ourselves without knowing it. The lack of a hero in the Aristotelian mould clearly bothered the now forgotten authors of several hundred puppet plays whose audiences, like today’s consumer citizens, preferred their entertainment to include a ‘feel-good’ element. The standard response to this omission in the original was to introduce a Hanswurst character with whom rudimentary empathy is possible. 2

Ulrich Gaier: “Goethes Traum von einem Faust-Film”. In: Fausts Modernität. Stuttgart: Reclam 2000. Pp. 92–136.

29 Hanswurst or Pickelhäring, Harlequin or Scaramouche – what mattered was that someone from a ‘down-to-earth’ background was recruited to work in Doctor Faustus’ household and to act as witness to the horrific events that unfold therein. Hanswurst thus becomes an ‘Everyman’ figure who survives, learns a lesson or two, and for whom life goes on after the doctor has been dragged off to eternal damnation. The biggest impediment to any ‘Faust – the Movie’ project is that there is no happy ending as far as its central character, the erstwhile seeker of knowledge, is concerned. One cannot get round this without re-writing the story in the most radical manner, that is to say, by reading it against its intended grain. But to make the villain into a hero is such a gross violation of the original plot-line as to oblige us to ask whether the happily ending Fausts are true Fausts or mirror-image antiFausts. And it is not only the ending that causes problems. Faust interacts with the devil, usually through one of his emissaries, the Mephistopheles of the chapbook and dramas from Marlowe to Goethe and beyond. That in itself would be highly dramatic, were it not for the lamentable circumstance that Faust is never seen fighting against his adversary like some kind of James Bond figure avant la lettre, bent on pursuing and tracking down his opponent in the form of a supervillain such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Dr No. Instead, the chapbook’s Faustus willingly accepts favours from his devil and treats him as a friend and companion before being ripped to shreds by him. In this respect, his plight is therefore not so much tragic as pathetic. The figure who was created in the sixteenth century to represent man’s impotence when confronted with evil must continue to retain this quality if the fable is not to be twisted into its opposite. Looking at the way in which Faust evolved from the sixteenth century to the present, we note that prose Fausts are followed by drama, by puppet plays, ballets, operas, novels and films, each with their own peculiarities that are characteristic of their age and of the employed genre. Prose Fausts must differ from their dramatic cousins in a number of key respects. They contain relatively little humour, the ethos is earnest, and Faust discovers through a series of frustrating (mis-) adventures that his temporary pleasures have been purchased at a terrible price. This is true, among others, of the Volksbuch, Widmann, Pfitzer, Klinger, Heine, HahnHahn and Spielhagen. It is equally true of Klaus Mann’s and Thomas Mann’s updating of the myth to comment on the nature of twentieth-century fascism. The uncompromising pessimism with which the epic Faust is presented is more appropriate to narrative fiction than to drama, which tends to pursue a different strategy. Marlowe was the first to recognise that the unadulterated Volksbuch could not be staged without modification. The very nature of the theatre obliged him to modify the figure of the unremittingly wicked Faustus. His hero became a torn individual accompanied by good and evil angels, and the action was offset, more than happens in the prose source, by comic acolytes and pranksters (Rafe and Robin), who imitate him without apparently coming to grief themselves.

30 This is actually rather curious. We associate the term ‘tragedy’ with drama, not with prose fiction. Yet the prose versions tend to be more tragic than the dramatic ones. The conventional explanation for the shift in emphasis is that it was eighteenth-century optimism rather than the exigencies of the theatre that saved Faust from damnation. Lessing and Goethe valued purposeful, directed action (what they called ‘striving’) above the more nebulous quality of virtue, and they showed the world that Faust had sufficient drive and motivation in him to be redeemed. But there were other reasons at work, reasons that had more to do with the medium than with the Zeitgeist. The theatrical versions of Faust are almost without exception distinguished by conciliatory aspects and by their common progress towards a happy ending. Lessing’s Faust is pardoned, Goethe’s is borne off by angels, Weidmann’s is forgiven, and Maler Müller’s eventually wakes up and finds it was all a dream. Grabbe’s fares less well, probably because he interacts so negatively with Don Juan. It is left to the less stageable and unstageable works to reveal the downside of Faust’s striving: this is true of Klinger, Chamisso, Lenau and Heine. The distinction between prose and drama is even more obvious in the Faust films, which were produced solely to be viewed and not to be read. In contrast to the epic tradition from Volksbuch to Thomas Mann and Michael Swanwick, and in contrast also to the majority of dramas from Christopher Marlowe to Paul Valéry and beyond, Faust films show a tendency to treat the eponymous character benignly. This medium influences the outcome in a manner that has less to do with the underlying source than with the close focus on the character that is facilitated by close-up images of him on celluloid. Faust’s career was quick to establish itself as a favourite theme for the movies. The more detailed the film, the more the audience actually sees of Faust, the more sympathetic he becomes. Murnau’s Faust of 1926, marketed variously as “Goethe’s Faust” and as “a German folk saga”, places Faust’s redemption alongside that of Gretchen. Despite the publicity, Murnau does not try to stick either to the original Faust Book or to Goethe. His Faust is an initially unattractive figure who is redeemed in the viewers’ eyes by two factors. His belated return to Gretchen, whom he had abandoned but whom he eventually joins on an already smouldering funeral pyre, dispels any uncertainty as to the depth of his feelings for her. But Faust is also shown to suffer the consequences of Mephisto’s deceitfulness. Emil Jannings, who starred in the role of Faust’s antagonist, was well equipped to underline his villainy at every point, not just through his consummate mastery of the roguish leer. He cheats his victim in various underhand ways, by playing tricks with time and spreading malicious rumours about the doctor’s liaison with Gretchen that turn the townspeople against him. William Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) represents a landmark in twentieth-century attempts to accommodate an updated myth to the

31 requirements of modern cinema audiences. Dieterle, who starred as Valentin in Murnau’s movie, undertakes further steps in turning the Faust figure, Jabez Stone, into a hero. He appears as a hard-working farmer battling against loan sharks, a mother-in-law from hell, and a female temptress, Belle, who just happens to be French and is thus, the transatlantic viewer must surely suspect, congenitally immoral. This ‘American Faust’ is effortlessly adapted to chauvinism of the most blatantly propagandist type. This is most obvious when the US justice system defeats the devil himself in an idiosyncratic courtroom that would not be out of place in Guantánamo Bay. Thomas Mann praised it as “An outstanding movie, – an Americanised fable, a patriotic fantasy brilliantly performed”.3 The third major Faust movie from the black and white era is René Clair’s La Beauté du diable of 1950. Here, too, we have a handsome, dashing young Faust, played as a romantic hero by Gérard Philipe, who quickly convinces us that the rejuvenated, idealistic Faust is the real Faust. As any right-minded individual would, he reacts in utter horror when Mephistopheles shows him all the devastation that will be caused by the technology of the future in a world which he himself will have a hand in creating. When he reneges on the pact, Mephistopheles turns his gold into sand and the townspeople direct their anger against Faust. As if to show American audiences that not all curvaceous French starlets need be seductive temptresses, Clair has him saved by Nicole Besnard, a gypsy girl who identifies the true culprit and effectively breaks the spell. The rejuvenated professor is able to retain his youth and has a chance to relive his life not in the dry-as-dust university but as a member of a travelling circus. Here again, the ‘feel-good factor’ triumphs unashamedly at the end. Each of these three classics from the golden age of the cinema has modified the original story in accordance with the same principle. The Faust we see on screen becomes a heroic fighter against an evil force which is shown to be of limited scope. The human virtues of love and dedication combine with a sense of justice to overcome a destructive but ultimately weak devil. What a change from the Faust chapbook! Instead of reviling Faust as the devil’s apostle, cinema audiences applaud him for coming to his senses; instead of rejoicing in his damnation, we now celebrate his ability to extricate himself from the pact. It is almost as if we were back in the Middle Ages, when all morality plays were constructed so as to end happily, with sinners redeemed and the devil cheated of his prey. The alternative is too awful to contemplate. It simply does not work in close-up, least of all when the role of Faust is accorded to a recognised matinée idol with a large fan-base. 3

Thomas Mann: Briefe 1937–1947. Ed. by Erika Mann. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1963. P. 202: “Ein ausgezeichnetes picture, – Amerikanisiertes Märchen, patriotisch-phantastisch und glänzend gespielt”.

32 There are various ways round this dilemma. One of these is to entrust the part of the doctor to an unknown actor who must then vie for attention beside a superstar in the role of Mephistopheles. In this configuration, the story could be made to look like a tragedy for Mephistopheles rather than a triumph for Faust. This is more or less what happened in Murnau, whose Gøsta Ekman was described by reviewers as an instantly forgettable Faust who faded from memory as quickly as he faded from view.4 Something similar occurred in Gustaf Gründgens’ 1957 stage version of Goethe that was subsequently filmed by Peter Gorski. The posters may have advertised the film as “Faust”, but they depicted Gründgens, and the film was indeed dominated by Mephistopheles, beside whom Will Quadflieg tended to look washed out most of the time. The same thing happened in Dieter Dorn’s film of 1990; here, critics could not make up their minds whether Faust was intended to resemble Dr Caligari, a retired general or a village schoolmaster. In common with many modern directors, Dorn seems to have put more effort into the special effects than into resolving the age old-question of how to render Faust’s descent into vice plausible to an audience that was accustomed to self-identification with heroic role-models.5 This may help to explain why there are few truly ‘Faustian’ Fausts on celluloid, Fausts who actually succumb to temptation and are eventually destroyed for their wickedness as the original tale demanded. One such figure appears in Nevill Coghill’s version of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Here, finally, Faustus is centre-stage while Mephistopheles is relegated to the sidelines. It could hardly be otherwise. Although Marlowe’s Faustus does not get off as lightly as Goethe’s, there are some cheerful moments, such as the visit to Rome, where we see him evidently enjoying himself creating havoc among the Papal guests. But the atmosphere is usually sombre, or rather, it would be, were it not for the frequent re-appearances of Elizabeth Taylor as Helen of Troy and all other she-devils, succubi and “hot whores” who attend upon the doctor. Faust is finally borne off to hell, not by Mephistopheles but by Elizabeth Taylor. Looking at the closing sequence of Coghill’s film, one faces a dilemma as to whether to envy the man who has finally gained admission to some lurid swingers’ party in the company of the world’s most beautiful woman, or to recoil at Helen’s lascivious embraces which the doctor vainly if implausibly attempts to fend off. Coghill chronicles the stages of Faust’s debauchery but ultimately fails to convey the full horror of a man damned to hell. The challenge is too great, even in an industry used to generating horrific effects. In 1982, Franz Seitz made a 4

See Prodolliet’s evaluation of Ekman. Prodolliet: Faust im Kino. P. 49. For a description of this production and some reviews, see Bernd Mahl: Goethes Faust auf der Bühne (1806–1998). Fragment, Ideologiestück, Spieltext. Stuttgart: Metzler 1999. Pp. 187–190. 5

33 film of Thomas Mann’s pessimistic novel Doctor Faustus, using a model that could not by any stretch of the imagination be mistaken for entertainment. Seitz made a number of miscalculations, one of which was to cast Jon Finch in the title role and target the film at a non-German market. The greatest flaw in his operation must be the scene in which Adrian Leverkühn believes himself to be in conversation with the devil. Seitz sets Finch/Faustus on a sunny mountainside for this purpose, so that the gloomy original is replaced by glorious sunlight in an uplifting context, and the result of their dialogue is a pathetic little avalanche that cannot compete in effectiveness with even the lowest of lowbudget disaster movies from Hollywood.6 Since the 1980s, things have continued in much the same vein. Ours is an age profoundly out of sympathy with the original Faust’s desperate bargain and downward-spiralling career, so much so that when his name is employed in today’s movies, the purpose is usually to raise laughs rather than to create shock or horror. This does not mean that the old Faust has been obliterated in favour of a glamorized hero. Recent cinema implementations and updates of the myth have returned Faustus to what he always was – a pathetic failure, a negative exemplum. Thoroughly wet and wimpish is the figure of “Frank Faust” (Jan Josef Liefers), an out-of-luck taxi driver who has been abandoned by his girlfriend Jennifer (Sonsee Ahray Floethmann) in Rainer Matsutani’s 666 – Traue keinem, mit dem du schläfst of 2002. The devil, played by Armin Rohde, finds it easy to manipulate him while metamorphosing into several famous Germans, including Boris Becker and Claudia Schiffer. What has super-model Claudia Schiffer to do with Faust? There is a link, at least in so far as the Faust film in which she starred deserves a mention. It was never released. It was never even made. This film exists in book form only: Faust, by Karl Lagerfeld.7 In over 90 stills, Faust is rejuvenated by David Copperfield, meets Schiffer as Gretchen and spends a day touring Monte Carlo with her. But she is poor and must find work in “Martha’s Garten”, a house of ill fame run by Miss Lucy Fer. From now on, if Faust wishes to visit her, he has to pay for access. Money, rather than knowledge, has become the favoured instrument of seduction. Not many scholars have found it worthwhile to comment on Lagerfeld, though Theodore Ziolkowski rose to the challenge when he dubbed it “the ultimate trivialization” of the Faust legend.8 Yet it is hardly unique in this respect. 6

This film is documented in Doktor Faustus. Ein Film von Franz Seitz nach dem Roman von Thomas Mann. Ed. by Gabriele Seitz. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1982. See also John E. Fetzer: Changing perceptions of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus: Criticism 1947–1992. Columbia/SC: Camden House 1996. Pp. 118–121. 7 Karl Lagerfeld: Faust. Göttingen: Steidl 1995. 8 Theodore Ziolkowski: The Sin of Knowledge. Ancient Themes and Modern Variations. Princeton: University Press 2000. P. 5.

34 Ziolkowski had probably not seen either Mario Salieri’s hardcore implementation Faust im Sog des Seelenfängers, or Brian Yuzna’s splatter movie Faust – Love of the Damned, neither of which do much more than casually refer to the legend for an extra frisson. Poised somewhere half-way between the ‘splatter’ and the ‘blue’ movie is the altogether more ambitious and thoughtful Fausto 5.0, directed in 2001 by Isidro Ortiz in conjunction with the Fura dels Baus team, Alex Ollé and Carlos Padrissa. This group has been involved in Catalan street theatre from 1979 onwards and is acknowledged as a highly successful internationally-oriented theatre company. Fausto 5.0 was one of many implementations by Fura dels Baus. They produced their own version of Goethe (Fausto 3.0) in the nineteen-nineties, a digital play (Faust Shadow), as well as Berlioz’s opera, La Condenación de Fausto (Fausto 4.0). Set in a dystopian, multi-racial metropolis, the film features state-of-the-art camera work and impressive special effects, and places an anguished, suicidal Fausto (Miguel Angel Solá) beside a suitably suave Santos Vella (Eduard Fernández) as the Mephistophelean companion whose brief appears to be to restore the tormented doctor to a semblance of normality by means of a sequence of unsettling experiences. A far more focused film than either Faust – Love of the Damned or Salieri’s hardcore version, Fausto 5.0 succeeds in updating of some aspects of the tradition. It combines blood and gore (Fausto’s professional specialism is terminal medicine) with voyeuristic sleaze (fellatio with the devil’s daughter, explicit sex with a very gamine, teenage Margarita) in attempting to show the aging medical practitioner regain his capacity for genuine emotion through a series of violent shocks. Yet all that is achieved in the end is a sentimentally trite conclusion in which the doctor is reunited with his previously neglected but cutely nubile personal assistant Julia (Najwa Nimri), while the diabolical Santos conveniently autodestructs in a car crash. A more deliberate attempt to accommodate the Faust legend to today’s popular culture will be found in Who the Fuck is Faust of 1998. This is the work of a twenty-year-old student from Münster. Here we have a cartoon version in which Faust is a theology student besotted by Maggie, a salesgirl in the local delicatessen. God and devil, who appear to spend most of their time designing worlds on computers and causing system shutdowns, place bets on whether Faust can be corrupted within a week. This, too, is scheduled to transfer to the big screen at some point in the future.9 Yet all the above-mentioned European updates and travesties cannot compete with what was happening to Faust on the other side of the Atlantic. Turning to Marvel Comics, issue 192 of the Captain America series (published in December 1975), we finally encounter the ultimate trivialisation. There are 9 “Flix” [pseudonym]: Who the Fuck is Faust? Eine Comictragödie in sieben Tagen frei nach Goethe. Frankfurt/Main: Eichborn 1998.

35 a number of remarkable details about this comic, some more prophetic than others. An overweight Germanic Doctor Faustus has commandeered a jumbo jet with the intention of holding the citizens of Manhattan to ransom. The flight number is 911, and the air traffic controllers actually have a discussion as to the significance of this and whether such a flight number actually exists. Doctor Faustus, dressed in a green striped suit and sporting a crew-cut hairstyle, reveals that he has hoarded “several rather deadly weapons” for the purpose of terrorising Manhattan. This juvenile comic, for all its brash chauvinism, is a good indicator of where public sentiment in 1970s America thought attacks on Manhattan were most likely to originate. The Faustian mid-Europeans were not trusted. It was they that provided convenient source material for images of the enemy. On May 16th, 2002, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is reported to have said “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people [i.e. Arab militants] would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center”.10 We now know why: she, too, was an expert on Central and Eastern Europe and gave the impression that she did not know what people were talking about when these people were first mentioned in her presence. Could it be because she, like so many of her generation, was brought up on the adventures of America’s favourite superheroes? Throughout the 1970s, Marvel Comics continued to use Doctor Faustus as a contender for world domination, for example in the Amazing Spider-Man of July 1977. Here, true to his ancestor in the first chapbook of 1587, the updated German Faustus proves himself to be a master of the spirit world. He is able to use spirits against his enemies; in this case, against the American superhero Spider-Man. Vestiges of the old, Goethean Faust remain: he is a ‘genius’, and he plans to inject millions of people with a new kind of flu vaccine that will make them susceptible to hypnotic control.11 But the genius is flawed, and evil is eventually vanquished by good. This Faustus is all genius and no talent. The Faustus of the transatlantic comic has become inextricable from his erstwhile opponent Mephistopheles, a part of the evil empire “that forever desires evil, and forever creates good”,12 if not of its own ability, then through the timely reaction of a benign Superman figure. My final example returns to popular film culture. Back in the 1970s, at the half-way point between the two Marvel comics discussed above, on 28th April 1976, episode 2 of Warner Brothers’ Wonder Woman series was first broadcast as Fausta, the Nazi Wonder Woman. It features a Fräulein Fausta Grables (played by Lynda Day George), a Teutonic pseudo-heroine determined to purloin and abuse the authentic, ‘all-American’ Wonder Woman’s secrets in order 10

Reported by CBS News, 17 May 2002. My italics. Amazing Spider-Man issue 170, July 1977. Pp. 17, 22. 12 Goethe: Faust, line 1336: “Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft”. 11

36 to further the Nazi war effort, in the daring if doomed “Operation Fräulein Wonder Woman”. The female pseudo-Faust had made her first appearance many years earlier, back in 1941. Her Nazi rival appeared in a children’s magazine called Comic Cavalcade #2 during Spring 1943.13 It is typical of the instrumentalisation of antagonisms deriving from World War II that the preposterously chauvinistic narrative of “Fausta Grables” should be recycled 33 years later for the Wonder Woman television series by scriptwriters Bruce Shelly and David Ketchum. The “Superhero” myth, itself a perversion of Nietzsche’s “Superman” idea, had by then become so thoroughly Americanised that the European Fausta can only hope to acquire magical powers by kidnapping her American model and stealing her secrets. Her very name plays on “grab” and “Goebbels”, while that of her minder, Colonel Kesselmann, recalls the Kessel or “cauldron” at Stalingrad in which German troops were trapped during the winter of 1942. Few young readers of the 1970s will remember that even the name of “Wonder Woman” is itself modelled on Wunderwaffe, the German “wonder weapon” that was supposedly being developed at the time. Far from relying upon American military secrets, German technology was actually far ahead of allied technology at the time. American scientists were trying to wrest the secrets of rocket technology from the German enemy rather than vice-versa. The movie thus reconfigures the historical parameters in a manner that suited the propagandist purposes of the United States. It presents a German Fausta, complete with Gretchen-hairdo and Nazi arm-bands, as the counterfeit miracleworker, and Lynda Carter/Yeoman Diana Prince, with her characteristic combination of beauty, brawn and bullet-proof bracelets, as the true guardian of “wonder weapons”. Here is an extract from the final scene, in which Wonder Woman enlightens Fausta as to the treachery of her erstwhile commander: Kesselmann: I am the commander here. You are my prisoner. I designed this water trap. Fausta: And if I had not acted, this water trap would not have been used. And our helpless enemies would have escaped. Kesselmann: I will no longer tolerate any of your meddling interferences, Fräulein. Fausta: Berlin will hear of this! Kesselmann: Berlin will hear only that you allowed Wonder Woman to escape and that you died in my successful effort to recapture her. Wonder Woman: Fausta, now do you see your real enemies? Kesselmann: Throw Fräulein Grables into the water tank. I will personally hold the switch. Wonder Woman: Now do you see how little you mean to them? 13

“Wonder Woman” was the creation of psychologist Dr William Moulton Marston, inventor of the lie detector, writing under the pseudonym of Charles Moulton, who set out to create a heroine to balance the male-dominated comics of the time. Using the Trojan War as a precedent for World War II, Moulton sees Prince/Aphrodite struggling against Mars and his minions and assumes that Mars would back the Nazis while Aphrodite backs the Allies. See James Van Hise: Video Superheroes. Las Vegas: Pioneer Books 1991.

37 Fausta: Wait, Wonder Woman, grab the rope. Wonder Woman music. The Americans escape, the Germans are thrown into the water trap. Fausta: I have turned the current high enough so that they cannot get out of the tank without getting shocked. They will stay there. We had better go. Hurry. Wonder Woman: Fausta, we want to repay you. Come back to America with us. Fausta: No, I cannot leave my homeland …

With hindsight, it is tempting to see this hijacking of the icon as an act of cultural imperialism, were it not for the fact that the anglicising of Faustus had begun several centuries earlier, with Christopher Marlowe. His Faustus may have seen himself as an empire-builder in the English mode,14 but Marlowe wisely left his hero in Germany. That was before globalisation. The ultimate outcome of Fausta, the Nazi Wonder Woman is that Fausta grows disillusioned with her German minders, accepts her inferiority and decides that since she can’t beat them, she had better switch sides and join the new master race across the water. It is only by doing so that a vital precondition of the transition from Wittenberg to Hollywood could be met.

14

Compare the following scene from Christopher Marlowe: Faustus: I’ll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the Ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates. Marlowe: Doctor Faustus. Scene I, lines 82–85.

38

Press release photo advertising Nevill Coghill’s 1968 film of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, one of very few films in which the focus is squarely on Faustus (Richard Burton, centre) rather than on his tempter (Andreas Teuber, right).

Ricarda Schmidt

The Swan and the Moped. Shifts in the Presentation of Violence from Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…” to Christoph Stark’s Julietta This essay compares and contrasts the presentation of violence in Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…” with that in Christoph Stark’s modernized adaptation of its central motif in the film Julietta. The analysis first explores the gender distribution of perpetrators and victims of violence, the intentions of the perpetrators, and the effects of their actions on the victim. Then the positioning, through aesthetic means, of the reader/ viewer in relation to violent acts is questioned, and finally the implications of the representation of violence for conceptions of agency in relation to social structure are discussed. It is argued that Kleist’s story demonstrates a clear gender division between (male) agents and (female) victims of violence which the film subverts. While Kleist shows sexuality as the cause of all violent acts in the story and explores the incommensurability between intention and effect of actions in a series of dramatic escalations and reversals, the film depicts a whole range of different intentions leading to violent behaviour, none of which has a very deep effect on the victims, making violence appear both more widespread and less harmful.

Unlike Eric Rohmer’s Die Marquise von O… of 1976, Christoph Stark’s film Julietta of 2001 does not attempt to make a film version of Kleist’s well-known story. Rather it is a modernizing adaptation which is merely “based on a motif from Heinrich von Kleist”,1 as the film credits acknowledge. This means that the question whether the film is an “adequate realization”2 of the story is inappropriate. What we have to consider is not only the implications of the shift from the medium of text to that of film, but also a change in the historical setting: from a war context in a small, unidentified Italian town around 1800 to the “Love Parade” in a peaceful, post-unification Berlin; from a patriarchal, sexually repressed society to a liberal, hedonistic one.

1

Christoph Stark: Julietta. Munich: Universum Film 2001, ISBN 43218 96889: “nach einem Motiv von Heinrich von Kleist”. 2 Klaus Kanzog: Erzählstrukturen, Filmstrukturen. Eine Einführung. In: Erzählstrukturen – Filmstrukturen. Erzählungen Heinrich von Kleists und ihre filmische Realisation. Ed. by Klaus Kanzog. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 1981. Pp. 7–24, here: P. 7: “adäquate Umsetzung”. See also Thomas Bauermeister: Erzählte und dargestellte Konversation. Der Heiratsantrag des Grafen in Kleists und Eric Rohmers Die Marquise von O…. In: Erzählstrukturen – Filmstrukturen. Erzählungen Heinrich von Kleists und ihre filmische Realisation. Pp. 90–141. Within the scope of this paper, I cannot deal with Rohmer’s film as well.

40 The motif adopted is that of a saviour turning into a perpetrator, raping an unconscious woman, and of the woman coming to love her rapist. So the relationship between sex, violence, knowledge and love is at the centre of this motif, posing the question, first, of how and what the victim and the reader/viewer come to know about the violation that has taken place, and, second, how the perpetrator and the victim as well as the reader/viewer can accommodate the fact that violence has split open the romantic unity between love and sex, but has not destroyed it. I want to explore in this essay what differences there are in the presentation of violence in story and film, and how the presentation in each case positions the reader/viewer in engaging with the problem of sexual violence. Although all the secondary literature on Kleist’s story engages by necessity with his presentation of violence, it is perhaps surprising to see that only a few critics focus on the topic of violence or rape in their titles.3 Violence is a basic human reaction which has been considered from many angles: moral philosophy,4 philosophy of law,5 politics,6 sociology,7

3 See Gerhard Gönner: Von “zerspaltenen Herzen” und der “gebrechlichen Einrichtung der Welt”. Versuch einer Phänomenologie der Gewalt bei Kleist. Stuttgart: Metzler 1989. Pp. 42–49. Thomas Dutoit: Rape, Crypt and Fantasm: Kleist’s Marquise of O…. In: Mosaic 27.3 (1994). Pp. 45–64. Christine Künzel: Heinrich von Kleists “Die Marquise von O…”: Anmerkungen zur Repräsentation von Vergewaltigung, Recht und Gerechtigkeit in Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft. In: figurationen 1.1 (2000). Pp. 65–81. 4 See Immanuel Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf. In: Kants gesammelte Schriften. Ed. by Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. VIII: Abhandlungen nach 1781. Berlin: Georg Reimer 1912. Pp. 341–386. Friedrich Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse. In: Nietzsche. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. VI.2. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1968. Pp. 3–255. Friedrich Nietzsche: Zur Genealogie der Moral. In: Nietzsche. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. VI.2. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1968. Pp. 259–430. 5 See Walter Benjamin: Zur Kritik der Gewalt. In: Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II.I. Ed. by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1977. Pp. 179–203. Anselm Haverkamp (ed.): Gewalt und Gerechtigkeit. Derrida-Benjamin. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1994. 6 See David E. Apter: Political Violence in Analytical Perspective. In: The Legitimization of Violence. Ed. by David E. Apter. Houndmills, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan 1997. Pp. 1–32. Hannah Arendt: On Violence. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press 1970. Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, or The Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil. In: The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Ed. by Sir William Molesworth, Bart., vol. III. London: John Bohn 1839. 7 See Anthony Giddens: The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: CUP 1984. Vivienne Jabri: Discourses on violence. Conflict analysis reconsidered. Manchester and New York: MUP 1996.

41 psychoanalysis,8 biology,9 anthropology,10 and aesthetics.11 My analysis in this essay will include sociological, historical, psychoanalytic and aesthetic aspects. First, I will compare the sociological features of the perpetrators of violence, the nature of the violent acts committed, the intention of the perpetrators, and the effect of their actions on the victim, in story and film. The different modulations of the intention-effect nexus will allow me to draw initial conclusions on how the reader is positioned to perceive the violent actions in story and film. These will be further developed in an analysis of the aesthetic mode of presentation of the nexus of violence. I will finally discuss the implications of the portrayal of violence for conceptions of agency in relation to social structure in text and film. In Kleist’s text,12 acts of violence are committed by male protagonists of all social classes, and the Marquise is their prime target. A group of common soldiers, an aristocratic officer, and the Marquise’s father are the perpetrators whose acts of attempted rape, actual rape, and firing off a pistol to frighten

8 See Sigmund Freud: Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod (1915). In: FreudStudienausgabe, vol. IX: Fragen der Gesellschaft. Ursprünge der Religion. Ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1974. Pp. 33–60. Sigmund Freud: Trauer und Melancholie (1917 [1915]). In: FreudStudienausgabe, vol. III: Psychologie des Unbewußten. Ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1975. Pp. 193–212. Sigmund Freud: Jenseits des Lustprinzips (1920). In: Freud-Studienausgabe, vol. III: Psychologie des Unbewußten. Ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1975. Pp. 213–272. Sigmund Freud: Das ökonomische Problem des Masochismus (1924). In: Freud-Studienausgabe, vol. III: Psychologie des Unbewußten. Ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1975. Pp. 339–354. Sigmund Freud: Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930 [1929]). In: Freud-Studienausgabe, vol. IX: Fragen der Gesellschaft. Ursprünge der Religion. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1974. Pp. 191–270. 9 See Leonard Berkowitz: Biological Roots: Are Humans Inherently Violent? In: Psychological Dimensions of War. Ed. by Betty Glad. Newbury Park, London and New Delhi: Sage 1990. Pp. 24–40. 10 See Wolfgang Sofsky: Traktat über die Gewalt. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 32001. 11 See Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse: Introduction: Representing Violence, or “How the West was Won”. In: The Violence of Representation. Literature and the History of Violence. Ed. by Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse. London and New York: Routledge 1989. Pp. 1–26. 12 Heinrich von Kleist: Die Marquise von O…. In: Heinrich von Kleist. Werke in einem Band. Ed. by Helmut Sembdner. Munich: Carl Hanser 1966. Pp. 658–687. All references to the German original quotations of Kleist’s story in the notes refer to this edition. Quotations from the English translation of Kleist’s story in the text are from Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O – and other Stories. Translated and with an introduction by David Luke and Nigel Reeves. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1985. Pp. 68–113.

42 away an apparently immoral daughter are set in the contexts of both the extreme situation of war and that of normal family life. In each of these cases, violence revolves around men asserting their power by trying to control access to the Marquise’s body and denying her right to self-determination. Where men exercise violence over other men in Kleist’s story, they do so in the interest of the Marquise, either protecting her through the use of brute force (as Graf F. does against the common soldiers), or, in the case of the general in command of the Russian forces (see pp. 71–72 English translation; pp. 660–661 German text), applying the law in a draconian, and historically unlikely,13 punishment for attempted rape. Thus Kleist’s story achieves a high degree of concentration on the female protagonist’s plight and a clear gender division between men as agents of violence and women as victims of violence. With regard to intentions, the common soldiers appear to be motivated by lust and aggression, and the effect of their attempted rape on their victim is extreme fear, culminating in her fainting (see pp. 69–70 of the English translation; p. 659 in the German text). By the brutal intentions and overpowering physical force of the perpetrators in combination with the violent effect on an innocent victim, the reader is clearly invited to condemn the perpetrators of violence, although their subsequent execution for the mere attempt at rape is likely to raise a degree of pity in the reader. The Count’s intentions are never directly revealed, but the reader can infer from a string of behavioural clues that he feels guilty, deeply regrets what he has done, desperately tries to make amends within the conventions of his time by trying to marry the Marquise, and, moreover, that he seems to be deeply in love with her. Thus the reader is likely to conclude that the Count did not intend to harm the Marquise, but was suddenly overcome by a strong sexual passion. While undermining the contemporary concept of a military hero by showing the Count so obviously not in command of himself that he commits a crime (at least by his own standards, if not by the standards of all critics), the story suggests, through the Count’s remorse and his willingness to accept responsibility for his actions, his adherence to a noble code of conduct in most of his life. He is neither a social rebel nor a low criminal, he merely exemplifies the heterogeneous subjectivity of even the most noble of men. Thus the reader is invited to see the actual rapist in a completely different light from the would-be rapists, as a fallible, yet largely noble, human being. Nevertheless, his crime is given extra weight by the devastating effect it has on the Marquise, demonstrating an incommensurability between the intention and the effect of a violent action which throws doubt on concepts of the sovereignty

13 See Christine Künzel: Heinrich von Kleists “Die Marquise von O…” (note 3). P. 75.

43 of the subject. The Marquise’s rape by the Count while she is unconscious results in her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, of which, despite telling symptoms, she remains ignorant for many months. On finally learning about her pregnancy, the Marquise experiences shock (“stood as if thunderstruck”, p. 87)14 with strong physical manifestations: first paralysis of her limbs (see p. 87 English; p. 670 German), then the opposite extreme of involuntary body movements such as convulsions (see p. 87),15 trembling ( see pp. 90, 91 English; pp. 672, 673 German), fainting (see p. 90 English; p. 672 German), “convulsive fear” (p. 91).16 She repeatedly feels threatened by madness (see pp. 88, 91 English; pp. 670, 673 German) in the face of the inexplicable gap between her psychological identity (her consciousness of sexual abstinence) and her physical identity (her pregnant body).17 Furthermore, the Marquise is branded as immoral by her family and suffers extreme social isolation, that is, a rupture in her social identity, although she has never questioned, or knowingly offended against, the sexual norms of her time. The father’s aggression against his daughter is motivated by annoyance and the will to injure her, in retaliation for an injury he believes the Marquise has done to the family’s reputation. He wants to eliminate the Marquise from his family in order to uphold social propriety within it. The father’s tendency to lose his temper and to behave with excessive violence in both action and speech invites the reader to view this patriarch critically and to doubt the moral value of the institution he represents. The intention and the effect of the father’s violence against the Marquise are, like those of the Count’s actions, incommensurate, but in reverse order: the very excess of paternal violence paradoxically has the effect of mobilizing the Marquise’s inner strength and promoting healing of the divided self which was the consequence of the Count’s actions. Spurred by her father’s aggression against her, she emerges from a state of mental turmoil that manifested itself in utter lack of control over her body, with renewed strength. She leaves her parents, “armed with all the pride of innocence” (p. 93),18 and resolves heroically (see p. 93),19 through “the sheer force of her clear conscience” (p. 93),20 to live at peace with herself, 14

“wie vom Donner gerührt”. P. 670. “konvulsivischen Bewegung”. P. 671. 16 “krampfhafte[] Beängstigung”. P. 673. 17 See Dirk Grathoff: Die Zeichen der Marquise: Das Schweigen, die Sprache und die Schriften. Drei Annäherungsversuche an eine komplexe Textstruktur. In: Dirk Grathoff: Kleist: Geschichte, Politik, Sprache. Aufsätze zu Leben und Werk Heinrich von Kleists. 2nd revised edition. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2000. Pp. 75–95, here: P. 86. 18 “mit dem ganzen Stolz der Unschuld gerüstet”. P. 674. 19 “heldenmütig”. P. 674. 20 “die Kraft ihres schuldfreien Bewußtseins”. P. 674. 15

44 but in isolation from the world. The narrator comments on her self-liberation: “This splendid effort of will gave her back her self-confidence, and as if with her own hands she raised herself right out of the depths into which fate had cast her” (p. 93).21 Consideration for the social standing of her unborn child then motivates her to seek its father via a newspaper advertisement in order to make the child legitimate. When the very man who saved her from being gang-raped turns out to be the one who then raped her, the Marquise is profoundly disturbed for the second time. To her, he seems like a devil or somebody poisoned by the plague, and her body again betrays a deep conflict: “The Marquise stared at them each [the Count and her mother, R.S.] in turn with annihilating rage; her breast heaved, her face was aflame; no Fury’s gaze could be more terrifying” (p. 110).22 In spite of her lying “in an acutely feverish condition” (p. 111),23 her father insists on her keeping her word to marry the father of her child. She does, after having read the marriage contract, in which the Count renounces all conjugal rights. Eventually, after having demonstrated his contrition over a long period, the Count feels that everyone has forgiven him, “in consideration of the imperfection inherent in the order of the world” (p. 113).24 He woos the Countess anew, and after a year a second wedding is celebrated, from which “[a] whole series of young Russians” (p. 113)25 ensue. Kleist’s concentration in “Die Marquise von O…” on the nexus of sexuality and power as the root cause of the violence depicted in the story, on the Marquise as the main victim of violence, and on males of all social classes as perpetrators of violence is replaced by diffusion in Stark’s film. In his Julietta there are many different reasons for violence, and both victims and agents of violence are male and female. The film does adopt from Kleist the motif of a saviour turned rapist. However, Julietta is saved not from rape, but from drowning as a consequence of drug abuse. This reduces the sharp irony of Kleist’s story, where the Count commits exactly the crime from which he has saved the Marquise. In the film, the saviour turned rapist subsequently himself becomes a victim of violent attacks. Stark’s rapist Max is collared by Julietta’s

21

“Durch diese schöne Anstrengung mit sich selbst bekannt gemacht, hob sie sich plötzlich, wie an ihrer eigenen Hand, aus der ganzen Tiefe, in welche das Schicksal sie herabgestürzt hatte, empor”. P. 674. 22 “Die Marquise blickte, mit tötender Wildheit, bald auf den Grafen, bald auf die Mutter ein; ihre Brust flog, ihr Antlitz loderte: eine Furie blickt nicht schrecklicher”. P. 685. 23 “im heftigsten Fieber”. P. 686. 24 “um der gebrechlichen Einrichtung der Welt willen”. P. 687. 25 “[e]ine ganze Reihe von jungen Russen”. P. 687.

45 boyfriend Jiri for having run over his bike, hit in the face by his girlfriend Maria in a crisis in their relationship, aggressively confronted by Julietta, who has a big knife in her hand, about his confession of rape, and beaten up by Julietta’s boyfriend when he hears about the rape. Jiri, in turn, is threatened over money by a drug dealer, who later wrecks his flat. And although Jiri does not intentionally do physical harm to Julietta, she is in serious danger from the effects of her boyfriend’s irresponsible actions: first, the trip he gives her nearly causes her to drown; second, his debts for drugs nearly result in her being beaten up by his dealer; third, she is in fact hit by Jiri, though accidentally and lightly, when she tries to intervene in his beating up Max; fourth, Jiri urges her to take drugs when pregnant; fifth, Jiri tries to prevent her by force from leaving his flat. Thus direct annoyance-motivated interpersonal violence, and the physical consequences of people’s actions on others are widely dispersed in Stark’s film. But none of the violent behaviour has as deep and unforeseen an effect on its victims as in Kleist’s story. Furthermore, there is not one group of people identifiable as perpetrators and no one person as the central victim. The causes of violence in Stark’s film range from interpersonal possessiveness (irresistible sexual desire, emotional pain over disappointments in relationships, feelings of betrayal), to material possessiveness (anger over loss of material goods, greed for money and power), and finally to uncontrollable contingency (an escalation of actions involving an unintended victim). Unlike Kleist’s Marquise, Julietta, while upset that her “saviour” (as she addresses him twice) turns out to be her rapist, is not thrown into an existential crisis by the effect of his actions. In keeping with the hedonistic setting of the Love Parade, her pregnancy makes sense to her as the result of sex with her boyfriend Jiri in a photo booth immediately prior to the rape. She has the support of both her parents throughout. The dualism in the Marquise’s perception of the Count, given in transcendental terms as “angel” (p. 69)26 and “devil” (p. 110, see also p. 113),27 has been reduced to the mundane 26

“Engel”. P. 659. “Teufel”. P. 685, see also P. 687. For elements of Christian and Greek mythology in Kleist’s novella see Steven Huff: Kleist and Expectant Virgins. The Meaning of the O in the Marquise von O…. In: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 81 (1982). Pp. 367–375. Barbara Vinken and Anselm Haverkamp: Die zurechtgelegte Frau: Gottesbegehren und transzendentale Familie in Kleists Marquise von O…. In: Heinrich von Kleist: Kriegsfall – Rechtsfall – Sündenfall. Ed. by Gerhard Neumann. Freiburg i.B.: Rombach 1994. Pp. 127–147 (Litterae. Vol. 20). For an analysis of the Christian iconography in the Marquise see Volker Nölle: Heinrich von Kleist. Niederstiegs- und Aufstiegsszenarien. Versuch einer Phantasmata- und Modell-Analyse. Mit einem Exkurs zu Hofmannsthal, Sternheim, Kafka und Horváth. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 1997. Pp. 69–95 (Philologische Studien und Quellen. Vol. 140). 27

46 “saviour” and “arsehole” in the film.28 She has to recognize that both her boyfriend Jiri and Max are capable of violence. On weighing up their behaviour, she eventually decides against the relationship with her boyfriend and plans on single motherhood. But a future relationship with her rapist is presented as highly probable, for she lies to the police that she faked her faint (thus consciously and of her own free will adopting as a lie what critics have claimed as the repressed truth in the Marquise’s case, see below), in order to save Max, who has confessed his crime to the police, from going to prison. Compared to Kleist’s story, where one motif is tightly focused on and explored in a series of escalations and dramatic reversals, and where each conflict is driven to its extreme conclusion, the film demonstrates a more diffuse, widespread occurrence of violence, yet minimizes its physical and emotional impact. Violence thus appears as a normal part of human interaction with relatively harmless effects, and its occurrence holds few surprises. I now want to explore how the aesthetic presentation of violence in the film and the story contributes to the impression of a sharpening of conflict in Kleist and a diffusion of conflict in Stark’s film. In Kleist’s story, the attempted rape is related by the narrator, who strongly condemns the soldiers as subhuman (dogs, brutes), whereas the actual rape is merely alluded to by the most famous dash in literature: The Marquise found herself, with her two children, in the outer precincts of the castle where fierce fighting was already in progress and shots flashed though the darkness, driving her back again into the burning building, panic-stricken and with no idea where to turn. Here, just as she was trying to escape through the back door, she had the misfortune to encounter a troop of enemy riflemen, who as soon as they saw her suddenly fell silent, slung their guns over their shoulders and, with obscene gestures, seized her and carried her off. In vain she screamed for help to her terrified women, who went fleeing back through the gate, as the dreadful rabble tugged her hither and thither, fighting among themselves. Dragging her into the innermost courtyard they began to assault her in the most shameful way, and she was just about to sink to the ground when a Russian Officer, hearing her piercing screams, appeared on the scene and with furious blows of his sword, drove the dogs back from the prey for which they lusted. To the Marquise he seemed an angel sent from heaven. He smashed the hilt of his sword into the face of one of the murderous brutes, who still had his arms round her slender waist, and the man reeled back with blood pouring from his mouth; he then addressed the lady politely in French, offered her his arm and led her into the other wing of the palace which the flames had not yet reached and where, having already been stricken speechless by her ordeal, she now collapsed in a dead faint. Then – the officer instructed the Marquise’s frightened servants, who presently arrived, to send for a doctor; he

28

“Retter” and “Arschloch”.

47 assured them that she would soon recover, replaced his hat and returned to the fighting. (pp. 69–70)29

While Kleist’s story never directly reveals how the rape happens, the dash has spurred critics to offer conjectures. Critics in the 1970s argued in Freudian readings that the Marquise’s conscience is not as pure as it seems, that she “flees” into fainting because she cannot admit her erotic desire for the Count.30 The female victim of crime is not only psychoanalysed and pronounced guilty of failing to face up to her desires, but also pathologized. She is said to repress her knowledge of the identity of the father of her unborn child because she is “sick: she suffers from a hypertrophy of her super-ego”.31 Thus critics pursue in a serious way the same line that Kleist himself developed satirically when he

29

“Die Marquise kam, mit ihren beiden Kindern, auf den Vorplatz des Schlosses, wo die Schüsse schon, im heftigsten Kampf, durch die Nacht blitzten, und sie, besinnungslos, wohin sie sich wenden solle, wieder in das brennende Gebäude zurückjagten. Hier, unglücklicher Weise, begegnete ihr, da sie eben durch die Hintertür entschlüpfen wollte, ein Trupp feindlicher Scharfschützen, der, bei ihrem Anblick, plötzlich still ward, die Gewehre über die Schultern hing, und sie, unter abscheulichen Gebärden, mit sich fortführte. Vergebens rief die Marquise, von der entsetzlichen, sich untereinander selbst bekämpfenden, Rotte bald hier, bald dorthin gezerrt, ihre zitternden, durch die Pforte zurückfliehenden Frauen, zu Hülfe. Man schleppte sie in den hinteren Schloßhof, wo sie eben, unter den schändlichsten Mißhandlungen, zu Boden sinken wollte, als, von dem Zetergeschrei der Dame herbeigerufen, ein russischer Offizier erschien, und die Hunde, die nach solchem Raub lüstern waren, mit wütenden Hieben zerstreute. Der Marquise schien er ein Engel des Himmels zu sein. Er stieß noch dem letzten viehischen Mordknecht, der ihren schlanken Leib umfaßt hielt, mit dem Griff des Degens ins Gesicht, daß er, mit aus dem Mund vorquellendem Blut, zurücktaumelte; bot dann der Dame, unter einer verbindlichen, französischen Anrede den Arm, und führte sie, die von allen solchen Auftritten sprachlos war, in den anderen, von der Flamme noch nicht ergriffenen, Flügel des Palastes, wo sie auch völlig bewußtlos niedersank. Hier – traf er, da bald darauf ihre erschrockenen Frauen erschienen, Anstalten, einen Arzt zu rufen; versicherte, indem er sich den Hut aufsetzte, daß sie sich bald erholen würde; und kehrte in den Kampf zurück”. P. 659. 30 See Dorrit Cohn: Kleist’s “Marquise von O…”: The Problem of Knowledge. In: Monatshefte 67.2 (1975). Pp. 129–144. Erika Swales: The Beleaguered Citadel. A Study of Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…”. In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 51.1 (1977). Pp. 129–147. Heinz Politzer: Der Fall der Frau Marquise. Beobachtungen zu Kleists “Die Marquise von O…”. In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 51.1 (1977). Pp. 98–128, here: P. 109: “Die Ohnmacht, in die sie flüchtet, ist, wie bei Kleist so oft, ein Zeichen, daß es in ihr weiß, was kommen wird”. 31 See Politzer: Der Fall der Frau Marquise. P. 111 (note 30): “In ihr Unbewußtes, ihr Es, hat sie abgedrängt, wovon ihr Über-Ich nichts wissen soll und darf: die Identität des Mannes, der ihres Kindes Vater ist”. And: “Die Marquise ist krank: sie leidet an einer Hypertrophie ihres Über-Ichs”.

48 wrote the famous epigram in response to first reactions to his story, published in Phoebus in 1808: 19. The Marquise of O… This novel is not for you, my daughter. Fainted! Shameless farce! She merely held, I know, her eyes shut.32

Since the narrator of the novella never grants the reader any direct insight into the Marquise’s unconscious and never relates the sexual encounter in question, all the conclusions concerning the protagonist’s repressed desire, her real behaviour in the elided scene as well as her true knowledge of it are derived from inferences and the setting up of correspondences. This, by necessity, means the isolating of one aspect of a complex moment in the narration while ignoring others, and then matching it with an aspect of another, equally complex, moment in the story. The conclusions from such an isolating-and-matching exercise can often be intriguing in their ingenuity. Thus Dorrit Cohn builds her argument on the connotations of the use of “unconscious”, “consciousness”, and “to know”33 in Kleist’s story, in his work as a whole, and in the Biblical usage of knowing as carnal knowledge. The Marquise’s rejection of the Count’s amorous approaches at her country retreat with the words “I do not want to hear anything” (p. 97; the literal translation of the German text would be: “I do not want to know anything”)34 is interpreted by Cohn as “resistance to erotic knowledge”.35 This in itself would be convincing enough, as the context of the Marquise’s meeting with the Count would suggest that she resists the future erotic relationship the Count is trying to engage her in with his marriage proposal. Her refusal to listen to the Count on this occasion would seem to stem from the fact that, prior to his arrival (but unbeknown to him), the Marquise has just put the advertisement in the paper in which she searches for the father of her unborn child and promises to marry him. She would therefore not wish to hear confessions of love from somebody who, she wrongly believes, has nothing to do with her pregnancy, and whom therefore she would not be in a position to marry, much as she feels drawn to him. The Count himself seems to infer as much when the Marquise’s brother subsequently shows him the advertisement with sardonic comments about his sister’s morality. 32 Heinrich von Kleist: Epigramm 19. In: Heinrich von Kleist: Sämtliche Werke und Briefe in vier Bänden. Ed. by Ilse-Marie Barth, Klaus Müller-Salget, Stefan Ormanns and Hinrich C. Seeba. Vol. 3: Erzählungen, Anekdoten, Gedichte, Schriften. Ed. by Klaus Müller-Salget. Frankfurt/Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1990. P. 414: “19. Die Marquise von O… Dieser Roman ist nicht für dich, meine Tochter. In Ohnmacht! Schamlose Posse! Sie hielt, weiß ich, die Augen bloß zu”. 33 “bewußtlos”, “Bewußtsein” and “wissen”. 34 “Ich will nichts wissen”. P. 677. 35 Cohn: Kleist’s “Marquise von O…”. P. 133 (note 30).

49 However, in Cohn’s reading, the Marquise’s resistance to erotic knowledge is not taken to refer to the Count proposing a future relationship, but to the past one, namely to “the memory of the experience incurred during her state of unconsciousness”.36 Extrapolating from this interpretation, Cohn suggests “that her [the Marquise’s] refusal to know the threatening event may be the cause as well as the effect of her loss of consciousness” and thus arrives at the theory of the Marquise’s “flight into unconsciousness […] to salvage the purity of consciousness in the moment of emerging eros” – a reading which Cohn sees paralleled and thus confirmed in the Marquise’s fainting during the discussion with the midwife.37 But such inferences, based on selectively trimmed textual parallels and associations, I would suggest, are likely to say more about the critic’s unconscious, and about the social values and perceptions influencing it, than about the fictional character’s unconscious and attempts by the narrator to convey this.38 Given that Kleist’s narrative not only abounds in paradoxes, contradictions, and sudden reversals of feelings, perceptions, and actions, but is also lacking a stable narrative focus, with the narrator at times conveying ironic omniscience, and at other times narrating from the perspective of his characters,39 it is obvious that such narrative idiosyncrasies invite attempts to probe for the unconscious, but ultimately also resist critics’ centring the text around a world view different from Kleist’s own. Complementing the Marquise’s incrimination by psychoanalytic critics, there is a tendency to exonerate the Count from guilt, to stress positively his 36

Cohn: Kleist’s “Marquise von O…”. P. 132 (note 30). Ibid. P. 133. 38 See for example how Politzer (note 30) slides from authorial intention and the Marquisfe’s mother’s lie to the protagonist’s unconscious: He connects the Tirolian “Leibjäger” Leopardo’s name (in the connotations of which he correctly sees “die Einbildungskraft des Dichters am Werk”, P. 100) with the Marquise’s blushing when looking at his back on the coach journey home, after her mother had tested her truthfulness with the lie that Leopardo had confessed to her rape. Although in her imagination the Marquise obviously pursues her mother’s lie (rather than her own repressed desire) with regard to Leopardo and feels embarrassed by it, Politzer makes her the sole author of the fantasy as well as of the servant’s name when he joins the connotations of his name with her blushing in the following argument: “Wer sich der Marquise, und sei es auch nur in den Strafphantasien ihres Schuldgefühls, nähert, darf kein Einheimischer sein und nimmt außerdem noch den nom parlant eines sprungbereiten und lendenstarken Raubtiers an. Zugleich beweist der Vorname, den Kleist dem Jäger gegeben hat, die auktoriale Nähe dieses Erzählers zum Bewußtsein seiner Hauptgestalt” (P. 100). Politzer here assumes what is to be proven. 39 The latter aspect only is emphasized in the still important essay by Walter MüllerSeidel: Die Struktur des Widerspruchs in Kleists “Marquise von O…”. In: Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift 28.4 (1954). Pp. 497–515, here: P. 499: “Der Erzähler spricht nicht von einem überlegenen Standpunkt aus, er befindet sich vielmehr auf der jeweiligen Zeitstufe seiner Figuren. Er berichtet aus ihrer Perspektive”. 37

50 sensitivity and attractive masculinity,40 and to even claim that one cannot talk of a rape having taken place at all, since the Count was justified in assuming the Marquise’s consent.41 Against the influential psychoanalytic interpretations, which were widely accepted until the early 1990s,42 not only has there been more recently an attempt at an ahistorical Darwinian reading of the story as obliterating all individuality,43 but there are also, increasingly, readings which reject the psychoanalytic incrimination of the Marquise by trying to set Kleist’s gender concepts in their historical context. They range in their evaluation of the portrait of the Marquise from reading it as a liberation from patriarchal constraints to perceiving in it the impossibility of selfhood for women.44 While Kleist’s omission of an account of the rape has prompted countless different interpretations of what is absent from the narrative, Stark, by contrast, opts for showing the rape on screen. A romantic setting of a tree-studded meadow by a canal, soft background music, soft lighting, soft voices create an erotically charged atmosphere for the rape scene. A stone bridge with its reflection in the water forms an elliptical shape, evoking a visual impression of beauty, harmony and balance, as well as the symbolic function of a bridge to connect two close, but separate, sites. The arch of the bridge also frames the couple stretched out on the lawn, suggesting an intimate, protected locus amoenus. After Julietta faints, the camera position alternates between the man’s erotic gaze down onto the supine, unconscious woman; a gaze from the position of the woman up at the man leaning over her – that is, as if she were able to consciously look at him; and, thirdly, a voyeuristic look from outside at the couple. These changing camera positions invite the viewer both to identify with the rapist’s sexual arousal by the beautiful woman 40

See Politzer: Der Fall der Frau Marquise. P. 125 (note 30): “er, der Sensible und außerdem durch die lange und geduldige Werbung Verfeinerte”. 41 See Eberhard Schmidhäuser: Das Verbrechen in Kleists Marquise von O…. Eine nur am Rande strafrechtliche Untersuchung. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch, 1986. Pp. 156–175, here: P. 174: “gar kein Verbrechen im üblichen Sinne”. 42 See for example the acceptance of Cohn’s position even in the historically oriented analysis of Eva-Maria Anker-Mader: Kleists Familienmodelle: im Spannungsfeld zwischen Krise und Persistenz. Munich: Fink 1992. Pp. 87–110, here: P. 88. 43 See Harriet Murphy: Theatres of Emptiness. The case of Kleist’s Marquise von O…. In: Oxford German Studies 24 (1995). Pp. 80–111. 44 See Seán Allan: “Auf einen Lasterhaften war ich gefaßt, aber auf keinen – Teufel”. Heinrich von Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…”. In: German Life and Letters 50 (1997). Pp. 307–322. Laura Martin: Die Marquise von O… and The Scarlet Letter: A Study in Vicarious Gender-Jumping. In: Schwellen. Germanistische Erkundungen einer Metapher. Ed. by Nicholas Saul, Daniel Steuer, Frank Möbus and Birgit Illner. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1999. Pp. 251–264. Lorelle Raihala: “Who has Control of her Life? Die Marquise von O…”. In: Kleists Erzählungen und Dramen. Ed. by Paul Michael Lützeler and David Pan. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2001. Pp. 93–106. Jochen Schmidt: Heinrich von Kleist. Die Dramen und Erzählungen in ihrer Epoche. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2003. Pp. 197–207.

51 sprawled out in front of him, and to see him from the perspective of a loving partner, making the viewer feel as if she/he were part of some mutual love-making, in which glances are exchanged. This impression of erotic mutuality is accentuated further by a faint smile and moan on the part of the unconscious woman, as if in response to his touch, and by increasingly heavy breathing on the part of the young man, over whose face light plays softly. When the camera moves away from this fake exchange of gazes into a more voyeuristic position, looking from the outside at the couple, soft light and music and the protective frame of the bridge continue to evoke more an impression of love-making than of rape. The camera then swings above the couple over the canal, suggesting a “lifting off ” in orgasm. The dark sounds of water which accompany this shot simultaneously convey the depth of feeling stirred up by this experience. Finally the camera comes to rest on Max cowering by the water with his head on his knees. A background soundtrack of double basses vibrating mournfully indicates that the climax is followed by remorse. This rape scene conveys the impression of a gentle, kind, sensitive man whose feelings have momentarily overwhelmed him. The viewer is immediately in full possession of the facts, and the subsequent interest in the film centres solely on observing Julietta’s reaction when she finds them out. Kleist, on the other hand, employs two significant ruptures in the chronology of narration to awaken the reader’s interest in the analytical character of the story. The story opens proleptically with the pregnant Marquise’s public search in a newspaper advertisement for the man who has made her pregnant without her knowledge. It then reverts to a chronological telling of how she found herself pregnant, but does not narrate the sexual act. What has been left out of the telling of the story is subsequently alluded to in a great number of references, without the protagonists recognizing the symbolic actions, symptoms and encoded messages that stare them in the face, or being aware of the double entendre of their own comments. The reader is never given plain facts about what happened. But once she or he has taken the hint provided by the initial newspaper advertisement and the dash, the irony of comic double meaning places the reader in a position of knowledge above the obtuseness of the fictional characters. Moreover, the irony anticipates the conciliatory outcome.45 45

For an analysis of the irony in the narration of the story see Thomas Fries: The Impossible Object: The Feminine, the Narrative (Laclos’ Liaisons dangereuses and Kleist’s Marquise von O…”). In: MLN 91.6 (1976). Pp. 1296–1326. John H. Smith: Dialogic Midwifery in Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…” and the Hermeneutics of Telling the Untold in Kant and Plato. In: PMLA 100.2 (1985). Pp. 203–219. Lilian R. Furst: “Double-Dealing”: Irony in Kleist’s Die Marquise von O…. In: Echoes and Influences of German Romanticism: Essays in Honor of Hans Eichner. Ed. by Heinz Wetzel, Michael S. Batts, and Anthony W. Riley. New York: Lang 1987. Pp. 85–95. Hilda Meldrum Brown: Heinrich von Kleist. The Ambiguity of Art and the Necessity of Form. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998. Pp. 206–222.

52 Thus, immediately after the rape, Kleist’s Count engages in a series of substitute actions hinting at what the dash was silent about. Putting his hat on signals in a displacement the pulling up of his trousers. Using a hose pipe extensively in fire fighting indicates, in an ironic condensation of symbolic meaning, both his previous phallic activity and his belated attempt to bring his passion under control: Shortly after this he returned to the scene of action, gave orders for the extinction of the fire which was beginning to spread furiously, and joined in this work himself with heroic exertion when his orders were not carried out with sufficient zeal. At one moment he was climbing about among burning gables with a hose in his hand, directing a jet of water at the flame; […]. (p. 70)46

The Count blushes when asked for the names of the would-be rapists (see p. 72 English; p. 660 German), and claims not to have recognized them during the dark of night – although there were blazing fires raging in the castle. But it is left to the reader to infer the meaning of his body language and his withholding the names of the soldiers which his interlocutors cannot decipher. Similarly, the family listen without comprehension when the Count imparts his vision of the swan whom he confused with the Marquise: how in the feverish delirium brought on by his wound he had kept confusing his visions of her with the sight of a swan, which, as a boy, he had watched on his uncle’s estate; that he had been particularly moved by one memory, of an occasion on which he had once thrown some mud at this swan, whereupon it had silently dived under the surface and re-emerged, washed clean by the water; that she had always seemed to be swimming about on a fiery surface and that he had called out to her “Tinka!”, which had been the swan’s name, but that he had not been able to lure her towards him. For she had preferred merely to glide about, arching her neck and thrusting out her breast. (p. 82)47

46 “Bald darauf kehrte er auf den Waffenplatz zurück, gab Befehl, der Flamme, welche wütend um sich zu greifen anfing, Einhalt zu tun, und leistete selbst hierbei Wunder der Anstrengung, als man seine Befehle nicht mit dem gehörigen Eifer befolgte. Bald kletterte er, den Schlauch in der Hand, mitten unter brennenden Giebeln umher, und regierte den Wasserstrahl; […]”. P. 659. 47 “wie er die Vorstellung von ihr [the Marquise, RS], in der Hitze des Wundfiebers, immer mit der Vorstellung eines Schwans verwechselt hätte, den er, als Knabe, auf seines Onkels Gütern gesehen; daß ihm besonders eine Erinnerung rührend gewesen wäre, da er diesen Schwan mit Kot beworfen, worauf dieser still untergetaucht, und rein aus der Flut wieder emporgekommen sei; daß sie immer auf feurigen Fluten geschwommen wäre, und er Thinka gerufen hätte, welches der Name jenes Schwans gewesen, daß er aber nicht im Stande gewesen wäre, sie an sich zu locken, indem sie ihre Freude gehabt hätte, bloß am Rudern und In-die-Brust-sich-werfen; […]” (P. 667). The German term “Kot” means excrement, filth. “Mud”, the translation chosen by David Luke and Nigel Reeves, does not convey the full meaning of Kleist’s term.

53 Most modern readers have decoded this tale as a symbolic confession of the Count’s crime. This emblematic tale also contains a vital psychological motivation for the Count’s behaviour, revealing aggressive possessive desires in his individual childhood, as well as the effect on him of prevalent social concepts like the sexual allure of purity and the branding of sexuality as dirty. Feminist readers have rightly objected to the trivialization of rape in a dream which implicitly compares the violation of a woman’s physical and psychological integrity in rape with the merely external soiling with filth.48 Furthermore, Curtis C. Bentzel has argued persuasively “that there is more than one plausible way to decipher the motifs in the Count’s vision”.49 Bentzel points to an intertextual reference, the poem “Innocence”50 by a contemporary of Kleist’s, in which a swan symbolizes innocence cleaning itself from the attempt to besmirch it with slander. Bentzel also emphasizes that “Kleist and his contemporaries were working within a literary tradition in which, from the very earliest works, oneiric experience presents future events – not past ones – to the dreamer”.51 Bentzel’s suggestions would help to identify a hidden fixed point from which this narrative portrays the “imperfection inherent in the order of the world” (p. 113).52 This phrase refers to human fallibility, due to the fact that 48

See Linda Dietrick: Immaculate Conceptions: The “Marquise von O… “ and the Swan. In: Seminar 27.4 (1991). Pp. 316–329, here: P. 320. See also Christine Künzel: Heinrich von Kleists “Die Marquise von O…” (note 3). P. 71. 49 Curtis C. Bentzel: Knowledge in Narrative: The Significance of the Swan in Kleist’s “Die Marquise von O…”. In: The German Quarterly 64.3 (1991). Pp. 296–303, here: P. 298. While Bentzel lucidly illuminates the historical horizon of associations of the swan dream in Kleist’s time, and argues persuasively for upholding epistemological uncertainty not only for the characters in the novella, but also for its readers, Thomas Dutoit raises the reader to absolute power in his Derridean free-floating association of terms in the story in order to claim that the text constructs a cryptic space for the hidden trauma. Thus he argues that “the way Graf F… confuses the image of the Marquise with that of the swan stems from a textual cryptogram: Schwan (swan) is part of the secret, unpronounced word in the text, namely Schwan-ger (pregnant)”. (Thomas Dutoit: Rape, Crypt and Fantasm. P. 48, note 3). More preposterously, Dutoit claims that the proper translation for the German Strickzeug is “knitting equipment”, not “knitting” (Dutoit, P. 56), and that this Strickzeug joins the earlier motif of failed witnessing (bezeugen, Zeuge) to the subsequent motif of conviction (über-zeugen, Überzeugung), as well as to inseminate (zeugen). Together with an even weirder translation of Strickzeug “as ‘tool for catching’ the father, as implied by the German Strick” (Dutoit, P. 56), Dutoit believes that he has thus aquired the “knitting equipment” which can serve him as a “tool with which a reading of the story as a cryptogamy, i.e., as a cryptic fructification, could be woven” (Dutoit, P. 56). In the mixing of the metaphors of knitting, weaving, lassoing and fructification the eclectic logic of the argument unwittingly parodies itself. 50 “Die Unschuld”. 51 Bentzel: Knowledge in Narrative. P. 299 (note 49). 52 “gebrechliche[] Einrichtung der Welt”. P. 687.

54 moral extremes can coexist in one and the same person, as the story has demonstrated in the Count. But while the Marquise has to accept a profound disillusionment concerning what first appeared to her as the Count’s angelic nature, he (unlike so many modern critics of this story) can and does persist in viewing her in terms of swan-white innocence.53 The narrator never explicitly confirms the Count in this view of the Marquise. But her mother does when she heaps hyperbolic praise on her daughter (“you are purer than an angel” p. 10454), and her father does through the excessively emotional reconciliation ritual with her (which in turn has been viewed by critics as an incestuous scene55). The narrator himself does not confirm the parents’ hyperbole, but merely emphasizes, from a more restrained stance, that the unjust ostracism she has suffered has only brought to light positive qualities in the Marquise (see note 21). By the end she has indeed succeeded, through unorthodox and contradictory means, in clearing herself, vis-à-vis her parents (if not some modern critics), from the slander of having engaged in illegitimate sexual relations and having lied about them. The ending brings together a complementary discrepancy between appearance and reality in the two protagonists. Behind the Count’s angelic, godlike appearance lies the reality of a crime of passion; behind the apparent sexual indiscretion which the Marquise’s body betrays lies her swan-white conscience. Since the story demonstrates that the Count’s humanity lies somewhere in between the extremes of angel and devil which the Marquise projects onto him, it would be logical to assume that the same middle ground, in her case between the extremes of sexual promiscuity and swan-white innocence, would apply to the Marquise. But while the story demonstrates the deceptiveness of appearances for both protagonists, I would argue that Kleist’s universe is fundamentally asymmetrical with regard to gender. Susan Winnett suggests that “the closural processes of The Marquise of O depend on our assuming the uncontrollable violence of male sexuality”.56 By contrast, the 53

Long before the Marquise was pronounced guilty of repressing her desire by Freudian critics, Müller-Seidel had warned against viewing her as a saint: “Sie ist es am wenigsten deshalb, weil ihr in ihrer ‘Frömmigkeit’ der Graf als Engel des Himmels erscheint oder weil die Eltern sie später zum Engel erhöhen. Bezeichnungen wie Engel, Cherub, Herrliche, Überirdische in den Worten der Eltern sind unmöglich als bare Münze zu nehmen: so als wäre sie diejenige, als welche sie den im Widerspruch hinund hergeworfenen Menschen erscheint”. (Müller-Seidel: Die Struktur des Widerspruchs. P. 508 (note 39). 54 “o du Reinere als Engel sind”. P. 681. 55 See Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff: Epistemological Asymmetries and Erotic Stagings: Father-Daughter Incest in Heinrich von Kleist’s The Marquise of O…. In: Women in German Yearbook 12 (1996). Pp. 71–86. 56 Susan Winnett: The Marquise’s “O” and the Mad Dash of Narrative. In: Rape and Representation. Ed. by Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver. New York: Columbia University Press 1991. Pp. 67–86, here: P. 74.

55 woman’s purity of feeling, acted on without any regard for social propriety, and her magnanimous forgiveness of male imperfection (which characterizes also Eve in Der zerbrochene Krug and Käthchen in Das Käthchen von Heilbronn) are the precondition for the happy ending of Kleist’s story. Because we nowadays cannot but apply the insight of the “imperfection inherent in the order of the world” (p. 113)57 (which the story has demonstrated so clearly in the figure of the Count) to both men and women, modern readers will look for hidden traces of moral ambiguity in the Marquise – that is, they will try to understand her in modern terms, and not in Kleistian terms. The family themselves come, unwittingly and to the reader’s amusement, close to the truth, when, surprised at the Count’s excessive hurry in wanting to marry the Marquise, her mother comments on his “headstrong nature, obstinately bent on one single purpose”.58 In using the term “single point” in the German original she inadvertently echoes Mephisto’s sexual reference to women’s suffering (all of which is, according to his advice to the student, “to be cured from one point”59), without realizing how neatly the sexual implications of her language and of the Count’s desire have already coincided. The same ironic conflation of a figure of speech with the Count’s elided action occurs when the family use the language of war metaphorically for his courtship: “All were agreed that his behaviour was extraordinary, and that he seemed to be accustomed to taking ladies’ hearts, like fortresses, by storm” (p. 79).60 Thus Kleist’s story juxtaposes the extremely serious nature of the Marquise’s violation with elaborate narrative irony, when evoking in displaced references the crime from which her suffering stems. In this contrast between the facts and the form in which they are narrated, Kleist extends the co-existence of apparently diametrically opposed principles from the level of character, behaviour, action, and positions of power to the level of aesthetic presentation. The story both questions gender conceptions of the period and draws on them to fashion a dream in fiction: imagining that an imperfect world can be made bearable by a human being who is pure, strong and magnanimous enough to emerge from her ordeal, not only unscathed and white as a swan (though probably not as superhuman as her parents think), but also forgiving and even loving her rapist. In Stark’s film, on the other hand, there is little displaced reference to the rape, and no irony. Post-coitus, the rapist does not demonstrate any phallic 57

“gebrechliche[] Einrichtung der Welt”. “heftiger, auf einen Punkt hintreibender Wille”. P. 665. 59 Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Faust I. In: Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Sämtliche Werke in 18 Bänden. Ed. by Ernst Beutler, vol. 5: Die Faustdichtungen. Munich: dtv 1977. P. 203: “Aus einem Punkte zu kurieren”. 60 “Alle kamen darin überein, daß sein Betragen sehr sonderbar sei, und daß er Damenherzen durch Anlauf, wie Festungen, zu erobern gewohnt scheine”. P. 665. 58

56 activities. Rather, he gives physical care to his rape victim, providing her with a blanket, a hot drink, and a ride to the station. Only his peeling an orange, which he interrupts in embarrassment when Julietta’s eyes fall on him, is a symbolic reminder of his undressing her. By showing Max in a nurturing role, the film develops further his portrayal as a loving and sweet man which began in the rape scene. In the course of the film, ever more of his positive qualities are revealed: his kind gentleness, his commitment to music, his attempts to keep away from Julietta, his emotional sincerity and monogamy as evidenced by his inability to sleep with his girlfriend Maria again after his rape of Julietta, his attempts to confess, his wanting to assume responsibility for the pregnancy, until he emerges from his purifying dip into the fountain with his decision made to atone for his crime by turning himself in to the police. Since the purifying powers of water are associated with the rapist in the film, whereas they are attributed to the “soiled” victim in Kleist’s story, one could perhaps argue that Kleist’s swan image has here changed sex and shifted from victim to agent of the sexual assault, since in keeping with contemporary notions of sexual morality, the perpetrator rather than the victim would be seen in need of moral purification and redemption. The damage caused by the rapist in the film could be seen as symbolized by his running over Jiri’s moped. But unlike the multifaceted symbolism of Kleist’s swan tale, this incident merely confirms what the rape scene has already conveyed: Max’s deep and totally absorbing love for the woman he has raped shuts out normal perception of everything else around him, resulting in unintended damage. The moped incident is merely a consequence of Max’s rape, whereas Kleist’s swan incident functions on many levels: it encapsulates the individual and social genesis of the Count’s desire to rape, it can be read as a symbolic confession of guilt, which ironically the characters in the story do not understand, and it prefigures the Marquise’s ultimate redemption from slander. It could be argued that the paradoxical effect of the violence against the Marquise is that it promotes her temporarily stepping out of the gender norms of her time to independent agency. Furthermore, in another paradox, the gender norms of her time form the core of her being, and it is precisely the purity of her conscience in relation to them that enables her to offend some more superficial social patterns of feminine behaviour. In other words, precisely because she has internalized the moral structure of her society so fundamentally, she feels able to resist those who wrongly accuse her of having violated it. Her apparently unconventional agency ultimately depends on her own conviction of her deep conformity with social structure. Thus, it is not surprising that in the end her forgiveness, first of her father and mother, then of her rapist, helps restore the patriarchal status quo, as she has never questioned its ethic, although some aspects of her behaviour have challenged its practice. For the Marquise, her independence has never been an end in itself. She does not represent an

57 alternative to patriarchy, but rather a literary fantasy of its human face. Moreover, the story opens up imaginative space within the structure of society at Kleist’s time. Without ever falling entirely outside the gender norms of its time, the story pushes both men and women into reverse positions of power, moral legitimacy, and agency, and back again. And it opens the reader’s eyes to new ironies: that masculinity, taken to its violent extreme, can undermine the moral legitimacy of patriarchy, whereas femininity, assuming a strength not foreseen in contemporary gender norms, functions to restore patriarchy. Thus Kleist’s story demonstrates through its paradoxes that intention and effect can never be fully commensurate and that agency is always constituted within social structure. While Kleist’s story depicts both the intention and the effect of violence in a series of paradoxes and reversals, Stark’s film thematizes moral ambiguity in a much more diffuse way. Long before Stark’s Julietta learns about the dark side of the apparently so gentle Max, she has had to confront moral ambiguity, or, as Nietzsche put it, “colourful actions”,61 in the people closest to her. Her parents are not the happy couple she thought. Her father ultimately comes across as a symbolically emasculated man, whose wife carries on an affair in their own home, with his consent, and whose daughter sells his phallic Mercedes sports car to settle her boyfriend’s drug debts. Julietta’s boyfriend Jiri turns out to be a drug addict, whose habits have involved him with thugs. She learns that he is capable of violent possessiveness, and of illegal, thoughtless and dangerous actions. Rather than throwing a rape victim into a deep identity crisis, the film shows a young girl’s gradual awakening to the fact that things and people are not always as good as they seemed to her. The discovery of Max’s rape is only one in a series of revelations of moral complexities, none of which forces her to behave in a way that offends the gender norms of her society while trying to follow them. Kleist’s story, on the other hand, explores an adult rape victim’s experience of a shattering split between her mind and her body, of social ostracism for something she has no responsibility for, and, ultimately, her discovery of such a startling co-existence of opposites in the Count that her confidence in the world is shaken. Both story and film portray the maturing of the respective protagonists as a result of confronting the fact of rape. Both rape victims gain in independence in dealing with the effects of violence against them, without ultimately changing the social structure in which their violation has occurred. But while Kleist’s story is characterized by “a critical subversion of conventional evaluations, concepts, and attitudes”62 with regard to early 61

Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse. P.158 (note 4): “bunte Handlungen”. Jochen Schmidt: Heinrich von Kleist. Die Dramen und Erzählungen in ihrer Epoche. P. 200 (note 44): “kritische Subversion konventioneller Wertungen, Vorstellungen und Haltungen”. 62

58 19th-century clichés of the hero, parental authority, and religious prejudice, the film rather confirms early 21st-century moral values, such as the need to accept human weaknesses as well as responsibilities in sexual relations, female self-determination, and the delights and dangers of drug use. The differences in historical setting and narrative focus in the film compared to the story result, on the one hand, in a reduction of the intensity of the effects of violence, and, on the other hand, in an extension of the capacity for violence to many characters, including the female ones. The ironic distance of Kleist’s narrator is replaced by an invitation to the viewer to identify with the protagonists, both victim and perpetrator. The effect is a subversion of the link between violence and masculinity made in Kleist’s story, and a reduction of the distancing comic perspective in favour of an identificatory experience of emotional entanglement. Concentration of focus, sharp contrasts, and dialectical reversals characterize Kleist’s ambiguous and conflictual portrayal of an identity crisis resulting from violation, while the diffusion of contrasts and soft focus are features of Stark’s film, both in the psychological and in the visual sense, with scenes at the beginning and at the end of the film being shot in soft focus. While the soft focus may have its appeal, the sharp dialectical turns of Kleist’s story and his activation of the reader surely have the deeper grasp on the imagination.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Chris Lyons and Judith McAlister-Hermann for comments on this paper.

Siobhán Donovan

“Inspired by Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle”: The Intersemiotic Representation of Figural Consciousness in Eyes Wide Shut This article argues that Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut – an Americanised film adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle – is an innovative and hermeneutic work of interlingual and intersemiotic translation that builds bridges between the two concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence. This is illustrated with particular reference to what is arguably the most inherently filmic of modes for narrating figural consciousness (in a novella not short of film potential) narrated monologue or free indirect speech. Kubrick’s preference for a predominantly visually and musicallyorientated narrative is very much in keeping with Schnitzler’s own plans for the Traumnovelle on the big screen almost seventy years before the release of Kubrick’s controversial final film.

“It’s almost impossible to express these things in words”:1 with this caveat, Albertine continues the verbal narration of her erotic dream to her husband, Fridolin, on his return from his nocturnal visit to the mysterious orgy, itself so surreal that he begins to question its very existence, daring to hope that it might amount to no more than his delirium while lying in bed at home.2 In his last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), “inspired”3 by Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle (1926), Stanley Kubrick chose to render this key scene in predominantly monologic (albeit necessarily abridged) form, to the strains of the haunting vocal and string accompaniment of Jocelyn Pook’s appropriately titled “The Dream” (the music hitherto accompanying Bill’s obsessive nightmarish fantasies of his wife Alice copulating with the naval officer, which appear as black and white inserts at periodic intervals in the course of the film).4 Thus Kubrick opted for a 1

“In Worten lassen sich diese Dinge eigentlich kaum ausdrücken”. Arthur Schnitzler: Traumnovelle. (Arthur Schnitzler: Das erzählerische Werk). Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1992. P. 58. The English translation used here is Eyes Wide Shut. A screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael and its inspiration Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler. Transl. by J. M. Q. Davies. London: Penguin 1999, here: P. 161. English translations from works other than Traumnovelle are my own. All quotations from Traumnovelle/Dream Story are from the above editions, and references will be given using the abbreviations DS and TN. 2 DS. P. 156. TN. P. 53: “Vielleicht war er schon krank. Hatte er nicht Fieber? Lag er in diesem Augenblick nicht daheim zu Bett – und all das, was er erlebt zu haben glaubte, waren nichts als Delirien gewesen?!” 3 In the opening titles. 4 In one of the many acculturations in the film, Fridolin is renamed Bill, while Albertine becomes Alice. “The Dream” is one of four original compositions by the English

60 chiefly verbal representation of a dream scene, a state of mind that according to Freud cannot be adequately expressed by means of language. The choice is all the more singular perhaps, as Kubrick was known for his linguistic skepticism and championing of visual and musical media. This dream scene from the novella constitutes the longest monologue in the narrative, a narrative that is (as one expects from Schnitzler) characterized much less by direct dialogic or monologic interchanges than by the verbal representation of Fridolin’s consciousness – unspoken thoughts, emotional responses, memories, subjective impressions, erotic fantasies, jealous obsessions and tortuous selfanalyses. It falls to Albertine, however, who is physically absent for most of the time (although intermittently present in Fridolin’s thoughts), to give voice to her reflections. This she does at a key moment in the novella. In the first bedroom scene, after their mutual confessions of adulterous fantasies, she admits that during the first encounter with her future husband she longed for him to take her virginity there and then: “We chatted away together, and in the course of our conversation I thought to myself, just listen to what I thought: […]”.5 As well as being a rare window into Albertine’s inner consciousness, this passage is an unusual instance of the externalization or verbalization of unspoken thought to another character. The narration of Fridolin’s thoughts in the novella runs the gamut of stylistic devices available to Schnitzler: indirect and summarizing psycho-narration or narratorial report,6 interior monologue, and, most strikingly, an ever-increasing presence of free indirect speech or narrated monologue. The sensational and ever-topical subject matter of the novella – jealousy, sexual infatuation, adultery, deception, adventure, danger, mystery, suicide, death, rape, confession, reconciliation – is certainly the stuff of films, and the character-led, psychologically-motivated and predominantly linear narrative (with the exception of the short flashback scene to the ball at the start) needs practically no tweaking to make it conform to the classic Hollywood narrative where equilibrium is restored at the end and closure achieved.7 The scenes described – be they

composer Jocelyn Pook for the film, her first major film-score. This and the other three pieces are performed by her string ensemble “Electric Strings”. For an analysis of the music soundtrack in Eyes Wide Shut see Gerrit Bodde: Die Musik in den Filmen von Stanley Kubrick. Osnabrück: Der Andere Verlag 2002. Pp. 145–153 & 159. On Pook and her music see ibid. pp. 152–153, and also pp. 164–165. 5 DS. P. 120. TN. P. 13: “[…] wir plauderten miteinander, und ich dachte im Laufe dieser Unterhaltung, ja höre nur, was ich dachte: […]”. 6 The former is Dorrit Cohn’s term (Cohn: Transparent Minds. Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1978). “Internal” or “narratorial analysis” are other terms. The German is more concrete: “Gedankenbericht” (“report of thoughts”). 7 For a clear overview of narrative in film see Graham Roberts, Heather Wills: Introducing Film. London: Hodder 2001. Pp. 52–70.

61 from the authorial perspective, or, as is more usually the case, from the limited perspective of the “hero’s” (Fridolin’s) – are, true to Schnitzler, markedly impressionistic, with a strong appeal to all the senses: the visual (the almost heavy-handed leitmotivic repetition of eyes, looks, masks, faces), the visceral or tactile (the many references to physical contact), the auditory (the striking of clocks, ringing of bells, regular breathing, Nachtigall’s Polish accent, and also real piano and vocal “performances”), the olfactory (the smells emanating from Marianne’s house, Nachtigall’s hotel, the morgue, but also sweet fragrances, e.g. of approaching spring outside), and – in a negative sense – the gustatory (reports of self-poisoning, the tuck box for the ill Mizzi). In addition, the reader is struck by the many overt and covert references to play-acting, staging, pretence, disguise, illusion, willful deception, selfdeception and self-delusion that permeate the novella, a genre that is inherently dramatic. Fridolin and Albertine are constantly masking or concealing their true feelings for each other, with Fridolin relishing in the prospect of playing the dual role of dutiful husband/father/doctor and avenger/seducer,8 and always trying to make sense of the orgy, convince himself that the scene at the villa was merely an “infamous jest”,9 a “charade” even.10 Furthermore, the owner of the costume hire, Gibiser, is described in terms reminiscent of the Commedia dell’arte’s Pantalone figure,11 and in Albertine’s dream she and Fridolin appear as fairy-tale figures, with Fridolin clearly recast as the prince of their daughter’s bed-time story opening the novella.12 As Marc Weiner has comprehensively shown, the novella is replete with allusions to Die Zauberflöte.13 Finally, the many separate scenes within the seven chapters seem all the more dramatic for their abundance of lighting references – almost in the manner of those found in stage directions in order to create mood: e.g. Marianne’s petroleum lamp in her father’s sparsely-lit room, the rather faint light coming from the gas street lamps that impairs Fridolin’s recognition of the fraternity students, the strong light given off by Mizzi’s oil lamp, the gentle light from Fridolin’s bedside table-lamp, or the dimly-lit gas lamps in the morgue in stark contrast to the electric pocket torch held by his colleague, Doctor Adler.14

8

DS. P. 172. TN. P. 71. DS. P. 153. TN. P. 50: “Und war nicht alles, was er eben erlebt, wahrscheinlich nur ein infamer Spaß gewesen, den man sich mit ihm erlaubt hatte?” 10 DS. P. 169. TN. P. 67: “Selbstverständlich war das Ganze eine Komödie gewesen”. 11 DS. P. 140. TN. P. 34: “[…] so daß er wie ein lächerlicher Alter auf dem Theater aussah”. 12 DS. Pp. 159, 115. TN. Pp. 56, 7. 13 Marc A. Weiner: Die Zauberflöte and the Rejection of Historicism in Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle. In: Modern Austrian Literature 22.3–4 (1989). Pp. 33–49. 14 DS. Pp. 122, 127, 131, 157 and 182 respectively. TN. Pp. 15, 21, 25, 54 and 82 respectively. 9

62 Schnitzler’s interest in the nascent medium of film (diary entries as early as 1908 testify to his regular attendance at early cinema performances) is well known. Wooed by many film companies, Schnitzler witnessed several film adaptations of his works. Producing many more drafts of screenplays of his works than actually made it to celluloid, he was well aware of the need for considerable rewriting in the transition from the page to the screen.15 There can be no doubt, then, that Traumnovelle bears the stamp of Schnitzler’s exposure and commitment to cinema. In Bertolt Brecht’s Dreigroschenprozeß of 1932, the analysis of his unsuccessful lawsuit against the Nero film company for allegedly breaching his authorial rights in their film version of his Dreigroschenoper,16 Brecht, commenting on the unstoppable technologizing of literary production, noted the influence of the film on both the reader and the writer of prose, maintaining (as part of his invective against film directors) that writers of prose and drama can conceivably work “more filmically than film people”, and are “dependent on the film, both its progress and regress”.17 However, where Brecht argued that film required external action (the externalism of non-Aristotelian theatre) rather than empathetic “introspective psychology”,18 Schnitzler argued for precisely the

15

On Schnitzler and the cinema see Manfred Kammer: Das Verhältnis Arthur Schnitzlers zum Film. Aachen: Cobra 1983; also the seminar essay by Angelika Friedl and Elisabeth Prinz: Eyes Wide Shut im Kontext der Filmtheorie der 20er Jahre (University of Vienna, Wintersemester 2000/2001), ⬍http://www.dada.at/ wohngemeinschaft/stories/ storyReader$89⬎ (here especially section 2.3. “Schnitzlers Verständnis von Film”), and Arthur Schnitzler: Zeitgenossenschaften – Contemporaneities. Ed. by Ian Foster and Florian Krobb. Bern: Lang 2002 (particularly Donald D. Daviau: Arthur Schnitzler’s Liebelei and Max Ophüls’s film adaptation. Pp. 329–347; Klaus Kanzog: Arthur Schnitzler: Fräulein Else. Der innere Monolog in der Novelle und in der filmischen Transformation. Pp. 359–372; Gertraud Steiner Daviau: Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut. Eine neue Dimension für Schnitzlers Traumnovelle. Pp. 390–405). 16 The film was released in February 1932. On the legal wrangle see Steve Giles: Bertolt Brecht and Critical Theory. Marxism, Modernity and the Threepenny Lawsuit. Bern: Lang 1997, here especially chapter 6, Pp. 133–166. 17 “Der Filmesehende liest Erzählungen anders. Aber auch der Erzählungen schreibt ist seinerseits ein Filmesehender. Die Technifizierung der literarischen Produktion ist nicht mehr rückgängig zu machen. […] Es ist denkbar, daß die Schreibenden anderer Kategorien, also die Dramatiker und die Romanschreiber, zunächst filmischer arbeiten können als die Filmleute. […] sie sind eben doch abhängig vom Film, seinem Fortschritt oder Rückschritt […]”. Bertolt Brecht: Der Dreigroschenprozeß. Ein soziologisches Experiment. In: Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenbuch. Texte, Materialien, Dokumente. Erster Band. Hg. von Siegfried Unseld. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1960. Pp. 117–176, here: P. 131. 18 “In Wirklichkeit braucht der Film äußere Handlung und nicht introspektiv Psychologisches. […] Für den Film sind die Sätze nichtaristotelischer Dramatik ([…]) ohne weiteres annehmbar”. Ibid., Pp. 142–143.

63 opposite. He claimed that film had a greater affinity with narrative prose than with drama, seeing both film and prose as inherently suited to the depiction of the internal and private, drama to the external and public. In an interview from 1923 he formulated it thus: The assertion that a film drama can never be a complete work of art in the true sense of the word seems to me absolutely right. But who can deny that every good film contains a plethora of artistic elements – theatrical above all, but also visual (painting) and also poetic. If one chooses to compare the so-called film composition with another pre-existing art form, then the affinity with the novel and novella is more strikingly obvious than that with drama. To a certain extent one can see the filmic composition as nothing more than an illustrated novel.19

Peter Conrad similarly postulates opera’s affinity with the novel, stating that the process of putting the libretto (a dramatic form) to music “subverts that drama into a sentimental or psychological novel”.20 Only seven of Schnitzler’s eighteen film plans actually came to fruition.21 Ever since its publication Schnitzler and others had been aware of the film potential in Traumnovelle.22 Two tentative discussions in 1927 and 1928 came to nothing,23 as did an enquiry from MGM in Hollywood.24 Schnitzler worked

19

“Die Behauptung, daß ein Kinodrama niemals ein vollendetes Kunstwerk im wahren Sinn sein könne, scheint mir durchaus richtig. Aber wer will leugnen, dass in jedem guten Film eine ganze Fülle von künstlerischen Elementen, schauspielerischen vor allem, malerischen, ja auch dichterischen enthalten zu sein pflegt. Will man das so genannte Filmstück mit irgendeiner schon bestehenden Kunstform vergleichen, so ist die Verwandtschaft mit Roman und Novelle viel augenfälliger als die mit dem Drama”. Arthur Schnitzler: Sein Leben, sein Werk, seine Zeit. Hg. von Heinrich Schnitzler, Christian Brandstätter und Reinhard Urbach. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1981. P. 112 (reprinted in Arthur Schnitzler: Traumnovelle. Hg. von Peter Bekes. Hannover: Schroedel 2003. P. 151). It is interesting that Fridolin, reflecting on his encounter with Gibiser’s nymphet daughter (whom he nicknames “Pierrette”), sees the incident as more akin to something out of a novel: “What strange novel have I brushed against there?” (My translation; Davies translates “Roman” with “adventure”: DS. P. 144. TN. P. 39: “An welch einem seltsamen Roman bin ich da vorübergestreift?”). 20 Peter Conrad: Romantic Opera and Literary Form. Berkeley – Los Angeles – London: University of California Press 1977. P. 116, and see also pp. 112–143. Both opera and film are, of course, multimedial art forms, and both often work with literary adaptation. Kubrick’s films are often said to have operatic qualities. 21 See ⬍http://www.dada.at/wohngemeinschaft/stories/storyReader$89⬎, here section 2.3. “Schnitzlers Verständnis von Film”. 22 See Kammer: Das Verhältnis Schnitzlers zum Film. P. 164, note 2. 23 Ibid. Pp. 181, 184. 24 See his letter of 24 July 1930 to Suzanne Clauser in Arthur Schnitzler: Briefe 1913–1931. Hg. von Peter Michael Braunwarth, Richard Miklin, Susanne Pertlik und Heinrich Schnitzler. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1984. P. 694 (part quoted in Andreas

64 on a draft script for Austrian film director, G. W. Pabst25 with initial gusto in the second half of December 1930, coming to a temporary halt on 29 December, although the manuscript was far from complete. The task was clearly proving harder than anticipated. According to Manfred Kammer, this draft, fifty-four scenes in length, commences with an extended version of the Fasching ball (narrated only briefly and in flashback mode in the novella), and consists in the main of a sequence of visual shots, with some sound, but little dialogue. There is no orgy scene (this would have been too shocking to depict on the screen) – the draft shows Fridolin and Nachtigall heading for the villa in two separate carriages, and then cuts to Albertine waking up and realizing Fridolin’s absence.26 In two letters just before Christmas 1930, Schnitzler notes that the Traumnovelle seems “just made for” a silent film with a (pre-recorded and synthesized) musical soundtrack, in preference to a sound film with spoken dialogue.27 But it was not to be. Pabst’s reluctant termination of the project in

Conrad: Eyes Wide Shut: Schon vor 70 Jahren wäre Schnitzlers Traumnovelle fast von G. W. Pabst verfilmt worden. In: Der Tagesspiegel (9 September 1999), available online [no page numbers] at ⬍http://www.tagesspiegel.de⬎). Schnitzler’s reference is to a “[…] Filmmenschen, […] und zwar aus Hollywood (Metro Goldwyn, […]), aber doch aus Czernowitz […]”. Conrad identifies the “film person” as Sam Spiegel, the then advisor to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and later on a producer in his own right. In the letter Schnitzler complains that he was unable to warm to the elegantly-dressed Spiegel. 25 Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1885–1967. A diary entry of 9 December 1930 recalls Schnitzler’s visit by Pabst’s assistant: “Around 6 pm, Mr. Rappaport (a young [22 years old] clever person, sent by Mr. Pabst about a sound film of Traumnovelle; I am to write the draft [script]” (“Gegen 6 Hr. Rappaport (junger 22j. kluger Mensch) für Hrn. Pabst, wegen Tonverfilmung Traumnovelle; ich solle selbst einen Entwurf verfassen”). Quoted in Conrad: Eyes Wide Shut. The diary entry two days later notes that he has started to re-read Traumnovelle with a film in mind (ibid.). 26 See Kammer: Das Verhältnis Schnitzlers zum Film. Pp. 226–228. A copy of the draft is in the Schnitzler-Archiv in Freiburg im Breisgau (ibid., P. 226, note 4). 27 Schnitzler had initially quite an aversion to sound films. He distinguishes between “Tonfilm” and “Sprechfilm”. On 17 December he writes to Rappaport, Pabst’s assistant, of his difficulties in coming up with a script for Traumnovelle, as he feels that what is best suited to his prose narrative is a “beautiful, silent film, a film not with spoken dialogue, but with (non-verbal) sound and a musical soundtrack that floods the whole piece” (“was für ein schöner, stummer, d.h. musikalisch umspielter, durchfluteter, kurz was für ein eigentlicher Ton- nicht aber Sprech-Film sich gerade aus der ‘Traumnovelle’ machen ließe”), quoted in part in the Schroedel edition of Traumnovelle. P. 156, and more fully in Angelika Friedl and Elisabeth Prinz: Eyes Wide Shut, ⬍http://www.dada.at/wohngemeinschaft/stories/storyReader$89⬎ , section 2.3.: “Schnitzlers Verständnis von Film”. The letter to his son Heinrich of 20 December 1930 reads: “Ich bin jetzt in ‘Verhandlung’ wegen der Traumnovelle – ein Abgesandter des (Film ⫽) Papst [sic], ein sympathischer sehr junger Herr Rappaport war bei mir;

65 March 1931 was largely due to the court case with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill over the film adaptation of Dreigroschenoper. The issues of copyright and authorship which were battled out evidently unleashed in Pabst severe misgivings about the feasibility of making film adaptations from literary sources.28 The main contributing factor to his abandonment of the Traumnovelle project was the thorny issue of translation. He was convinced that “severe losses in mood” would have been “inevitable” in the transformation process, and he did not want, yet again, to appear as the “rapist of intellectual, poetic work”.29 This is indeed strong, sensational language, but it points to Pabst’s sensitivity to the issues at stake: translatability, translation ethics and film rights. Nor was this an isolated comment: the 1930s saw a heightened interest in the legalities of screenplay and the status of the original author. Some years later George Bluestone put it thus: “[T]he filmist becomes not a translator for an established author, but a new author in his own right”.30 With his sound film Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) achieved a more than thirty-year-long ambition of adapting Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle for cinema. Kubrick’s own fascination for dreams, along with his conviction that film is the most appropriate medium for the portrayal of the unconscious, must surely have been another reason for his choice of material.31 Furthermore, he viewed the state of mind and receptivity of the film (or theatre) spectator as analogous to that of the dreamer, i.e. the film speaks to the un- or even subconscious of the viewer: I think an audience watching a film or a play is in a state very similar to dreaming, and that the dramatic experience becomes a kind of controlled dream. […] the

ich bin sehr für Ton, ohne Sprache; dafür wäre die Traumnovelle wie geschaffen”. Arthur Schnitzler: Briefe 1913–1931. P. 733. On 11 January 1931 he writes to his son that everything has “gone quiet” on the planned film front (ibid., P. 741), but on 4 March he refers to ongoing discussions (ibid., P. 771). 28 This is communicated in the (undated, but presumably early to mid March 1931) letter from Pabst to Schnitzler informing the latter of and giving the reasons for the termination of the project. Conrad paraphrases and quotes from the letter (held in the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin): Eyes Wide Shut. Conrad’s article publishes for the first time Schnitzler’s reply to Pabst of 18 March 1931. 29 “Gerade bei diesem Buche wären schwere Verluste atmosphärischer Werte unvermeidbar und ich will nicht noch einmal als der Vergewaltiger geistiger, dichterischer Arbeit erscheinen”. Letter to Schnitzler, March 1931, quoted in Conrad: Eyes Wide Shut. 30 George Bluestone: Novels into Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 6th edition 1973 (1st edition 1957). P. 62. 31 Critics also cite Kubrick’s Jewishness, his Austrian and Romanian lineage, and the fact that his style and melancholic interest have more in common with authors of the Habsburg period (most notably Kafka, Roth and Musil) than other film directors. See Georg Seeßlen, Fernand Jung: Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme. Marburg: Schüren 1999. P. 9.

66 important point here is that the film communicates on a subconscious level, as it responds to a dream.32

The realization of a literary (and thus verbally mediated) text in the very different medium of film is, of course, a dual act of intra- or interlingual and intersemiotic translation.33 Kubrick was introduced to an English (i.e. interlingual) translation of the novella in the late sixties;34 he secured the film rights about ten years later, but it was not until summer 1994 that he approached the established author Frederic Raphael to write the screenplay.35 Some sixty-odd years on, and coming from a different culture and language, Kubrick was able to approach the project with temporal and spatial distance, draw on the fruits of previous film projects, benefit from as well as contribute to the international reception of Schnitzler, and profit from the ideological and methodological advances made in translation studies in the seventy years since the first appearance of Traumnovelle.36

32 Kubrick tells me what makes a Clockwork Orange tick: Stanley Kubrick in interview with Bernard Weinraub, New York Times (4 January 1972), ⬍http://www.tabula-rasa. info/Horror/ClockworkOrangeFiles.html⬎. 33 Roman Jakobson: On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. In: On Translation. Ed. by Reuben Brower. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1959. Reprinted in The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. by Lawrence Venuti. London – New York: Routledge 2000. Pp. 113–118, here: P. 114. This reader collects a selection of the most important twentieth-century contributions to translation studies. “Intralingual translation” – an “interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language” – Jakobson paraphrases as “rewording”; “interlingual translation” as an “interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language” is “translation proper”; while “intersemiotic translation or transmutation” constitutes an “interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems”. 34 Rhapsody: A Dream Novel. Transl. by Otto P. Schinnerer. New York: Simon & Schuster 1927. Otto Schinnerer, a native of New York, and of Bavarian and Hanoverian descent, was the author of a number of important works on Schnitzler and a champion of his in the U.S. From their first meeting in July 1928 he became a good friend and correspondent of the elderly Schnitzler. See the first mention in Schnitzler’s letter to his wife, Olga, 22 July 1928. Arthur Schnitzler: Briefe 1913–1931. P. 560. 35 Kubrick cut out Schnitzler’s name and the title of novella from the copy before sending it to Raphael, who had to guess before getting confirmation of the author and work. See Raphael’s hard-hitting memoirs: Eyes Wide Open. A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick and “Eyes Wide Shut”. London: Orion Media 1999, here: Pp. 15–16. Appropriately, Kubrick first became aware of Schnitzler via the film adaptations of Schnitzler’s Liebelei (Germany, 1932) and Reigen (as La Ronde, France 1950) by Max Ophüls, a director whose work Kubrick greatly admired. 36 He was also able to benefit from the earlier attempts to film the novella. According to Conrad, Kubrick had access to Schnitzler’s unpublished script fragment via Schnitzler’s grandson, Peter, and he also asked to view the today still little acknowledged Austrian television (ORF) film of Traumnovelle (see the index to German Film

67 “Where the novel discourses, the film must picture”.37 Or, put more succinctly: “Literature narrates, film shows”.38 And, in the words of Frederic Raphael, “Kubrick wanted to show, not tell”.39 This novella – a prose narrative that is first and foremost about the laying bare of the inner lives of its characters, and one that positively teems with various techniques for rendering consciousness and silent discourse – has, as previously mentioned, many parallels with film. Kubrick believed that film had more in common with music and painting than with the printed word, as it was able to speak to “the viewer’s subconscious”, extract from him/her a “subconscious emotional reaction”.40 A literary source where the narration of consciousness predominates, but where spoken dialogue is not infrequent, is thus particularly attractive for screen adaptation. In narrative theory, the literary and thus verbal presentation of unarticulated thought is often described in visual terms as a process of implicit “showing” rather than one of explicit “telling”.41 While all modes of narrating inner mental states are to be found in Traumnovelle, narrated monologue or free indirect speech is the preferred mode of rendering Fridolin’s consciousness.42 With at least twenty-four incidents of narrated monologue in the novella (some very short, others lengthy), this mode outnumbers other narrative modes for rendering thoughts, such as summarizing psycho-narration and interior monologue, and becomes more prolific as the novella progresses.43 and Literature. Adaptations and Transformations. Ed. by Eric Rentschler. New York – London: Methuen 1986. P. 351) by the Austrian director Wolfgang Glück in 1969. See also ⬍http://www.film.at/die_traumnovelle⬎ and ⬍http://www.filmarchiv.at/events/schamlos/traumnovelle.htm⬎ (the latter website reports that Kubrick requested a copy of the film, and was “obviously” influenced by it). The film was not known to the editors of Schnitzler’s letters (see Arthur Schnitzler. Briefe 1913–1931. P. 1104). 37 Bluestone: Novels into film. P. 47. 38 “Literatur erzählt, Film zeigt”. Dagmar von Hoff: Kunstwelten im Dialog – Literatur und Film. Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut nach Arthur Schnitzlers Traumnovelle und Léos Carax’ Pola X nach Herman Melvilles Pierre. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik (Neue Folge) 13.2 (2003). Pp. 332–349, here: P. 334. 39 Raphael: Eyes Wide Open. P. 117. 40 The Film Director as Superstar: Stanley Kubrick in interview with Joseph Gelmis, 1969; excerpt at ⬍http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html⬎. 41 For example, Gérard Genette: Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method. Transl. by Jane E. Lewin, foreword by Jonathan Culler. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press 1980, here: P. 30. 42 Cohn points out that it is the most complex and the most frequently-used technique for presenting figural thought in narratives. Transparent Minds. P. 13. She prefers “narrated monologue” over “free indirect speech”, the term favoured by Roy Pascal in The Dual Voice. Free indirect speech and its functioning in the nineteenth-century European novel. Manchester: Manchester University Press 1977. 43 Strangely enough, the literature on Eyes Wide Shut has so far overlooked it. Edith Borchardt and Egon Schwarz only mention the “interior monologue” or “streams-ofconsciousness” and do not even seem to notice the existence (never mind the predominance)

68 More direct than psycho-narration, but less direct and spontaneous than interior monologue, narrated monologue is really a combination of the two, whereby the narratorial tense and presence is retained (i.e. past tense and third person), although the silent and essentially non-verbal thoughts and feelings of the fictitious character are being communicated. Thus we hear the narrator and see the protagonist, so to speak. Roy Pascal discusses the audible presence, influence and controlling power of the narrator in narrated monologue, a powerful presence that is reflected in the German term “erlebte Rede” (“erleben”: to experience or witness for oneself),44 while the involvement of the reader was emphasised by Oskar Walzel as early as 1924, who saw “erlebte Rede” as a type of “mimicry”, whereby the reader “experiences directly what the character in the narrative is experiencing”.45 If narrated monologue is generally considered to be the most complex of the techniques for rendering consciousness, it seems also to be the most apposite for cinematic transformation. While the notion of the “seeing mind” applies to all presentations of unspoken discourse (and of Kubrick it has been said that he wanted to film things “the mind could see but the eye could not”),46 the controlling authorial presence within narrated monologue may be likened to the lens of the camera, directing, interpreting, and of course, also drawing in and manipulating the reader or spectator.47 The narrator is thus both an audible and visual presence. As Jochen Vogt notes, this ordering presence seems to underline the exaggerated, “over-determined” – quasi theatrical – nature of narrated monologue, with the narrator refusing to let go of the reins, continuing to “hold

of narrated monologue (see Borchardt: Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. In: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 12.1 (2001). Pp. 4–17, here: P. 14, and Schwarz: A Puzzle and an Enigma. Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle. In: Modern Austrian Literature 34.1–2 (2001). Pp. 103–111, here: P. 108). Pamela S. Saur just refers to “filmed presentations of thoughts”. See Saur: Eyes Wide Shut and its Literary Forebear: Tom Cruise Got Off Easy. In: Lamar: Journal of the Humanities 26.2 (2001). Pp. 53–61, here: P. 54. 44 The term was the invention of Etienne Lorck in his slender work Die “Erlebte Rede”: Eine sprachliche Untersuchung. Heidelberg: Winter 1921. 45 Quoted in Roy Pascal: The Dual Voice. P. 28. Oskar Walzel’s article on “erlebte Rede” was first published in 1924 (in vol. 16 of the Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde [Neue Folge]) and reprinted in Das Wortkunstwerk in 1926. 46 Alexander Walker, Sybil Taylor, UIrich Ruchti: Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis. New York – London: W. W. Norton 1999. Pp. 344–345; quoted in Brigitte Peucker: Kubrick and Kafka: The Corporeal Uncanny. In: Modernism/modernity 8: 4 (2001). Pp. 663–674, here: P. 672, note 2. 47 Alan Spiegel’s study bears the title Fiction and the Camera Eye. Visual Consciousness in Film and the Modern Novel. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia 1976. See also Franz K. Stanzel: Theorie des Erzählens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 6.

69 the [puppet’s] strings”.48 The analogy with the puppeteer is particularly apt in the case of Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle, where the characters are not the agents of their own destiny, but are determined and governed by their sexual fantasies. Furthermore, the thematic concerns of Traumnovelle – conscious role-play, selfdelusion, the acts of masking and being de-masked, to say nothing of the fluctuations between the different levels of consciousness – are analogous to narrated monologue, a sort of narrative “as if ”, according to Dorrit Cohn. In her discussion of narrated monologue in Joyce’s Ulysses she comments that it is “as if he [Stephen Dedalus] were formulating it in his mind, but the words on the page are not identified as words running through his mind”.49 In short, the narrative language in such situations is, she argues, “a kind of mask, from behind which sounds the voice of a figural mind”.50 As mentioned earlier, the eye, the look and the face (whether masked or not) is a recurring image in Traumnovelle, and Kubrick’s films reveal his fascination for the human gaze: “The eye is the most dangerous organ in Kubrick’s films”.51 Linked with this is the spatial element so central to the mise-en-scène, and this, Cohn suggests, is also present in narrated monologue, as the internal vision evokes the setting or scene of an external or “outer fictional reality”. In other words, a “topography” is present.52 Complementing this spatial dimension is – again Cohn – a “temporal fluidity”,53 a blurring of past (remembering), present (the sense of the “here and now” created by deictic adverbs and the oral elements of idiom, exclamations and syntax of direct speech) and future (anticipated events). These spatial and temporal dimensions are identifiable in many of the passages of narrated monologue in Traumnovelle. In the carriage on the way home after his expulsion from the clandestine orgy, Fridolin’s attempts to search for a meaning imagine a real setting: What were they going to do with him? Where was the coach taking him? Was the comedy perhaps to have a sequel? Of what kind would it be? Would it have an unveränd. Aufl. 1995 (1. Aufl. 1979). Pp. 294–299 (“Camera Eye”); for a general discussion of the novel narrated from the limited perspective see his Typische Formen des Romans. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3. Aufl. 1967 (1. Aufl. 1964). Pp. 39–52. 48 “Die erlebte Rede ist, wie oft bei Thomas Mann, überdeterminiert, – vielleicht, weil der Erzähler die Fäden in der Hand behalten möchte?” Jochen Vogt: Aspekte erzählender Prosa. Eine Einführung in Erzähltechnik und Romantheorie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 8. durchges. und aktual. Aufl. 1998 (1. Aufl. 1972). P. 165. 49 Cohn: Transparent Minds. P. 103. 50 Ibid. P. 102. 51 “Das Auge ist das gefährlichste Organ in Kubricks Filmen”. Seeßlen, Jung: Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme. P. 49. The eye and glance were favourite subjects of Kubrick’s early photos (ibid., Pp. 10–11). 52 Cohn: Transparent Minds. P. 133. 53 Ibid. P. 127.

70 enlightening resolution? A happy reunion somewhere else, perhaps? A reward for an initiation honourably endured and acceptance into the secret society? Undisturbed possession of the gorgeous nun?54

On the last leg of his journey the visions are embedded in a concrete setting and his attempted rationalization of what has happened lurches him back to the past: “Wasn’t he perhaps lying at home in bed this very moment – and hadn’t everything he believed he had experienced been nothing more than his delirium?”.55 And on his return journey to the villa in search of answers, his mind races as he considers possible hypothetical actions in a concrete setting, but then falls back into the comforts of self-delusion: Would he be able to find the house again? It shouldn’t be all that difficult. The question was: what then? Notify the police? That could have dangerous consequences for the woman who perhaps had sacrificed herself, or been prepared to sacrifice herself for him. […] A charade. Quite obviously the whole thing had been a charade.56

These are just three of some of the many passages of narrated monologue in Traumnovelle. While the pronounced preference for this narrative mode was clearly one of the many magnets drawing Kubrick to this literary source, it is equally clear that the screenplay must excise several passages of narrated monologue. Of the above examples, the first two are cut completely, but the moral dilemma and self-delusion of the protagonist they portray are reworked into the scene towards the end with the figure of Victor Ziegler, one of Bill’s patients and the host of the party at the start. The film is, then, much more circular than the novella. A much criticized addition of Kubrick’s,57 the real and face-to-face dialogic interchange in this scene has the function of giving voice to Bill’s guilt, confusion and self-delusion – the feelings that are mediated in the novella by narrated monologue – thus making Ziegler a sort of “Doppelgänger”.58 At one 54 DS. P. 154. TN. P. 50–51: “Was hatte man mit ihm vor? Wohin sollte ihn der Wagen bringen? Sollte die Komödie vielleicht noch eine Fortsetzung finden? Und welcher Art sollte diese sein? Aufklärung vielleicht? Heiteres Wiederfinden an anderm Ort? Lohn nach rühmlich bestandener Probe, Aufnahme in die geheime Gesellschaft? Ungestörter Besitz der herrlichen Nonne –?” 55 DS. P. 156. TN. P. 53: “Lag er in diesem Augenblick nicht daheim zu Bett, – und all das, was er erlebt zu haben glaubte, waren nichts als Delirien gewesen?!” 56 DS. P. 169. TN. P. 67: “Ob es ihm nun gelingen würde, das Haus zu finden? Nun, das konnte nicht sonderlich schwierig sein. Die Frage war nur: was dann? Polizeiliche Anzeige? Das konnte gerade für die Frau, die sich vielleicht für ihn geopfert hatte oder bereit gewesen war, sich für ihn zu opfern, üble Folgen nach sich ziehen. […] Eine Komödie. Selbstverständlich war das Ganze eine Komödie gewesen”. 57 Von Hoff, for one, sees him as a “diabolical father figure”. Von Hoff: Kunstwelten im Dialog. P. 337. 58 Borchardt views Ziegler as an alter ego. Borchardt: Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. P. 14.

71 point during the later scene in Ziegler’s game room, Ziegler’s words confirm and even echo Bill’s vain hopes that everything he has witnessed at the orgy was a charade. Ziegler thus functions here as the mouthpiece of the protagonist.59 It has been claimed that Ziegler’s explanation resolves issues that are left deliberately unresolved in the novella (Who was his female saviour? What happened to her? What was the purpose of the orgy?),60 but several questions nonetheless remain. Thus some of the ambiguity created by the narrated monologue is maintained (e.g. is Ziegler’s explanation about the cause of death to be trusted? Ziegler’s reduction of the incident to a game is only one possible scenario – an “as if ” –, so what else, then, might the orgy mean?) Another key scene for narrated monologue in the novella that is realized in the film by external dialogue and cinematography is the scene in chapter three in which Fridolin, after having received a declaration of love from Marianne, decides to go to a café before retiring, and encounters a group of fraternity students, one of whom deliberately elbows him, thus prompting him to reflect on the futility of challenging the assailant to a duel in order to re-establish his honour. In this scene – as is often the case with narrated monologue passages – an initial interior monologue (in which he tries to conquer his fears) gives way almost unnoticeably to narrated monologue: Cowardice? Nonsense! Am I, a man of thirty-five, a practising physician, married and father of a child, really expected to go challenging some drunken student! […] Cowardice? He had fought in three student fencing-matches, and once had even been prepared to duel with pistols, and it certainly was not on his initiative that the matter had then been amicably settled. And what about his profession! Dangers on all sides and at every moment – it was just that one tended to forget about them.61

Kubrick’s acculturation of this scene introduces new sexual undertones to the film adaptation: the assailants are a group of young homophobes mocking Bill for his perceived homosexuality (an insinuation that is developed as the film progresses, offering perhaps an unspoken explanation for Bill and Alice’s marital 59

For example: “Bill, suppose I told you that… that everything that happened to you there, the threats, the girls… warnings, the last-minute interventions… suppose I said all of that was staged, that it was a kind of charade? That it was fake?” Eyes Wide Shut. A screenplay. P. 92. 60 See particularly Saur: Eyes Wide Shut and its Literary Forebear (passim). 61 DS. P. 129. TN. P. 23: “Soll ich mich mit einem betrunkenen Studenten herstellen, ich, ein Mann von fünfunddreißg Jahren, praktischer Arzt, verheiratet, Vater eines Kindes! […] Feig –? Drei Säbelmensuren hatte er ausgefochten, und auch zu einem Pistolenduell war er einmal bereit gewesen, und nicht auf seine Veranlassung war die Sache damals gütlich beigelegt worden. Und sein Beruf! Gefahren von allen Seiten und in jedem Augenblick – man vergaß nur immer wieder dran”.

72 difficulties).62 The narrated monologue of the novella is translated into a series of quick (scarcely comprehensible) jibes and insults from the youths hurled at a silent Bill.63 The subjective or point-of-view camera and the deliberate absence of any musical soundtrack encourage the spectator to ponder Bill’s tacit response to these allegations. The narrated monologue passages in Traumnovelle increase in both length and frequency as the novella progresses and the protagonist’s psychological inner conflict and self-questioning reach a crescendo. Narrative theorists agree that moments of extreme tension and contradiction, emotional stress, danger, mental anxiety and assaults on the emotional equilibrium invariably invoke narrated monologue (in preference to the more direct mode of interior monologue or the less direct mode of access in narratorial report),64 and this undoubtedly holds true for Traumnovelle. This psychological tug-of-war and questioning of “the reality of perception”65 reaches a highpoint in chapter six when Fridolin starts to investigate the fate of the nun who saved his life. Here the passages of narrated monologue oscillate between a myriad of questions and search for answers, and attempts at alleviating his conscience. In the film this is represented primarily visually (close-ups of Bill deep in thought, e.g. in his car on the highway towards the villa, alternating with frontal and rear shots of his car as if he is being watched), and musically (e.g. the Ligeti leitmotiv [see below] is heard when he is standing at the gates of the villa), with little dialogue. A key scene in this chapter, which takes place in one of the quieter and more exclusive coffee-houses in the vicinity of the main square, consists almost entirely of narrated monologue.66 After telephoning Albertine to tell her not to

62 Not only in the scene in Nightingale’s hotel where he is propositioned by the camp hotel porter, but also the many “rainbow” references in the film (the two models want to lead Bill to where the “rainbow ends” at Ziegler’s party, and “Rainbow Fashions” is the name given to the costume hire shop). I am grateful to my M. A. Distance seminar for pointing out this allusion. 63 It is interesting to compare here the screenplay with its German translation; the original doesn’t have any text, just the direction that they “start to hurl insults” at Bill, where the latter contains all the insults. See Eyes Wide Shut. A screenplay. P. 36, and Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael: Eyes Wide Shut. Arthur Schnitzler: Traumnovelle. Aus dem Englischen von Frank Schaff. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1999. Pp. 128–130. 64 See Vogt: Aspekte erzählender Prosa. P. 166. Pascal: Dual Voice. Pp. 123–125. 65 Borchardt: Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. P. 14. However, Borchardt fails to notice that this is represented by narrated monologue rather than interior monologue: “Instead of using interior monologue to question the reality of perception, as Schnitzler does, Kubrick adds the figure of Ziegler to rationalize the mysteries of Bill’s nocturnal odyssey”. 66 TN. P. 76: “[…] eines der vornehmeren, stilleren in der Nähe des Rathauses”. For the whole scene see TN, Pp. 76–78, DS, Pp. 177–178. The scene is a parallel one to the

73 expect him for dinner,67 Fridolin sits down at a window and starts to read the evening newspaper. A “mysterious” man takes a seat in the opposite corner, whom Fridolin vaguely recalls seeing earlier in the day and who is obviously tracking Fridolin. The story in the paper of the attempted suicide of a lady known as “Baroness D.” throws Fridolin’s mind into turmoil. Narrated monologue is the main medium chosen to represent these fragmented thoughts – in Cohnian terminology, “inchoate reactions”68 –, often as questions and exclamations: […] a lady of quite remarkable beauty … Well, there were so many remarkably beautiful young ladies … There was no reason to assume that the Baroness D., or rather the lady who had checked into the hotel under the name of Baroness D., and the person he was thinking of were one and the same. And yet – his heart was pounding and the paper trembling in his hand. In a fashionable hotel in the centre … which one? Why so mysterious? So discreet? … […] He was going to see her – come hell or high water – whether she were alive or dead. He simply had to see her; nobody on earth could prevent him seeing the woman who had gone to her death for his sake, indeed in place of him! He was to blame for her death – he alone – if she indeed it was. Yes, it was her without a doubt. She had come home at four in the morning in the company of two gentlemen. Probably the same two who had escorted Nachtigall to the station a few hours later. They could scarcely have a very clear conscience, either of them.69

The mysterious man, who in the novella disappears halfway through the scene in the Kaffeehaus, is portrayed by Kubrick as an even more menacing thug who trails Bill in the previous scene. The ominous atmosphere is heightened by the external or non-diegetic music previously heard at the orgy and recurring in the form of a leitmotiv at sinister moments throughout the film – Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata II for solo piano (the movement “Mesto; rigido e cerimonala”).70 earlier scene in a rather inferior Kaffeehaus in chapter 4, where Nachtigall is playing the piano. 67 While the film does away with this particular detail at this junction, Bill’s mobile telephone is an important requisite and leitmotiv in the film generally. 68 Cohn: Transparent Minds. P. 135. 69 DS. Pp. 177–178. TN. P. 77–78: “[…] Eine auffallend hübsche junge Dame… Nun, es gab manche auffallend hübsche junge Damen … Es war kein Anlaß, anzunehmen, daß die Baronin D., vielmehr die Dame, die unter dem Namen Baronin D. in dem Hotel abgestiegen war, und eine gewisse andere ein und dieselbe Person vorstellen. Und doch – ihm klopfte das Herz, und das Blatt bebte in seiner Hand. In einem vornehmen Stadthotel … in welchem –? Warum so geheimnisvoll? – So diskret? … […] Er war schuldig an ihrem Tod – er allein – wenn sie es war. Ja, sie war es. Um vier Uhr morgens nach Hause gekommen in Begleitung zweier Herren! Wahrscheinlich derselben, die ein paar Stunden später Nachtigall zur Bahn gebracht hatten. Sie hatten kein sonderlich reines Gewissen, diese Herren”. 70 External music is music that is not heard by the characters within the frame and is designed to manipulate the audience. Internal music is music heard or performed

74 Once rid of him, Bill seeks refuge in a café where the cinematography in combination with the musical soundtrack transposes the literary narrated monologue in true Kubrick style. Lit by a mixture of brightly coloured lights (Christmas consumerism replaces the season of Fasching) and dim wall lamps, the visual setting contrasts starkly with the previous scene of threat and danger. However, heard softly in the background on Bill’s entry is the “Rex tremendae” (“Awesome king”) from the “Dies irae” (“Day of wrath”) sequence of Mozart’s Requiem (KV 626)71 – an incongruous and contrapuntal choice of internal (diegetic) music for an American café just two days before Christmas.72 The gentle volume, however, makes the text barely audible and has the effect of initially cloaking the significance of the entire “Dies irae” with its threatening images of the Last Judgement, thus seeming to allay Bill’s guilty conscience – as did the narrated monologue in the novella. The synchronizing of the line “qui salvandos salva gratis” (with its associations of forgiveness, redemption and mercy) with the alternating zoom close-up on Bill’s face and the headline of the article, “Ex-beauty queen dies in hotel drugs overdose”, is an ironic comment on Bill’s mental turmoil, while the contrast between the Old Testament God of awesome majesty and the profane former beauty queen is intentionally incongruous, blasphemous and provocative. The deliberate exaggeration of the music-picture synthesis may be said to pick up on the over-determination that is characteristic of narrated monologue. Where the narrator’s controlling presence is felt in narrated monologue, Kubrick’s manipulation of the film viewer is keenly felt here. And before the soundtrack can get to the personal invocation of the sinner in the line “Salva me, fons pietatis”, the consonant choral tones of Mozart’s music are drowned out by the loud single notes of the minimalist, ominous Ligeti leitmotiv – notes that are, as in the previous scene, external to the scene, audible only to the spectator, and signalling Bill’s memory of the orgy scene. Bill’s thoughts are thus mediated by means of a musico-visual-verbal synthesis. More markedly perhaps than in the novella, the contrasting but also textually linked musical compositions and the absence of speech signal very strongly that this scene is a turning point in the film. On 7 December 1994, Frederic Raphael sent Kubrick the first forty pages of the screenplay, his work to date. In the accompanying letter he wrote: “I hope within the frame, i.e. a performance of a live ensemble, a recording on a stereo system. Both forms of music occur more or less equally in Eyes Wide Shut. 71 “Rex tremendae majestatis / qui salvados salva gratis / Salve me, fons pietatis” (“King of awesome majesty / who and freely saved the redeemed / save me, O fount of mercy”). 72 Classical music features frequently in Kubrick’s films, and his love of the AustroHungarian composers is well documented. Existing compositions are, of course, heavily laden with associations and have their own reception history, and their insertion is thus a willful act of interpretation intended to influence the film viewer. See Bodde: Die Musik in den Filmen von Stanley Kubrick (passim), but especially Pp. 15–19, 131–139.

75 (and dare to believe) that the ‘translation’ has worked, without reading as if it were anything but an original text”.73 By mid-January 1995 he had got to the end, “having completed a petty, yet substantial, work of translation”.74 After many rewrites Kubrick finally declared himself satisfied, and shooting on the film eventually started in November 1996. Kubrick died in March 1999, just four months before the première.75 The go-ahead thus came some sixty-five years after the first attempt to film the literary original. For Kubrick it was the realization of a project that had been on his mind for nearly thirty years. In this he shows a close affinity to Pabst, who, in his letter to Schnitzler of March 1931 wrote that it had long been his “most dear wish to translate this work into the film medium”. But Kubrick fortunately did not share Pabst’s scruples mentioned earlier.76 In After Babel George Steiner debates the “morals” and “fear” of translation, squaring the image of the translator as violent aggressor and the inevitability of a “dimension of loss, of breakage” with the notion of dialectic “reciprocity”: “But the residue is also, and decisively, positive. The work translated is enhanced”. This can only come about, Steiner argues, if one sees translation as a “hermeneutic of trust”,77 and if one dispenses with the idea that the source text is the sole property of its creator. More personalized, admittedly, but also set in the context of the debates over copyright and authorship in the 1930s in the wake of the burgeoning sound film industry that needed literary originals as fodder for screenplay, Brecht too railed against a blind adherence to “untouchable art”. In an analysis that debates the impact of film technology on traditional art in the light of his Marxist aesthetic theory, he saw the marketing of a literary product on the capitalist system as an inevitability, the “destruction of the literary product and the unity of creator and work, meaning and story”. The work thus acquires a number of new authors, but in this process of adapting to the new market, the original author must not become irrelevant.78

73

Raphael: Eyes Wide Open. P. 78. Ibid. P. 110. 75 Jack Vitek claims that Kubrick turned in the finished film just four days before his death (Another Squint at Eyes Wide Shut. A Postmodern Reading. In: Modern Austrian Literature 34.1–2 (2001). Pp. 113–124, here: P. 115), but other critics claim he still had work to do on the music, colour and sound, e.g. Michael Herr: Kubrick. In: Vanity Fair (August 1999). Pp. 136–150, 184–189, here: P. 188; Amy Taubin: Imperfect Love. In: Film Comment 35.5 (1999). Pp. 24–26, 30–33, here: P. 33. 76 Conrad: Eyes Wide Shut. 77 George Steiner: “The Hermeneutic Motion” (After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975. Pp. 296–303), quoted here from The Translation Studies Reader. Pp. 186–191, here: P. 189, 190. 78 Brecht: Der Dreigroschenprozeß. Ein soziologisches Experiment. In: Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenbuch. Pp. 133 (“unberührbare Kunst”), 151 (“Es ist das Schema des Zerfalls des literarischen Produkts, der Einheit von Schöpfer und Werk, Sinn und Fabel 74

76 In much of the literature on Eyes Wide Shut, it is striking that the emphasis is still on the issue of fidelity and equivalence (how the translation is connected to the foreign or source text) – the theory dominating translation studies in the 1960s and 1970s. Admittedly, the plot structure of the film sticks very closely to the original, and there are several scenes containing dialogues that have been very literally translated. The overall proximity to the source text has fuelled the view of many critics that Eyes Wide Shut constitutes a pretty “faithful” translation of Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle,79 with Egon Schwarz even dismissively referring to Kubrick’s “dependence on Schnitzler” as “automatic”.80 The deviations from the source along with the domestication of the plot (updating to contemporary New York) have been discussed at length. The difficulty is precisely that Eyes Wide Shut straddles two opposing translation strategies – the literal and the paraphrastic. It is, in the words of Hellmuth Karasek both “a slavish and a wonderfully free film variation”.81 Raphael’s hope that his screenplay reads like the original, and Kubrick’s admonition to Raphael to try and put himself in Schnitzler’s shoes (the phrase “What would Arthur have done?” becomes a sort of mantra) underpins this obsession with fidelity, accuracy and formal equivalence or comparison with the source. Their focus is thus on the instrumental concept of language (language as a means of objective communication), rather than on the hermeneutic concept. The latter sees translation as a creative act of semiotic innovation, an act of manipulation,82 of rewriting, refraction83 and recodification84 that necessitates semantic and other shifts – in short, asserting the relative autonomy of the translated text. Eugene Nida in his essay “The principles of correspondence” (1964) reiterates the two basic orientations in translation:

usw. Das Werk kann einen neuen oder mehrere neue Autoren ([…]) bekommen, ohne daß der ursprüngliche Autor für die Verwertung auf dem Markt ausscheidet”). 79 For example Patricia Williamson: La petite mort: Sex equated to death. Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. In: Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 22.3–4 (2001). Pp. 165–171, here: p. 166; Vitek: Another Squint at Eyes Wide Shut. P. 113. 80 Schwarz: A Puzzle and an Enigma. P. 106. 81 “Kubricks fast sklavische und gleichzeitig wundersam freie Film-Variation der ‘Traumnovelle’ […]”. Hellmuth Karasek: Eyes Wide Shut. Die Masken des Traums. In: Der Tagesspiegel. 9 September 1999, ⬍http://www.tagesspiegel.de⬎. 82 See for example Theo Hermans: The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation. London: Croom Helm 1985. 83 André Lefevere: Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, system and refraction in a theory of literature. In: Modern Language Studies 12.4 (1982). Pp. 3–20. Reprinted in The Translation Studies Reader. Pp. 233–249. See also Lefevere: Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London – New York: Routledge 1992. 84 William Frawley: Prolegomena to a Theory of Translation. In: Translation: Literary, Linguistic, and Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. by William Frawley. Newark: University of Delaware Press 1984. Pp. 159–175. Reprinted in The Translation Studies Reader. Pp. 250–263.

77 formal equivalence, which strives to reproduce as literally as possible both the form and content of the original, and dynamic equivalence, which aims to provoke a similar response from the target audience (as from the original receptor) and thus shuns literalism.85 Eyes Wide Shut seems undeniably geared towards the latter while containing elements of the former. The hermeneutic view of translation is by and large the dominant one in translation studies today – but it was forcibly expressed even at the end of the 1920s and in the 1930s when there was an awareness of the fact that radical changes were necessary in screen adaptations. Writing in 1923, Walter Benjamin advanced the Romantic hermeneutic concept of language and discussed the issue of translatability in his famous essay “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers”, stating that translations “that are more than transmissions of subject matter come into being when in the course of its survival a work has reached the age of its fame”. Translation, then, is the result of the “afterlife” of the original, and “transformation”, “renewal” and “change” are inevitable.86 This was a belief fully endorsed by Schnitzler. Although disappointed with Pabst’s decision to terminate the project, Schnitzler agreed that radical rewriting would be necessary to effect a successful screenplay of those of his works containing film potential – and in some cases all that could be retained was the basic idea.87 And as early as 1921 Cecil B. DeMille, defending his alterations to literary sources for screenplays, called for an understanding of the screenplay (“photoplay”) as a distinct and separate genre. The “excellent ideas” of many stage plays and novels often “cannot be translated literally into the terms of a photoplay”. The case in point was the screenplay of Schnitzler’s Anatol (The Affairs of Anatol, 1921), where, although fulsome in his praise of Schnitzler’s “brilliant, scintillating dialogue”, DeMille cautioned: “Unfortunately, dialogue does not photograph. Only the idea was adaptable to the screen”.88

85

In Nida: Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: Brill 1964. Pp. 156–171. Reprinted in The Translation Studies Reader. Pp. 126–140. 86 Walter Benjamin: The Task of the Translator. In: Illuminations. Transl. by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken 1968. Pp. 69–82. Reprinted in The Translation Studies Reader. Pp. 15–25, here: P. 17. 87 Letter to Pabst of 18 March 1931: “natürlich aber stimme ich ganz Ihrer Meinung bei, dass alles für diese Zwecke einer vollkommenen Umarbeitung bedürfte. Von manchem könnte nur der Grundeinfall erhalten bleiben.” Quoted in Conrad: Eyes Wide Shut. In his draft for the screenplay of the Dreigroschenoper, Brecht writes in a footnote that it is nonsense not to make substantial changes in the adaptation of a play for the screen (“Elemente eines Theaterstückes wenig verändert zu verfilmen, wäre nur Unfug”). Brecht: Die Beule. Ein Dreigroschenfilm. In: Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenbuch. P. 107, note 15. 88 Cecil B. DeMille writing in Moving Picture World, 14.5.1921, quoted in Kammer: Das Verhältnis Schnitzlers zum Film. P. 86.

78 If dialogue does not “photograph” or translate into filmic terms, narrated monologue does. Perhaps this has something to do with the suggestion put forth by Cohn that narrated monologue is itself a translation of interior monologue.89 Central to the study of film is auteur theory, according to which the film director (rather than the script-writer) is the author of the film, whereby all films from that director exhibit characteristic “auteur” traits.90 Translation studies talk of the “invisibility” of the translator.91 In Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick, auteur of the film and intersemiotic translator of Schnitzler, is an example of the invisible, visible translator. Like the narrator of narrated monologue through whom the protagonist speaks, Kubrick has the ultimate control, he is the puppeteer holding the strings. The dual voice characteristic of narrated monologue, the fluctuations between personae, the half-way house between direct and indirection narration – all this makes for deliberate ambiguity.92 Kubrick loved and strove to create ambiguity in his films, convinced that “a certain degree of ambiguity is valuable, because it allows the audience to ‘fill in’ the visual experience themselves”.93 It has often been said of Eyes Wide Shut that the element of mystery and uncertainty that permeates the novella is absent from the film, that the film (mainly through the new figure of Ziegler) resolves issues left unresolved in the novella, that the psychological anguish of the hero is much less pronounced – in short, that Schnitzler’s story has been “tamed and de-Schnitzlerized”.94 While there is some truth in this, it does not do justice to the new demands placed on the film viewer. The role of the reader in narrated monologue passes more forcibly to the film spectator, requiring heightened involvement and effort. For the latter, the mind of the main character in Eyes Wide Shut is far from “transparent” – perhaps even less so than in Kubrick’s other films, which often feature a narrator, be it a neutral commentator or a voice from the off verbalizing the interior monologue of the main character. In Eyes Wide Shut such a narrator is conspicuous by his absence, and even voice-over is introduced on only two occasions, although it was originally tended to be more in evidence.95 Kubrick’s preference for the 89

Cohn: Transparent Minds. Pp. 100, 103. For a quick overview of auteur theory see Roberts, Wallis: Introducing Film. Pp. 127–139 91 Lawrence Venuti: The Translator’s Invisibility. A history of translation. London – New York: Routledge 1995. 92 See Vogt: Aspekte Erzählender Prosa. P. 165. 93 The Film Director as Superstar: Stanley Kubrick in interview with Joseph Gelmis, 1969, ⬍http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html⬎. 94 See especially Saur – whose thesis is contained in her title – Eyes Wide Shut and its Literary Forebear. Tom Cruise Got Off Easy (passim), and here: P. 59. 95 Alice’s description of her infidelity in her dream comes back to haunt Bill in the scene where she is helping Helena do her Maths homework. Eyes Wide Shut. A screenplay. P. 78; and later, at the morgue, Bill hears once again the warning words of his saviour, 90

79 visual and musical as expressed back in 1972 is particularly pertinent for Eyes Wide Shut: In a film, however, I think the images, the music, the editing and the emotions of the actors are the principal tools you have to work with. Language is important but I would put it after those elements. […] As far as I’m concerned, the most memorable scenes in the best films are those which are built predominantly of images and music.96

His predominantly non-verbal representation of consciousness in his last film calls to mind Schnitzler’s inclinations for a predominantly silent film. Where the reader of Traumnovelle must visualize, the viewer of Eyes Wide Shut is required to verbalize. The mixture of cinematography, sound and montage, and the controlling presence of the director transpose intersemiotically the dual voice and filmic potential of narrated monologue so prevalent in the novella.

thus seeming to confirm the identity of the corpse in front of him (“Because it could cost me my life and possibly yours”. Eyes Wide Shut. A screenplay. P. 62). 96 Interview with Michel Ciment (1972), on A Clockwork Orange. In: Ciment: Kubrick. Transl. from the French by Gilbert Adair. London: Collins 1983. P. 156.

EYES WIDE SHUT - USA 1999 Regie: Stanley Kubrick Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Hugh Ridley

Reflections on the Literary Antecedents of Murnau’s Tabu Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s film Tabu (1931) represents an important moment in film history, but it also stands at an interesting crossroads of literary discussion of the South Seas. The film both moves away from literary sources and shows great sensitivity to those issues which these sources had implanted in the consciousness of developed societies. It responds to a stream of German Expressionist theory whose approach to ‘primitive’ art was more idyllic than that put forward by Wilhelm Worringer in Abstraktion und Empfindung (Abstraction and Empathy, 1908).

My subject is F. W. Murnau’s Tabu,1 released in 1931, immediately before Murnau’s death in a motor accident, and – hardly less unfortunately – a matter of days before the final demise of the silent movie, so that a kitschy music track had to be added. Murnau worked in collaboration with Robert Flaherty (1884–1951), whose Nanook of the North (1921) – set among the Inuit community – and Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age (1926) (set in Polynesia, often referred to as the first ‘documentary’) had been an inspiration to him. With Man of Aran (1934) Flaherty came into the orbit of our present geographical situation in Galway. But the collaboration with Murnau was not close. Tabu cannot be called a documentary, although it possesses some documentary elements. It departed considerably from the original script on which Flaherty had worked and moved much closer to a simple romance. In that way it stayed close to the preoccupations of its many literary predecessors. When we recall that mixture between scholarly report and romance which Melville’s Omoo (with its footnotes from scholarly sources) became, then we can see that even its mixed origin is typical of Tabu’s literary antecedents. Tabu is a story set on a tropical island in the Pacific. Reri – a young girl just awakening to her love for Matahi – is unexpectedly nominated as priestess of the island’s cult, and therefore becomes taboo, with the imposition of virginity and luxury, when all she wants is simple love. Matahi and Reri refuse to accept the imposition of this status, they elope together, are chased across the islands by the priest Hitu, who will kill Matahi if he cannot restore Reri to the cult. Matahi is working as a pearl fisher and – in order to pay off his debts – is hoping to reach a particularly rich oyster-bed, which is guarded by a precursor of 1

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (⫽ F.W. Plumpe) 1888–1931. His films include: 1922, Nosferatu; 1924, The Last Laugh (Hollywood: German title: Der letzte Mann); 1927, Sunrise (Hollywood); 1931, Tabu (Winner of 1931 Academy Award for best Cinematography).

82 Jaws. When he returns with a priceless pearl he finds that, in order to protect his life from Hitu, Reri has returned with Hitu. Matahi swims through the surf and, without Reri’s becoming aware, catches up with their boat, but Hitu cuts the rope which Matahi has grasped and leaves him to drown in the waves. The film takes place in a world somewhat before Hollywood. That is to say, we’re not in South Pacific: the love is between two members of the same community and there is no imported American starlet to get up the circulation. The whole film was shot on location, Murnau living on his own boat which he had personally sailed from America. There is no American airbase on the island, but actually, as one looks at the young women playing in a river – as Rudolf Arnheim commented – in Tahitian Rheintöchterchen style at the start of the film – the captions have just informed us that they are all amateurs –, it’s very noticeable that their gestures and body language have something of Hollywood about them. “Like missionaries of the Red Cross”, Arnheim remarks, “the film people show the islanders what a romantic South Sea island has got to look like”.2 Despite this, the tenderness of Reri and Matahi has a greater and more gentle physicality than, I suspect, was conventional for Hollywood. The camera’s eye is definitely European/American and white. There was in any case little difference between the European and American traditions in the exotic novel of the South Seas – a field interesting enough in itself, for the way in which a country (the USA) which had for centuries been serving as utopia to the European cultures is seen here seeking its own utopias, which turn out to be European utopias too. The American line starts in the mid-1840s with Melville’s Typee and Omoo, texts which Murnau read intensively before making the film, and the first of these was translated by the popular German novelist Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816–1876) before he launched into his own novels of South Sea life, which add a tragic note to Melville’s themes. The topic of the exotic novel in the nineteenth century cannot be adequately addressed here. It must suffice to say that it represented in both American and European culture one of the most significant sectors of the literary market. From Robinson Crusoe onwards it drew its fascination from two elements: the suspension of European norms of landscape and life-style, and the investigation of these norms in the contact with other ethnic and cultural groups. At this point, the exotic novel after François René de Chateaubriand increasingly built its plot on cultural love-stories, and this exploration of the erotic became a principal focus of reader expectation.3 2 Rudolf Arnheim: Tabu. In: Kritiken und Aufsätze zum Film. Ed. by Helmut H. Diederichs. Munich/Vienna: Hanser 1977. Pp. 237–238. 3 Samuel Otter: ‘Race’ in Typee and White-Jacket. In: Cambridge Companion to Hermann Melville. Ed. by Robert S. Levine. Cambridge: CUP 1998. Pp. 12–36, here: P. 14.

83 Gerstäcker’s Tahiti (1853) betrays its origin in the tradition of exotic writing in the style of Chateaubriand (from whose exotic novel René Gerstäcker borrows his hero’s name) and of Melville. By the end of the novel, however, the attractions have come to be understood as a trap for educated Europeans, who are liable to succumb to the ‘indolent drifting’ of the islanders, and this surrender of the exotic suspension of values is still more marked in Die Missionare (1868). While the novel is an extended demonstration of the support for non-European life-styles and is more closely connected with the principled rejection of Christian teaching (most notably on original sin: always a matter of great contention to Europeans in exotic setting) and to the political role of the churches – an attitude which the Kulturkampf would soon show in its importance for Bismarck’s Germany. While Melville clearly saw no major distinction between the nature of European Christianity and the values of civilization, Gerstäcker’s view of civilization increasingly excludes this religious dimension. The shift in his presentation of the exotic matches strongly the terms of Helmut Walser Smith’s analysis of the discourse of European imperialism.4 These were higly significant preparations for the encounter of Emil Nolde with the South Seas, since – as we shall shortly see – his encounter was explicitly in the context of German territorial ambitions in the South Seas. Robert Louis Stephenson (another author whom Murnau read in preparation for his film) followed later. The film sustains this exotic tradition not least through its evocation of paradisical landscapes, and beautiful (but I venture to say not voyeuristic) scenes of personal and community life. But it shows its distance from the tradition by the way Murnau emphasizes the observing European eye, without using the European participant, which was Melville’s way in to the exotic milieux he described, and for which, had Murnau wished, the experiences of his friend Walter Spieß could have offered a model. (Spieß had had the misfortune to buy a plot of land on Bali which was itself taboo.) Though in no sense autobiographical, the narration is white. The first phase of the story is shown being recorded in the diary of the white captain who brings Hitu to the island, while – with the exception perhaps of the final scene – the second and tragic half of the plot is recorded in the reports of a French policeman. This record is very nearly the only evidence within the film of that feature of the exotic writing about Tahiti which has the longest pre-history: the complaint about the disruption which the whites bring to the South Seas. Apart from the Chinese traders who cheat Matahi (but their effects do not provoke the tragedy), the observing white record is the only hint that Europeans are implicated in the events. The tragedy is otherwise presented as an exclusive product 4

Helmut Walser Smith: The Vanishing Point of German History: An Essay on Perspective. In: History & Memory 17 (Spring/Summer 2005). Pp. 269–295.

84 of Tahitian culture. White freedom may be problematic – involving money, uprooting and drink – but it allows personal space to the heart, in a way traditional society denies. If there is a corresponding analysis of Tahitian society, then it does not happen in the plot. It would be worth removing some of what may appear to be the obvious predecessors of this theme. There’s nothing of Gerstäcker in the film – his indictment of the European missionaries became an obsessive feature of his work, but in the film there is no reference to any other religious view than that from which the taboo comes. Melville also – obsessed, as Samuel Otter has shown, with reading other cultures as “the grammar book of palpable and hierarchical meanings which American culture has assigned to the features of human bodies”5 (the reference is, of course, to tattooing) – has been left behind, for the bodies are erotically charged but with no explicit reference to colour, and no tattoos – only a minimalist body-painting. Like the ‘Caribs’ who were so important in eighteenth century exotic travel and were continually differentiated from ‘negroid’ ethnicity in white eyes, the Tahitians do not stand under a white colour bar, except through their acceptability. That this bar does still exist, is shown only in the negative stereotyping of the Chinese traders, but that does not make it absent elsewhere. It’s just not particularly visible, though we know it has to be there in some form. If I say that the story is European, I am addressing at least three levels, which we should separate out. Thematically, Tabu is build round European perceptions of the institution of taboo. It shares some of the basic elements of Georges Bizet’s Pearl Fishers (such as the priestly role of putting a taboo on the consecrated virgin Léïla, although there is no trace of Bizet’s happy ending). In keeping with some early notions of the film, Murnau restricts both the personal development and the inward dimension of the story, which confines itself to unfolding narrative with action high-points, into which what one might call the ‘anthropological’ element of the film’s observation – the launching of the boats, or the dance – are integrated. These are magnificent and humanized spectacles. There is neither past nor future in the film, only happinesses gratefully snatched from the instant. The second European element of the film is to be found in that particularly modern preoccupation with the ‘primitive’ South Sea cultures which had sent Gauguin to those parts in 1891 and Nolde to the Bismarck archipelago nearly twenty years later. One could also refer to the South Sea journey made by Fritz Lang’s script-writer for Doktor Mabuse, the Luxemburg writer Norbert Jacques,6 but that was a petulant, culturally closed experience: Gauguin, 5

Samuel Otter: ‘Race’ in Typee and White-Jacket. P. 14. Norbert Jacques: Mit dem Sturmbock durch den Stillen Ozean. Hamburg-Berlin: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt 1919. 6

85 Nolde, these are the archetypes – Murnau remarks of the Tahitians that they were “like Gauguin’s pictures come alive”.7 Nolde’s trip worked out very differently from Gauguin’s or Melville’s. The differences were much more telling than simply the disruption caused by the approaching world war, which had broken out before Nolde could return. It was not only the European situation which was getting extreme. Nolde felt acutely aware that Polynesian culture was doomed not only ultimately, but was threatened with imminent destruction – in particular with all the objects being sold off to Americans. Collecting and observing had therefore taken on for him the character of a rescue mission for the last surviving vestiges of a dying culture. Tabu is a work situated not just on the line of documentary and romance, but on a line between art and the anthropological, linked not just methodologically but stylistically. Like Gauguin and Nolde, Murnau emphatically moves out of the museums. Nolde belongs – perhaps also Tabu belongs – together with the nineteenth century folklorists who, as Nancy Armstrong points out, in effect destroyed the traditional working-class culture they explored simply by their professional activity of “systematically reclassifying it as both primitive and obsolete”. Armstrong goes on: “The argument that primitive cultures should be regarded as the idyllic childhood of the modern nation proved to be an effective way of actually destroying the very thing the folklorists longed for”.8 Perhaps, too, Armstrong’s examination of the iconography of photographs of the urban working-class has a clear lesson for the pictures of Tahiti. What we photograph we kill. There is a crucial element in this fatal relationship. The question of power is expressed in Tabu in an ambiguous manner. It had been questions of power which stamped the journey of the artist to the South Sea, for instance – most recently in Murnau’s memory – in the case of Emil Nolde’s visit to the region. Power took the obvious form of iron-clad German war-ships stationed in the islands. It took the form of that imbalance of knowledge which is illustrated in the work of the military doctors – to whose expedition Nolde had been attached, with the explicit permission of the Colonial Office – to identify and remedy some of the serious illnesses encountered on the islands, and in the military prestige represented by German order, and the hard core of economic benefit underlying the German presence. “Colonization is a brutal business”, Nolde noted, yet did not refuse his assent to it as he travels under its flag.9 7

Quoted from Klaus Becker: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Ein großer Filmregisseur der 20er Jahre. In: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Ein großer Filmregisseur der 20er Jahre. Kassel: Sparkasse der Stadt Kassel 1981. Pp. 11–113. 8 Nancy Armstrong: Fiction in the Age of Photography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP 2002. P. 181. 9 Reference to the journey and to Nolde’s diary come from: Emil Nolde. Expedition in die Südsee. Ed. by Magdalene M. Müller. Brücke Archiv 20. Munich: Hirmer 2002. P. 83.

86 Colonization – we recall the various nations which had vied for control of the area – surrounds Reri and Matahi’s island, but as yet it does not touch it visibly. Perhaps it is the way things are seen which expresses that relationship. In a remarkable scene Nolde demonstrates how far these power relations have penetrated into the world of the artist. The scene reveals that Nolde’s visit permitted only a form of seeing which was sanctioned by power. The scene puts one in mind of classics of Indo-China or others of the impersonal battlefields of the last decades, where even sensitive eyes and a heart ready for erotic adventures, stand under the protection of the largest guns. In the paradise of Manu in the Bismarck archipelago, an island less civilized than the others, Nolde records how one piece of art came into existence. An islander has come out of the jungle: With an expression of superiority, his spear in his hand, he gazed at me. I drew him and painted. To my right hand lay my cocked revolver, and behind me, covering my back, stood my wife, grasping her own revolver, the safety catch released, like mine.10

Perhaps those white recording instances – representing in the case of the French policeman an authority which is not diminished for being irrelevant to the tragedy being played out in front of it – are Murnau’s reminder of the power which observation implies. The third sense in which this film is European is provoked by reflection on the place of the themes which Murnau’s Expressionist generation, and in particular Carl Einstein in his Negerplastik (1920) – was interested to explore. I mean particularly those elements of abstraction and de-individuation which Einstein, and Wilhelm Worringer before him,11 present as features of indigenous culture. We have to identify that these elements in no way impinge on the film. In terms of their love, Reri and Matahi have an unproblematically philistine ambition: the Tahitian equivalent of a little semi-detached by the bypass. The taboo represents a world of the primitive, but even the fear of its irrational force proves weaker than the domestic plans of the protagonists. It is not until the priest Hitu tracks down the lovers that their happiness is threatened. The phenomenon which Freud (a big influence on the earliest works of Murnau) described as being part of the classic taboo – the physical and spiritual extinction threatened to those who know that they have broken a taboo – plays no part at all in the film. When, over the oyster-beds patrolled by the killer shark, a notice is put with the word ‘Tabu’, the film’s distance from Freud is unmistakable. If Hitu had not found them, Reri and Matahi would have lived happily 10

Ibid. P. 55. Wilhelm Worringer (1908): Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie. Leipzig & Weimar 1981.

11

87 ever after. But we should be careful not to assume that this ‘secularization’ is the Hollywoodization of Tabu, as if Murnau and Flaherty had not wanted to face the challenge of the Other, the central message of Freud’s text, but had been deflected into the populist praise of suburban domesticity. What is interesting is that their reading of ‘primitive’ societies does not break out of the Expressionist efforts to encompass the Otherness of ‘primitive’ mentality. Indeed, even the historian of Expressionist visual art most strongly associated with the cult of the primitive (which he saw as the only way of reviving a Hochzivilisation which was dying of sterility and gentility), Eckart von Sydow,12 argued in the opposite direction to Einstein and Worringer, seeing primitive closeness to nature – the phrase “mystical participation” had come in from Levi-Brühl, among other places into Gottfried Benn’s vocabulary – as something quite philistine in nature, the state of being at home in the world, without fear. Sydow would have had no problems in recognizing as primitive the contentment portrayed by Murnau as typical of Tahitian society, and the fact that the characters behave as in a suburban idyll would not have seemed to him a break with the primitive. So the European perspective is involved in a modernist reconstruction of an unalienated relationship to nature and love, a reconstructed Rousseauism. The recoil from Expressionism which critics liked to discuss and which they often liked to see as a yielding to commercialization can perhaps be seen in this film, but I prefer to see it as holding true both to the exotic traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century and to the deep Expressionist desire to be on a footing ‘per Du’ with humanity. Hollywood picks up and confirms, rather than negating, the advanced ideas of the Expressionist generation. And this meeting of the philistine and the avant-garde meets the spirit of Murnau’s film completely.

12

Eckart von Sydow: Die deutsche expressionistische Kultur und Malerei. Berlin: Furche 1920. See esp. Sydow’s critique of Worringer for his assertion of the role of fear in primitive art. Pp. 19f.

TABU - USA 1931 Regie: F.W. Murnau Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Gerald Bär

Perceptions of the Self as the Other: Double-Visions in Literature and Film In memory of Joe Carey, Garda, Lisbon player and Bloomsday celebrator Setting out from the motif of the Doppelgänger/doppelganger as a literary fantasy of fragmentation, the following article approaches the problem of self-perception in the age of its mechanical reproduction. The possibility of encounters with oneself not only in literature but also on the screen provides new challenges for authors, actors, audience and critics that can lead to different ways of self-definition.

ILLE By the help of an image I call to my own opposite, summon all That I have handled least, least looked upon. HIC And I would find myself and not an image. […] ILLE […] I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double, And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, […] (W.B. Yeats)

Doubling in literature This dialogue of the two souls in William Butler Yeats’ “Ego Dominus Tuus” (written in 1915, and used as the introduction for Per Amica Silentia Lunae, 1918) may serve as an example for the splitting or doubling of the author’s lyrical self, a technique often employed in self-reflexive poems and autobiographical writing. Talking to oneself and assuming different roles is not as unusual as those scenes in books or films when people are actually seeing or even meeting themselves. Already in ancient religious beliefs and myths perceiving one’s own double could lead to ambiguous situations: while the Egyptian ‘Ka’, the Roman ‘genius’ and the Greek ‘daemon’ represented aspects of the spiritual self, expressing the expectation of a life after death, Narcissus drowned in his own image. Whenever gods took on the figure of a mortal, the ensuing doppelganger-encounters would frequently follow the comical patterns of mistaken identity, we know from Plautus

90 (Amphitryon). They also hold potential for the kind of horror-stories written by E.T.A Hoffmann, E.A. Poe or R.L. Stevenson.1 In the cinema, we can watch the doppelganger-phenomena mostly in American Science-Fiction films like Forbidden Planet (1956), Invasion of the Body-snatchers (1958), Blade Runner (1982), They Live! (1988), Terminator II (1991) and The Matrix (1999f.), as well as in adverts or pop-music videos. ‘Doppelganger’ might not be a loanword as common as ‘Kindergarden’, but it found its way into the supplement of the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary edition (12 vols.), page 3948: “Doppelganger. Also dopple-. (Properly doppelganger, f. doppel double ⫹ ganger goer, agent-n of gehen to go) DOUBLE GANGER”. The semi-anglicized expressions “double-goer”, and “double-walker” in Scott’s and Kingsley’s writings did not pass into common usage. Following the explanation given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1953) a ‘doppelganger’ is “the apparition of a living person; a double; a wraith”. What the expression originally meant, we can learn from the German author Jean Paul (Richter) who coined it at the end of the 18th century. In his novel Siebenkäs (1796) he defines ‘Doppeltgänger’ in a footnote as people who see themselves: “Leute, die sich selber sehen”.2 This double vision presented to the reader can imply the literary figure’s physical similarity to another person on one hand, but also the mirroring of itself in the sense of extreme self-reflection on the other. Contrary to our modern understanding of the term, in this first definition of the phenomenon the “Doppeltgänger” is the one who sees his ‘spitting image’, not the other who is seen. In Jean Paul’s novel the two main characters, Siebenkäs and Leibgeber, show similarities to such an extent, as if one and the same soul had been caged in two bodies (“Ähnlichkeiten, die sie zu einer in zwei Körpern eingepfarrten Seele machten”3). His idea of the double,4 which reminds us of the concept of Metempsychosis, refers to a visual phenomenon. However, authors like Hoffmann and Poe also use ‘inner voices’ to characterize the other self. Their versions of the uncanny 1 The most prominent stories would be Hoffmann’s novel Die Elixire des Teufels (1815/16), Poe’s tale William Wilson (1839) and Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). 2 Jean Paul: Blumen-, Frucht- und Dornenstücke oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten F. St. Siebenkäs. München: Piper 1986. P. 67. 3 Jean Paul: Blumen-, Frucht- und Dornenstücke oder Ehestand. P. 39. 4 In 1799 Jean Paul uses the expression again to explain the “Konjektural-Biographie” of his future life: “Als ein Doppeltgänger hab’ ich in der Konjektural-Biographie mich selber gesehen und gemalt und, wie Moses im Pentateuch, sogar meinen Tod: letzterer bleibt mir in jedem Fall gewiß; und sollte dieser historische Roman meines Ichs mit einem frühern Bande beschließen, als ich vermutet hätte: so würde mein Kopf das, was er an eigenen Konjekturen einbüßte, wieder an fremden gewinnen, […]”. Jean Paul: Sämtliche Werke II. Ed. by Norbert Miller. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1976. P. 928.

91 doppelganger obviously differ from the merely comical ones perpetuated by Shakespeare’s and Molière’s classical adaptations (Comedy of Errors, Amphitryon). For Jean Paul seeing oneself – “Sich-selber-sehen” – has turned into a conscious, introspective writing technique, of which he will give a more detailed description in § 34 (on humoristic subjectivity) of his Vorschule der Ästhetik (1804). In his allegorical and grotesque satire Die Doppeltgänger (1800)5 contradictory attitudes towards life, opposing philosophical and political positions are inseparably grown together in the body of the Siamese twins (“Koppelzwillinge”) called “Gebrüder Mensch”. Both twins display very different literary ambitions and temperaments. Their mutual intolerance and snubbing each-other is emphasized by their position: grown together at the back they live with the backs of their heads turned to each-other. The government of their common body changes daily from one to the other. This grotesque figure anticipates the alternating character in one person as portrayed in Stevenson’s The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), another uncanny version of the doppelganger-motif, which literary criticism had intrinsically linked to German Romanticism. What meaning, what idea can the doppelganger as a literary device transmit? First of all it was used to illustrate and parody Fichte’s subjective idealism (‘Ich’/‘Nicht-Ich’) that challenged the classical concept of a coherent self, still propagated in the dramatic works of Schiller and Goethe who considered Romanticism as a disease and Jean Paul the “personified nightmare”6 of his time. In many cases the literary doppelganger appears to be the figuration of the absent, in the sense of representing repressed, unfulfilled wishes or fears of a personified ‘alter ego’. Already Herder had noticed that man would only reveal himself totally in his dreams and while playing,7 but Jean Paul anticipated Freud, mentioning that “bad desires are somnambulists, awaking in a dream, when reason is fast asleep” (“Die schlimmen Begierden sind Nachtwandler und wachen auf, wenn die Vernunft schläft im Traume”).8 In his preface to Hoffmann’s Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (1814/15) he compares the author’s writing

5

Without using the term ‘Doppelgänger’ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg had already written down similar satirical thoughts in “Daß du auf dem Blocksberg wärst. Ein Traum wie viele Träume”, published in the Göttingschen Taschenkalender, 1799. 6 Friedrich W. Riemer: Mitteilungen über Goethe. Ed. A. Pollmer. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag 1921. P. 286. 7 “Im Traum und im Spiel zeiget sich der Mensch ganz, wie er ist; […]”. Johann G. Herder: Werke in zehn Bänden. Ed. by G. Arnold, et alt. Frankfurt/Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1985–2000. Vol. VI: Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. P. 324. 8 Jean Paul: Ideen-Gewimmel. Texte und Aufzeichnungen aus dem unveröffentlichten Nachlaß. Ed. by K. Wölfel and T. Wirtz. Frankfurt/Main: Eichborn 1977. P. 107.

92 technique to a “camera obscura”; and in fact, Hoffmann’s double visions are often projections perceived through optical devices. As (palpable) personified projections of the self, doppelgangers can gain various degrees of distinctive features and autonomy. Being identified as the ‘other’, they haunt and challenge the protagonist’s internalized image of himself. The result of this externalized inner action is usually either the acceptance of the rejected (self-knowledge) or (self-) destruction, as in Poe’s “William Wilson” (1839), Dostoevsky’s The Double (1846) and Hofmannsthal’s “Reitergeschichte” (1898). In Jean Paul’s Titan (1800–3) the double figure Schoppe/Leibgeber offers strong resistance to self-knowledge by covering and destroying mirrors and showing signs of madness: “[…] a cold fear came over him, that he might appear to himself and see the I (“den Ich”). The mirror had to be covered, so that he could not find himself ”.9 The doppelganger comes alive in shadows (Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, 1814; Andersen’s fairy-tale “The Shadow”, 1847), mirrors (Hoffmann’s “Geschichte vom verlornen Spiegelbild”, 1815; Werfel’s drama Spiegelmensch, 1920), Statues (Eichendorff’s “Das Marmorbild”, 1819) and portraits (Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890). Frequently, the doppelganger appears to be a substitute for man’s lacking organ of introspection, functioning as a deceiver and potential bearer of self-knowledge at the same time. Female double figures are harder to find in literature than their male counterparts.10

Double-visions in film: New Perceptions of the Self in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Film is a substance on which, usually by photochemical processes, a sequence of images has been placed. Film is a process in which light is shown through the substance film, projecting on a surface the shadow of the image sequence printed on the film. Actually a series of still shadows, film produces the illusion of moving life.11

Already in their early productions12 Georges Méliès and G. A. Smith had been experimenting with trick photography and made ghosts appear by double 9

Jean Paul: Sämtliche Werke III. 1976. P. 783. In German literature female authors of doppelganger texts are not as present as their male counterparts (one of the exceptions: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff). In Levana oder Erziehlehre (1807) Jean Paul denies the female sex the capability of self-reflection: “Ein Mann hat zwei Ich, eine Frau nur eines und bedarf des fremden, um ihres zu sehen. Aus diesem weiblichen Mangel an Selbstgesprächen und an Selbstverdopplung erklären sich die meisten Nach- und Vorteile der weiblichen Natur. Daher können sie, da ihr nahes Echo leicht Resonanz wird und mit dem Urschall verschmilzt, weder poetisch noch philosophisch sich zersetzen und sich selber setzen; sie sind mehr Poesie und Philosophie als Poeten und Philosophen”. Jean Paul: Sämtliche Werke V. P. 684. 11 Sheldon Renan: The Underground Film: an introduction to its development in america. London: Studio Vista Limited 1968. P. 18. 12 For example in George Méliès’ La Caverne Maudit (1898) and in G. A. Smith’s The Mesmerist, The Ghost and The Corsican Brothers (all produced in 1898). 10

93 exposure – a process for which Smith had even taken out a patent in 1897. In 1919 the German cameraman Guido Seeber published the article “Doppelgängerbilder im Film”, explaining his new technique which in fact was the first large-scale application of the ‘doppelganger-shot’ in a feature film: The Student of Prague (1913) with Paul Wegener in the lead and as his own double. It caused a big sensation at the time, being successful not only at the box-office but also with the critics. The illusion Seeber created was so perfect that many experts simply would not believe him when he told them, he had exposed relevant scenes twice in succession. Projected on the cinema screen the doppelganger reveals man as a piece of art in the age of technical reproduction, thus contributing to the ongoing debate about the soullessness of the new medium.13 According to Walter Benjamin an object’s authenticity, uniqueness and aura are lost by its manifold availability in print, photography or film. His argumentation reminds us of the literary figures of Schlemihl (Chamisso) and Spikher (Hoffmann), that lost their shadow/ reflection in the mirror. His allusion to the transportable reflection refers to the actor’s fear of the soul-stealing mechanism of cinematic reproduction, and to the film star’s artificially created identity (“Warencharakter einer künstlich aufgebauten Scheinidentität”): The feeling of strangeness that overcomes the actor before the camera, […] is basically of the same kind as the estrangement felt before one’s own image in the mirror. But now the reflected image has become separable, transportable. And where is it transported? Before the public. […] The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality”, the phony spell of a commodity.14

Already in a very early stage of film-history this motif had been snatched from its literary habitat. Captured on celulloid it assumes meta-critical dimensions turning soon into a metaphor for the new medium that mirrors not only physical aspects of life but also provides images for spiritual activities such as

13

See Georg Lukács: “Gedanken zu einer Ästhetik des Kinos” (1913) and Rudolf Kurtz: “Der Reform-Film” (1919). 14 Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In: W. Benjamin: Illuminations. Essays and Reflections. Ed. by Hannah Arendt. Trans. by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken 1985. Pp. 230–231. In Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (1936), referring to Pirandello, Walter Benjamin observes a state of alienation both of the spectator and of the actor caused by the camera. The medium film enables man to operate with his whole living person, but without his aura, of which there is no reproduction possible.

94 thoughts and dreams.15 Following Béla Balázs line of thought (Der Sichtbare Mensch, 1924), it is a concept of a visible man that even seems to allow the spectator glimpses of his soul. Although the doppelganger found his new realm predominantly in the fantastic cinema, its ‘self-seer’-effect also occured during sessions of early documentary films, where it disturbed the spectator’s feeling for what is real. In his book Schatten erobern die Welt. Wie Film und Kino wurden (1946), Friedrich Porges describes a strange occurrence that happened on the 23rd of July 1895 while the Lumière-brothers were showing a short film in their factory about a traffic-policeman in action. The protagonist was present, watching himself on the screen. According to the author the policeman felt dizzy, got very upset and nearly lost his mind, facing this deceptive device (“Blendwerk”): He jumped up from his chair and ran against the screen. But the living pictures had already vanished and a white, glimmering, solid surface of light was staring at the policeman in such a mocking way, that the man had to step back blinded. The policeman needed quite some time until he found himself again in the real world.16

15 years later the confrontation of people with their celluloid-doubles continued to cause a loss of their sense of reality, leaving them in rather grotesque situations. But this time it was the monarchs of Germany and Austria watching themselves and being watched by many other spectators in a cinema: There, they were watching themselves. They saw a true image of themselves which seemed to talk, to greet or to laugh. And the audience in the picture applauded. And the audience in the spectators-room applauded, too. And the Monarchs in the picture were thanking. And the real Monarchs were thanking in reality. But suddenly a film 15 Philosopher Alfred Baeumler considers the moving pictures vehicles of self-knowledge, because for a moment they pull the “nervous, fast, shortening existence” of man out of time to grant him a glimpse of immortality: “Das Dasein im Bild ist eine Verklärung des Daseins. So stark wirkt diese Erhebung des fließend Gegenwärtigen in die Sphäre des Entrückten, Scheinhaften, daß wir dieses unser Dasein erst zu verstehen meinen, wenn es im Spiel an uns vorüberzieht. Wir sehen uns selber leben”. Alfred Baeumler: Die Wirkungen der Lichtbildbühne. Versuch einer Apologie des Kinematographen-theaters. In: März 6.22 (1.6.1912), quoted from: Kein Tag ohne Kino. Schriftsteller über den Stummfilm. Ed. by Fritz Güttinger. Frankfurt/Main: Deutsches Filmmuseum 1984. P. 109. 16 “Er sprang vom Stuhl und lief gegen die Leinwand. Da waren jedoch die lebendigen Bilder auch schon verschwunden und die weiss schimmernde stabile Lichtfläche starrte den Polizisten fast höhnisch an, dass der Mann geblendet zurückwich. […] Der Polizist brauchte eine geraume Weile, bis er sich in die Wirklichkeit zurückgefunden hatte”. Friedrich Porges: Schatten erobern die Welt. Wie Film und Kino wurden. Basel: Verlag für Wissenschaft, Technik und Industrie AG 1946. P. 64.

95 broke and something ran cold down my spine. What? Did this break also cut through the real ones? And with horror I asked myself: now, who is actually the real one?17

This description of an eye-witness who remembered the weird scene shows the confusion and the difficulty of distinguishing between the real person and his double. The action on the screen is repeated by the Monarchs and the audience until a technical defect ends this mise-en-abyme, raising questions about the concepts of authenticity, reality and representation, but also pointing out the ethical problem of the cinematographic reproducibility of man: I cannot get it out of my mind anymore, this terrible doubling of representation. The chosen One who by simply walking and talking and greeting in a very typical way is meant to make evident the people’s existence – in duplicate?! May mercy be multiplied in such a sacrilegious manner? Is it not too much for one moment, two, no, four Kings? Up there in the picture one is fulfilling his high duty, and down below is sitting the same one just as a simple human being that is delighted by the portrait of his dignity in a rather human way. Or is he, by doing that, only fulfilling his duty again? Where does representation begin, where does it end? And the people, in this case present twice, and therefore twice happy, cheering its own cheering, greeting its naïve existence [naives Volk-Sein] in the mirror. Isn’t that dangerous? Couldn’t the people get scared, as if it was seeing its own ghost? Couldn’t it go astray from its instinctive function?18

With the vision of hindsight, these fears of destroying the aura of royal mystique and of questioning the subjects’ ‘instinctive functions’ by multiplying heads of state and by mirroring ordinary people’s reactions on film can only 17

“Sie sahen dort sich selber zu. Sie sahen ein getreues Abbild ihrer selbst, welches zu sprechen, zu grüßen oder zu lachen schien. Und das Publikum im Bilde applaudierte. Und das Publikum im Zuschauerraum applaudierte auch. Und die Monarchen im Bilde dankten. Und die wirklichen Monarchen dankten in der Wirklichkeit. Aber plötzlich riß ein Film, und es lief mir kalt über den Rücken. Wie? Ging dieser Riß auch durch die Wirklichen? Und mit Entsetzen fragte ich mich: ja, wer ist denn hier der Wirkliche?” Berthold Viertel: Im Kinematographentheater. In: März 4.20 (18.10.1910), quoted from Kein Tag ohne Kino. P. 49. 18 “Ich bringe es nicht mehr aus dem Bewußtsein, dieses furchtbare Doppelgängertum der Repräsentation. Der auserwählte Eine, der einfach dadurch, daß er geht und spricht und grüßt, und zwar möglichst typisch geht und spricht und grüßt, den Völkern ihre Existenz zur Evidenz bringen soll – doppelt?! Darf man die Gnade so frevelhaft vervielfältigen? Ist es nicht zuviel für einen Moment, zwei, nein vier Könige? Dort oben, im Bilde, erfüllt einer seine hohe Pflicht, und unten, im Zuschauerraum, sitzt derselbe einfach als Mensch, der sich am Konterfei seiner Würde menschlich ergötzt? Oder erfüllt er dadurch wieder nur seine Pflicht? Wo beginnt, wo endet die Repräsentation? Und das Volk, hier zweimal vorhanden, und darum zweimal glücklich, seinem eigenen Jubel zujubelnd, sein naives Volk-Sein im Spiegel begrüßend. Ist das nicht gefährlich? Könnte das Volk nicht erschrecken, als ob es sein eigenes Gespenst erblickte? Könnte es nicht irr werden an seiner instinktiven Funktion?” In: Kein Tag ohne Kino. P. 49.

96

Figure 1: Albert Bassermann in Der Andere (1913).

partly be justified. Just like a doppelganger, whose most interesting aspect is not his similarity but rather what makes him different from the original, the new medium can either confirm and therefore enhance the ‘reality’ it doubles, or create a critical position towards it. The motif of the doppelganger was successfully employed in two of the first German productions that – relying on the scripts of well-known contemporary authors – emphasized the film-industry’s ambition to raise cinematography from cheap amusement-halls to temples of art. Formally, a notable influence came from the French ‘film d’art’, thematically the script-writers borrowed from Poe, Stevenson and Wilde among others. Der Andere (1913, figs. 1 and 2), one of those so-called “Autorenfilme”,19 used the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-like plot of Paul Lindau’s theatre-play of the same title (Der Andere 1893) and Albert Bassermann’s great acting-skills to demonstrate the dark side of human personality. In The Student of Prague (Der Student von Prag, 1913), both the author Hanns Heinz Ewers and the actor 19

Wilfried Kugel who restored the 1913 version of The Student of Prague in 1988 claims that only this film justly deserves to be called ‘Autorenfilm’, because it was not simply an adaptation from a play like Der Andere, but had an original script (and film-music). Wilfried Kugel: Entstehung, Umfeld und Folgen: Der Student von Prag / unpublished paper, Berlin 1988 (revised 2003), partly published in: Wilfried Kugel: Der Unverantwortliche. Das Leben des Hanns Heinz Ewers. Düsseldorf: Grupello 1992.

97

Figure 2: Albert Bassermann in Der Andere (1913).

Paul Wegener claimed to have had the idea of the doppelganger-plot, based on elements adapted from various literary works (mainly from Hoffmann’s “Das verlorne Spiegelbild” and Poe’s “William Wilson”). The technical device of the ‘doppelganger-shot’ was used excessively in this film. Der Andere, directed by Max Mack, tells the story of a lawyer who ridicules the theory of an unconscious other self as described in Hippolyte Taine’s book De l’intélligence (1875) until he becomes aware of his own criminal double-life. A critic of the Berliner Lokalanzeiger praises Bassermann’s ability to show the disappearance of the ‘good self’ and the appearance of the ‘bad self’ by facial expression and gesture. He calls it a distinctive study of the soul in a capturing language (“abgestufte Seelenstudie von fesselnder Sprache”): His face was the mirror of the soul; the whole range of hundredfold sentiment beamed from his looks. In his eyes one could see health and disease, the gradual passing from consciousness to unconsciousness and vice versa was clearly discernable.20 20 “Sein Antlitz war der Spiegel der Seele; die ganze Skala vielhundertfältiger Empfindung sprach aus seinen Blicken. In seinem Auge sah man Gesundheit und Krankheit, gewahrte man deutlich den langsamen Uebergang vom Zustand des Bewußten zum Unbewußten und umgekehrt; [...]”. In: Erste Internationale FilmZeitung 7.4 (25.1.1913). Berlin 1913. P. 25.

98 The Berliner Volkszeitung sees in the act of transformation a picture of the soul put into dramatic images (“Seelengemälde, hineingestellt in dramatische Bilder”). The first expression (“Seelengemälde”) contradicts the often heard accusation of film’s soullessness while the second (“dramatische Bilder”) compares the new medium to theatre-plays, the structure of which (division in acts) had been adopted by many early film-producers and script-writers. Similar expressions in other reviews give evidence of Bassermann’s convincing acting, but also of the medium’s capacity to transmit psychological action.21 An article of the Leipziger Tageblatt refers to the spectator’s horror perceiving the “Doppelmensch”.22 However, looking at the English reception of Der Andere, it becomes quite clear that the language of the silent film is not as universally comprehensible as Béla Balázs would claim in his book Der Sichtbare Mensch (1924), which includes a paragraph on similarity and the doppelganger (“Ähnlichkeit und der Doppelgänger”). Under the promising title The Double Life, Der Andere was shown in British cinemas during September 1913. However, according to the Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung it had very little impact in comparison with an English Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-version exhibited at the same time.23 The spectators must have found Bassermann’s efforts rather ridiculous: The average Englishman seems to be far from understanding the problem the film is dealing with. The mimic of the artist revealing the psychic transformation caused effects that were contrary to the desired. And this happened in one of the best theatres of London’s West End. As it happens a film-version of Stevenson’s novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came out at about the same time with King Baggot acting both characters. This drama had a much better effect than the German one, because the

21

The lawyer’s inner struggle (“Seelenkämpfe des Rechtsanwalts”) who convulsively battles with repressed memories (“unterirdischen Erinnerungsvorstellungen”) and his changing from one existence into the other (“Wandlung aus dem einen in das andere Dasein” / Dr. J. A. Bondy, Nationalzeitung), or a detailed picture of the soul (“ein bis ins Kleinste ausgearbeitetes Seelenbild” / Bonner Zeitung). In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 7.4 (25.1.1913). P. 26f. 22 Review of the Leipziger Tageblatt, 16 Feb. 1913: “[...] mit furchtbarem Grauen durchrüttelt er [Bassermann] uns, wenn sich plötzlich der elegante Weltmann und Rechtsanwalt in den Verbrecher verwandelt, wenn sich die Züge verzerren und den halb tierischen, halb blöden Gesichtsausdruck des Einbrechers und Kaschemmengastes annehmen. Wundervoll und seelisch ergreifend ist auch der letzte Akt, als der Doppelmensch Haller zum Bewußtsein seines anderen Ichs kommt. Das langsame Wiederkehren der Erinnerung an die nächtlichen Abenteuer wird von Bassermann erschütternd zur Darstellung gebracht und wundervoll hat es der Film aufgenommen”. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung. Zentral-Organ für die gesamte Kinematographie 7.10 (8.3.1913). P. 57. 23 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Prod.: British Kinemacolor Corp, 1913.

99 blending of one character into the other took place while the actor was turning around or hiding the face in his hands.24

Obviously the spectators’ previous knowledge of a film’s subject and actors can determine its success. Following the tradition of the ‘Aufklärungsfilme’, German critics noted educational effects of Der Andere long before Pabst would try to explain psychoanalysis in his film The Secrets of a Soul (Die Geheimnisse einer Seele 1925/6). Offering a case-study for mimes and psychologists at the same time, its theme about the lawyer with his double-life attracted the attention of a large public to the problem of the subconscious other self.25 The question whether the literary subject – this toying with double-consciousness (“Spiel mit dem Doppelbewußtsein”) – was suitable for a film-adaptation, kept dividing the critics. Their majority did not take into account that they were dealing with a different semiotic system, only distinguishing between high art and popular entertainment. In his essay on “Theater und Kino” the poet Karl Bleibtreu not only doubts, whether it was right to choose Lindau’s Der Andere for a film-adaptation, he also mistrusts the seriousness of the literary motif: Already in the novel (Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde) the phase of the supposed double-self is not convincing. Much less so on stage, where the analytical links are missing, and in the cinema the improbability becomes even more striking.26 24

“Ein Verständnis des Problems dieses Films liegt wohl dem Durchschnitt der Engländer fern. Die Mimik des Künstlers, die die psychische Wandlung wiedergibt, löste jedenfalls Wirkungen aus, die den gewünschten gerade entgegengesetzt waren. Und das war in einem der besten Theater des West-Ends von London. Zufällig kam ungefähr zur selben Zeit eine Verfilmung des Stevensonschen Romans “Dr. Ickyll [sic] und Mr. Hyde” mit King Baggot als Darsteller der beiden Charactere heraus. Dieses Drama hatte eine viel bessere Wirkung als das deutsche, weil der Übergang von einem Charakter zum anderen sich vollzog, während der Schauspieler sich abwendete oder das Gesicht in den Händen verbarg”. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 7 (13.9.1913). P. 80. 25 See P. Max Grempe who argues the film exploring the double life of a state attorney turned the “Interesse weiter Kreise des großen Publikums auf das Problem des anderen Ichs [...]”. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 7 (14.6.1913). P. 23. 26 “Schon in der Novelle (Stevensons “Jekyll und Hyde”) wird man von der Phase des angeblichen Doppel-Ich nicht überzeugt, auf der Bühne noch weniger, wo die analytischen Übergänge fehlen, und im Kino wird die Unwahrscheinlichkeit noch gröber”. Karl Bleibtreu: Theater und Kino. In: Kinema 3.14–18 (5./12./19./26. April/3. Mai 1913), quoted from: Kein Tag ohne Kino. Ed. by F. Güttinger. P. 227. Bleibtreu continues as follows: “Da möchten wir lieber den Scherz loben, das alte Spektakelstück Die Lyoner Postkutsche zu verfilmen, das einst Henry Irvings Paraderolle abgab. Der Trick besteht hier in Doppelgängerei, Ähnlichkeit eines Banditen mit einem unschuldigen Bürger, wobei die Szenen so eingerichtet, daß beide nie zugleich auftreten, also der gleiche Schauspieler beide Rollen gibt. Das wird im Film mit einer Technik bewerkstelligt, die geradezu wie Hexerei aussieht, sehr überraschend. Solche natürliche Doppelgängerei, die sich auf dem Kino besser veranschaulichen lässt, als auf der Bühne, schwebte Napoleons Doppelgänger vor, der einen sehr witzig gedachten Auftritt enthält, wo die Verschwörer den echten Napoleon belehren, wie man Napoleon spielen muß […]”.

100 Bleibtreu refers to funny examples of what he calls “natürliche Doppelgängerei”, which he believes can be more convincingly exhibited in the cinema than on stage. Obviously the author considers the motif of the doppelganger more suitable for cinema-comedies of mistaken identity than for the more demanding representation of the other self in its psychological dimension. His observation concerning the witchcraft-like ‘trick-shots’ that give the cinematic doppelganger some advantage over its representation in the theatre is certainly true for the next ‘Autorenfilm’. One of the great forerunners of the fantastic genre, The Student of Prague (fig. 3), directed by Stellan Rye, dealt impressively with the controversy about the emerging other self in serious films. According to Diederichs27 no less than eleven different ‘doppelganger-shots’ gave life to the student’s image in the mirror and made the supernatural look so real that spectators were horrified and shocked: “[…] das fassungslose Grauen packte die Zuschauer mit kaltem Nervenchock” (“disconcerted horror griped the spectators in cold nerveshock”), wrote the Zeit am Montag after the premiere in August 1913. The film was exported to France, England and the USA still in the same year. Several contemporary reviewers were looking for the literary plots and figures that Ewers might have worked into his script and came up with names like Goethe, Chamisso, Hoffmann, Wilde28 and others. However, many critics overlooked the influence of Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” (e.g. scenes of playing cards and the duel with the doppelganger). Previously, Ewers had already written a book about Poe (Edgar Allan Poe, Berlin, Leipzig: Schuster & Loeffler, 1906) and translated or edited and prefaced several of his and Oscar Wilde’s works, whom he had met briefly in 1898. While Bassermann’s impressive miming saved the doppelganger in Der Andere, its successful appearance in the The Student of Prague was entirely due to the application of a new technology (figs. 4 and 5). The Vossische Zeitung appreciated the use of the motif on the screen, “because it takes into account the technical

27

Leon Hunt’s interpretation of The Student of Prague’s formal aspects reveals the importance of the divided screen for the film’s narrative structure. In: Early Cinema: space – frame – narrative. Ed. by Thomas Elsaesser. London: BFI 1994. Pp. 389–401. 28 Compare, for example, the article of Dr. Konrad Wolter: Der Doppelgänger. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 36 (6.9.1913). P. 61. See also Tägliche Rundschau, 23 Aug. 1913: “Dieser Student von Prag ist natürlich ein dramatisierter Albdruck und sehr literarisch. Sehr literarisch. Seine erlauchten Gevatter sind Goethe, Chamisso, Amadeus Hoffmann und Oskar Wilde. Goethe hat seinen Mephisto (o welche Glanzrolle für Paul Wegener!), Chamisso seinen Schlehmil [sic], Hoffmann seinen Doktor Mirakel, Wilde seinen Dorian Grey [sic] hergeben müssen. Ihr Blut durchpulst sehr geschmackvoll und sehr gespenstisch die Adern dieses phantastischen Dramas”. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 35 (30.8.1913). Berlin 1913. P. 1.

101

Figure 3: English advert of Walturdaw Co. Ltd. “A Bargain with Satan: The Student of Prague”.

possibilities of film: scenes like the one, where Scapinelli makes Baldwin’s mirror-image step out of the frame or the appearance on the balcony, have an excellent effect”.29 29

Vossische Zeitung, 23.8.1913. In: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 35 (30.8.1913). Berlin 1913. P. 2.

102

Figure 4: Paul Wegener aiming at his doppelganger in The Student of Prague (1913).

Figure 5: Paul Wegener is watching how “Scapinelli” makes his doppelganger step out of the mirror in The Student of Prague (1913).

The once literary motif had become “a real subject for the cinema, excluding any other way of representation”: The hero’s double figure that achieves a great effect in the movie, expressing much more by movement, by facial expression than a long monologue of the hero could

103 ever transmit, would be unthinkable on stage. [There] it would rather become a caricature, ridiculing the idea of the play.30

Still, most critics continued to apply literary or theatrical standards and criteria in their film reviews. In his article “Der Doppelgänger” Konrad Wolter approves of the limited use of text inserts in Ewer’s production, which does not prevent from understanding the relatively complex plot. He calls it “Filmnovelle” because it shows the structure of a complete novella. Avoiding all dramatic representation, its epic narrative of visible action symbolically reveals inner experience.31 Wolter disapproves of “Scapinelli-Mephisto”, a figure reminding him of the one in Goethe’s Faust, which formally justifies the doppelganger’s appearance, but lowers itself to deal with a student. Another review praises the film for possessing “all qualities of a great drama”,32 without really being one, having surpassed the possibilities of the stage (“über die Möglichkeiten der Schaubühne hinausgewachsen”). Nevertheless there were critical voices like Ernst Wachler’s in Bühne und Welt, a periodical dedicated to theater that hinted at plagiarism in a trivial plot.33 Based on this production Otto Rank’s essay “Der Doppelgänger” (1914) triggered a psychoanalytical discussion about the motif that turned interdisciplinary and became a reference for many interpretations that would follow. Setting out from the film’s basic idea that a man’s past is an inescapable part of him, which turns fatal as soon as he tries to get rid of it, Rank analyses the doppelganger figure in its literary variety introducing the perspective of Freud’s theory of Narcissism. Observing similarities between the cinematic and the dream 30

“Die Doppelfigur des Helden, durch die im Lichtbild eine grandiose Wirkung erzielt ist, die durch eine Bewegung, ein Mienenspiel mehr ausdrückt als ein langatmiger Monolog des Helden es vermag, wäre auf der Bühne undenkbar, ja sie würde zu einer Karikatur ausarten und die Idee des Stückes geradezu der Lächerlichkeit preisgeben”. Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 34 (23.8.1913). Pp. 38–39. 31 “[…] eine geschlossene Novelle […], in der, unter Vermeidung aller dramatischer Darstellungsart, auf rein epische, d.h. erzählende Manier, äußere Vorgänge in ihren sichtbarlichen Äußerungsformen auf symbolische Weise tief-innere Erlebnisse wiedergeben”. Konrad Wolter: Der Doppelgänger. In: Erste Internationale FilmZeitung 36 (6.9.1913). P. 61. 32 Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 36 (6.9.1913). P. 56. 33 “Der vorgebliche Grundgedanke des Stückes: der Mensch vernichte sich selbst, sobald er versucht, seine eigene Vergangenheit zu vernichten, ist bedeutsam. Aber diese Ausführung – ein Gemisch von Sinn und Unsinn, was ist sie anders als Kolportage? Was sind die Erfindungen anders als nackte Entlehnungen von Chamisso und E.T.A. Hoffmann? […] Nein, mit der erträumten “großen dramatischen Kunst” durch den Film ist es, trotz dieses neuen Versuches, nichts. Es wird, auch wenn sich andere namhafte Schriftsteller darum bemühen, wohl auch nichts daraus werden”. Ernst Wachler: Bühne und Welt 24.2 (1913/14). Pp. 186–187; quoted from: Hätte ich das Kino! Ed. By L. Greve, M. Pehle and H. Westhoff. Ausstellungskatalog Dt. Literaturarchiv Marbach. Stuttgart: Klett 1976. P. 112.

104 technique “Traumtechnik”, he emphasizes the film’s capability to reveal certain psychological facts and relations which a poet often might not be able to express in clear words. As a psychoanalyst he is obviously impressed by the cinematic property of capturing and exposing psychic action in images: “[…] die Besonderheit der Kinotechnik, seelisches Geschehen bildlich zu veranschaulichen”.34 In Secrets of a Soul (Geheimnisse einer Seele, 1926) director Georg W. Pabst employed this technique to bring a case study on the screen. Relying on the scientific help of the Freudian psychoanalysts Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham, and using innumerous inserts of explanatory text, this film tells the story of a man who is healed from his neurosis. His secret fears and desires come to light during various realistically filmed sessions, in which he talks about his dreams, made visible to the spectator. Although many essays on films of the Weimar Republic have been written, more research needs to be done on the history of their reception abroad. Especially pre-Weimar productions, like Der Andere, deserve the attention given to it by Kafka in his diary. As the list of German silent films with doppelgangers or doppelganger-like phenomena is very long, indeed, some examples must suffice to show its thematic relevance before and during the Weimar Republic.35 Although many productions of this period are lost, some of the plots can be reconstructed with the help of contemporary reviews (not all of the English titles could be traced): Paul Wegener’s Golem-figure in The Monster of Fate (Der Golem, 1914) and in The Golem (Der Golem: Wie er in die Welt kam, 1920) can be interpreted as the collective doppelganger of the Jews. Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1916), directed by Richard Oswald, contained many characteristic features of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tales: revenants, stolen reflections of mirrors, as well as animated automats and statues. Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray (1917), also by Oswald, seems to have followed Wilde’s original story, whereas The Janus Head (Der Januskopf – Eine Tragödie am Rande der Wirklichkeit, 1920) was only meant to be a faithful version of Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. But as F.W. Murnau, the director, could not obtain the rights, names and plot underwent significant changes. In The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Das Cabinett des Dr. Caligari, 1920), directed by Robert Wiene, the main figure is several persons at the same time: hypnotist at a fair, director of a psychiatric asylum, madman and revenant of an 18th century showman. Even the plot doubles as Cesare, Caligari’s somnambulist, repeats 34 O. Rank: Der Doppelgänger. In: IMAGO III.2. Ed. by Sigmund Freud. Wien 1914. Pp. 100–101. 35 See Gerald Bär: Das Motiv des Doppelgängers als Spaltungsphantasie in der Literatur und im deutschen Stummfilm. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2005. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 84).

105 the crimes of his predecessor. Der verlorene Schatten (1920/1) was another of Paul Wegener’s attempts to repeat the success of The Student of Prague. The motif is borrowed from Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihl, the evil Dapertutto emerged from Hoffmann’s “Geschichte vom verlornen Spiegelbild”. Again for copyright reasons Murnau’s legendary adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was called Nosferatu (Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1921). The vampire (Graf Orlock) can be interpreted as a kind of a doppelganger of Nina’s Husband (Hutter). Having no reflection in the mirror, this figure appears to be a projection of Hutter’s dark side. Shadows seem to perform the vampire’s horrible deeds, for which the film leaves enough off-screen space to have the spectator’s imagination finish the job. According to Fritz Lang, his Dr Mabuse, the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse der Spieler, 1922) shows some kind of Nietzschean ‘Übermensch’ in the worst sense, who hides his evil, megalomaniac self behind 13 different masks during the film. Warning Shadows (Schatten – eine nächtliche Vision, 1923) was directed by Arthur Robison, an American who grew up in Germany. His almost Freudian shadow-play reveals hidden aspects of personalities: the shadows are acting out people’s secret thoughts and wishes. The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände, 1924/5) tells the story of a piano-player, who had his hands amputated after an accident. The transplanted hands, he received from an executed murderer, seem to develop an uncanny life of their own driving Orlac nearly insane. Fritz Lang’s myth-making movie Metropolis (1926) confronts the spectator with a female mechanical doppelganger. The Brothers Schellenberg (Die Brüder Schellenberg 1926) is an adaptation of Kellermann’s novel of the same title by Karl Grune. The plot lives from the antagonism of twins (both played by Conrad Veidt), whereas in Joe May’s film Heimkehr (1928), which is based on Leonhard Franks novella Karl und Anna (1926), the doppelganger-aspects of the text have been eliminated. Richard and Karl, who assumes the personality of the former in order to live with his wife, are played by different actors. Finally in the talkie M (1931) Fritz Lang makes the audience listen to the pleading of a compulsive serial-killer (Peter Lorre), haunted by his terrible other self, he cannot control: Again and again I have to walk the streets and I always feel there is someone after me, silently persecuting me. But I can hear it anyway. It is my own self! Sometimes, it’s like I was running after myself. I want to run – get away from myself, but I can’t, – can’t escape myself!36

36

“Immer, … immer muss ich durch Strassen gehen und immer spür’ ich, es ist einer hinter mir her und verfolgt mich lautlos, aber ich höre es doch. Das bin ich selber! Manchmal ist es mir, als ob ich selber hinter mir herliefe! Ich will davon, vor mir selber davonlaufen. Aber ich kann nicht – kann mir nicht entkommen!” Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang’s film M.

106 Many writers like Virginia Woolf (in her review “The ‘Movie’ Novel”, 29 August 1918), Franz Werfel (in his novel Nicht der Mörder, der Ermordete ist schuldig, 1920), Thomas Mann (in Der Zauberberg, 1924) and specially Joseph Roth (in Der Antichrist, 1934) have described various negative tendencies of their contemporary cinema. And not only Siegfried Kracauer in his study From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological History of the German Film (1947) had linked his concept of a German national character with the German film-production. Under the impression of World War II and the Holocaust Lotte Eisner had published an even harsher criticism in The Penguin Film Review (1948) than she would later apply in her book The Haunted Screen (L’Écran Démoniaque, 1952): This longing for chiaroscuro (as it were) found its ideal means of expression in film art. Here they were able to evolve in a visual but unreal manner phantoms created by their perturbed minds. In this unstable period, where all market values were soon to crash, Germany seemed impregnated by an overwhelming sense of fatalism which was transformed into a violent art. The cruel gods of Valhalla, the ghosts of Eichendorff’s romantic poetry, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s demonic fantasy, and Freud’s psychoanalysis were all mixed together. They tortured themselves as they were soon going to torture others. They found a temporary escape in films formed in their own image, films of horror, death, and nightmare.37

In his book Weimar cinema and after: Germany’s historical imaginary Thomas Elsaesser dedicates two chapters to Kracauer’s sociological and Eisner’s stylistic approach, admitting the difficulty “to cast off the notion that film history is necessarily the metaphoric double of another history, rather than driven by its own determinants, or merely the story of its films and its makers”.38 He sometimes detects oedipal scenarios in those film-productions, but hardly ventures on a thorough psychoanalytic interpretation nor mentions the literary origins of the doppelganger-motif. His analyses concentrate on the films’ formal and stylistic devices, which create the conditions for a self-referential, meta-critical discourse of the cinema: [...] German art cinema represents a kind of ‘meta-cinema’, in the sense that all the prominent films of this tradition are also, and maybe even mostly ‘about’ the cinema itself: about the act of seeing, about vision and visuality. The films seem to convert the violence and aggression inherent in the viewing situation of cinematic spectacle not into chase, adventure, spectacle, nor into comedy, slapstick or grotesque fantasy (as is the case in the cinema of the period 1910–1919 in France or the USA), but into uncanny moments, hesitation and horror, into the drama of (violent) fantasy and (surreal) dream reality, as it plays between the spectator and the screen.39 37 Lotte Eisner: The German Films of Fritz Lang. In: The Penguin Film Review, 1946–1949. Vol. 2. London 1949. P. 54. 38 Thomas Elsaesser: Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary. London: Routledge 2000. P. 5. 39 Elsaesser: Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary. P. 82.

107 Already Ernst Bloch had realized that the attraction for the horror-genre was not restricted to German minds. In his essay “Bezeichnender Wandel in Kinofabeln” (1932), inspired by the remakes of Der Andere and Frankenstein, Bloch points out, that the spectator’s escape into horror had different presuppositions than at the time when the original silent movies came out. In Robert Wiene’s version of Der Andere (1930) the subject had remained the same, but the producer’s interests and the psychological and social situation of the audience had changed. Although its technical understanding of film-production had improved, this impoverished, “unstable middle-class”, full of contradictions would absorb the horrors on the screen with greater intensity and less distance, because the film reflected their own problems of fragmentation.40 Bloch observes how changing conditions of reception (technically and socially) effect both selection and adaptation of the film’s subject. Using ‘Golem’ as a synonym for the monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein-remake of 1931, he applies his sociological theory of film also to American conditions, at a time when sound-film was able to record the screams of victims: […] but the Golem has already turned into the gigantically rising fascist murderer. He is [personifies] technology with a wrong conscience, the fear an America without prosperity has of itself. Strangely enough, there are only few fantastic subjects exploited by film: Somnambulism, Homunculus, Golem, sometimes, a bit of flying carpet, recently the vampire – it is basically always the same.41 40

“Als Bassermann denselben Fall stumm spielte, war er ein klinischer, der das Publikum so viel anging wie eine Wachsfigur mit drehbarem Januskopf oder wie die Schrecken der menschlichen Seele überhaupt. Heute trifft derselbe Stoff ausgewechselte Beschauer, er trifft einen labilen Mittelstand, der alle Widersprüche seiner Klasse am eigenen Leib trägt, er trifft den zweideutigen Zustand dieser Mitte, ihre Klasse verlassen zu müssen, ohne sie verlassen zu wollen. Die Mehrzahl der Beschauer wurde über Nacht proletarisiert, ohne über Tag die Allüren des besseren Herrn oder der Madame abzulegen; die Mehrzahl merkt auch die Montage, welche heute nicht nacheinander, sondern ineinander mit ihren Bruchstücken geschieht. Der Film selbst begnügt sich mit der trivial-humanen Nutzanwendung, daß der Held, nachdem er Unterwelt gewesen war, nicht allein Staatsanwalt bleiben kann, sondern noch ein viel besserer werde; – aber das Publikum riecht seine eigenen Lunten. Die Armut, welche zur Reprise solcher Stoffe zwingt, kommt hier nicht nur aus der pauvreté (des Einfalls oder der Hundstage), sie kommt ebenso aus einer Klasse, die wie Holz gespalten wird, ohne es zu wissen”. Ernst Bloch, Gesamtausgabe, vol. IX, Werkausgabe edition suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1977. P. 76. 41 “Der Tonfilm mußte erfunden werden, um in »Frankenstein« den Weiberschrei des Opfers festzuhalten; das Opfer wird freilich gar keines, aber der Golem ist bereits der riesengroß aufsteigende faschistische Mörder, er ist die Technik mit falschem Bewußtsein, die Angst eines Amerika, ohne prosperity, vor sich selber. Seltsam immerhin, wie gering die Zauberstoffe sind, die der Film ausbeutet: Dämmerzustand, Homunculus, Golem, manchmal noch etwas Fliegender Teppich, zuletzt Vampir, fast immer dasselbe”. Bloch: IX. P. 77.

108 “Double-self and Golems fit perfectly in our time and into their world, where they are already almost at home” declares Bloch sarcastically, criticizing his contemporaries and the Zeitgeist (“Das Doppel-Ich, die Golems passen ausgezeichnet in unsere Zeit und ihre Welt, worin sie fast schon seßhaft sind”./Bloch: IX, 78) His expression “technology with a wrong conscience” (“Technik mit falschem Bewußtsein”) reminds us of Adorno’s and Horkheimers concept of instrumentalized reason. In his opinion those film-plots, based on a few recurring fantastic motifs, reveal much about modern contemporary life. Being signs of the end of an era, they are not just Romanticism, but a prognostic of new fear and insecurity. Not having had Kracauer’s and Eisner’s vision of hindsight when he wrote his essay, Bloch’s uneasiness about film-culture goes beyond national tendencies. However, his assumption, a population’s psychological and social state can be unconsciously reflected in films, is similar to Kracauer’s approach, which had been mildly criticized by T.W. Adorno.42 Anticipating Baudrillard’s concept of ‘simulacra’Adorno and Horkheimer consider film an instrument of systems that aim to perpetuate themselves by permanent duplication and affirmation of what they want to be believed is reality. In the chapter on the culture industry of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment (Dialektik der Aufklärung, 1944) they tend to generalize the moviegoer’s uncritical attitude towards film: The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry. The old experience of the movie-goer, who sees the world outside as an extension of the film he has just left (because the latter is intent upon reproducing the world of everyday perceptions), is now the producer’s guideline. The more intensely and flawlessly his techniques duplicate empirical objects, the easier it is today for the illusion to prevail that the outside world is the straightforward continuation of that presented on the screen. This purpose has been furthered by mechanical reproduction since the lightning takeover by the sound film.43 42

Theodor W. Adorno: Noten zur Literatur III. Frankfurt /Main: Suhrkamp 1969. P 105. Adorno / M. Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment. London: Verso 1999. P. 126. In Adorno’s view film becomes culture industry’s most important instrument of repression, for it changes the perception of things essential to man, like sexuality and the concept of beauty. Permanent stimulation nourished by multiplied images of an only apparent availability of the same object of desire lead to a different image of the self: “The culture industry does not sublimate; it represses. By repeatedly exposing the objects of desire, breasts in a clinging sweater or the naked torso of the athletic hero, it only stimulates the unsublimated forepleasure which habitual deprivation has long since reduced to a masochistic semblance. […] The mass production of the sexual automatically achieves its repression. Because of his ubiquity, the film star with whom one is meant to fall in love is from the outset a copy of himself. Every tenor voice comes to sound like a Caruso record, and the “natural” faces of Texas girls are like the successful models by whom Hollywood has typecast them. The mechanical reproduction of beauty, which reactionary cultural fanaticism wholeheartedly serves in its methodical idolization of individuality, leaves no room for that unconscious idolatry which was once essential to beauty”. Adorno/Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment. P. 140. 43

109 However, the doppelganger-concept seems to provide the ideal vehicle to transmit the dream-reality in which the spectator’s fantasies of fragmentation mingle with the action on the screen. The frequent use of the motif in German film-productions is certainly due to the commercial success of the Student of Prague on one hand. On the other hand it coincided with the contemporary fashion of Expressionist and Neo-Romantic literature, published, for example by Hanns H. Ewers, the influential defender of film-art. Furthermore the influence of the critics should not be underestimated: many film reviews appreciated the doppelganger’s technical realization in the cinema as one of the few advantages the new ‘soulless’ medium had compared to a theatre performance.

Double-roles and double-vision The technical problem of representing a doppelganger on stage, was often resolved by actors playing double-roles. For the expression ‘Doppel-RollenSpiel’ the Deutsches Theater-Lexikon of 1889 offers three distinct scenarios.44 Double-roles may have been occasionally introduced by greedy theater directors in order to save money, but they also allowed actors to show their whole potential and are still used in modern film-productions of today. However, several possibilities to create twins, ghosts or a doppelganger more effectively through trick-photography are as old as cinema itself and were always taken into account by scriptwriters, who knew about its positive reception by spectators and even theatre critics. Not only the new technique to produce a doppelganger on the screen but also the convincing efforts of great actors, like Albert Bassermann, Paul Wegener, Conrad Veidt und Henny Porten, who played double-roles in films and watched themselves acting, contributed to the further development of the motif in the cinema. According to the Münchner Post, the famous Max Reinhardt-disciple Bassermann, a theatre-actor of conviction, had adapted himself surprisingly fast to the technique of film. Apart from the 44

“1. Bei vom Dichter gezeichneten Doppel-Charakteren, d.h. solchen, welche außer ihrem Grundcharakter, um Zuschauer oder Mitspieler zu täuschen, einen zweiten, dritten etc., im Geist und Sinne des Dichters durchführend, darzustellen haben. 2. Aus Personalmangel, wo in einem und demselben Stücke sich der Schauspieler zur Darstellung eines oder mehrerer Charaktere bequemen muß. (Gesetzlich kann sich ein Schauspieler laut Obertribunalsentscheidung dem nicht entziehen.) 3. Als Virtuosenstück; um Aufsehen zu erregen, spielen oft ohne Noth in einem und demselben Stücke Schauspieler mehrere, für sich bestehende, große Rollen”. Deutsches Theater-Lexikon. Eine Encyklopädie alles Wissenswerthen der Schauspielkunst und Bühnentechnik. Ed. by Adolf Oppenheim and Ernst Gettke. Leipzig: Verlag Carl Reißner 1889. P. 210.

110

Figure 6: Crowding the world with oneself in Virgil Widrich’s Copy Shop (2001)

extra income, seeing himself on the screen brought a new kind of selfknowledge: It is a special feeling to watch yourself acting: you discover own characteristics – good and bad – of which you had no idea before. You learn an enormous lot. The cinematograph is one of the most wonderful inventions!45

Paul Wegener’s awareness of a permanently split conscience, inflicted on him by his profession (“ständige Nötigung der Bewußtseins-Spaltung”) makes him develop a differentiated view on the problem of the self as is documented in his speeches “Der Schauspieler und seine Rollen” (1927) and “Über den Schauspieler” (1945): Everybody has many ‘selves’ inside of himself, and the richer and wider his nature, the further apart can the different ‘centres of each self’ lie.46 45

“Es ist ein eigenes Gefühl, sich selbst agieren zu sehen: man entdeckt Eigentümlichkeiten an sich – gute und schlechte – von denen man vordem nichts geahnt hat. Man lernt ungeheuer viel. Der Kinematograph ist eine der wunderbarsten Erfindungen!” Bassermann’s comment in a booklet commemorating the premiere of Der Andere, in: Erste Internationale Film-Zeitung 7.5 (1.2.1913). P. 32. 46 “Jeder hat viele «Ichs» in sich, und je reicher und breiter eine Natur ist, desto weiter können die verschiedenen «Ichszentren» voneinander entfernt sein”. In: Paul Wegener. Sein Leben und seine Rollen. Ein Buch von ihm und über ihn. Ed. by Kai Möller. Hamburg: Rowohlt 1954. P. 95.

111 Following Wegener’s argument, this split conscience conceals great dangers for the actor’s human development, for while an ordinary man can educate himself to avoid the abysses and danger-zones of the soul, the actor uses “those darkest, usually hidden or covered drives as the liveliest means of his art” (“diese dunkelsten, sonst verheimlichten oder durch Überbauten versteckten Triebe als lebendigstes Mittel seiner Kunst”/Möller: 99). Partly anticipating Walter Benjamin’s thoughts about the consequences of technical reproduction, Wegener observes how a role can be reproduced at any time, similar to the photographic process. A once internalized role felt like a split conscience to him, because this figure was gaining such autonomy while being acted, that he could think of something else on stage.47 Already his earlier self-evaluation is not just that of an actor seeing himself, but that of a director with a vision: The camera-objective is stronger than the human eye. The amplification of head and hands, the high resolution of image, the bright lighting, the lacking of coloured transitions make the actors feel as if they were under a microscope. In addition to that there is the necessary reduction of gesture imposed by the recording technique.48

In an article published in the Berliner Tageblatt in 1915 (and again in 1916 during a public speech), Paul Wegener demanded the new medium’s emancipation. His challenge: “forget theatre as well as novel and create from film for film”.49 The real creator of the film must be the camera. Getting the spectator to change his point of view, using special effects to double the actor on the divided screen, by mirroring etc., in other words: the film’s formal aspects have to become significant for the choice of its content.50

Wegener, who had also played the title role in Rex Ingram’s The Magician (1926), suggests that future films should draw their effect solely from the photographic technique. Rhythm and speed, brightness and darkness would play a role comparative to music. Their ultimate end should be a kind of kinetic lyricism (“eine Art kinetische Lyrik”) which does not reproduce reality anymore. H.H. Wollenberg 47

“[…] die Figur hat sich quasi losgelöst, als Eigensubjekt frei entfaltet”. In: Möller: Paul Wegener. P. 97. 48 “Das Objektiv ist stärker als das menschliche Auge. Die Vergrößerung des Kopfes und der Hände, die Schärfe des Bildes, die grelle Beleuchtung, der Mangel farbiger Übergänge setzen die Filmschauspieler nahezu unter ein Mikroskop. Dazu kommt die notwendige Abkürzung der Geste durch die Technik der Aufnahme”. Paul Wegener: Die künstlerischen Möglichkeiten des Films (speech given on 24 April 1916). In: Möller: Paul Wegener. P. 107. 49 Paul Wegener in: Berliner Tageblatt 27 (15.1.1915): “sowohl Theater wie Roman vergessen und aus dem Film für den Film schaffen”. 50 “Der eigentliche Dichter des Films muß die Kamera sein. Die Möglichkeit des ständigen Standpunktwechsels für den Beschauer, die zahllosen Tricks durch Bildteilung, Spiegelung und so fort, kurz: die Technik des Films muß bedeutsam werden für die Wahl des Inhalts”. In Möller: Paul Wegener. Pp. 110–111.

112 commented on Wegener’s “almost unnoticed” death in his article “The Return of Romanticism”51 praising his “influence and vision” during the classical phase of (movie-)Romanticism and his “decisive historical part” in lifting the potentialities of the film trick “to the level of a new development in screen art”. Emil Jannings was another famous actor who came from the stage to the silent film (Kohlhiesel’s Daughters, 1920; Waxworks 1924; Faust, 1925/26) and was “burning to see himself ” after the first takes had been shot at Oscar Messter’s studio. In his autobiographical work Theater/Film – Das Leben und ich52, he describes how he first saw himself on the screen in 1914. At first he was completely baffled, then nervous and finally desperate because of his difficulty to identify with his own figure on celluloid. But, similar to Bassermann’s perception, this experience served him as a lesson of how to improve his acting skills, realizing that stage and cinema were two completely different things and that film had its own laws. According to the late film star Oscar Werner, Jannings once had said that “we can only fulfill the shadows of our dreams” (“Wir können nur die Schatten unserer Träume verwirklichen”). Conrad Veidt, who impressively played the somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Orlac’s split personality in The Hands of Orlac and the doublerole in Die Brüder Schellenberg explained how he became the doppelganger of those characters. For as soon as he received a new script, he withdrew from society and his whole personality fell under the influence of the part he was going to act. Veidt’s description of this psychic process of infection (“jenen seelischen Infektionsprozeß”) illustrates, that a complete identification with a role can lead to the feeling of being possessed by it: And very soon I feel with a frightening intensity how the character, I have to play, is growing inside of me, how I am transforming into it. Quite a while before the shooting I can observe myself – even in normal life – moving differently, talking differently, glancing differently, behaving altogether in a different way as I usually would. The Conrad Veidt in me had gradually become the other, who I have to ‘represent’ and into whom my self had transformed by autosuggestion. Being possessed would best describe my state of mind.53 51

In: Penguin Film Review 9. London 1949. P. 106. Emil Jannings: Theater/Film – Das Leben und ich. Berchtesgaden: Zimmer & Herzog 1952. Pp.120–121. 53 “Und sehr bald fühle ich mit geradezu erschreckender Intensität, wie die Person, die ich darzustellen habe, in mir wächst, wie ich mich in sie verwandle. Es dauert nicht lange, und ich kann beobachten, daß ich – noch vor den Aufnahmen – auch im zivilen Leben ganz anders mich bewege, anders spreche, anders blicke, überhaupt anders mich verhalte als sonst, – daß der Conrad Veidt in mir allmählich ganz jener andere geworden ist, den ich “darzustellen” habe, in den sich aber vielmehr mein Ich autosuggestiv verwandelt hat. Besessenheit wäre der beste Ausdruck für meinen Zustand”. In: Paul Ickes: Conrad Veidt. Ein Buch vom Wesen und Werden eines Künstlers. Berlin: Filmschriftenverlag 1927. Quoted from: Hätte ich das Kino! Pp. 293–294. 52

113 Veidt would carry on being the assumed personality long after the filming is over. “Blind and deaf for reality”, he was seeing and hearing only that land of dreams (“Traumland”) which was supposed to be his other reality, until concerned colleagues were asking him, whether he had gone completely mad. Psychological aspects of the doppelganger were also important for actress Henny Porten, although she adopted a more distanced view than Conrad Veidt. She played leading double-roles in Ernst Lubitsch’s Kohlhiesels Töchter (Kohlhiesel’s Daughters, 1920), a version of The Taming of the Shrew in Dirndl and Lederhosen, “transplanted into the Bavarian mountains” (Lubitsch) and in Carl Froehlich’s Wehe, wenn sie losgelassen (1925): I have always had a special preference for double-roles. It was not the masquerades that were particularly appealing to me but the psychological aspects: I wanted to portrait two completely opposite characters to the point that the spectator would as long as possible keep the illusion of both roles being played by different actresses.54

Before it was turned into a successful film, the novel Dr Mabuse, the Gambler had been published as a serial in a newspaper (1921/22) and sold over 100.000 copies during the first year after its publication in book-form by Ullstein. In the end of May 1922 Norbert Jacques, the author, was invited to its premiere at the Ufa-Palast / Berlin. He is impressed of how scriptwriter Harbou, director Lang and cameraman Hoffmann had transformed his words into moving images, which he could identify as his own ideas and fantasies. At first sight he feels dumbfounded, but at the same time excited and moved by what he describes as a divine act of creation: An atmosphere of light and air is being created around figures and events, letters are emerging from pages of a book like Eve from Adam’s rib. Taken from the ephemeral, dissolving, ever renewing spheres of fantasy, they have been given a body […].55 54

“Ich habe immer mit besonderer Vorliebe Doppelrollen gespielt. Mich reizte dabei keineswegs die Lust an irgendwelchen Verkleidungsscherzen, sondern nur das Psychologische: Ich wollte zwei einander völlig entgegengesetzte Charaktere so treffsicher zeichnen, daß der Zuschauer möglichst lange in der Illusion verharren sollte, die beiden Rollen würden von zwei ganz verschiedenen Schauspielerinnen dargestellt”. Henny Porten; quoted from: Deutsche Spielfilme von den Anfängen bis 1933. Ein Filmführer. Ed. by Günther Dahlke and Günter Karl. Berlin: Henschel Verlag 1993. P. 43. 55 “Es legt sich eine Atmosphäre von Licht und Luft um Gestalten und um Ereignisse, Buchstaben richten sich aus Buchseiten, wie Eva aus der Rippe Adams. Sie sind aus den entweichenden, verschwimmenden und immer wieder sich neu bildenden Gefilden der Phantasie in eine Körperlichkeit gehoben, [...]”. Norbert Jacques: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. Mit einem Dossier zum Film von Fritz Lang. Hamburg: Rogner & Bernhard 1994. P. 262.

114 Jacques believes it must be a magical moment for the actors to see themselves, while he is just watching a projection of his mind games. During the premiere the author, sitting next to them, is trying to imagine how they really feel: Are they taken in by a deep joy while seeing themselves in a spiritual demonstration without any transmission by intellect or is it an experience of demonic horror for them? Can they imagine that this immediateness, this close encounter with themselves could make the railing disappear which helps to bypass the secret abysses of the soul?56

Jacques cannot explain why his last impression gained predominance in him, but sitting in the dark cinema, he is aware of the strange transformation of his (literary) inventions into projected images, of an exchange between reality and the people in the film.57 The author loses his sense for the identities of the actors, who are sitting next to him and are at the same time acting on the screen as figures of his novel: And for some moments I was taken in by this fascinatingly tempting illusion that those figures […] had come to a real life of their own […].58

Jacques was convinced that this “miracle” could not be produced in its immediateness on any stage, because the spectator’s fantasy needed to be switched on by the actor’s personality, while the silent film leaves it unrestrained. His awareness that maybe thousands of people will be sharing the same illusion, while watching reproductions of the film in the cinema’s of other places, became extremely valuable to the author. His idea, those doppelganger-like images could live a life of their own, had already been anecdotally expressed by literature- and film-critic Joseph Roth. In his article “Noch eine Episode”

56 “Faßt sie eine tiefe Freude, so ohne jede Übermittelung durch den Intellekt, sich in einer geistigen Demonstration zu erblicken, oder wird es ihnen zu einem mit Dämonien geladenen Graus? Kann es in ihnen berücken, daß sie durch diese Unmittelbarkeit die Mitteilung von sich selber, die Vorstellung haben können, als ob das Geländer fehle, das über heimlichen Abgründen der Seele helfend vorbeiführe”. Jacques: Dr. Mabuse. P. 262. 57 “[…] die geheimnisvolle Transformation meiner Erfindungen in den projizierten Bildern, ein Austausch zwischen der Wirklichkeit und den Menschen im Film”. Jacques: Dr. Mabuse. Pp. 262–263. 58 “Und da lief Augenblicke lang diese Täuschung, daß diese Gestalten nun zu einem wirklichen Leben geworden seien, mit einer berückenden Verführerischkeit mit mir dahin […]”. Jacques: Dr. Mabuse. Pp. 262–263.

115 published in Die Filmwelt (1919), the narrator is sitting in the cinema with a girlfriend, when he suddenly perceives his wife on the screen: My wife, alive and kicking, casting me a glance … some glance!! Due to this glance my right cheek is blushing (my wife being lefthanded), and my ribs are contracting painfully.59

Double-visions in modern cinema Only much later Woody Allen would approach this subject in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), with a celluloid-doppelganger escaping from his natural habitat, the screen. Comparable to Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkowich (1999), Allen uses the motif for grotesque entertainment but also as a meta-critical device. Technical aspects of internet-and cyberspace-doubles in The Matrix trilogy (A. and L. Wachowski, 1999–2003) keeps the motif alive on the big screen, as do, for example, novels by Günter Grass (Ein weites Feld, 1995), Klaus Schlesinger (Trug, 2000) or José Saramago’s (The double/O homem duplicado, 2002). According to the text accompanying Julião Sarmento’s film-installation Doppelgänger (2001) at Museu Serralves60 in Porto, “the ability of the cinema to create perceptual enigmas is exploited by the artist, by staging an elaborate series of ‘deja vus’ which curl back to the beginning at the end of each loop, like a snake eating its tail”. Furthermore, short-films like Bjørn Melhus’ Zauberglas (1991), in which a man is confronted with aspects of his female self, personified as a doppelganger behind a TV-screen, and Virgil Widrich’s Copy Shop (2001) show that the motif has still not lost its artistic potential. Widrich’s film tackles the problem of identity and cinema, inducing the viewer to identify with a character (‘subjective shots’), who then loses his own identity, being constantly reproduced by a photocopier: “Copy Shop” shows a protagonist fighting for his originality as an individual. But in “Copy Shop” not even the frames are originals; they are only copies. This is done not only to express the fact that the cinema copy is the usual kind of copy for movie theatres, but also that the frames are really and truly “copies” in the literal sense of the word. The technical realization of “Copy Shop” involved the transfer of every single frame from the digital video tape into the computer once the shooting had been finished, from where the frames were printed out on a black and white laser printer and then filmed again with a 35mm animation camera. Thus video becomes 59

“Meine Frau, wie sie leibt und lebt und mir einen Blick zuwirft … einen Blick!! Ob dieses Blickes errötet meine rechte Wange (meine Frau ist linkshändig), und meine Rippen ziehen sich schmerzlich zusammen”. Joseph Roth: Werke. Das journalistische Werk I 1915–1923. Ed. by Klaus Westermann. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1989. P. 89. Roth’s essay was originally published in Die Filmwelt on 25th July 1919. 60 Sarmento’s film-installation was exhibited at the Museu Serralves, Porto from 25.1.17.3.2002.

116 paper, paper becomes film and the story of “Copy Shop” is brought to life again “copy by copy”.61

The question remains, in how far the doppelganger-motif in literature was modified through the perception of psychoanalysis and through the influence of film?62 If Todorov63 claims that in the beginning of the 20th century psychoanalysis had made fantastic literature unnecessary and thus buried the romantic notions of the doppelganger, cinema has certainly resurrected them again. Friedrich Kittler suggests that cinema and script-writers occupied the place that vanished literary Romanticism had left vacant: What poetry had promised and only granted to an imaginary, resulting from reading experience, appears to be real on the screen. In order to be transferred into a real, visible world, proper reading was for Novalis still the irrevocable condition, which has now become superfluous. To see doppelganger, people have to be neither educated nor drunk anymore. Even, and mostly, analphabets can see the Student of Prague, his lover and his mistress – all of Rank’s ‘shadowlike, ephemeral figures’ that are doppelganger as such: celluloid-ghosts of actors’ bodies.64

Can cinema really offer what was, according to Jean Paul, a privilege of those people, whose imagination, influenced by intensive reading habits, had given them the capacity to gain the necessary distance and / or the complete involvement to see themselves? Does the perception of “celluloid-ghosts of actors’

61

©2001 www.widrichfilm.com. “Todorov hat recht, wenn er die romantischen Doppelgänger um 1900 verenden läßt. Aber es ist von vornherein unglaublich, daß Theorie allein solche Schläge führen konnte. Erst im Zangenangriff von Wissenschaft und Industrie, von Psychoanalyse und Film ist die empirisch-transzendentale Doublette Mensch, dieses Substrat romantischer Phantastik, implodiert. All jene Schatten und Spiegel des Subjekts – die Psychoanalyse hat sie klinisch verifiziert, das Kino technisch implementiert. Seitdem bleibt einer Literatur, die Literatur sein will, nurmehr écriture –: eine Schrift ohne Autor. Und aus Buchstaben kann niemand Doppelgänger und das heißt Identifikationsmöglichkeiten herauslesen”. Friedrich Kittler: Draculas Vermächtnis. Technische Schriften. Leipzig: Reclam Verlag 1993. P. 96. 63 “la psychanalyse a remplacé (et par là meme a rendu inutile) la littérature fantastique”. Tzvetan Todorov: Introduction à la littérature fantastique. Paris: Éditions du Seui1 1970. P. 69. 64 “Was Dichtung versprochen und nur im Imaginären von Leseerlebnissen gewährt hat, auf der Leinwand erscheint es im Reellen. Zur Versetzung in eine wirkliche, sichtbare Welt ist rechtes Lesen, bei Novalis unabdingbare Voraussetzung, überflüssig geworden. Um Doppelgänger zu erblicken, müssen Leute weder gebildet noch angetrunken mehr sein. Auch und gerade Analphabeten sehen den Studenten von Prag, seine Geliebte und seine Mätresse – all jene »schattenhaft flüchtigen Gestalten« Ranks, wie sie als solche schon Doppelgänger sind -: Zelluloidgespenster der Schauspielerkörper”. Kittler: Draculas Vermächtnis. P. 97. 62

117 bodies”, that belong to a different codified system than books, imply the same work of intellect and imagination? And how real can an ‘alter ego’ possibly become in cyberspace? Certainly, the appearance of the doppelganger on the screen, contributed, in its deceptive realism, to question film’s mimetic qualities (and the concept of mimesis in general) and deconstructs widespread notions of individuality, coherence and reality.

Acknowledgements The author is grateful for the financial support of FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia)/FACC (Fundo de Apoio à Comunidade Científica) and the help of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (pictures and copyright of Der Andere), Deutsches Institut für Filmforschung (pictures of Der Student von Prag), Dr. Wilfried Kugel (copyright of Der Student von Prag and bibliogaphy), Virgil Widrich (copyright and picture of Copyshop) and Landeg White (proof-reading).

DER BLAUE ENGEL - Deutschland 1930 Regie: Josef von Sternberg Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Gilbert Carr

“Mit einem kleinen Ruck, wie beim Kinematographen”.1 From the Unmaking of Professor Unrat to an Unmade Der blaue Engel Film historians remember Josef von Sternberg’s Der blaue Engel as a film classic, while dismissing Heinrich Mann’s Professor Unrat and Mann as a novelist who did not understand the medium of film. But Sternberg’s melodramatic reduction of Mann’s narrative to the story of a provincial schoolmaster’s fall from grace ignored the sharpness of Mann’s literary satire on the dynamic of authoritarianism and anarchism and thus its topicality for the Weimar Republic. Sternberg’s undermining of professorial respectability falls short of the novel’s clinical dissection of psychological contradictions as symptoms of broader social contradictions. Mann’s critique of the social diffusion of the ideology of a ‘will to power’here makes it a precursor of Der Untertan, but also of the extreme embodiments of power in Weimar era cinema. The paper ‘reconstructs’ filmic equivalents from that era that indicate just how cinematically Professor Unrat, with its radical undermining of the narrative devices and character conventions of realist fiction, could have hypothetically been treated.

A recent comparison of the different versions of Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930) describes Josef von Sternberg’s melodramatic vehicle for Marlene Dietrich as “one of the great European films of the 20th century”.2 There has certainly been enough credit accorded to Sternberg’s expert use of space, mis-en-scène, costume and lighting.3 The same critic, on the other hand, 1

“With a slight jolt, like the cinematograph’s”. Heinrich Mann: Professor Unrat oder Das Ende eines Tyrannen. Ed. by Peter-Paul Schneider. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 112001. P. 101. Hereinafter references to page number only. All translations are by the present author. 2 Peter Baxter: Fallen Angels. In: Sight and Sound 11.11 (2001). P. 65. 3 See Gertrud Koch: Between two worlds: Von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. In: Film and German literature. Adaptations and transformations. Ed. by Eric Rentschler. New York – London: Methuen 1986. Pp. 60–72. Here P. 66 on Rath’s and Lola’s costume changes as a questioning of identity and P. 69 on the theatrical sets. Hans Vilmar Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’ Von Professor Unrat zum Blauen Engel und zurück. In: Heinrich MannJahrbuch 12 (1994). Pp. 201–219. Here p. 208 on “Dingsymbolik” (e.g. nets at the cabaret entrance). Ibid. Pp. 210, 212 on “filmed theatre” (Lola’s dressing room as a microcosm, but also on the reliance on static poses). Ibid. P. 214 on the top-hat motif; ibid. P. 218 on the clown prefiguring Rath’s fate. Carole Zucker: The idea of the image. Josef von Sternberg’s Dietrich films. Rutherford etc.: Associated Universities Press 1988. Pp. 47–55 on mise-en-scène. Here Pp. 48–50 on the space of the cabaret inverting and invading the order of the schoolroom, and Pp. 37f. on the mirror creating a doppelgänger and chronicling Rath’s decline. Ibid., Pp. 50ff. on Lola’s “burlesque of the idea of the

120 dismisses Heinrich Mann’s Professor Unrat as “a heavy-handed critique of bourgeois hypocrisy”,4 and another quotes John Kahan’s view of the author as a fine novelist who “didn’t understand the medium” of film.5 This ignores evidence of ‘cinematic’ techniques, both in Mann’s later novels6 and in Professor Unrat itself.7 Film historians seem not to understand Mann’s double-edged satire, yet how valid is even Siegfried Kracauer’s criticism, not only of the film’s escapism, “a private tragedy that does not seriously concern anyone today”, but of Mann’s “pre-war book” as itself outmoded?8 After all, Mann’s had been the first novel to touch the “raw nerve” that exposed “the ideology of the twentieth-century era German bourgeoisie”,9 to cause the “pillars of Wilhelmine Germany’s power” to shake.10 The dialectic of power between the tyrant and his subjects11 means that power will inevitably be challenged from below, that a system of repression will eventually collapse under pressure from repressed ‘affects’ – surely still a hope in the era of ascendant fascism? The anti-authoritarian school satire as a microcosm of the town and of society had costume” and “mockery of the façade Rath values so highly”, and on significant props and ‘mobile’ clothing (e.g. knickers and handkerchief). 4 Baxter: Fallen Angels. P. 65. 5 John Baxter: The cinema of Josef von Sternberg. London – New York: Zwemmer – Barnes 1971. Pp. 65f., who misrepresents the plot of the novel and labels it “Socialist propaganda”. 6 Wolfram Schütte: Film und Roman. Einige Notizen zur Kinotechnik in Romanen der Weimarer Republik. In: Text ⫹ Kritik. Sonderband Heinrich Mann. Ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Text ⫹ Kritik 1971. Pp. 70–80. 7 See Geppert’s annotation of Unrat’s entrance into the “Blauer Engel” with a sequence of ‘shots’ suggested by the narrative perspective, and his conclusion that it “reads almost like a scenario” (“Das liest sich fast wie ein Drehbuch”). Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. P. 208. 8 “[…] eine Privattragödie, die […] heute niemanden ernstlich etwas angeht”. Siegfried Kracauer: Der blaue Engel. In: Die neue Rundschau 31.1 (1930). Pp. 861–863. In: Heinrich Mann. Texte zu seiner Wirkungsgeschichte in Deutschland. Ed. by Renate Werner. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1977. Pp. 122–125 (Deutsche Texte 46). 9 “[…] neuralgische Punkte der Ideologiegeschichte des deutschen Bürgertums im 20. Jahrhundert”. Werner: Heinrich Mann. P. 4. 10 “[…] an einem Machtpfeiler des Wilhelminischen Deutschland rüttelt”. Herbert Ihering: Heinrich Mann. Sein Werk und Leben. Berlin: Aufbau 1952. P. 33. Quoted in: Ulrich Weisstein: Heinrich Mann. Eine historisch-kritische Einführung in sein dichterisches Werk. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1962. P. 67. Cf. also Wilfried F. Schoeller: Künstler und Gesellschaft. Studien zum Romanwerk Heinrich Manns zwischen 1900 und 1914. Munich [unpublished dissertation] 1978. Pp. 168–172 on the self-unmasking of the Wilhelmine authoritarian establishment. Frithjof Trapp: ‘Kunst’ als Gesellschaftsanalyse und Gesellschaftskritik bei Heinrich Mann. Berlin – New York: de Gruyter 1975. P. 161 (Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker. Neue Folge, 64 /188). 11 Trapp: ‘Kunst’. P. 155.

121 had allegorical potential, too, both in the schoolmaster’s remoteness from life and the megalomania of his intent to “obliterate” (“zerschmettern”, 72) his wayward pupils, and in the mimicry of Wilhelmine ideology, of notions of grandeur and omnipotence in the Kaiser’s “personal rule”12 – we need only think of the classical philologist’s flowery periphrasis (16) and the disciplinarian’s self-projection13 extending into conservative and imperious rhetoric (stigmatization of “subversives” [“Umstürzler”, 17], fear of “assassination attempts” [“Attentate”, 20]). The novel clinically dissects the psychological contradictions of its characters and the self-dramatizing pathos of Unrat’s point-of-view.14 Mann’s cynical narrative voice appropriates the inherent tendency of erlebte Rede in realist fiction to allow identification, only to alienate us from Unrat’s suppositions and projections, concisely revealing the self-reassurance which keeps the flawed personality from totally succumbing to the “panic of the threatened tyrant” (“Panik des bedrohten Tyrannen”, 87). But it is also employed against other figures; and the technique of exposing contradictions between inherent weakness and a ‘will to power’ that gathers momentum anticipates Mann’s Der Untertan (Man of straw), where the sado-masochist Diederich Hessling is the head full of received opinions and hollow phrases. Instead of a pupil’s revolt, as in Jean Vigo’s classic film Zéro de conduite or Lindsay Anderson’s If …, or even of a social revolution among the lower classes in the vaudeville audience (99–101) and the S.P.D. meeting (122f.), Professor Unrat has a broader diagnosis of social contradictions, as the initial exemplum (the authoritarian figure) himself becomes the (albeit flawed) embodiment of a satiric critique of bourgeois norms; both a psychogram of self-delusion and an allegory of socio-political forces spiralling out of control. Even if of debatable psychological plausibility, the explosion of repressed libidinal drives in the authoritarian personality’s socially destructive ‘affects’ unexpectedly escalates the ‘conflict’ on a societal level in a Dionysian-anarchic dénouement. The severe criticisms of the film’s dilution of Mann’s “caustic attack on the philistine world of Germany’s late bourgeois era” into “a tragic-individual case”15 are well known. Instead of Mann’s “Torquemada pedagogue, as if formed 12

John C. G. Röhl: Germany without Bismarck. The crisis of government in the Second Reich (1890–1900). London: Batsford 1967. Pp. 271ff. 13 “[…] ich bin nicht gewillt, ihn mir bieten zu lassen” (“I will not tolerate it”, 11). 14 I shall refer throughout to the novel’s and the film’s protagonist, respectively, as Unrat and Rath. The narrator’s incorporation of analysis into depictions (Trapp: ‘Kunst’. P. 145) presents a challenge to cinematic reproduction, for Geppert, as the rational omniscient narrator’s polyphony mimics other voices, but he accepts some film devices as analogous. Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. Pp. 208f. 15 “[…] schneidende Attacke auf die spätbürgerliche deutsche Spießerwelt”, “[…] einen tragisch-individuellen Fall”. Werner: Heinrich Mann. P. 118.

122 from centuries of school dust”, Die Weltbühne had complained, the film brings Rath “closer as a human being”, “a thoroughly pitiful, remote gentleman who succumbs to a latter-day passion”.16 It is hard to resist dismissing Jannings’ and Sternberg’s melodramatic film version, but defenders of Der blaue Engel insist both that Heinrich Mann approved of the film scenario,17 and that as a free adaptation of the novel, the film should not be judged by its faithfulness to the book.18 The generic differences between the media were encapsulated by the film director and theorist Alexander Kluge and his collaborators, questioning film’s ability to equal the expressive potential of literature, claiming that even to convey two sentences from a novel by Barbey d’Aurevilly it would take at least a twentyminute short, with sequences devoted not only to the couple’s row, but to tracing the causes of the woman’s irritation in the history of gender relations and marital behaviour over a 200-year period, and using a visual montage of the incompatible facial expressions of the man and woman over a long period.19 As Klaus Kanzog invites us to go beyond registering differences between the media, I wish to take up this challenge, to use comparison to explore the possibilities of portraying themes (rather than remaining work-fixated).20 Instead, therefore, of repeating the valid criticisms of the film’s escapist plot by Kracauer, Adorno and others, while not ignoring or seeking to vindicate the film’s kitsch elements uncritically,21 I wish to reclaim both the literary source and the cinema’s potential as it was then available historically, on which a hypothetical alternative film version could have drawn to express the spirit of Mann’s novel more forcefully. 16

“[…] pädagogische[r] Torquemada, wie aus dem Schulstaub von Jahrhunderten geformt”, “menschlich näher”, “ein durchaus mitleidenswürdiger, lebensfremder Biedermann, der einer späten Passion verfällt”. Celsus (Ps.): Der Film gegen Heinrich Mann. In: Die Weltbühne 18 (1930). Pp. 665f. Quoted in: Werner: Heinrich Mann. Pp. 120–122. Here P. 120. According to Adorno, it turned the “demon of philistinism” (“Spießerdämon”) into “a sentimental figure of comedy” (“eine rührselige Lustspielfigur”). Theodor W. Adorno: Ein Titel. In: Die neue Zeitung 3.21 (25.1.1952). P. 4. Quoted in: Werner: Heinrich Mann. Pp. 125–8. Here P. 127. 17 Cf. Josef von Sternberg: Fun in a Chinese laundry. London: Columbus 1987. P. 136. Also Klaus Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann? Bemerkungen zu Heinrich Manns Professor Unrat und Josef von Sternbergs Der blaue Engel. In: Heinrich MannJahrbuch 14 (1996). Pp. 113–138. 18 Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann?. Pp. 118f. S. S. Prawer: The blue angel (Der blaue Engel). London: BFI 2002. Koch: Between two worlds. Pp. 60f. The scenario, by Robert Liebmann, was adapted by Karl Vollmoeller and Carl Zuckmayer. Cf. Werner: Heinrich Mann. P. 118. 19 Edgar Reitz, Alexander Kluge and Wilfried Reinke: Wort und Film. In: Klaus Eder and Alexander Kluge: Ulmer Dramaturgien. Reibungsverluste. Stichwort: Bestandsaufnahme. Munich: Hanser 1980. Pp. 9–25. Here P. 13. 20 Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann? P. 138. 21 Koch: Between two worlds. P. 66 defends the film’s use of kitsch as part of its aesthetic style.

123 Mann’s visual-dramatic conception of his symbolic figures is evident from a remark in his autobiography Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt (An era is reviewed ): “The inner compulsion to express thoughts is not felt by an author whose characters have already embodied them”.22 The reification of Unrat’s wooden chin clattering up and down (9, 181) reinforces his role as embodiment of a dehumanized system, akin to the aptly named board members in Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen (Spring awakening), who share his penchant for thoughtdeadening periods. Some critics have relied for the novel’s genesis on autobiographical sources, missing the exemplary kinship of theme, situation and characters with the Simplicissimus cartoons which so epitomized the pre-1914 era. Mann’s Unrat is soon inflamed with a similar ambition to the plump, smug, bemonocled gent in trilby, bow-tie, overcoat and striped trousers in Thomas Theodor Heine’s “On the honeymoon”, who embraces his younger wife, a tall blonde in red coat and long gown, consoling her: “Don’t be sad, dear Marie, that you’re of lower-class stock. In time I shall succeed in raising you up to me”.23 The Jannings figure might indeed have been inspired by the ‘Professor of Economics’ in Heine’s “An idealist” and his finger-wagging admonition to a prostitute on the street: “My dear girl, that is a hard and perilous profession you have chosen!”.24 How the anomalous relationship of such stock figures was relished can be seen from Adolf Münzer’s cartoon “Surprise”, which captures in profile a young brunette in a décolleté smiling to a grey-bearded bespectacled academic as he studies her myopically: “Wot about that, Professor, Sir, who’d’ve thought that the two of us would end up in ‘Simplicissimus’ together?”.25

22

“Die innere Nötigung, seine Gedanken zu äußern, fehlt einem Autor, dessen Geschöpfe sie schon verkörpert haben”. Heinrich Mann: Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt. Düsseldorf: Claassen 1974. P. 187. 23 “Sei nicht traurig, liebe Marie, daß du aus niederem Stande bist. Mit der Zeit wird es mir schon gelingen, dich zu mir empor zu ziehen”. Thomas Theodor Heine: Auf der Hochzeitsreise. In: Simplicissimus. Vol. 1. No. 37 (12.12.1896). P. 8. Also Heine’s depiction of an ageing monarch, having left his palace incognito “in civilian dress”, in order to gain deep insights into the hearts of his subjects (“tiefe Einblicke in das Herz seiner Unterthanen”), becoming intimately acquainted with a ballet dancer at a presentation. See Thomas Theodor Heine: Aus dem Nekrolog eines Fürsten. In: Simplicissimus 2.37 (1897). In: Thomas Theodor Heine. Ed. by Lothar Lang. Munich: Rogner & Bernhard 1970. P. 28. 24 “Sie haben sich da einen schweren und gefahrvollen Beruf erwählt, mein Fräulein!” Thomas Theodor Heine: Ein Idealist. In: Simplicissimus 3.28 (1898). In: Lang: Thomas Theodor Heine. P. 32. 25 “Gelt, Herr Professor, das hätten Sie auch nicht geglaubt, daß wir zwei miteinander in den Simplicissimus kommen?” Adolf Münzer: Überraschung. In: Simplicissimus 5.28 (1900–1). In: Simplicissimus. 1896–1914. Ed. by Richard Christ. Berlin: Rütten & Loening 1972. P. 81. When Rosa hears a “sabre rattle” (“Säbelklirren”) and a rough voice near her exclaim “Donnerwetter!” (219) – the surprise is, of course, von Ertzum’s and Lohmann’s – the scene may evoke one with Eduard Thöny’s ogling officer types.

124 Rosa first appears as Unrat’s Other in the scene where he plunges into the ‘Blue Angel’ (53), that “abyss” (“Abgrund”), that alien milieu (55) that is such a “negation of his whole being” (“Verneinung seiner selbst”) that he is incapable of perceiving this vulgar, shrieking, voluptuous body, this “something”: “Through the smoke […] he saw countless heads […]. Only at the back of the room was the smoke penetrated by something gleaming […], something that was flailing around with arms, shoulders or legs, some piece of bright flesh, illuminated by a bright reflector, and opening the large dark cavity of a mouth” ( 53).26 One could, indeed, envisage a scene like the false Maria’s dance in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and its montage of ogling eyes, inter-cut with Freder’s delirium, but Mann’s text succeeds with its gradual build-up of an image in conveying the transgressive character of Rosa in Unrat’s perception, the very defiance of recognition. This precedes Unrat’s revelation about the cosmetic “genesis” (“Entstehung”) – how trivially the film opts for a powder-blowing farce – of “the real Fröhlich, the artist” (“die Künstlerin Fröhlich […], die eigentliche”, 97), over whose body he becomes the master, organizing and naming her toiletries, learning the palette of her face like a text (110), appropriating managerial rights: “Fröhlich, the artist, was his concern! He had approved her, he followed her performance from the wings, was bound to her and in a certain sense it was he who was displaying her! It was an affront to him for anyone to dare not to acclaim her art!” (100).27 The novel’s erlebte Rede conveys this discourse of possession as his delusion, just as the audience is notionally a mass of rebellious pupils (100f.). If, indeed, as Kanzog suggests, the theme of book and film is transgression,28 it is a theme embodied in the novel’s very discourse, the interchangeability of discourses of school discipline and the sphere of cheap, sensual ‘artistry’, whereby the narrator adopts double-entendres like “achieving the class target” (“das Ziel der Klasse erreichen”, 137, 142)29 or, indeed, when the boys’ parodic renaming of Rosa’s dressing room as the detention corner (“ins Kabuff!”, 17, 134) is superseded as Unrat monopolizes this same space as “king of the corner” (“Alleinherrscher im Kabuff ”, 136) and conquers this very sphere previously outlawed by his despotic 26

“Durch den Qualm […] sah er zahllose Köpfe […]. Dahinten durchbrach nur etwas Glänzendes den Rauch […], etwas, das Arme, Schultern oder Beine, irgendein Stück helles Fleisch, bestrahlt von einem hellen Reflektor, umherwarf und einen großen Mund dunkel aufriß” (53). 27 “ Die Künstlerin Fröhlich war seine eigene Angelegenheit! Er hatte sie genehmigt, folgte aus den Kulissen ihren Leistungen, war mit ihr verknüpft und führte sie gewissermaßen selber vor! Man vergriff sich an ihm selbst, wenn man sich unterstand, sie nicht gelten zu lassen!” (100). 28 Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann? P. 122. 29 Cf. the allusion to von Ertzum’s having failed to come any closer to The Maid/the virgin (“der der Jungfrau immer noch nicht nähergetreten war”), as failure either to read the set text Die Jungfrau von Orleans or to lose his own virginity (10).

125 whim30 – his blindness to the possibility of thus having undermined himself being maintained by the narrative perspective. Despite echoes of a conventional tragi-comedy in the emotional abyss of Unrat’s first downfall, after the scandal of the inquiry (159–66), the novel never loses sight of the comedy of disproportion, which in Rath’s humiliation by Lola Lola in the film is overwhelmed by the tragic pathos of his downfall. Baxter calls the climax, where “Rath drags a cry of mingled pain, anger and humiliation from some unfathomable pit of his being”, “a moment beyond language altogether”.31 It is possible to admire Jannings’ performance and yet to find his and Sternberg’s conception of the respectable schoolteacher turned “pathetic music-hall stooge”32 too much a stereotypical theme of the film industry, “a parable of love and its power to destroy if misused”.33 Whereas in the novel Unrat engineers the downfall of his hypocritical bourgeois victims by exploiting their repressed desires,34 we can scarcely blame a Catholic cinema audience in Bogotá for seeing this “provincial schoolmaster’s fall from grace” as “a lesson in morality”,35 since the director himself summed up Rath with: “It was his mistake – he should never have taken up with her. That’s what the story is”.36 That is, out of the fall of bourgeois morality, the melodrama resurrects it. For this reason, the film does not fully exploit the comic potential in the clash of casting Dietrich opposite Jannings. Lola’s reaction to Rath’s marriage proposal is initially laughter – one might say, a healthy response to the mismatch. However, Dietrich’s ability to act more ‘sincerely’, that is, to switch abruptly to a more sympathetic, even sentimental pose,37 reinstates the façade 30

On Unrat’s contamination of professional and private discourses see Weisstein: Heinrich Mann. P. 70. 31 Baxter: Fallen Angels. P. 65. Geppert notes that this helpless rage is a symptom of libidinal repression during Rath’s subservience towards Lola, whereas the novel construes Unrat’s repression as a large-scale projection, a system of power with repercussions. Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. P. 207. 32 Baxter: Fallen Angels. P. 65. 33 Baxter: The cinema of Josef von Sternberg. P. 73. 34 Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. Pp. 206f. 35 Sternberg: Fun in a Chinese laundry. P. 327. See also Peter Baxter: Just watch! Sternberg, Paramount and America. London: BFI 1993. Pp. 111 and 124, who accepts the film’s simplistic plot as “tragedy”. 36 Peter Bogdanovich: Encounters with Josef von Sternberg. In: Movie 13 (Summer 1965). Pp. 24f. Quoted by Gaylyn Studlar: In the realm of pleasure. Von Sternberg and the masochistic aesthetic. New York: Columbia University Press 1992. P. 217. 37 Cf. Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. Pp. 212f. The film’s and the scenario’s marriage proposal scenes are the subject of several analyses: Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann?. Pp. 122–128. Zucker: The idea of the image. P. 89 emphasizes the theatricality of Lola’s responses, while Kanzog: Op. cit. Pp. 133–137 adversely compares the 1959 version where Lola tries to dissuade Rath.

126 of bourgeois decorum, but also opens the way for the cruelty to be inflicted on Rath the clown by her and the director Kiepert. It is melodrama, rather than satire, that feeds the cruelty. As if the resulting staleness is a foregone conclusion from this mismatch, in no need of motivation, the technique of dissolving passing calendar years into each other, echoing montages from Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin. Sinfonie einer Großstadt (1927), is made to bridge Rath’s intended assertion of authority and its undermining by Lola and the troupe. Something had, indeed, changed since Mann’s hint at cinematic mechanisms in the phrase “with a slight jolt, like the cinematograph’s”, which had signified Rosa’s sudden switch – when apparently defeated by the hostility of the audience – from a pleasing professional demeanour to “a bitter and sour one” (“eine bittere und böse”, 101). Cinema’s technical advances, the combination of increasingly ‘realistic’ acting and sound, now enabled a seamless dressing of that cynicism in the language of sentiment. Film historians have distanced themselves from Siegfried Kracauer’s over-generalizations about Weimar cinema’s often unwitting anticipation of the Third Reich,38 but surely Kracauer’s questioning of the obsession of Weimar cinema with sado-masochistic subservience and humiliation was well-founded: both Rath and the degraded hotel porter-cum-lavatory attendant in F. W. Murnau’s Der letzte Mann (“The last laugh”, 1924), also played with masterful pathos by Jannings, are, Kracauer observes, “shaped after one and the same model”39 – and yet one can still believe in the powerlessness of that earlier character. The lonely but gentlemanly Rath of the film40 is lacking the slinking, paranoic suspicion in the early image of Unrat, the tyrant with a bad conscience, suspecting insurrection at every corner, or rather, in the melodramatic act of peering “in the folds of cloaks for daggers” (“in den Falten der Mäntel nach Dolchen”, 9), which is only matched towards the end of the film, albeit with a different emotional charge, when, after escaping from “Der blaue Engel”, Rath prowls the night. In general, Sternberg’s film reintroduces empathy with the (after all, and predictably) soft-hearted eccentric academic posturer with forgivable foibles, whose middle-class sentimentality is encapsulated in his care of his pet canary, which prepares us for his hopeless devotion to Lola Lola.41 38

Peter Baxter criticizes Kracauer’s disregard of the director Sternberg. Cf. Sternberg. Ed. by Peter Baxter. London, BFI, 1980, P. 6. More balanced is Thomas Elsaesser: Weimar cinema and after. Germany’s historical imaginary. London – New York: Routledge 2000. 39 Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler. A psychological history of the German film. Princeton: Princeton U.P. 1974 Pp. 217f. On sado-masochism in Sternberg see also Studlar: In the realm of pleasure. Pp. 122f. 40 Geppert misses Mann’s scruffy, jumpy professor. Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. Pp. 203. Nevertheless, Rath’s dressing-down of his pupils in the dressing-room does catch up with Unrat’s initial disciplining of pupils. Cf. ibid. P. 210. 41 The bird cage was an almost stereotypical leitmotif in this era, used metaphorically in Jutzi’s film of Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931). In Greed there is at first a realistic

127 The leitmotif of the nickname “Unrat” (“dross”) can be called a deconstruction, a “supplement”42 that defines and undermines the life of its bearer, a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic subsuming his bourgeois identity, as is acknowledged when elderly citizens remark disparagingly: “What chance would anyone have, in the end, with a name like that?” (168) – Unrat having finally become what the name signifies.43 One might construe an English equivalent where the nickname “dross” is a corruption of a “Dr. Ross”, but the film questionably reinstates bourgeois identity in the name Professor Immanuel Rath (on his door, and again when the poster announces Rath’s stage appearance), a town apparently unaware of ever having negated its “Unrat”, as the opening of the novel defines the origin of the “name”.44 This is explained away by the film as a single scribble on the cover of the classroom register (“Un-Rath”) – a prank familiar to recalcitrant schoolboys of many eras. Is it an example of the incommensurability of the two media that in the novel the “name” develops beyond this parodic reversal, as it takes on a life of its own, like the eponymous nose in Gogol’s story or the Hauptmann von Köpenick’s uniform, as the force of pure negation wreaking its revenge on society?45 For early sound cinema, introducing such a fantastic hypostasis would not have been an insurmountable challenge – perhaps in the manner of the more recently superimposed soundtrack of Das Cabinet des Doktor Caligari, where the ghostly voiceover matches the hallucinated inscriptions “You must become Caligari!” (“Du musst Caligari werden!”) which Caligari chases on the everconfining landscape of his madness.46 The early cinema, from D. W. Griffith to Eisenstein and Erich von Stroheim, was full of such narratives of the destructive and self-destructive extremes of obsession, repression and hypocrisy, as depicted by Mann’s novel.

structure to the scene where the unqualified dentist McTigue, at work in his surgery, receives the official letter prohibiting his practice, delaying his reading of the contents, but then the inserted text of the letter is cross-cut with his cat’s attack on the two birds in the cage, which have hitherto symbolized Mac’s marital bliss with Trina. Erich von Stroheim: Greed. London – Boston: Faber & Faber 1989. Pp. 233f. 42 Cf. Jonathan Culler: On deconstruction. Theory and criticism after structuralism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1983. Pp.102–106. 43 “Gegen so’n Namen kann auf die Dauer keiner an” (168). Given Unrat’s glee at the thought of catching culprits (10), he is very soon caught thinking of his nickname as “seinen Namen” (his “name”, in inverted commas, 15), and already in the first chapter it is adopted formally by the narrator, thus departing from any neutral portrayal that might be expected. 44 Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. P. 204 claims that the use of Rath’s title and bourgeois name is a means of mocking authority. 45 Cf. Schoeller: Künstler und Gesellschaft. Pp. 180f.: the “name” gets its revenge, spilling “Unrat” onto town. 46 Cf. David Robinson: Das Cabinet des Doktor Caligari. London: BFI 1997. Pp. 72f.

128 Kanzog reminds us that figure constellations, action sequences and direct speech can be transposed into film, but that indirect speech and narrative perspective present major problems – he has unexplained reservations about using voice-over for the omniscient narrator,47 but why could it not be combined with the camera-eye to enter Unrat’s head (in the manner of the recent Being John Malkovich)? Although the sound era allowed the superimposition of one figure’s speech on a reaction shot of the listener, the silent era was welladvanced in perspectival techniques, too. The script of Stroheim’s Greed (1924), despite the encumbrance of inter-titles, demonstrates how much psychology could indeed be portrayed mimically and through a proliferation of perspectival close-ups and reaction shots; one example among many in Greed is the scene where the seeds of destruction are sown, when Maria, with Marcus hesitating, sells Trina the lottery ticket which will transform her into a wealthy but miserly woman: a rapid succession of medium close-ups and close-ups of each in turn creates the mixture of suspicion and temptation of these three existentially isolated figures.48 Stroheim’s narrative comment is inserted through montage, e.g. Zerkow’s visions of a gold banqueting plate after Maria tells him he didn’t win the lottery, and the leitmotif of disembodied hands fondling gold coins, which recurs in the Maria and Trina plots too.49 Another rich source for allegorical montage avoided by Der blaue Engel is animal metaphor. In the novel, Unrat may be ridiculous when deluding himself about his omnipotence, but, within his realm, the uncanny, threatening side of this “public nuisance of a beast that, alas, you were not allowed just to kill”,50 encourages us to question if he is ‘human’ at all.51 There is no etymological basis nor textual evidence for Geppert’s far-fetched association of Unrat/Raat with “rat” as the ‘subtext’ of the novel.52 However, quite other animal images recur, as he installs himself in Rosa’s dressing-room like “a large black spider” (111), or, in Lohmann’s eyes, he appears as a hissing cat (140), or a cross between a spider and a cat, with crazed eyes and foaming jaw, and “grasping tentacles” (“gekrümmten Fangarmen”, 237). Though it would be a tall order for any film to suggest specific echoes of Jeremias Gotthelf’s 47 Kanzog: Mißbrauchter Heinrich Mann?. P. 121. Alexander Kluge frequently uses voiceover for satirical commentary, and a recent example is Jeunet’s Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulin (2001). 48 Stroheim: Greed. P. 107. 49 Ibid. Pp. 161f. Stroheim also uses stark contrasts of light and dark to comment on his characters’ fantasies and obsessions, e.g. the bedroom shot of Trina and her gold, tinted in ‘natural colour’. Ibid. Pp. 162, 204. 50 “Sie sahen ihrem Ordinarius zu wie einem gemeingefährlichen Vieh, das man leider nicht totschlagen durfte” (11). 51 The phrase “Auch Unrat aß” (“Even Unrat was eating”) at the start of chapter 2 (24) signifies the narrator’s hesitation before reporting a basic human function of this figure. 52 Geppert: ‘Wer – hat – das gemacht?’. Pp. 205–207.

129 monstrous black spider, much of this could have been emulated by the animal metamorphosis pioneered by Sergei Eisenstein’s montage sequences, e.g. in Strike (1924), where the agents provocateurs enlisted by the employers as strikebreakers are each characterized as a particular species. While Unrat’s initial negative identity results from society’s (the “school’s”) denial of his rational potential (“Raat”), the only questioning of identity in the film is the moralistic admonition that the solid petty bourgeois teacher can become a despised clown or a deranged person in need of the strait-jacket which encases him towards the end. This has echoes of the restraining of the insane Doctor Caligari near the end of Wiene’s classic. In Mann’s novel, the paranoia we witness is not a clinically determined condition, and the relief depicted at Unrat’s demise is quite different from the strait-jacket scene in Der blaue Engel. In Caligari, the boundaries between the narratives of sanity and of delusion are confused, as the narrator is himself subsequently put into a strait-jacket, but in Mann’s novel, too, there comes a point where the cool observer figure Lohmann only just extricates himself from Unrat’s and Rosa’s demonic scheme. Of course, the theft of his wallet puts this plot onto a more banal comical level than that of the demonic psychiatrist, but the ending of the novel has a similar deconstructive framing function, raising questions about the possibility of re-establishing the norms of the society that has rid itself of the Unrat menace, thus foreshadowing the lack of a societal resistance by a bourgeois liberal democracy to the dangerous rise of Mann’s eponymous “man of straw” – all we are offered is Lohmann’s less than convinced civic intervention (“ganz bürgerlich”) against theft and assault (237f.) after his aloof fascination with the “anarchist” in Unrat. Thus some of the novel’s enduring power lies, despite the apparent closure of the arrest, in its ambivalent open ending. The grandiose vision of a corrupted society engulfed by a ‘Dionysian’ epidemic of sex and vice is a deformation of the natural drives and human needs repressed by Wilhelmine society: And this moral demise of a town, which nobody could halt, because too many were implicated – it was happening through Unrat and became his triumph. A passion shook him in secret, a passion which his arid body only sporadically expressed, through a venomous green flash of the eye or a pallid scoul – and it was to this very passion that a whole town paid its toll and succumbed.53 53

“Und diese Entsittlichung einer Stadt, von keinem zu unterbrechen, weil zu viele darin verwickelt waren: sie geschah durch Unrat und zu seinem Triumph. Seiner insgeheim ihn schüttelnden Leidenschaft – dieser Leidenschaft, von der sein trockner Körper nichts als hie und da ein giftig grünes Augenfunkeln, ein blasses Feixen entließ – ihr frondete und unterlag eine Stadt” (213). The depiction of the clumsy bourgeoisie and their petty expectations (207f.) and the suggestion of “nerve-shattering persecution, questioning, abuse” once suffered by Unrat at their hands (“nervenzerstörenden Verfolgung, Anzweiflung, Verhöhnung”, 212) confirm his role reversal as an instrument, not merely a target, of punitive satire.

130 The suddenness of satiric unmasking of a whole system, which Lukács remarked upon in the Köpenick affair,54 is embodied in the Unrat figure’s role reversal, his embodiment of two contradictory drives of the same body politic, exposed as if by a sudden jolt, “like the cinematograph’s”. Out of this contradiction comes the social diffusion of a Dionysian momentum.55 Film might, indeed, have represented the epidemic “moral dissolution” (“sittliche Auflösung”, 152) in the manner of G. W. Pabst’s Die Büchse der Pandora, but on the apocalyptic scale of Metropolis. Unrat’s satyric metamorphosis is an allegory of satire’s power, but the allegory’s power to deconstruct realistic character psychology is deconstructed, in turn – along with the binary rationale of self-reassurance in face of the ‘other’ – in the “comic ending” which Mann reaffirmed.56 The novel’s finale is a carnivalesque procession of the crowd (“Gedränge”) pursuing the arrested couple through “the town”: “At last! The pressure of its own vice was lifted from it [⫽ the town], as the opportunity for it was removed. Coming to, people glanced at the dead bodies all around them and discovered that it was high time” (238).57 From the brewery wagon Kieselack chants Unrat’s “name” again, once more like “a piece of dirt flung after him” (“ein ihm nachfliegendes Stück Schmutz”, 238), and the jet of water that drowns his indignation in comic fashion has the quality of a Simplicissimus cartoon.58 Adorno regarded the last sentence as unequalled in German literature:59 He shook his fist, gasped – neck protruding – for air, but Herr Dröge’s jet of water hit him straight in the mouth. He spluttered, received a shove from behind, stumbled 54

Georg Lukács: Zur Frage der Satire. In: Georg Lukács: Probleme des Realismus. 1. Essays über Realismus. Werke. Vol. 4/1. Neuwied: Luchterhand 1971. Pp. 83–107. Here Pp. 92f. 55 Unrat’s transition is marked by the headmaster accusing him of presiding over his class’s “moral dissolution” and alluding to its infectiousness (152). It is significant that – as in Der Tod in Venedig – Rosa’s laughter signals infection (186). Perhaps it is no coincidence that the literary metaphor of serial infection was also avoided by Visconti’s Death in Venice. 56 “Unrat as a clown, dying at his desk, was wrong, however effectively Jannings played his death. […] The comic ending of the novel is without doubt the right one […]” (“Unrat als Clown und sterbend auf dem Katheder war falsch, so wirksam Jannings den Tod gespielt hat. […] Der Komödienschluß des Romans ist zweifellos der richtige […]”). Heinrich Mann: Letter to Erich Ebermayer of 18.8.1931. Quoted in: Heinrich Mann. 1871 bis 1950. Werk und Leben in Dokumenten und Bildern. Ed. by Sigrid Anger. Berlin – Weimar: Aufbau 1971. P. 240. 57 “Endlich! Der Druck ihres eigenen Lasters ward von ihr [ ⫽ der Stadt. G.C.] genommen, da die Gelegenheit dazu entfernt ward. Man warf, zu sich kommend, einen Blick auf die Leichen ringsumher und entdeckte, daß es höchste Zeit sei” (238). 58 For water-cannon used against a crowd at a military parade see Bruno Paul: Kaiserparade in Altona. In: Simplicissimus. Vol. 9. 1904–5. In: Christ: Simplicissimus. P. 135. 59 Adorno: Ein Titel. P. 655. Quoted in: Werner: Heinrich Mann. P. 126.

131 up on to the running-board, ending up head-over-heels on the upholstery next to Fröhlich the artist – and in darkness.60

The final darkness of the ‘black Maria’ here is a literary ‘iris out’ – but not the melancholic blackness of Rath’s schoolroom death, which is cited as an example of Sternberg’s “aptitude” for showing “the interconnexions of the outward and the inward” in the emotional “play of light”.61 Light as a medium of these interconnections was in essence the language of silent cinema, as exemplified by Lang’s Metropolis. So what difference did sound make? Sternberg is reputedly a master in the use of unintelligible sound, of language as aural material, not as verbal communication,62 but the film misses the best example of this in the novel, where Rosa’s singing is first heard as cacophony: “[…] Unrat appeared to see the female herself in the form of a noise” (53)63 – a truly synaesthetic image of the engulfing of identity by Angst-ridden noise, echoing Edvard Munch’s The Scream. It may be a disproportionate contrast when one critic plays Jannings’ “naturalistic” acting off against Dietrich’s “new kind of acting style”, which had heralded the identification of actress and role in the myth-building of the film industry.64 One may also query Carole Zucker’s contrast of Rath’s antiquated clothing with the ‘twenties setting,65 by noting the film’s contrived anachronisms of small-town and petite bourgeoisie, which correspond to the pseudo-Gothic, even pseudo-Biedermeier element of Weimar cinema often labelled ‘expressionist’.66 But this impresses on us the film’s only convincing contrast. As it undermines this, its own kitsch stereotype, by means of the impact of the ‘modern’ femme fatale-chanteuse on a purely technical and physical level, as Dietrich’s singing communicates this breath of modernity directly, it celebrates the sound era’s triumph over the contrived sets of the silent era, which this film as a whole proliferates.

60

“Er schüttelte die Faust, er schnappte, den Hals vorgestreckt, in die Luft: aber Herrn Dröges Strahl prallte ihm gerade in den Mund. Er sprudelte Wasser, empfing von hinten einen Stoß, stolperte das Trittbrett hinan und gelangte kopfüber auf das Polster neben der Künstlerin Fröhlich und ins Dunkel” (238f.). 61 Marcel Oms: Josef von Sternberg. In: Sternberg. Ed. by Baxter. Pp. 59–80. Here P. 64. 62 Koch: Between two worlds. P. 65. 63 “[…] es dünkte Unrat, als sei die Frauensperson selbst anzusehen wie ein Gekreisch” (53). 64 Koch: Between two worlds. Pp. 60–72. Here Pp. 68f. 65 Zucker: The idea of the image. P. 49. 66 Elsaesser: Weimar cinema. P. 242: “a tourist Germany” of “half-timbered houses. Steep cobbled streets in crooked townscapes”. Cf. Baxter: The cinema of Josef von Sternberg. P. 70.

WÄLSUNGENBLUT - BRD 1964 Regie: Rolf Thiele Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Yahya Elsaghe

German Film Adaptations of Jewish Characters in Thomas Mann Jewish characters figure prominently in Thomas Mann’s narrative works and are, especially in his early novels and novellas, regularly marked by anti-Semitic stereotypes. This article examines the comparatively large number of films based on the works of Thomas Mann in the light of the question whether and how the anti-Semitic undercurrent of the written texts surfaces when they are adapted for film. In one way or another, all of these post-war productions are related to the specific role Thomas Mann played, and continues to play, in the process of German collective self-reassurance.

Jewish characters appear in almost all of Thomas Mann’s novels, and in many of his novellas. Especially in the early works, on which the author’s canonical status is founded and which have also been predominantly considered for film adaptations, such Jewish characters carry the stereotypical marks of anti-Semitism. To name only a few examples of the most ubiquitous of all somatic stereotypes, the “Jewish” “nose”:1 In Buddenbrooks, Hermann Hagenström’s “rather flat nose” ‘hangs’ “down over his upper lip”.2 In the novella Tristan, Detlev Spinell’s “nose” is “squat and a bit too fleshy”.3 In Blood of the Volsungs, the Aarenhold twins have the “same slightly downpressed nose”.4 And in Royal Highness, Doctor Sammet’s “nose, which” is “too broad at the bottom, point[s] to his origin”.5 That these noses tend to be only “rather”, “slightly” or “a bit too” “flat”, “fleshy” and “downpressed” ‘points to’ the position of Mann’s texts within the history of Jewish assimilation. The origin of these slightly downpressed noses is usually not made explicit, which is part and parcel of a specific experimental arrangement. The experiment, in which the texts are thus offering to engage their readers, 1

Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain. A Novel. Trans. by John E. Woods. New York: Vintage 1996. P. 379; Gesammelte Werke. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 2nd ed. 1974. Vol. 3. P. 534: “Judennase”. 2 Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks. The Decline of a Family. Trans. by John E. Woods. New York: Vintage 1994. P. 59; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 1. P. 64: “aber seine Nase lag ein wenig platt auf der Oberlippe”. 3 Thomas Mann: Death in Venice and Other Tales. Trans. by Joachim Neugroschel. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1998. P. 112; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. P. 223: “die Nase gedrungen und ein wenig zu fleischig”. 4 Death in Venice and Other Tales. P. 256; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. P. 381: “dieselbe ein wenig niedergedrückte Nase”. 5 Thomas Mann: Royal Highness. Trans. by A. Cecil Curtis. London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1916. P. 18; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 2. P. 28: “seine Nase, zu flach auf den Schnurrbart abfallend, deutete auf seine Herkunft hin”.

134 consists in identifying ‘the Jew’ even where his typical markers are only “slightly” visible. With regard to the namings of the characters, the texts play the same sort of detective game. The significance of the ‘Jewish’ names is usually not made explicit; instead, it is left to be deduced by the readers themselves. Thus, the texts are again meeting the readers’ desire to recognize ‘the’ Jew under any given circumstances. Held against Wagner’s Ring, “Hagenström” certainly becomes a telling name – the traitor Hagen in Fritz Lang’s Nibelungen also carrying a set of overstereotyped ‘Jewish’ markers –; besides, in the early conceptions of the novel, this character was supposed to bear the probably most typical of all Jewish last names: “Kohn”; and even now, in the final version, Hagenström’s mother is née Semlinger from Frankfurt, whose name at closer scrutiny thus ‘points’ back ‘to’ Shem, the common ancestor of all Semites.6 Likewise, the Aarenholds’ surname ‘points to’ a descendant of Shem’s. The Aarenholds’ family’s friends in turn bear a ‘Jewish’ name too: “Erlanger[]”, a marker of Jewishness by way of its typical reference to city of origin (Erlangen). Furthermore, in accordance with a frequent type of Jewish selfnaming – after merchandise – Dr Sammet is the bearer of a ‘textile’ name easily decipherable as Jewish. And the same generative grammar of Jewish names seems also to have generated the name “Spinell”, which is as such not verifiable: As Mann’s excerpts from an encyclopedia complacently state, ‘spinel’ is a mineral and only in certain instances a jewel7 (the jewel, of course, being a typically ‘Jewish’ merchandise). It is here that the significance of the name as stigma is addressed, if only indirectly, when a character asks back: “What is the gentleman’s name, […] Spinelli?”.8 Dr Leander, a successfully assimilated Jew and a textbook example of ‘Jewish self-hatred’, answers by playing down, yet simultaneously emphasizing his own knowledge of Spinell’s obviously shameful origin: “Spinell… not Spinelli […]. No, he’s no Italian. He was simply” – “bloß”9 – “born in Lemberg, as far as I know…”.10 Thus, the game that Mann’s early works keep offering their readers might be called: How can we recognize the Jew under the circumstances of his virtually perfect assimilation? Therefore, these texts and their early reception belong to 6 Gen. 10:21–32; The Bible. Authorized King James Version with Apocryphia. Introd. by Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997. P. 11. 7 Thomas Mann: Notizbücher. Ed. by Hans Wysling and Yvonne Schmidlin. Vol. 2. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1992. P. 28; italics added. 8 Death in Venice and Other Tales. P. 114; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. P. 225: “‘Wie heißt der Herr?’ fragte sie… ‘Spinelli?’ ”. 9 Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. P. 225. 10 Death in Venice and Other Tales. P. 114; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. P. 225: “Spinell… nicht Spinelli […]. Nein, er ist kein Italiener, sondern bloß aus Lemberg gebürtig, soviel ich weiß…”

135 the history not only of Jewish assimilation, but of its failure. The fact that this was totally disregarded by German scholars obviously has to do with the political role that fell upon the Mann brothers ever since they went into exile. As an icon of the ‘other’ Germany, Thomas Mann seems to play an important part in German self-reassurance. The comparatively large number of films into which Mann’s works have been transposed after World War II is to be situated in precisely this context, not least with regard to the successful efforts of the author and his entourage to lay out the guidelines for their reception. In the 1950s and 1960s, for instance, the film-based reception of Mann’s works stood under the direct influence, if not control of Erika Mann. The German post-war film industry has contributed substantially to the imaging of Thomas Mann as a guarantor of the ‘good’ Germany and to the spreading of this unambiguous image far beyond the realm of his actual readers. This can be exemplified by closely scrutinizing the films’ treatment of Jewish characters. Their treatment quite obviously meets the desire to dissociate the author from the Shoah and its prehistory. The liberty the film adaptations take in comparison with the texts follows a detectable pattern. Names with a Jewish ring to them and other markers of Judaism are substituted. Jewish elements and, above all, antiSemitic stigmatizations are erased systematically. Or else, Jewish characters and their parts are omitted altogether. The adaptations of the afore mentioned texts may serve as paradigms for this phenomenon: Harald Braun’s 1953 Königliche Hoheit, the first and very successful Mann film in German post-war cinema; Alfred Weidenmann’s 1959 Buddenbrooks; Rolf Thiele’s 1964 Wälsungenblut; Herbert Ballmann’s Tristan, which was broadcast by the Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen in 1975 in commemoration of the author’s centenary. In the film script to Wälsungenblut, the original aggression of a Jewish family towards a respectable German nobleman is turned into the aggression of nobility towards an honest German Bürger, without a single critic making if only a brief remark on this metamorphosis. This honest German no longer bears the name of “von Beckerath”, but only “Beckerath”. The ‘originally’ so revealing name of the aggressor-family is now, in turn, “von Arnstatt” instead of “Aarenhold”. In accordance with this aryanization and ennoblement of the whole milieu, the friends of the Arnstatts can no longer be called “Erlanger[]”; instead, they are now bestowed with an ultra-Germanic name indeed: “Donnersmarck”. The same applies for the maiden name “Semlinger” in the Buddenbrooks adaptation. That name is now not only rid of the anti-Semitic emphasis given to it by Tony Buddenbrook and the narrator himself, but simply not mentioned at all.11 The name of 11

Buddenbrooks. P. 58: “a young woman from Frankfurt – née Semlinger, by the way – a lady who had extraordinarily thick black hair and the largest diamonds in the city”. P. 114: “How could we do without Sarah Semlinger?” / “Her name’s Laura, my girl,

136 Hagenström – and this alone, if nothing else, would prove its anti-Semitic incriminability – turns into “Wagenström”. In Wälsungenblut, the part of the male protagonist is played by an actor, Michael Maien, who was quite obviously supposed to and, upon evidence of the film critiques,12 did in fact trigger reminiscences of the main actor in an almost ten years older film adaptation, i.e. of Horst Buchholz in Kurt Hoffmann’s Felix Krull. Another ten years later, Gerd Baltus, who played the part of the respectable German in Wälsungenblut, appears as Detlev Spinell in the Tristan adaptation. Just as the part of Siegmund Aarenhold is associated with Horst Buchholz and Felix Krull and hence with anything but Jewishness, the part of Spinell is kept clear of all Jewish connotations through the cinematic identity of Spinell with Beckerath. In accordance with this, the passage in the Tristan novella making direct reference to Spinell’s name and at the same time to his typically Jewish origin is manipulated in the dialogue of the film. Only one, yet the crucial word is left out. In his correction of Spinell’s origin, Leander baulks at the adverb that disparages this origin explicitly and eventually renders his name suspicious. For now, Spinell was no longer born “simply in Lemberg”, but only “in Lemberg”. Yet often, such manipulations and corrections are not even necessary. They are superfluous wherever Jewish characters are not to be found among the main characters and where their elimination therefore leaves no dramaturgical gap. Minor Jewish characters more often than not are simply dropped in the course of transferring the text to post-war cinema. In the film version of Königliche Hoheit, for instance, which was, by the way, acclaimed by the author himself,13 the search for a character of even the slightest resemblance to Dr Sammet would be to no avail; and Dr Sammet shares this cinematic fate for example with Tamara in Hans W. Geißendörfer’s Zauberberg, with the proto-fascist Chaim Breisacher in Franz Seitz’s Doktor Faustus and there above all with Kunigunde Rosenstiel. The eliminations of so many Jewish characters, which obviously dispense from a closer inquiry into the question of how to deal with Mann’s markers of their otherness, show disturbing correspondences to what has been called German Vergangenheitspolitik. It is both part and expression of the denial of what renders the treatment of Jewish otherness so hard to this day. And it is repressed in the exact sense that the verb takes on within psychoanalysis. Such repressions per se remain incomplete. The repressed is doomed to return in the end. let’s be fair”; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 1. P. 62: “eine junge Frankfurterin […], eine Dame mit außerordentlich dickem schwarzen Haar und den größten Brillanten der Stadt an den Ohren, die übrigens Semlinger hieß”. P. 118: “Wie wäre Sara Semlinger wohl entbehrlich…” / “Sie heißt übrigens Laura, mein Kind, man muß gerecht sein”. 12 See e.g. Erich Kocian: “Wir bleiben literarisch”. Rolf Thiele dreht Thomas Manns Wälsungenblut. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung (1 June 1964). P. 22. 13 Hans Wysling (ed.): Thomas Mann. Vol. 1: 1889–1917. Munich: Heimeran 1975. P. 276 (Dichter über ihre Dichtungen. Vol. 14.I).

137 The playful employment of anti-Semitic stereotypes of ‘the’ Jews, of which the film adaptations in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were cleansed, suddenly resurfaces in a later film adaptation of Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. It reappears just where it was least to be expected. Its return can by no means be put down to the assumption that such Jewish and anti-Semitic markings might have been employed in order to serve the purpose of loyalty to the author’s text. For these markings now appear in contexts in which Mann did not hint at Jewishness at all. They affect the portraits of two characters who connect Krull with the demimonde, when he himself is about to commit criminal offences: a prostitute, whose pimp Krull becomes in the Frankfurt chapters; a Parisian clockmaker and fence, with the help of whom Krull converts his first major loot to a starting capital for his career as confidence man. Hence, in contrast to the Frankfurt prostitute, the Parisian fence plays such an important part in the plot that he cannot be as easily omitted in the cinematic re-narration. Rozsa, the prostitute, “had been born in Hungary”,14 came to Frankfurt via Vienna and is other than that of “the most doubtful antecedents”.15 Such an uncertain, but certainly not German descent is of interest here. For here, as usual in Mann, desire springs from an implosion of the symbolical order. Here again, sexual arousal coincides with a collapse of logically functioning language in general and with the seeping away of German speech in particular: “her speech was broken and ungrammatical; indeed, she did not know German at all, so that her words and expressions were often completely absurd and verged strangely upon the irrational”.16 A narrator of a novel can easily claim a strange verging of a character’s language “upon the irrational”. He has no obligation to exemplify his claim. When drafting the dialogues of a film script, however, this verging might pose quite something of a challenge. In the first film adaptation of the novel, Kurt Hoffmann did not have to face this challenge in the first place. For here, in 1957, the character of the prostitute was omitted altogether for obvious reasons. Yet for the film adaptation of Felix Krull produced by Bernhard Sinkel for the Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen and the Österreichische Rundfunk, first broadcast in 1982 and then repeated several times, the problem was solved in a rather far-fetched, but telling way. Sinkel simply makes the prostitute speak Yiddish. Sinkel’s solution, of course, is far-fetched in as much as it can hardly 14

Thomas Mann: Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. Trans. by Denver Lindley. New York: Vintage 1992. P. 115; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 382: “war aus Ungarn gebürtig”. 15 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 115; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 382: “ungewissester Herkunft”. 16 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 114; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 381: “sie [sprach] gebrochen und fehlerhaft, ja konnte eigentlich überhaupt kein Deutsch, so daß ihre Worte und Wortfügungen oft ganz verkehrt waren und sonderbar ins Unsinnige entglitten”.

138 be claimed that Yiddish should be “not […] German at all”. Yet the solution appears somewhat telling and compelling, since Yiddish had obviously become sufficiently estranged to the German and Austrian television audience of the 1980s to present an adequate way of staging the other of everything ‘German’. In addition, a Jewish identity of the prostitute appears to correspond very well to the little information we have about her: her origin from the European East; her association with Vienna as a centre of Jewish migration to the West; her being situated in Frankfurt as the German city of the most distinct ‘Jewish’ connotation of all. But above all, Rozsa, the Jewess, corresponds to a particular form the stereotype of the beautiful Jewess took on at the end of the nineteenth century. The stereotype of Jewish prostitutes, especially those of Hungarian and Austrian origin, and the anti-Semitic energy it springs from, are well documented for the exact time in which Krull and Rosza are supposed to have met.17 The liberty Sinkel took with regard to the other character to whom he attributed a Jewish identity in spite of the text might well be motivated in a similar way. In the book version, the fence is referred to by Krull as “cutthroat”18 even before their first personal encounter. On the occasion of this first encounter, Krull then gives a short portrait of his, i.e. of the fence’s, “cheerless, depressing” appearance.19 In the course of the “haggling”,20 his “malformed cheeks” begin to “quiver of greed”,21 just as he cannot quite conceal the “glitter in his eyes” and the “smacking of his lips”.22 Physically revolting as he is, the fence endulges in unceasing attempts to cheat the hero, even if to no, or eventually to only very little, avail; and yet, he too appears infatuated with him. The confidence man, however, pays the fence back by eventually adopting his identity; for he gives a department store instructions to send the old worn clothes that he has now been able to replace to “Pierre Jean-Pierre, quatre-vingt-douze, Rue

17

See e.g. Klaus Hödl: Die Pathologisierung des jüdischen Körpers. Antisemitismus, Geschlecht und Medizin im Fin de Siècle. Wien: Picus 1997. P. 191; Albert von Deréger: Die Thätigkeit der Antisemiten im Landtage. In: Freies Blatt 26 (1892). P. 3; Mittheilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 7 (1897). P. 107. 18 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 141; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 408: “Halsabschneider”. 19 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 154; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 422: “eine leider vorkommende, unerfreuliche Bildung”. 20 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 159; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 428: “Feilschen”. 21 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. Pp. 155, 157; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. Pp. 425–426: “Das Beben seiner mißschaffenen Backen”, “Zittern der Gier”. 22 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 157; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 425: “Schmatzen seiner Lippen”.

139 de L’Échelle au Ciel”.23 Here, Pierre Jean-Pierre is quite obviously Catholic. His name refers both to Christ’s favourite apostle and to the ‘rock’ the Catholic Church is founded upon. Moreover, his surname and his ‘Christian’ name fit in exactly with the isotopies already evoked by the sacred place and street names in the directions given to Krull in order to find “quatre-vingt-douze, Rue de L’Échelle au Ciel”: “Montmartre”; “Sacré-Coeur”; and, last not least, “rue des Vierges prudentes”24 – another phantasy name, which, when read against the backdrop of the novel’s cinematic reception, has something piquant about it: For there is an anti-Semitic tradition of an allegorical understanding of ‘the wise and the foolish virgins’, which goes back to Jerome25 and was widely promoted through Christian iconography.26 In Sinkel’s film adaptation, the fence’s Christian surname is substituted for by a stereotypically Jewish name: “Jean-Pierre Blumenberg”. The ‘Jewishness’ of this name is then met exactly by the appearance of its bearer. While, in the text, the fence’s dress is not alluded to at all, he now wears a kippah. And what is more, the colour of his hair, his physiognomy and his posture all piece together the portrait of a clichéd Jew, whose identity Krull can no longer adopt now. The question how Sinkel could have come up with the idea of this substitution needs not really be posed. The equation of Jews with profiteers and fences belongs to the standard repertoire of anti-Semitic stereotypes.27 Here, in accordance with the prostitute’s speaking Yiddish, the film begins to make its own sense despite all the liberty Sinkel takes in departing from the novel’s text. For held against Mann’s stereotyped Jewish characters, the Pierre Jean-Pierre of the novel in fact shares their characteristics to a remarkable extent. He is as ugly as Leo Naphta, Hermann or Moritz Hagenström. He is mean even in his infatuation, as greedy as the Hagenströms or as M. Blüthenzweig in Gladius Dei, whose business-mindedness also shows reflexes in his body. He even shares the title of “cutthroat”, bestowed on him by Krull right from the beginning, with a Jewish banker who was the death of Krull’s father.28 Instead of scandalizing the liberty Sinkel takes in falling back 23

Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 161; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 430. Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. P. 141; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. Pp. 408–409. 25 S. Hieronymus: Commentariorum in Matheum Libri IV. Turnholti: Brepols Editores Pontificii 1969. Pp. 235–236 (Corpus christianorum. Series Latina 77). 26 See Ulrich Luz: Das Evangelium nach Matthäus. Vol. 3: Mt 18–25. Zürich and Düsseldorf: Benziger, and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1997. P. 483 (Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 1). 27 Theodor Fritsch [Thomas Frey]: Antisemiten-Katechismus. Eine Zusammenfassung des wichtigsten Materials zum Verständniß der Judenfrage. Leipzig: Herm[ann] Beyer 25th ed. 1893. P. 174; Hartwig von Hundt-Radowsky: Judenspiegel. Ein Schand- und Sittengemälde alter und neuer Zeit. Würzburg: Christian Schlagebart 1819. Pp. 68, 86. 28 Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. Pp. 51–52; Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7. P. 319: “Halsabschneider”. 24

140 on the repertoire of anti-Semitic stereotyping, one may also ask why he actually had to make use of this liberty in the first place. Why is it that the character of least likeableness to the reader is not already called ‘Blumenberg’ in Mann? Why was it left to Sinkel to grasp this opportunity to employ stereotypes which Thomas Mann otherwise, as for example in the case of the other “cutthroat”, would hardly have missed? An answer to this question might best be approached by differentiating between Mann’s Jewish characters in the order of their creation. Both the fence and the prostitute belong to the later chapters of the novel, which was written over the stretch of half a century. And now, in contrast to the earlier chapters, in which a Jew and “cutthroat” is made responsible for the death of Krull’s father, characters such as the Parisian fence or the Frankfurt prostitute can no longer be marked as ‘Jewish’. For the distribution of Jewish characters throughout Mann’s oeuvre follows a disturbingly clearcut and hauntingly coherent pattern. After 1945, Jewish characters disappear from Mann’s novels and novellas. Hence, even the film adaptations of the early works, in which Jewish characters have either become indecipherable as such or have been entirely omitted, cannot be denied a certain faithfulness to the author’s legacy. Their elimination of anything ‘Jewish’, as helpless as involuntarily telling, reproduces and indeed prolongs a trajectory within Mann’s oeuvre itself. And their denials of anything anti-Semitic correspond exactly to the late attempts of the exiled author to cover up the anti-Semitism of his early works.

Birgit Maier-Katkin

Literary and Cinematographic Reflections on the Human Condition by Anna Seghers and Fred Zinnemann The writer Anna Seghers and filmmaker Fred Zinnemann both depict the erosion of the human condition in Nazi Germany. This discussion focuses on the divergence of narrative style and imagery in their respective works; the variance is not only due to the different media, book and film, but also to their two differing social environments (French exile and America during WWII) which resulted in two different discernments of the effects of political events in Nazi Germany. While the book examines a people’s diverse and complicated response to Nazi intrusion into their individual lives and community, the film creates the story of one escapee whose inner strengths triumph over Nazi power with the help of others in the German community. The difference in representation in the two works reflects conflicting ideas of historical understanding: the film accepts the idea of a coherent, heroic, and teleological sequence while the novel, like Benjamin’s “Angel of History”, sees the past as an idiosyncratic and shifting narrative of fragmented and contradicting experiences.

When Anna Seghers wrote The Seventh Cross in the late 1930s she saw herself as a chronicler of her time who gathers diverse and multiple mnemonic remnants of historical experience. This novel in particular is an endeavor to portray a general picture of society by piecing together fragmented and seemingly minor historical moments which become associated with the devastating political events of the mid 1930s in Nazi Germany. This book caught the attention of Hollywood and in 1944, under the direction of Fred Zinnemann, The Seventh Cross was made into a successful film. Like Seghers’ novel, Zinnemann’s film engages in discourse on the human condition in totalitarian circumstances. Yet while his cinematography could have easily adapted the novel’s liveliness of multiple micro-stories, countless characterial perspectives and social spheres of life which simultaneously blend into each other, the film focuses instead on the master narrative of one escapee. At the center of the film’s attention stands one person whose inner strengths triumph over Nazi power with the help of others in the German community. This is evident right from the beginning when a voice-over announces that this is one story of many recounting events in Europe. In Zinnemann’s motion picture Seghers’ complex and ambivalent message about diverse and complicated responses to Nazi intrusion into individual and community life is reduced to one optimistic historical lesson: that good can prevail over evil. This variance in representation reflects conflicting philosophies of history. The film accepts the idea of a coherent, heroic, and teleological sequence,

142 while the novel, like Walter Benjamin’s “Angel of History”,1 contemplates the past as an idiosyncratic and shifting narrative of multiple fragmented and contradictory experiences. The focus of this essay is on the differences of historical narrative and message in both artistic venues. It places the literary and cinematographic images in their respective socio-political circumstance. The paper shows that the two narratives and their receptions have been shaped by the differing conditions under which they were created, i.e. Seghers’ experience of exile from Germany and Zinnemann’s experience of Word War II America. Moreover it argues that the two varied views in film and novel are related to different understandings of the human condition in a totalitarian regime. Anna Seghers and Fred Zinnemann both emerged from emancipated and assimilated Jewish families. Born in 1900, Seghers grew up in Mainz, Zinnemann – younger by seven years – was raised in Vienna. Although Seghers completed a dissertation in art history at the University of Heidelberg in 1924, it was her subsequent success as a publicly celebrated writer and her active participation in the communist party that brought her fame and recognition.2 Even when forced into exile by the Nazis, Seghers continued to write and to participate with other exiles in discussions about history, literature, and the sociopolitical circumstances of their own time. Her significant achievement in exile is her portrayal of German society, particularly the daily lives of ordinary men and women during the Fascist period. Zinnemann, who had begun to study law at the University of Vienna abandoned university education to attend film school in Paris in 1927. After working as an assistant cameraman in Paris and Berlin and taking part in such famous films as Robert Siodmak’s documentary Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1929), he emigrated to the United States.3 By 1941, Zinnemann had become a feature director. Unlike Seghers 1

Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of Paul Klee’s painting, published in the ninth thesis of “Über den Begriff der Geschichte” (Theses on the Philosophy of History), captures a view of history that involves discontinuity rather than progress in human affairs. Benjamin’s focus on broken and fragmented pieces of historical events recognizes the need to preserve such remnants of human experience for cultural memory. Walter Benjamin: Über den Begriff der Geschichte. Ed. by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser. Frankfurt/Main: 1974. Pp. 697–698 (Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 1.2). 2 In 1928, she became a widely celebrated writer by winning the prestigious Kleist Prize for two of her works: Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara (The Revolt of the Fishermen) and Grubetsch. In the same year Seghers joined the communist party and participated actively in its Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller (proletarian and revolutionary writers association). Influenced by the vibrant energy of the Weimar Republic and a rise in professional opportunities for women, Seghers sought out the world of politics, intellectual discourse, and social issues to form and consolidate her personal interests and political convictions. 3 Zinnemann landed a part as an extra in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). In 1937 he signed on with MGM’s shorts department, and in 1938 won an Oscar for That Mothers Might Live.

143 who returned to Germany after World War II, he stayed in America and achieved great fame with such successful Hollywood films as High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), and A Man for All Seasons (1966).4 From the beginning of their careers both, Seghers and Zinnemann, were interested in social commentary. Immersed in different artistic modes, each explored the idea of documentary with a special focus on questions of individual conscience and identity, especially in the face of oppression.5 Unlike Seghers, who was actively involved with the communist party, Zinnemann did not associate with any specific political programs or ideology, but nevertheless was interested in the idea of human rights and found the theme of oppression exciting.6 When MGM bought Helen Deutsch’s screenplay based on Anna Seghers’ novel The Seventh Cross, Zinnemann immediately recognized that here was a social message about Germany. As a person who had grown up in Austria, he saw the film as an opportunity to bring the shocking situation in Europe closer to the American public and to give his audience a more considered perspective on the humanity of Germans.7 With an excellent cast that included Spencer Tracy, Signe

4

For more detail on his films see The Films of Fred Zinnemann. Critical Perspectives. Ed. by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Albany (NY) 1999 (The SUNY Series. Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video). 5 Like Seghers, Zinnemann “felt a strong sense of social commitment in his work”. Ibid. P. 39. Rather ironically both artists made their debut into their respective fields by addressing the poor, disadvantaged and exploited plight of fishermen: In her first major and award winning novel The Revolt of the Fishermen, Seghers portrays the effects of poverty and misery which drives fishermen into an unsuccessful and disastrous rebellion. In 1934 Zinnemann receives his first credit and professional visibility as a director for a Mexican Government film entitled The Wave (Redes or Pescados, 1934–35). The film focuses on the efforts of a young fisherman to form a union and improve the lives of fishermen of the Gulf of Vera Cruz. Brian Neve writes: “When the film was shown in Los Angeles in 1937, it won the young Zinnemann the welcome security of a contract with MGM, and the direction of eighteen short subjects over the next five years”. Brian Neve: A Past Master of his Craft. An Interview with Fred Zinnemann. Ed. by Gary Crowdus. New York (NY) 1997. P. 15 (Cinéaste 23.1). 6 During an interview with the journal Cinéaste, Zinnemann said in 1997 that at the time when he worked on The Wave he was politically naïve but found the theme of oppression exciting. He claims, “I had always thought that human rights were above property rights, but I belonged to no party. I was never politically organized”, at that time, Soviet filmmaking and especially Eisenstein were of interest to Zinnemann for their use of montage in shaping films and in expressing oppression. Ibid. P. 16. 7 Incidentally even Zinnemann’s next major feature film The Search (1948) about the immediate and desperate refugee problem in postwar Europe, was still motivated by his concern that the American public did not have a real understanding of the suffering and pain in Europe. America continued to hold on to its isolationist world view, unable to acknowledge that the world had changed. Arthur Nolletti: Introduction. In: The Films of Fred Zinnemann. Critical Perspectives. Ed. by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Albany (NY) 1999. Pp. 1–10 (The SUNY Series. Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video).

144 Hasso, and Hume Cronym, this production became Zinnemann’s first ‘A’ film.8 By 1944, when the film was released, Seghers’ novel had already received considerable public attention in America and in Mexico – her place of exile. Seghers who fled the Nazis immediately upon their rise to power in 1933, wrote The Seventh Cross between 1937 and 1939 in France. She received a transit visa to Mexico in 1941 just in time to save herself and her immediate family from the approaching German army. The novel was published in 1942 in English in America, as well as in German and Spanish in Mexico. Although Seghers herself was denied entry to the United States, her novel was widely celebrated in America and became her most successful and well-known publication. In addition to having been made into a major Hollywood production, between 1942 and 1946 the novel was a Book-of-the-Month Club best seller and a comic strip.9 It is a remarkable achievement that this stridently anti-fascist portrayal of National Socialism was so well received at a time when publishers and film studios had grown tired of the hackneyed propaganda which permeated most exile literature. Very few exile writers achieved this level of recognition and success.10 During the exile years, Seghers’ communist agenda softened into a sentiment that the exile community should come together in a united fight against fascism, instead of insisting on their original political divisions. One finds this attitude 8 Wheeler Winston Dixon: Act of Violence (1949) and the Early Films of Fred Zinnemann. In: The Films of Fred Zinnemann. Critical Perspectives. Ed. by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Albany (NY) 1999. P. 40 (The SUNY Series. Cultural Studies in Cinema/ Video). 9 When the English edition of the novel appeared in 1942, 600000 copies were printed, see Ursula Emmerich and Erika Pick: Beim Lesen eines Briefwechsels. In: Anna Seghers and Wieland Herzfeld. Gewöhnliches und gefährliches Leben. Ein Briefwechsel aus der Zeit des Exils 1939–1946. Mit Faksimiles, Fotos und dem Aufsatz ⬎Frauen und Kinder in der Emigration⬍ von Anna Seghers im Anhang. Ed. by Ursula Emmerich and Erika Pick. Berlin 1985. P. 27. Christiane Zehl Romero writes that Seghers’ success in America was also partially due to her friendships and good connections to such friends and fellow exiles like Franz Carl Weiskopf, who had already established themselves in the American publishing world. Christiane Zehl Romero: “Armer und lieber Sagetet” – Anna Seghers and Franz Carl Weiskopf. In: Seghers in Perspective. Ed. by Ian Wallace. Amsterdam – New York (NY) 1998. P. 43 (German Monitor 43). The popularity of this book can be in part explained by its antifascist theme and plea for humanity. Sabine Brandt also points out that there was perhaps in 1942 a greater openness towards a communist writer like Anna Seghers in America, because of the Russian American alliance at that time. Sabine Brandt: Vor der Abdankung. In: »Das siebte Kreuz« von Anna Seghers. Texte, Daten, Bilder. Ed. by Sonja Hilzinger. Frankfurt/Main: 1990. Pp. 191–195. As Stephan has shown, however, this understanding was not extended to Seghers herself; as a devoted communist she was under FBI surveillance and not allowed to live in America. Alexander Stephan: “Communazis”. FBI Surveillance of German Emigré Writers. Trans. by Jan van Heurck. New Haven (CT) 2000. 10 See, Stephan: Communazis. P. ix.

145 reflected in the Seventh Cross in which a diverse cast of characters portray all segments of society. Multiple lives from many different social domains are shown in their connection to regional and historical traditions, as well as to current socio-political circumstance in the Frankfurt-Main area in the mid 1930s. The narrative extends beyond Seghers’ earlier more doctrinaire themes of proletarian rights and communist revolution, focusing more generally on concepts of human dignity and human rights for all people regardless of social standing. Immersed in “erlebte Wirklichkeit” (experienced reality), each of the novel’s seven chapters describes one day. On Monday morning, seven inmates escape from a local concentration camp. By Sunday six have been recaptured and bound on crosses in the camp. The seventh cross remains empty as the main protagonist Georg Heisler evades being taken and makes his way to Holland. Heisler’s story of escape is embedded in the multiple stories of men, women, and children in all spheres of life. Seghers describes the concentration camp leaders and their inmates, she portrays prosperous burghers of towns and cities, members of the intelligentsia, doctors, priests, skilled workers and farmers, as well as Georg’s family and friends. Each person is judged according to his or her stance toward National Socialism and is depicted as oppressor, co-conspirator, sympathizer, bystander, Nazi victim, or resister. Details of daily life are so prevalent that even the aromas of coffee, Streuselkuchen, Apfelkuchen, and Sauerbraten11 permeate the scenes. Seghers presents a slice of German life; ordinary people go to work, eat, sleep, go shopping, enjoy courtships, and get married. As she weaves the political events into daily experience elements of Hitler’s policies enter the consciousness and everyday activities of the German people. In this way, the novel’s atmosphere and immense cast of characters creates a captivating picture of everyday life under Nazi dictatorship. At the end the novel expresses a hopeful expectation about the fragility of Hitler’s regime and the strength of the German people to penetrate it. Yet despite the happy ending of Heisler’s successful escape, the text also leaves the reader with an eerie sense of a community that is slowly eroding and adapting to Nazi politics. This is accomplished by a consistent juxtaposition of ordinary and extraordinary experiences in this one week filled with normal and exceptional events. The text’s redolence of German culinary scents contends with the stench that clings to Georg and his fellow inmates with its intimations of the concentration camp and in some sense the entire Nazi state. This not only evokes a metaphoric comparison to funeral practices where the sweetness of flowers counteracts the smell of death, but also acknowledges how different life experiences can coincide; while some people enjoy apple cake, others are tortured. In the mid 1930s, for most characters life in Hitler’s Germany seems normal, not necessarily vicious. Yet, while the reality of Hitler’s intrusive politics 11

crumb cake, apple cake, braised beef marinated in vinegar.

146 are not experienced by everyone in the same way, one senses that Nazi politics are slowly grinding down people’s earlier moral convictions and social values of human dignity, tolerance, and respect. In this environment, victims of the regime realize that it becomes increasingly difficult to stand up for one’s own values and keep faith in humanity. Although, at the core of the Seventh Cross one finds the extraordinary story of Georg Heisler’s successful escape from a concentration camp, the story has always been noted for its vivid description of collective life. Within the novel’s seven chapters one finds 49 subsections and over 100 smaller events.12 A “Personenverzeichnis” (list of characters) introduces 32 people at the beginning, yet in the course of the novel the cast of characters becomes considerably enlarged as more than 100 people are added.13 The multiple micro and macro stories jump from event and from a cluster of persons to another. While the thread of the main plot is tied together by Georg’s fate, the novel’s many little events appear to fragment and splinter the master narrative.14 The style of episodic-associative story telling of multiple macro and micro structures reminds of moderated modernism15 and uniquely captures Seghers’ idea of a “Gesamtbild der Gesellschaft”.16 Furthermore, as Sonja Hilzinger has pointed out, this combination of fragmentation, temporal simultaneousness, and scenic photo-montage gives the novel imagery similar to film.17 Adhering to Georg Lukács’ ideas about social realism,18 Seghers – like Maxim Gorky, Leo Tolstoy, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky – strove to capture a general picture of society.19 Her praise of War and Peace and particularly her detailed comments on Tolstoy’s meticulous research, his effective portrayal of all segments of society, and his characters’ opposition to the political enemy resonates with Seghers’ own ambitions and literary achievements in exile.20 12

Alexander Stephan: Anna Seghers. Das siebte Kreuz. Welt und Wirkung eines Romans. Berlin 1997. P. 83. 13 Ursula Elsner: Anna Seghers. Das siebte Kreuz. Ed. by Klaus-Michael Bogdal and Clemens Kammler. Munich: Oldenbourg 1999. P. 72 (Oldenbourg Interpretationen 76). 14 See, Stephan: Seghers. P. 83. 15 Ibid. P. 84. 16 general picture of society. Anna Seghers: Aufsätze, Ansprachen, Essays 1927–1953. Berlin: Aufbau 2nd ed. 1984. P. 36 (Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben 13). 17 Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. Stuttgart 2000. P. 176. 18 During the expressionist debate of the 1930s Seghers expressed discontent with the stringent concepts of realism that Lukács published after 1923 but reasserted her agreement with Lukács’ pre-Marxist theory of the novel (1920). For more detail see Die Expressionismusdebatte. Materialien zu einer marxistischen Realismuskonzeption. Ed. by Hans-Jürgen Schmitt. Frankfurt/Main: 1973. P.p. 264–274. After 1947 Seghers began to adopt Lukács’ later Marxist theory on realism. 19 See Anna Seghers: Aufsätze. P. 271. 20 Ibid. Pp. 98–99.

147 Like Tolstoy, she permeated the different spheres of society to reflect specific social and political conditions of her country and connect people’s daily lives to important political events. By depicting social context, former relationships, group pressure, and individual moral developments, her stories reveal how crimes against humanity became possible in a community which previously did not advocate brutality against individuals. Bernhard Spies writes that five years into the regime when Seghers wrote the Seventh Cross, the monstrosity of national socialist rule had achieved normalcy for the majority of citizens living in Germany. In Seghers’ eyes it was not enough anymore merely to testify that this had happened; but rather, it was important to illuminate how this could happen on a daily basis.21 For this reason the novel does not primarily focus on one person (Georg Heisler) or the state brutality of the camp. Rather, as Alexander Stephan points out, it concentrates on the silent penetration of national socialist modes into thought and behavior of the workplace, the village, the family and the youth while such infiltration into daily life went unnoticed by many people in the community.22 Seghers recognized that Nazi policies were not only enforced by official Nazi leaders, but also became part of ordinary life. In the midst of daily life, where people cope with chores, work, and relationships, the novel explores how ordinary people sustain, support, or resist the “evil” aspects of Hitler’s regime. Hence, as the story conveys a people’s perspective from the bottom up, Seghers simultaneously reveals her concern about the human condition under Nazism that, “atrocities themselves do not just happen: people commit them”.23 Although, Hannah Arendt did not coin the term “banality of evil” until 1963, the Seventh Cross illuminates Arendt’s ideas about the ordinariness of adaptation to Nazi policies in daily life. The primary focus of Zinnemann’s film is not on the penetration of fascism into the daily life of a community, although it too avoids a strong emphasis on the brutality of the regime. While camp guards and Nazi officials are stock figures who are solely delineated to appear as brutal, cold-hearted, oppressive, and inhumane characters, the focal point is mainly on the fugitive Georg Heisler. After reading the Seventh Cross, Zinnemann commended the novel for its focus on the multiple vignettes of people’s behavior, their varied stance toward the regime, and the penetration of fascist modes into people’s thinking and acting.24 Zinnemann’s film might well have adapted Seghers’ temporal 21 Bernhard Spies: Anna Seghers. Das siebte Kreuz. Roman aus Hitlerdeutschland. Ed. by Helen Fehervary and Bernhard Spies. Berlin 2000. P. 455 (Anna Seghers Werkausgabe. Vol. I.4). 22 See, Stephan: Seghers. P. 64. 23 Jonathan Glover: Humanity. A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven (CT) 2001. P. 42. 24 Neil Sinyard: Fred Zinnemann. Films of Character and Conscience. Jefferson (NE) 2003. P. 23.

148 simultaneousness, scenic photo-montage, and lively diversity of social domains, yet the cinematography is sterile, locked into the tight locale of a Hollywood set. Although some authenticity was captured with many German and Austrian refugee actors playing the roles of Nazi thugs and other smaller parts, scenes of town life and nature lack freshness, veracity, and wide angle shots.25 Zinnemann lamented that the war made it impossible to shoot on site. He had no choice but to rebuild “some French and English ‘city squares’ standing permanently on Lot three”.26 Misty fog, surreal close-ups on stair cases, city corners, narrow streets, and people’s faces (especially Georg’s) infringe on the ability of the audience to gain a broader view of German society. Such reduction of visibility is underscored further by the film’s insistence on a coherent sequential and compact plot. The film’s focus on a hero is due in part to MGM’s policies at the time. Louis B. Mayer had “collected the greatest stable of stars, superstars and starlets”, and film directors were instructed to superimpose a star’s face even in a scene set at midnight in a tunnel.27 Hollywood’s focus on a leading role, combined with the mandatory insistence on a happy ending limited the scope and creativity of the filmmaker. Hence, in contrast to Seghers’ novel, the film eliminates most of the micro events to center primarily on the fugitive Georg Heisler. Leonard Quart states, the film “is about the disillusioned Heisler’s rediscovery of his faith in mankind, rather than an exploration of either the nature of Nazism or Heisler’s political beliefs”.28 Emphasis on a major movie star inevitably gives the plot a more concentrated coherent, sequential and heroic master narrative. Moreover, should the audience somehow miss the film’s message, the frequently used voice-over of Heisler’s close friend and fellow fugitive Ernst Wallau (Ray Collins) asserts again and again that there are still good people left in the world.29 This focus on the inner developments of his heroic figure Heisler allows Zinnemann not only to confront his audience with feelings of terror and pity but also to celebrate the human spirit. If the audience still believes in the human spirit, then, says Zinnemann in an interview with Arthur Nolletti, “you don’t feel ashamed to be a member of the human race when you leave the theater”.30 This differs significantly from Seghers’ approach, which like Bertolt Brecht’s, seeks 25

Among others, Bertolt Brecht’s wife Helene Weigel had a small part in the film. Fred Zinnemann: An Autobiography. A Life in the Movies. New York (NY) 1992. P. 51. 26 Ibid. P. 51. 27 Ibid. P. 45. 28 Leonard Quart: There Were Good Germans. Fred Zinnemann’s The Seventh Cross (1944). In: The Films of Fred Zinnemann. Critical Perspectives. Ed. by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Albany (NY) 1999. Pp. 69–70 (The SUNY Series. Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video). 29 Ibid. Pp. 72–74. 30 Arthur Nolletti Jr.: Conversation with Fred Zinnemann. In: The Films of Fred Zinnemann. Critical Perspectives. Ed. by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Albany (NY) 1999. P. 14 (The SUNY Series. Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video).

149 to move beyond self-congratulatory good-feelings about the human condition, to inspire critical and political thinking meant to raise people’s awareness about their own position and involvement in the politics of their nation. By the time the film was produced, socio-political circumstances were different than in 1937 when Seghers had begun to write. Before the war in 1937, the Nazis were ascending, in 1944 their defeat was virtually certain to the international community. When the film was released in theaters, American soldiers were fighting Nazi Germany. Although the full extent of the Nazi crimes were not yet known to the rest of the world, rumors about Nazi atrocities were widely spread among refugees fleeing Germany. Hence, in the 1940s, discussion about Nazi Germany had turned from witnessing the rise of fascism to the question of how to distinguish between evil Nazis and good Germans. The only good German, it was said, is a dead German.31 World leaders and public discussion had begun to wonder how to receive a “defeated” and denazified Germany back into the community of nations. In the midst of these tense international relations, the prewar focus on daily life in Germany allowed Zinnemann not only to reintroduce – through the authorial voice of Seghers – a German voice and perspective, but also helped to remind the American public that there were still good Germans left in Hitler’s Reich.32 Zinnemann asserts, “[…] we were fighting Germany and every German in the eyes of the American people was a monster. The book and the film made the point that even in Germany were people who had the courage to go their own way and stand up against what was happening”.33 31

Hannah Arendt writes for example about American public sentiment in the early 1940s that, “The most extreme slogan which this war has evoked among the Allies, that the only ‘good German’ is a ‘dead German’, has this much basis in fact: the only way in which we can identify an anti-Nazi is when the Nazis have hanged him”. Hannah Arendt: Organized Guilt and Universal Responsibility. In: The Jew as Pariah. Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age. Ed. by Ron H. Feldman. New York (NY) 1978. Pp. 227–228. In this context, Heisler’s story promotes the image of a persecuted German who not only is clearly an anti-Nazi but also attracts similar anti-Nazi stances from his “good” helpers within the German society. 32 Zinnemann did not act entirely on his own; by 1943 the US War Department Office of War Information liaison in Los Angeles asked Hollywood studios to “rehabilitate the negative wartime cinematic images of the enemy” that circulated “on the nations’ theater screens since the late 1930s” to more positive images of the enemy, this included the image of the “good” German. Lawrence H. Suid: Guts & Glory. The Making of the American Military Image in Film. Lexington (KY) 2002. Pp. 76–77. 33 See, Neve. P. 16. This distinction between the shared humanity of Germans and the culpability of the Nazis was also a matter of importance to the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who observed that not all Germans were Nazis and not all Nazis Germans. For instance see Hannah Arendt: Approaches to the “German Problem”. In: Essays in Understanding 1930–1954. Hannah Arendt. Ed. by Jerome Kohn. New York (NY) 1994. Pp. 106–120. See also Hanna Arendt: Guilt. Pp. 225–236. Both essays were originally published in 1945.

150 Zinnemann’s film was well-received by the American public and proved a major milestone for his own career as a director.34 Quart points out that the Seventh Cross “was one of the few American films made during World War II that recognized there were good Germans (though, significantly, the film is set in the prewar era)”.35 The success of the film also shows that the American audience did not reject Zinnemann’s message that human virtue, concern and dignity might still exist among the Germans.36 This is an important accomplishment; deviating from emerging anti-German sentiment, the film must be commended for its positive motive and anti-racist incentive. In 1944 Zinnemann’s Seventh Cross informed a more widespread and general audience about an issue that others, like Hannah Arendt, discussed in more limited outlets, such as the journals Jewish Frontier or Partisan Review. In the midst of America’s tense war situation and the growing news of human rights violations by the German state, Zinnemann’s message seems courageous and helpful. By introducing a different point of view to the American public the film hints at human decency in a world ravaged by war and crimes against humanity. Yet, by avoiding any conflicting messages such as the confrontation of the dire Jewish situation, the horrific murder of the regime’s victims, or the widespread erosion of moral values as the regime continued into the 1940s, the film’s success hinges also on its avoidance of a deeper understanding of the human condition under totalitarianism. From a personal and socio-political point of view Zinnemann’s concessions were considerable. As Jew he could not return to Austria, and like Seghers, at the end of the war he would learn that his parents had perished in a concentration camp.37 To some extent the film’s apolitical treatment of Nazi Germany reflects more about the isolationist atmosphere of the American public and Hollywood’s commercial need for happy endings than about the complexity of the Nazi event, which is at the center of Seghers’ novel. While Zinnemann’s film primarily cautions the American public to distinguish between Nazi criminals and “good” Germans, Seghers looks for connections between the grand politics and the behavior of ordinary people to search for links between daily life and the Nazi crimes. Unlike the general American public, Seghers – like such other exiles as Benjamin, Brecht, or Arendt – was more acutely aware of and threatened by Nazism’s great destruction. Counteracting Benjamin’s assertion that history belongs to the winners, Seghers saw the need to preserve fragments of cultural heritage for the next generation.38 Her voice contains a tone of urgency during the Nazi period, as 34

See, Neve. P. 15. See, Quart. P. 76. 36 Ibid. P. 70. 37 See, Quart. P. 76. 38 See, Seghers: Aufsätze. P. 47. 35

151 fascism threatens to absorb all segments of German life, even the capacity of independent thought.39 By speaking out against the Nazis in 1937 Seghers hoped to encourage Germans (especially German youth) not to risk their lives for Hitler, but to fight for freedom from oppression.40 Unlike Zinnemann’s film, Seghers’ novel challenges the telling of history as a coherent and teleological sequence. Her text involves a dichotomy between the concept of epic and chronicle, or between the heroic role of Georg and the multi-faceted micro-stories of numerous ordinary people. Although the story of Georg’s escape ultimately combines the diffusion of stories into one person and one odyssey, it is the lives of ordinary people which manifest themselves as historical memory in this literary text. Moreover, as the many microhistories of ordinary people disrupt and sometimes deviate from the “great” epic of Georg’s escape, they also diffuse Hitler’s position as historical figure. As in Ian Kershaw’s Hitler biography, Seghers’ novel deflects attention away from a sole concentration on Hitler’s ambition to hold supreme world power on behalf of a master race and instead draws attention to the lives and aspirations of common people. Seghers is aware that while “epics” leave potent mnemonic traces of celebrated heroes or influential historical individuals, most people’s experiences disappear entirely or at the most resurface as disjointed memory fragments. In the Seventh Cross she avoids a sole focus on the “heroes” of history to chronicle the effect of state politics in the petty lives and small living-rooms of the most hidden and private spaces in society. The deliberate fragmentation of her core story (which is coherent, heroic, and follows a teleological sequence) reminds of Walter Benjamin’s “Angel of History” for whom the past is an idiosyncratic and shifting narrative of fragmented experiences which ultimately challenge the concept of epic master narrative. Hence, the simultaneous focus on Georg’s heroic escape and on the multifaceted ordinary stories of others in the Seventh Cross points to the ambivalent relation between hero and society with its incitement of the famous and the forgotten voices of history. Although the film eliminates many of the novel’s minor stories it does include some perspectives on the private spheres of life in Nazi Germany. Choosing two micro-scenes that are present in both works – the two Alwin women doing their laundry and a family dinner with the Röders – the following discussion examines more closely the impact of the narrative discrepancy between film and novel on historical understanding. In both artistic venues the two Alwin women, each belonging to a different generation, collect their washing, while other villagers hunt for the escapees from the nearby concentration camp. Wearing his SA-uniform, Anna’s husband enters the courtyard where the women work and yells that they should go inside; now, he screams, is not the 39 40

Ibid. P. 46. Ibid. Pp. 66–67.

152 time for doing the wash. The younger woman, Anna, argues back that there is always an excuse not to do the daily chores, not to be at home. All the while Georg, hidden behind a wood pile, witnesses the exchange; protected by the women’s delay of a thorough search in their courtyard, he remains undiscovered. Film and novel deviate at this point. The film proceeds to show how outside the courtyard the inmate Pelzer is captured with the cheerful help of the village population. The novel, however, lingers for a while longer in the courtyard and provides more insight into the reasons for Anna’s disgruntlement. An exchange between the two women reveals that Anna’s critique is less concerned with the search for the escapees than with growing political discontent in regard to the Nazi regime. Her unhappiness is related to the family’s slow recovery from the financial hardship everyone had experienced during the Weimar years and a husband who is still more accustomed to the leisure of unemployment than to work. The Nazi regime gave her man work and financial security, which allowed Anna to pursue her desire to rebuild the farm and to establish a family life. In recent years, even the children from her husband’s first marriage had started to grow into decent human beings. Hard work had paid off and life under the Nazis had shown steady improvement. Yet, Anna finds it increasingly difficult to keep her family together and notices that she is gradually losing the ability to impress her own values and rules on her immediate family. Rather than encouraging participation in the political manhunt, she would like the children (who offer enthusiastic help) to get ready for lunch and her husband to be home and work the farm. Anna does not question the fate of the inmates currently residing in the vicinity of her community or wonder about the treatment of the escapee who is found outside her courtyard. She seems generally oblivious toward the plight of these prisoners; her thoughts merely reveal anger about the “inconsiderate” disturbance of peaceful life that these fugitives have brought upon the village. The more pressing problem for her has to do with government intrusion in the form of such ever impending Nazi-support-activities as this village manhunt that interfere with her own ambitions for her family. Like many of the other micro-stories in the novel, these images embody Hannah Arendt’s observation that, “The totalitarian policy […] had completely destroyed the neutral zone in which the daily life of human beings is ordinarily lived […and] achieved the result of making the existence of each individual in Germany depend either upon committing crimes or on complicity in crimes”.41 In the novel, Anna recognizes the government’s breach of the supposed “neutral zone” in her private life, yet she seems somewhat unaware of the moral erosion that has affected her own behavior: On the one hand she is disappointed that her trust in the capacity of the government to diminish financial hardship and to strengthen family bonds is not fully rewarded, and that Nazi practices 41

See, Arendt: Guilt. P. 228.

153 even contribute to the slow disintegration of her family. On the other hand, she has no empathy for the plight of victims of the Nazi regime (like the concentration camp inmates), and their fate is dismissed as irrelevant to her own problems. While Anna feels compromised by Nazi intrusion into her private life, this frustration is not shared by her mother-in-law who takes the position that the ambitious daughter-in-law should learn to endure hard times and concentrate on her small successes. The older Alwin woman advices Anna to take pleasure in the fact that the house does not look like a pigsty anymore. She is resigned to her second-sex position in society where a woman merely reacts to socio-political events; moreover she suggests to Anna that historical events are not only endured but also overcome by a steady stream of time that permits the passage of all different kinds of experiences. Here the novel comes close to Benjamin’s reference to the eternal timeless “now” – as a derivative of religious mysticism – which coexists with time and connects time past, present, and future.42 The diverse responses of both women to the Nazi regime suggest interesting insights into the complexity of the Nazi experience. In the novel, daily life appears fraught with moments of personal ambivalence and a certain inability to achieve a critical understanding about how the grand politics of the times affect personal life and how one ought to react. Contrary to the film, the women in the novel do not merely serve as part of a background of ordinary daily activity while the central chase theme is propelled. Instead, their interaction raises interesting questions and insights into how people cope when state intrusion and overt violence are introduced into their immediate community. While the novel explores moral conflict and disregard for the suffering of others as elements of daily life, the film attributes Anna’s flippant remarks to moodiness and resentment at having to do all the work at home and on the farm. By including the laundry scene but omitting the exchange between the two women, the film is able to retain an authentic atmosphere of a busy washing day while also relentlessly pursuing its central theme of Georg’s heart-stopping chase by the Nazi regime. Another micro-story which includes George’s visit to the Röder family shows poignantly how film and book result in a different understanding of the human condition under Germany’s totalitarian regime. Each work exposes again the major difference between the two artistic outlets: The film insists on keeping its primary focus on Georg’s story while the novel deviates to expand on the multiple stories and experiences of other characters. In this scene Liesel 42

Benjamin suggests that in the place of teleological ideal history which post facto seeks to establish causal links between historical events, a historian should establish “einen Begriff der Gegenwart als der ⬎Jetztzeit⬍, in welcher Splitter der messianischen eingesprengt sind” (a notion of the present as a ⬎time of the right now⬍ which has been penetrated by splinters of Messianic time). See, Benjamin: Begriff. P. 704.

154 and Paul Röder enjoy a happy family life with their children, yet the described moment also suggests a slowly eroding value system that has affected even the lives and minds of such “well-meaning”, nice, and compassionate citizens like the Röders. In the grand scheme of political events the family’s deeds and experiences of Nazi Germany seem unimportant, yet even in the film their story offers a curious contrast to Georg’s concentration camp experience. Compared to the book, however, the character development of such minor characters as Liesel and Paul Röder loses its original complexity becoming reduced and oversimplified. In both media the family scene juxtaposes ordinary and extraordinary life experience. It portrays not only Liesel’s and Paul’s confidence in the Nazi state which offers parents state-funded vacations, diapers and steady employment, but also exposes the dissonance between Nazi benefits for some and state persecution for others by introducing the fugitive Georg into this scene. Film and novel both feature a casual dinner conversation during which Georg questions the couple’s enthusiasm for the Nazi regime and exposes Paul’s work in a munitions factory. Like many of the other micro-stories in the novel, this scene – inside the Röder household – indicates how almost unnoticed to ordinary “good” people, national socialist modes of thinking and acting penetrate daily life. Although one might not characterize the Röder family as consciously compliant to Nazi policy, nevertheless Paul and Liesel are loyal, content citizens. Liesel raises perfect Aryan children for the Hitler Youth and German army, Paul’s employment helps Hitler’s rearmament. The state benefits keep the couple happy and uncritical. Yet where this micro-story becomes dense in the book and begins to present conflicting, idiosyncratic, and contradicting experiences, the film simplifies. In the film Liesel’s wholesome family atmosphere and selfless hospitality (especially Liesel’s sharing her meat) brings about Georg’s epiphany. In fact, the voice-over makes sure the audience understands that it is the Röder family atmosphere that again begins to spark Georg’s belief in humankind. Paul’s subsequent arrest by the Gestapo terrorizes Liesel into a dumbfounded stoic state only to turn into sobbing relief and anger at the Gestapo and informing neighbors who dare to disrupt the perfect family life – yet even then the film highlights her concern for Georg and his seemingly successful escape. In the novel, even if for a short moment, Liesel thinks critically about what it means to live without her husband or with a tortured crippled husband, and wonders what it would mean to live outside the state’s approval. On Paul’s return she is not only relieved to see him healthy and alive, but is also angry at him for putting the lives of his family in danger. Paul’s insistence that it was his decision to aid Georg, that as the head of the family he does not need her approval – reminds readers about conventional values rooted less in Weimar’s democracy than the gendered induced obedience of the old German monarchy. By including Liesel’s anger at Paul’s eagerness to put his family at risk, the novel incorporates a certain dissonance in Paul’s and

155 Liesel’s marital relationship. In light of the couple’s previous happiness about state benefits, this also helps to reflect their individually ambivalent positions toward the state and fugitives like Georg. In this sense, Seghers’ novel illuminates how state politics infiltrate thought and behavior of otherwise “insignificant” or “merely” ordinary family life. Moreover, since Paul and Liesel ultimately remain indifferent and even uninformed about George’s brutal treatment in the concentration camp, the novel depicts how some people could lead “normal” lives without being aware of the regime’s extreme brutality against its opponents. This scene – just like the conversation between the two Alwin women – reveals how some Nazi crimes passed “unnoticed” in the midst of respectable communities. A closer look at the discrepancy between the historical narrative in film and novel reveals that the film’s primary message about the “good Germans” misses an opportunity to confront its audience with Seghers’ underlying concern about how Nazi policies were not only enforced by official Nazi leaders but also became part of ordinary life. Instead of revealing the fundamental banality of the Nazi event in daily context, the film audience is assured that good people stay true to their previous values of tolerance, respect, and love for those outside the regime.43 The film attributes questionable and even criminal behavior to only a small number of people, and seeks to elevate Paul Röder to the commendable position of noble helper in need. Unlike Georg, Paul is not frightened by the state. Although depicted as a thoroughly apolitical character, in the film Paul displays the virtues of the good, selfless, courageous and noble German. Zinnemann who produced the Seventh Cross for the general American public knew that the mere image of the “good German” was a controversial but essential message during the war when news of atrocities kept surfacing. Seghers, on the other hand, was more ambivalent. In 1937, she was not only driven by the hope that Germans (within Germany) might still resist the evils of totalitarianism, but also recognized how fascist politics trickle down to the masses and affect the susceptibility of the people to National Socialism in their family and community life.44 Both media – the film and the novel – believe in the human spirit and preserve the possibility that good can prevail over evil. Yet as each artist’s imagery of Nazi Germany is connected to a different social circumstance and agenda the intended message about the human condition in Nazi Germany becomes somewhat adjusted. In the novel, the more intimate focus on a multi-faceted German society reveals the author’s attempt to overcome exile and (even if 43

A fact, which has been challenged in the 1960s by the empirical research on obedience to authority in the Psychology Laboratories at Yale by Stanley Milgrim or by Philip Zimbardo’s prison studies at Stanford, as well as by more recent research, particularly Stan Cohen and Robert Gellately. 44 Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers. Berlin 1992. P. 41 (Köpfe des 20. Jahrhunderts. Vol. 117).

156 only in writing) to reconnect to her homeland and culture. With the urgency of a voice that recognizes suffering, despair, and an eerie sense of a community that is slowly eroding and adapting to Nazi politics, Seghers recalls ambiguous historical moments for cultural remembrance. The film’s plea to consider the “good Germans” is calculatingly directed to an American audience that is not only unfamiliar with the cultural implication of totalitarianism, but also – due to current warfare with Germany – engaged in a public discourse that wonders how to distinguish between Nazis and Germans. Each in their own way, the book and the film advocate a more general atmosphere of tolerance, forgiveness and understanding toward those who suffer under such a political regime. In the final analysis and from the distance of the twenty-first century, the novel’s underlying messages of idiosyncratic and contradictory experiences of the past appear more disconcerting than the film’s optimistic idea of a coherent and heroic representation of history. Undoubtedly our human condition appears more agreeable if we – like Zinnemann’s film – are bound for a happy ending where we all find love, acceptance, and a safe haven at the end of the road. Yet, it sometimes seems that we might understand the human race better if we were willing to gaze into the rubble humankind has created to gain a better understanding of the human condition from the broken and fragmented pieces of past historical events.

Eoin Bourke

Two Foxes of Glenarvon Neither the German novel The Fox of Glenarvon [Der Fuchs von Glenarvon] nor the feature film bearing the same title ranks as a great work, but both are nonetheless intriguing in that they provide an image of rural Ireland that met with the approval of Joseph Goebbels’Propaganda Ministry. The film was directed by Goebbels’brother-inlaw Max W. Kimmich in 1940 and is “based on the novel by Nicola Rhon” according to the film title. Subtitled as a crime novel [Kriminalroman], it had been published as a paperback by Ullstein in Berlin in 1937.1 It is set in the year 1884 in the fictional demesne of Glenarvon somewhere north-west of Galway – that is, a place named Galway in the West of Ireland with some similarities to and some differences from the real location. Either the author has jumbled and fictionalized the placenames purposely or was never in Ireland.2 Moreover, the dense Ossianic mist which constantly swathes the moor (both in the novel and the film) to lend the scenario more mystery is quite untypical of the West of Ireland. The film politicizes the literary prototype to gear it to anti-British propaganda.

In the novel, the Fox of the title is the affectionate nickname given to the protagonist Sir John Howard Ennis, 18th Baronet Loweland, for no more sinister reason than the colour of his hair: His closely cropped hair was thick and also reddish brown [like his eyes], a striking reddish brown with purple touches that had earned him the name “Fox” when he was a child.3

Romantically, his beautiful wife Fleur, whose eyes had been “as blue as Galway Bay on a sunny day”,4 died in childbirth, leaving him behind as deeply melancholy but eminently eligible. A new landlord, Sir Guy Harbiger, a dark horse of dubious lineage and with a questionable source of wealth, occupies a neighbouring estate Cairn Nor. He, too, has a beautiful wife, named Renée, in Harbiger’s words “a girl from Clare, where Irish women are the prettiest”.5 She 1

Nicola Rhon: Der Fuchs von Glenarvon. Ein Kriminalroman. Ullstein: Berlin 1937. A search for her name in the biography room of the Berlin State Library met with no success. The Ullstein Verlag, now a branch of Springer Verlag, informed me that they have no archive of past authors. 3 “Das knapp um den Kopf geschnittene Haar war dicht und ebenfalls rotbraun [wie seine Augen], von einem auffallenden Rotbraun mit purpurnen Lichtern, das ihm als Kind den Namen ‘Fuchs’ eingetragen hatte”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 9. 4 “so blau wie die Bucht von Galway an einem Sonnentage […]”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 10. 5 “ein Mädchen aus Clare, dort wo die Irinnen am schönsten sind […]”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 78. 2

158 does not love her husband and by a happy coincidence looks exactly like the deceased Fleur. In the course of a wild fox chase Ennis and Renée happen upon one another, declare their undying love and arrange a once-off rendezvous in a remote hunting lodge in Ballinloe Woods for the next day. There they smother one another with kisses and part, as they think, for ever, as she feels she must devote herself to her child and unloved spouse. “My heart”, she declares, “belongs to you and will always do so. But I can’t leave the others … I must not. As long as Guy is alive I have to be his wife”. In his despair, Ennis contemplates a duel with Harbiger: “ ‘And what if Harbiger were not to live?’ Renée gazed at him in alarm”.6 Renée sets out alone on her way home, Ennis leaves at a safe distance after her and encounters Sir Guy on the way through Ballinloe Woods, whereupon the narrator switches to another story line and leaves the reader in the dark. Next day Sir Guy is found dead in the woods, shot through the back. Those who read the signals of this Mills & Boon-style romance properly know in their hearts that this dastardly deed is something of which a gentleman like Ennis would be congenitally incapable, and even if in the novel he is arrested, tried, found guilty and faces a death sentence, one just has to be patient and wait for a few chapters for the inevitable dénouement. This plot is interwoven with another, initially a more political one. Shortly after Ennis’s return to his demesnes in the West, his pedigree horses are forcefully commandeered in a literal “Nacht- und Nebel-Aktion” [an operation cloaked by night and fog] by a group of men claiming to be patriotic Ribbonmen.7 The horses, they say, are needed to draw a cortège for the midnight burial of comrades who offered up their lives in the struggle against the British in the Land War. In fact, as time will tell, they are common brigands and the coffins filled with booty from the wrecks of merchant ships. Further on in the novel, Ennis, without knowing who the culprits are, heroically intervenes in an attempt by this same freebooter gang to lure a ship in distress onto the rocks. The gang is brought to justice after a successful police and army raid on another such sham funeral. In the course of the subsequent court hearings in Galway it emerges that their ruthless leader, Jim Malory, is the man who shot Sir Guy in the back because the latter, despite his genteel appearance, was, unbeknownst to his impeccable wife Renée, a professional smuggler operating partly in collaboration with and partly in opposition to Jim Malory. Guy Harbiger, the offspring of respectable English parentage, had gone astray already as a 16-year-old, being expelled from “College” on the grounds of theft, and had exiled himself 6

“Mein Herz gehört dir und wird dir immer gehören. Aber ich kann nicht weg von den anderen, ich darf es doch nicht. Solange Guy lebt, mußich seine Frau sein”. – “‘Und wenn Harbiger nicht mehr lebte?’ Renée sah ihn erschrocken an”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 95. 7 A term applied in the latter half of the 19th century indiscriminately to members of agrarian secret societies. Cf. J.C. Beckett: The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603–1923. London: Faber 1966. P. 291, fn. 1.

159 to Canada where he became a fur-trapper and smuggler. After these revelations place him firmly in the realm of the socially undesirable, Ennis and Renée are free to lay the foundations of an unadulterated lineage. As regards the Irish historical context, the novel, on the whole, is politically neutral. The occasional allusions to the Irish way of life show that the author was not entirely uninformed of Irish conditions, such as the image of children bringing their sod of turf to school as remuneration for their teacher, or the fact that violent acts carried out by agrarian agitators were difficult to bring to trial because of the widespread backing they received among the populace, whether due to fear of reprisal or genuine sympathy. The Catholic landlord Richard O’Connor, John Ennis’s relative, complains of absenteeism and the widespread practice of subleasing: […] the peasants became impoverished, the bailiffs bled them dry. It is understandable that the people’s resentment towards the landlords is growing when they live abroad off the rents and don’t care a damn whether their people perish. Uncle Richard was an altruist. But ultimately he was right.8

But apart from this quote, the theme is never developed further. There is not a hint of criticism about the fact that landlords from near and far attend the May Day festivities in Kinvarra to gorge themselves in the tents on almond cakes, waffles, pancakes, roast oxen, piglets, roast chickens, grouse and fieldfare wrapped in bacon slices and wine leaves and quaff heady May wine and French claret while the peasantry stand around on the field outside waiting for the bonfire. The trappings of colonialism are employed to lend panache to the squirearchical lifestyle being described rather than to suggest a critique of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. Ennis has an English valet named Fraser and an Indian boy Ali who is a gift from the Maharaja of Gwalior, speaks pidgin and laughs like an ape. Ennis’s library is decked out with the reliquiæ of imperialism: Tiger skins, Malayan creeses, Maori knives, daggers from Algiers or the Caucasus, the daggers of Indian Rajahs, pistols of all kinds, as well as outlandish musical instruments, among them a drum that was covered with human skin and gave off a strangely unsettling sound. The fire crackled merrily in the fireplace.9 8

“[…] die Kleinbauern verelendeten, die Pachteintreiber saugten ihnen das Mark aus den Knochen. Man verstehe, wenn die Erbitterung im Volke gegen die Gutsherren wachse, die im Auslande von ihren Zinsen lebten und sich nicht darum scherten, ob ihre Leute verreckten. Onkel Richard war ein Weltverbesserer. Aber schließlich hatte er recht”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 11. 9 “[…] Tigerfelle, malaiische Kris, Maorimesser, Dolche aus Algier, aus dem Kaukausus, Dolche indischer Radschas, Pistolen aller Art, dann seltsame Musikinstrumente, darunter eine Trommel, die mit Menschenhaut überzogen war und einen eigentümlich erschütternden Klang hatte. Das Feuer prasselte lustig im Kamin”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 100.

160 That this kind of scene-setting was consumed with relish by the petty-bourgeois German reader of the time and was willingly sanctioned by an otherwise rigorous censorship system was quite in keeping with spirit of the earlier Hitler Period. Hitler and Goebbels had great, indeed even supine admiration for the English in their perceived “Nordic” purity and ability to conquer half the world – they only regretted that Germany had not been as energetic in its own colonization drive. Even for a short period after England’s declaration of war in 1939, as David Welch has pointed out, the imaging of the English was to remain ambivalent as long as Hitler still hoped to appease Britain.10 However, by the time that Goebbels’ brother-in-law Kimmich11 was commissioned to make the film version of Der Fuchs von Glenarvon, the propaganda policy had turned around and Nazi anglophilia had been transformed into anglophobia. Now the directive from the Propaganda Ministry was to portray England “as a brutal imperialistic oppressor of smaller nations”,12 at a time when Nazi Germany was doing precisely that of which they accused Britain. Accordingly, the screenwriters Wolf Neumeister and Hans Bertram used the novel to their own ends, turning Nicola Rhon’s affirmation of the Anglo-Irish order into a vehement critique of the British. The opening of the film leaves no doubt about what message the film wishes to convey. To a rather Germanicized song of freedom the camera shows a topographical model of the former British Isles (with the mountains in the wrong places) and pans away from the country 10 Cf. David Welch: Propaganda and the German Cinema 1933–1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983. Pp. 257ff. Hitler’s last attempt at an offer of conciliation to the British was on 19 July 1940. 11 Max W. Kimmich was born in Ulm in 1893 and served as an officer of the Wehrmacht in the First World War. After studying medicine for some time he was drawn to the theatre and film world, working as a scriptwriter and making ten short entertainment films in 1927–28 for Universal Studios in Hollywood under titles such as The Love Wallop, Sodas and Shebas, Sand Witches and Tea and The Tricky Trickster. He returned to Germany to co-write the scripts of some lightweight espionage films in the ‘thirties and made his debut as a German director with Der Vierte kommt nicht in 1939. It might be this film which Joseph Goebbels is referring to in his diary entry of 15th July 1937: “Kimmich hat ein Manuskript geschrieben. Es ist garnicht [sic] so schlecht. Im Gegenteil sehr gut”. See Joseph Goebbels: Tagebücher. Vol. III: 1935–1939. Ed. by Ralf Georg Reuth. Munich: Piper 2003. P. 1101. Kimmich’s short-lived prominence and access to the leading actors of the German film world will certainly have been facilitated by his engagement to Goebbels’ sister Maria in 1937 and marriage in 1938. His Der Fuchs von Glenarvon and Mein Leben für Irland, both of them set in Ireland but filmed in Babelsberg, were the first anti-English films to be made in the wake of the propaganda policy change since Britain’s declaration of war in 1939. They were followed by a third one in 1943 entitled Germanin, set in Africa and directed against Britain’s brutal colonization methods. After the war, Kimmich receded into professional oblivion. He worked in the Austrian film industry for some time before settling in Icking, Bavaria, where he died in 1980. Cf. Susanna Pellis: Ulster über Alles. Max W. Kimmich e il cinema nazista in Irlanda (2003). http://www.frameonline.it /ArtN14_Cinemanazistairlanda.htm. 12 Welch: Propaganda. P. 269.

161 which until very recently the Germans were encouraged to admire towards the one upon which the audience is now being told to focus their sympathy. The reasons are given in trenchant terms in the superscript: Ireland – the Emerald Isle – is one of the oldest victims of English tyranny. For eight centuries fraud and forgery, plunder, murder and arson have been the methods of British politics. Millions have been starved, banished and executed along the people’s path of affliction. Nevertheless the pride and love of freedom of the Irish could not be broken.13

In a prelude the Ribbonmen and their leader O’Riordan (played by Friedrich Kayssler) chant a kind of Kleistian Katechismus der Iren [Catechism of the Irish]:14 O’Riordan: Assembly: O’Riordan: Ribbonmen: O’Riordan: Ribbonmen: O’Riordan: Ribbonmen:

How long is your staff? – Long enough to gain our freedom. – The road is in poor condition. – We shall repair it. – With what? – With the bones of our enemies. – Who is our enemy? – ENGLAND!15

In the novel, Sir Guy Harbiger was depicted as socially uncouth – “more of a wood-cutter than a lord of the manor”16 – simply as a device to make it easier for the reader to condone the passion that the perfect gentleman Ennis and the ladylike Renée feel for one another. But at least Harbiger was described as an interesting and well-read person,17 whereas Mr. Grandison, his counterpart in the film played by the same Ferdinand Marian who was to be cast in the title role of the notoriously anti-Semitic film Jud Süß some six months later, has no redeeming features whatsoever in keeping with the dictate of propaganda to paint characters black and white.18 In the words of the flyer produced by Tobis 13

“Irland – die grüne Insel – ist eines der ältesten Opfer englischer Gewaltherrschaft. / Durch acht Jahrhunderte sind Betrug und Fälschung, Raub, Mord und Brandstiftung die Methoden britischer Politik. / Millionen Verhungerte, Vertriebene und Hingerichtete zeichnen den Leidensweg dieses Volkes. / Aber der Stolz und die Freiheitsliebe der Iren konnten nicht gebrochen werden”. 14 In 1808 Heinrich von Kleist wrote a question-and-answer pamphlet called Katechismus der Deutschen to whip up anti-French feeling in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat of Prussia. 15 “Wie lang ist dein Stock? / Lang genug, um unsere Freiheit zu erreichen. / Die Straße ist schlecht. / Sie wird ausgebessert werden. / Womit? / Mit den Knochen unserer Feinde. / Wer ist unser Feind? / ENGLAND!” 16 “mehr ein Holzfäller als ein Gutsherr […]”. Rhon: Der Fuchs. P. 77. 17 Rohn: Der Fuchs. P. 63. 18 See Welch: Propaganda. P. 238.

162

Titlepage, Illustrierter Filmkurier, Nr. 3095.

Film Studio, The Illustrated Film Courier [Der Illustrierte Film-Kurier], Mr. Grandison is “an unscrupulous scoundrel”19 who abuses his position as Commissioner of the Peace in Glenarvon to pursue his own political and financial 19

“ein bedenkenloser Schurke”.

163 ends.20 In the depiction of Grandison on the first page of the flyer, the superimposed Union Jack has the effect of making him look like a beast of prey. While in the novel the fact that Sir Guy Harbiger emigrated to Canada casts more shadow on his character than does his English origin, Mr. Grandison’s very Englishness is in itself incriminating: [The film] shows the political double-dealing of the Glenarvon Justice of the Peace, an Englishman that makes familiar with the Irish. He only seems to be on their side because he is married to an Irishwoman, but deep in his heart he hates them as much as they hate him, the Englishman, and in him the whole of England.21

Although the Grandison character in the film is not explicitly identified as Jewish, the actor Marian must have been thought to look Jewish for him to be chosen for the role of Jud Süß. Another factor will also have played a similar register, namely, that this time the epithet “fox” is applied not to the hero Ennis but rather the villain Grandison22 to convey wiliness rather than good looks. For at least some among the cinema audiences of the time, this will surely have conjured up an association with the title picture of Elwira Bauer’s malign children’s book of 1936, Don’t trust a fox on the green heath or a Jew when he swears an oath,23 thus subliminally reinforcing the then emerging construct of the “Jewified British” [“verjudete Briten”]. Mr. Grandison’s wife Gloria is herself a member of the Ribbonmen’s secret society. Like the Renée of the novel she looks exactly like Ennis’s deceased wife Fleur. The Fleur of the film, however, did not die in childbirth but rather in British machine-gunfire in an encounter with Irish insurrectionists, i.e. as yet another victim of brutal British imperialism. The Ribbonmen of the film are entirely honourable, in Ennis’s words “decent Irish patriots” [“anständige Irische Patrioten”]. They, too, ask Ennis for the use of his horses, but this time with due deference and for the purpose of drawing the hearses of genuine rebels who lost their lives in rescuing two wrongly condemned men from a 20

Illustrierter Film-Kurier Nr. 3095. Berlin: Francke & Co. 1940. P. 7. “[es] wird hier das politische Doppelspiel des Friedensrichters von Glenarvon gezeigt, der als Engländer inmitten der Iren sitzt. Nur scheinbar hält er es mit den Iren, weil er mit einer Irin verheiratet ist, aber im Grunde seines Herzens haßt er sie wie sie ihn, den Engländer, und in ihm ganz England hassen”. K.F. Frentzel: “Insel der Geknechteten. Zum Tobis-Film vom irisch-englischen Gegensatz Der Fuchs von Glenarvon”. Freigegeben vom Hauptreferat der Presseabteilung der Reichsregierung, 1940. 22 Cf. The caption in Ulrich von Uechtritz, “Illegale gegen England”, freigegeben vom Hauptreferat Zeitschriften der Presseabteilung der Reichsregierung, 1940: “The English fox. / The English Justice of the Peace […] Mr. Grandison, the ‘Fox of Glenarvon’, investigating an Irish hold-up of a patrol wagon”. 23 Elwira Bauer: Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid / Und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid. Nuremberg: Stürmer Verlag 1936. 21

164 prison transport. Ennis (Carl Ludwig Diehl) accompanies them to the secret burial ceremony and encounters Gloria (Olga Tschechowa) for the first time while she is singing the funeral dirge over the dead heroes lying in state. He promptly falls in love with Fleur’s lookalike not only because she is beautiful and sings movingly but, as signaled by the background, because she is on the side of the downtrodden. In the film, too, there is a ship in severe trouble off the coast because someone has maliciously extinguished the lighthouse lamp and lured the ship’s navigator into a more hazardous bay by burning carbide in an old disused watchtower. The ship sinks with the loss of 30 seamen. The beach warden is found shot dead. Although it will emerge later that the Ribbonmen have had nothing to do with the sinking of the New Zealand (“We are freedom fighters – not criminals!”),24 the British authorities contrive to accuse the Ribbonmen of sinking the ship in the belief that Sir John Tetbury, a new and more ruthless English plenipotentiary on his way to Ireland to quash the Irish rebellion for ever, was on board. In an ensuing scene in which Tetbury appears unscathed and explains his action of sending a decoy ship before him for his own protection, “perfidious Albion” is epitomised in his and Grandison’s malicious cackles at the success of his ruse, carried out at the expense of 30 humbler British lives. “Whenever I am to be received somewhere with a particularly hearty welcome”, says Tetbury facetiously, “then I always tend to arrange my arrival differently than expected – a well-tried tactic!” and chuckles triumphantly.25 The British army under Tetbury’s evil-minded leadership adopts more aggressive methods of counter-insurgency such as raiding a church during a religious service. Ennis is arrested on the trumped-up charge of having murdered the beach warden, only to be released shortly afterwards and given five days to leave the country forever. This arouses the rebels’ suspicion of his collusion with the British authorities and he is captured and brought before a kangaroo court held by the Ribbonmen. It emerges at this court that not Ennis but Grandison murdered the beach warden with the purpose of removing a potential witness to the fact that Grandison himself had caused the ship to sink in order to be able to claim insurance as a part-owner of the shipping company. The British army has been given the tip off about the secret court by an informer from within the ranks of the Ribbonmen, Grandison’s game warden Jim Malory, and sets out to ambush the organization. However, the cavalry is lured into the bog by the Ribbonmen, certainly an oblique quote of the myth of the Cheruscan warrior Hermann who lured the Roman Imperial army into the swamps of the Teutoburger Wald. Jim Malory tries to escape the punishment due to him for 24

“Wir sind politische Kämpfer – keine Verbrecher!” “wenn ich irgendwo besonders herzlich empfangen werden soll, dann pflege ich immer anders anzukommen als erwartet – bewährte Methode”. 25

165 informing and gets swallowed up by the bog (“The bog has claimed him!” [“Das Moor hat ihn!”]), Grandison is lynched and the Irish vow to carry their struggle for independence to its conclusion. The demons in the form of Malory and Grandison have been exorcized; the forces of evil as represented by the British army wearing their tommy helmets have been at least temporarily routed. The film ends with the same rousing song of freedom as at the start of the film, this time sung by the Irish rebels and their womenfolk in a torch-lit parade and culminating in a crescendo by Gloria. Although at the time when the film was made, Ireland had achieved independence 18 years previously, freedom is here depicted as an as yet unfulfilled aspiration in order to motivate the German audience in 1940 to throw off the British onslaught on Germany. In the culminating dialogue, O’Riordan intones: “It is still a long way to freedom!” and Ennis replies: “This night will be a signal for all of Ireland!”.26 The German film-goers will have got the message: this film is a signal for all of Germany. In this context Guido Altendorf’s comments on Kimmich’s second film of the same year, My Life for Ireland, apply equally to The Fox of Glenarvon: It is not at all about Ireland but rather about the struggle against Great Britain in general. The German viewer is supposed to identify with the Irish, and to this end every national character trait in the depiction of the Irish is avoided. They are made completely undistinguishable from German heroes. In 1941 it was not Ireland, which after all had declared its neutrality at the outset of the war, but rather Germany that was waging its (“revolutionary”) war against England.27

In other words, the German auto-image takes clear precedence over their hetero-image of the Irish. What Altendorf refers to as the “exaggerated ‘Germanicization’ of Ireland and its patriots”28 becomes particularly evident in a scene in The Fox of Glenarvon where Ribbonmen on the run from the British army enter a country pub and mingle with a group of Irish peasants performing a folk dance in order to escape detection. The all-male dance consists of a slow, rhythmic pounding of jackboots against the floor and an angular and rigid stretching of arms. It could be said to have more in common with the goose step and the 26

“Bis zur Freiheit ist noch ein langer Weg!” – “Diese Nacht wird ein Zeichen für ganz Irland sein!” 27 “Es ging […] gar nicht um Irland, sondern um den Kampf gegen Großbritannien generell. Der deutsche Zuschauer soll sich mit den Iren identifizieren, und so wird jede nationale Eigenheit in der Zeichnung der Iren vermieden. Sie unterscheiden sich in nichts von deutschen Helden. 1941 führte nicht Irland, das bei Kriegsbeginn seine Neutralität erklärt hatte, sondern Deutschland den (‘revolutionären’) Krieg gegen England”. Guido Altendorf: Zu anti-britischer Propaganda im nationalsozialistischen Spielfilm am Beispiel von “Mein Leben für Irland” und “Titanic”. Babelsberg: Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen 1997. P. 98. 28 “die übertriebene ‘Germanisierung’ Irlands und seine Patrioten”. Altendorf: Zu antibritischer Propaganda. P. 99.

166 Hitler salute combined than with the decidedly non-martial jauntiness of Irish folk dance. Care is taken, on the other hand, to depict the English in exact accordance with the newly ordained image of brutal suppressors. In The Fox of Glenarvon, as Altendorf says of My Life for Ireland, the film is not as much a parable directed against every form of oppression as one specifically against the English form: Wisely enough, the British are not allowed to become allegorical figures of tyranny but are vested with all the attributes of the German image of the English enemy. By these means the “revolutionary” hostility to be unleashed was to be directed exclusively towards them.29

The fact that the main female role in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon was given to Olga Tschechowa, allegedly adored by Adolf Hitler and endowed in 1936 with the title “State Actress of the Third Reich”, indicates how significant the film was thought to be by the Nazi leaders in their effort to instill a belligerent attitude towards the British into the German public. However, the methods the film uses to achieve this aim raise the question of the National Socialist Regime’s own repressiveness. The charges directed against Britain in the prelude, while all too apodictic in tone, contain more than a grain of truth, but one is conscious from the start of the mind-boggling hypocrisy of the Nazis in articulating such charges. Antony Beevor has written in his biography of Olga Tschechowa: Olga was preparing a new film, Der Fuchs von Glenarvon, a piece of anti-British propaganda set in Ireland. She played Gloria Grandison, an Irish patriot staunchly supporting freedom fighters at a time when the Wehrmacht was shooting them on the spot, along with the hostages, in occupied Europe.30

Altendorf points out, too, that the film comes dangerously close to revealing the Nazis’ own methods of oppression.31 The glaring parallel between what the English are accused of and what was happening in Germany for all to see is the most remarkable anomaly in this film. It begins and ends, for instance, with a cry for freedom. As the Irish had long since achieved independence, it has to refer to the Germans themselves. Even though the Nazis could draw on a German legacy lasting from the 18th century in which the catchword “Freiheit” was often used in a very nebulous way with little reference to specific civil rights, i.e. less in the sense of “freedom of ” (expression, opinion, speech, 29 “Die Briten werden wohlweislich nicht zu allegorischen Tyrannenfiguren, sondern sind mit allen Eigenschaften des deutschen Images vom englischen Feind ausgestattet. Somit wird sich der entfesselte, ‘revolutionäre’ Haß ausschließlich auf sie richten”. Altendorf: Zu anti-britischer Propaganda. P. 99. 30 Antony Beevor: The Mystery of Olga Chekhova. Was Hitler’s Favourite Actress a Russian Spy? London: Viking 2004. P. 157. 31 “Man kommt hier der Enthüllung der eigenen, nationalsozialistischen Unterdrückungsmechanismen gefährlich nahe”. Altendorf: Zu anti-britischer Propaganda. P. 99.

167 assembly) than in the sense of “freedom from” (French, Jewish, Bolshevist and – since 1939 – British domination), one would think that it must have made at least some members of the audience mindful of their own real lack of freedom and struck them as ringing particularly hollow in the context of the times. When Ennis is interrogated by British officers as to whether it was true that he had made disparaging remarks in public about Tetbury and his mission and he retorts without flinching: “As far as I know, it is not forbidden to express opinions about whether the government measures of the English are appropriate”,32 it surely must have been painfully obvious that to answer like that in the Volksgericht would have – in some cases literally – cost one one’s head. When Ennis is released from prison but condemned to exile for the rest of his life, he says grimly: “There I recognize the methods of the English!”.33 Did the audience not equally recognize the methods of the National Socialists? Much is made in the film of the British army’s raid of a church in the middle of a service. This scene is clearly geared to provoking the audience’s sense of outrage at the desecration of a sacred space, and yet only one-and-a-half years had elapsed since Jewish synagogues the length and breadth of Germany and Austria had been ransacked and burnt down in the so-called Kristallnacht. In planning this raid and other measures, the British officers in the film use the term “hart durchgreifen” [to take drastic measures], a term straight out of the Wörterbuch des Unmenschen [vocabulary of the inhuman] which was much used by the Nazis themselves and constituted a perceived quality of the British – the courage to be brutal – that Hitler had particularly admired and held up to the Germans as something to be emulated since Mein Kampf. Here, however, the German audience is suddenly asked to disapprove. Guido Altendorf reminds us that […] it was never a problem for the National Socialists to leave their own brutal actions entirely out of the picture (as for instance in a film). They made no express attempt to excuse their own misdeeds; instead, they attributed them to the English (which surely in some cases even contained an element of truth) and presented them as a completely indefensible crime.34

It must be concluded that in 1940 the Nazis could allow themselves such blatant inconsistencies because they were still so firmly in the saddle. They could rely on 32

“So viel ich weiß, ist es nicht verboten, Ansichten über die Zweckmäßigkeit englischer Regierungsmaßnahmen zu äußern”. 33 “Daran erkenne ich die Methoden Englands”. 34 “Allerdings darf nicht vergessen werden, dass die Nationalsozialisten nie darum verlegen waren, wenn es darum ging, ihr eigenes brutales Vorgehen (z.B. im Spielfilm) völlig auszuklammern. Hier wird nicht ausdrücklich versucht, die eigenen Vergehen zu entschuldigen, sondern sie werden Großbritannien untergeschoben (was sicherlich mitunter sogar der Wahrheit entsprach) und als ein nicht zu rechtfertigendes Verbrechen dargestellt”. Altendorf: Zu anti-britischer Propaganda. P. 99.

168 the fear-induced suppression mechanism that made the audience overlook the iniquities of their own political system and thus omit drawing unfavourable comparisons. Or so it seems from the audience reaction to My Life for Ireland. The newspaper Berliner Börsenzeitung reported that some scenes triggered off applause at different points during the showing, and the Berliner Morgenpost reported that the audience had been gripped by the theme and so spellbound by the ending that they reacted with thunderous applause.35 The reaction to Kimmich’s other “Irish” film The Fox of Glenarvon will have been similar. The thought occurs to one fleetlingly whether perhaps the audience divined a hidden message and was spontaneously expressing its rejection of the Nazi regime, but Germany was still winning the war in April 1940 when the film was premièred, making spectacular advances on all military fronts, employment was full and the regime was riding on a crest of popularity. The German public at that time was definitely not given to mass demonstrations of disapproval. At most it is possible that the slightly more perceptive members of the audience will have derived some consolation from the thought that foreign critics of Germany such as the British had their own skeletons in the cupboard. Also to imagine that Max Kimmich, in pointing up parallels between British and German behaviour, might have been putting out subversive signals is probably equally unfounded. The Nazi state, over-sensitive as it was to all dissidence however oblique, would hardly have given Der Fuchs von Glenarvon and Mein Leben für Irland the rating “artistically and ideologically commendable”36 if they had had the slightest reason to suspect a subversive intent. And if Kimmich had indeed taken such risks from within the very core of the power machine as a member by marriage of the Goebbels family and had yet managed to escape the fate of Herbert Selpin,37 would he not have been fêted in the post-war period rather than to fade away into total forgottenness? In her memoir Meine Uhren gehen anders [Differently timed than others],38 Olga Tschechowa, who is at considerable pains to distance herself from the members of the Nazi regime with whom she had formerly hobnobbed, describes situations in which she, her mother and her friends such as Carl Raddatz countered Goebbels’ remarks in an outspoken or even flippant way. But nowhere does she mention Kimmich, whether as a potentially critical voice or not. There, too, he is consigned firmly to the oblivion he obviously deserved.

35

Cit. Altendorf: Zu anti-britischer Propaganda. P. 20. künstlerisch und staatspolitisch wertvoll”. 37 Selpin, who directed the anti-British films Carl Peters (1941) and Titanic (1943), was jailed without trial for making critical remarks about the Wehrmacht in private and was “found” hanged in his cell. 38 Olga Tschechowa: Meine Uhren gehen anders. Munich: Herbig 1973. 36

Thomas Martinec

Perspective and Reality. Cinematic Transformation of the Narrative Perspective in Schlöndorff’s Die Blechtrommel Even though Grass attributes extraordinary significance to the narrator in Die Blechtrommel, he does not show any objection to the fact that Schlöndorff abandons this crucial feature of the book in his cinematic adaptation. In order to explore the reasons behind such a peculiar agreement, three aspects of the cooperation between director and novelist will be addressed. An analysis of the way in which Grass views the relationship between different aesthetic disciplines such as literature and film reveals that he regards tension to be the prime feature of such a relationship. To investigate this tension further, it will then be asked which ideas are to be found behind Grass’s use of the narrator in Die Blechtrommel: Oskar Matzerath is linked to a conception of reality that integrates fantasy, and to a specific approach to world history which is achieved by his view from below. A close analysis of the film will eventually identify various cinematic techniques, which are employed to transfer these notions onto screen, while at the same time highlighting the difference between the literary character of Oskar, who displays a significant degree of ambivalence, and his cinematic counterpart, who aims at identification. Schlöndorff’s treatment of the narrator will thus be read as an attempt to transform a literary device into a cinematic one without sacrificing the aesthetic freedom of film.

It is probably the most common criticism against the filmic adaptation of literature that the former is not capable of matching the wealth and subtlety of meaning which the latter comprises: “An adaptation into film, as a handeddown discourse orientating itself to the cultural dominance of literature would have it, necessarily always means a truncation of literature, a watering-down and bastardisation of the literary model”.1 Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Die Blechtrommel seems to lend itself as a perfect example to prove that kind of criticism; not only does it neglect a variety of episodes and even the entire third part of the book (which is significant because it shows the continuity of fascist

1

My special thanks go to Geoffrey Gosby who translated all German quotations (except those taken from Die Blechtrommel) into English. The German texts are to be found in these footnotes. “Eine Verfilmung, so will es ein tradierter, sich an Literatur als kultureller Dominante orientierender Diskurs, meint notwendigerweise immer eine Verkürzung von Literatur, eine Verwässerung und Bastardisierung der literarischen Vorlage”. Ingeborg Hoesterey: Das Literarische und das Filmische. Zur dialogischen Medialität der Blechtrommel. In: Günter Grass. Ästhetik des Engagements. Ed. by Hans Adler and Jost Hermand. New York: Lang 1996. Pp. 23–37: P. 23. For a good outline of the difficult relation between literary criticism and film see Mathias Hurst: Erzählsituationen in Literatur und Film. Ein Modell zur vergleichenden Analyse von literarischen Texten und filmischen Adaptionen. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1996. Pp. 1–12.

170 elements in post-war Germany),2 it also abandons what is just as vital to the novel as to the whole plot: Oskar Matzerath as the inmate of a mental asylum, or, to put it in literary terms, Oskar Matzerath, the narrator. Even though Schlöndorff provides us with a few voice-overs in which Oskar comments on his past (i.e. the storyline of the film), these can by no means live up to the character of the narrator in the novel who introduces himself at the very beginning, comments on the narrative on several occasions and describes his present day in some detail. Whilst even the harshest opponents of filmic adaptations might be forbearing with the reduction of plot, given the quantitative restrictions of the medium, they will certainly not accept a change as drastic as the abandonment of the narrator, especially in view of the crucial role he plays in a picaresque novel such as Die Blechtrommel.3 Seeking to emancipate film as an independent artistic medium in its own right, one could, of course, argue that Schlöndorff is not obliged to stick to the narrative technique of his literary model, but ought to enjoy the aesthetic freedom to adapt this technique until it best serves his work. However, without denying the freedom of film, one has to admit that this argument tends to neglect the intricate relation of a filmic adaptation to its literary model; if the director simply has the freedom to change a text as he pleases, why then should he use a literary model at all, instead of creating the plot himself (thus achieving true aesthetic independence)? If one takes the idea of the adaptation of literature into film seriously, attention must be paid to both media involved. This does not mean that the literary features of a text are to be seen as binding for the filmic adaptation. It does mean, however, that the ideas expressed by these features can be expected to recur on the screen in one way or another. Only then is it appropriate to talk about an aesthetic transformation as opposed to adaptive arbitrariness. Even though this approach might seem restrictive as it holds a filmic adaptation responsible for the interpretation of its literary model, it does, in fact, allow for the freedom to adopt the meaning of a text in the specific way that best suits film. Seen from that angle, all criticism of Schlöndorff’s abandonment of the novel’s I-narrator then turns out to be restricted to the textual surface without being able to penetrate any deeper. Even though it is appropriate to note that Schlöndorff’s film does not present us with any narrator worth mentioning, this does not necessarily mean that it 2

Cf. the chapter “Die Stunde ‘Null’: genutzte oder verpaßte Chance?” (Pp. 17–26) in Jürgen Rothenberg: Günter Grass. Das Chaos in verbesserter Ausführung. Zeitgeschichte als Thema und Aufgabe des Prosawerks. Heidelberg: Winter 1976. 3 For a discussion of Schlöndorff’s filmic adaptation with regard to the problem of “Literaturverfilmung” in general see David Head: Volker Schlöndorff’s Die Blechtrommel and the “Literaturverfilmung” Debate. In: German Life and Letters 36 (1983). Pp. 347–367.

171 lacks what the novel seeks to establish through the I-narrator. After all, the use of Oskar Matzerath is motivated by certain considerations that make his character necessary in the literary field. But does that mean that it is equally necessary in the cinematic sphere? On the contrary, it might mean that the literary function of the I-narrator has to be taken over by a different device in order to survive the medial change from novel to film. By dwelling on what lies beneath the surface of Oskar Matzerath in the literary text, that is, by pointing to Grass’s ideas behind this character, I would like to suggest that Schlöndorff’s cinematic treatment of this literary feature is an extremely successful attempt to transform a narrative device into a cinematic one in order to maintain its original motivation. To achieve this I will first analyse the function of the I-narrator in Grass’s novel and then investigate some cinematic devices Schlöndorff employs to fulfill the same functions on the screen. By doing so I wish to demonstrate a concept of the adaptation of literature into film that seeks to maintain ideas by adjusting artistic devices. A first glimpse of this concept is given by Grass’s and Schlöndorff’s own understanding of their cooperation. Both director and novelist are well aware of the fact that different artistic disicplines require different means in order to achieve similar goals, and they both know about the aesthetic tensions that accompany the process of transforming one medium into another. On a joint press conference in September 1976, Grass admits that he felt provoked by Schlöndorff throughout their cooperation, but also stimulated by him: “It all depends on having the right partner. The right partner in this case means the one who provokes me with questions and who does not ask rhetorically […]. And in fact it has only been possible in this way, through Schlöndorff’s provocative questions, for me to work on the dialogues”.4 At the same conference Schlöndorff confesses: “Literature stood rather at odds here with the feasibility of film”.5 4

“Es kommt auf den richtigen Partner an. Richtiger Partner heißt in dem Fall, derjenige, der mich mit Fragen provoziert, der nicht rhetorisch fragt […]. Und eigentlich nur so, durch Schlöndorffs provozierende Fragen, war es möglich, daß ich an den Dialogen habe arbeiten können”. Günter Grass: Ausschnitte aus einer Pressekonferenz mit Günter Grass, Volker Schlöndorff und Franz Seitz in Berlin am 30. 6. 1978. In: Volker Schlöndorff: “Die Blechtrommel”. Tagebuch einer Verfilmung. Darmstadt/ Neuwied: Luchterhand 5th ed. 1979. Pp. 21 f.: P. 21. To appreciate the stimulating potential of Schlöndorff’s provocative questions it ought to be noted that Grass turned down other requests to adapt Die Blechtrommel for the screen, when he felt that a proposed change to his novel was merely dull: “Once an American director came who spoke about the book quite enthusiastically. That lasted about fifteen minutes, but then he asked me, ‘does this boy absolutely have to stop growing when he’s three years old?’ I threw him out” (“Einmal kam ein amerikanischer Regisseur, der ganz begeistert von dem Buch sprach, das ging eine Viertelstunde lang; dann aber fragte er: ‘Muß das unbedingt sein, daß dieser Junge mit drei Jahren sein Wachstum einstellt?’ Ich habe ihn rausgeschmissen”). Ibid. 5 “Literatur hat hier eher quer gestanden zur Machbarkeit des Films”. Ibid.

172 In the course of producing the film, Schlöndorff again and again tries to break free from his literary model in order to maintain its “inner energy”: “The film must not become enacted literature. Grass is not just writing against the claim that no further novel could be written, rather the stories crowd within him as experience that he must relate. Where will this inner energy come from in the film?”.6 The search for the “inner energy” indicates that Schlöndorff seeks to maintain the substance and the power of the book. At the same time his question of where in the film this “energy” should actually come from is ultimately driven by the awareness that cinematic means must be found to convey the literary power of the book: “Not film therefore as an imitative visual copy of a literary text, and the text not as a model, but as an object of friction, of 6

“Der Film darf nicht inszenierte Literatur werden. Grass schreibt ja auch nicht nur gegen die Behauptung an, es könne kein Roman mehr geschrieben werden, sondern die Geschichten drängen sich in ihm als Erlebtes, das er mitteilen muß. Woher wird beim Film diese innere Energie kommen?” Volker Schlöndorff: Aus meinem Tagebuch zur Blechtrommel April 1977–February 1979. In: Schlöndorff: “Die Blechtrommel”. Tagebuch einer Verfilmung. Pp. 37–122: P. 39. Later, recalling Grass’s arival on the set, Schlöndorff writes in his diary: “I’m not in too much of a hurry to speak to the author. I’m not filming his novel to do him – Günter Grass – a favour, but I’m making a film called Die Blechtrommel whose script is based on the novel of the same name. It’s important for me that I make a good film, not that I please the author” (“So eilig habe ich es nicht, mit dem Autor zu sprechen. Ich verfilme nicht seinen Roman, um ihm – Günter Grass – einen Gefallen zu tun, sondern ich mache einen Film, der Die Blechtrommel heißt und dessen Drebhuch auf dem gleichnamigen Roman basiert. Wichtig für mich ist, daß ich einen guten Film mache, nicht, daß ich dem Autor gefalle”). Ibid. P. 91. Schlöndorff’s argument recurs in the academic attempt to justify the aesthetic independence of “Literaturverfilmungen”, for instance in Knut Hickethier: Der Film nach der Literatur ist Film. Volker Schlöndorffs Die Blechtrommel (1979) nach dem gleichnamigen Roman von Günter Grass (1959). In: Literaturverfilmungen. Ed. by Franz-Josef Albersmeier and Volker Roloff. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1989. Pp. 183–198: P. 184: “The film is always film first and foremost, and that a novel once formed the basis of its script, in any case only a middle-stage in the production process, is of peripheral significance for its filmic qualities. We still understand the film without having read the novel beforehand” (“Der Film aber ist immer zuerst Film, und daß seinem Drehbuch, ohnehin nur eine Zwischenstufe im Arbeitsprozeß, einmal ein Roman zugrunde gelegen hat, ist für das Filmische an ihm von peripherer Bedeutung. Wir verstehen den Film, auch ohne den Roman zuvor gelesen zu haben”). It is interesting to note that the tensions between author and director seem to decrease the closer they get to their result. At the very beginning Schlöndorff notes: “Despite lively conversations we remain strangers. I’m panicked by the scale of the undertaking and scared of the author” (“Trotz lebhafter Gespräche bleiben wir uns fremd. Ich bekomme Panik vor dem Ausmaß des Unternehmens und Angst vor dem Autor”). Tagebuch. P. 39. Having finished the film script, Schlöndorff comments: “A year of working has brought us closer together” (“Ein Jahr Arbeit hat uns nähergebracht”). Ibid. P. 52. After the film is ready he feels: “Now that the work is behind us we can speak more openly to each other” (“Jetzt, wo die Arbeit hinter uns liegt, können wir offener miteinander sprechen”). Ibid. P. 121.

173 productive engagement on the terrain of an artistic medium furnished with different characteristic structures”.7 Grass shares this view. As both a literary and a visual artist,8 he is able to comprehend the profound differences between writing and drawing, but also to appreciate the aesthetic potential of these differences. Thus he explains with regard to his method of writing: “The written metaphor often arrives on paper carelessly; when I then examine it by drawing it out, however, it often does not work or has to be revised. For me therefore, both disciplines, that of drawing and that of writing, are disciplines which correct and which also interrupt each other, which complement or repel each other”.9 On the basis of his familiarity with aesthetic transformations between two arts, Grass knows that in the process of filmic adaptation one has to sacrifice certain aspects of the literary model in order to maintain its energy. Asked by Armin Halstenberg in an interview in 7

“Film also nicht als imitative, visuelle Nachschrift eines literarsichen Textes, der Text nicht als Vorlage, sondern als Gegenstand der Reibung, der produktiven Auseinandersetzung auf dem Terrain eines mit anderen Eigenstrukturen ausgestatteteten Kunstmediums”. Hoesterey: Das Literarische und das Filmische. P. 26. 8 Furthermore, Grass showed a particular interest in film as well: “I’ve been a cinema fan from childhood” (“Ich bin ein Kino-Fan von Kindheit an”). Grass: Ich habe zuviel Respekt vor dem Filmemachen (1984). In: Günter Grass: Werkausgabe in zehn Bänden. Ed. by Volker Neuhaus. Darmstadt/Neuwied: Luchterhand 1987. Vol. X. Pp. 320–322: P. 320. 9 “Die geschriebene Metapher kommt oft leichtfertig aufs Papier; wenn ich sie dann zeichnerisch überprüfe, hält sie oft nicht stand, oder sie muß revidiert werden. Und so sind für mich beide Disziplinen – die des Zeichnens, die des Schreibens – eben Disziplinen, die einander korrigieren, die einander auch ins Wort fallen, die sich ergänzen oder abstoßen”. Günter Grass/Eckehart Rudolph: Die Ambivalenz der Wahrheit zeigen (1975). In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. X. Pp. 180–189: P. 183. Cf. also Günter Grass/Siegfried Lenz: Phantasie als Existenznotwendigkeit (1981). In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. X. Pp. 255–281: P. 264, where Grass mentions “drawing as a possibility for controlling writing” (“das Zeichnen als Kontrollmöglichkeit gegenüber dem Schreiben”). Jens Christian Jensen: Günter Grass als Bildkünstler. In: Text und Kritik. Günter Grass. 61 (1988). Pp. 58–72: P. 60, identifies three functions of drawing for Grass’s writing: 1) “It does not set free pictures that the word could not express, neither does it distinguish an independent field from writing, rather it serves the author as a catalyst. It filters, clarifies, makes things concrete”. 2) “It creates the connection with visible reality, forces concentration on the visible […]”. 3) “It helps one to understand the reality in which man and his environment are to be found in order to be able to describe it” (1: “Es setzt nicht Bilder frei, die das Wort nicht fassen könnte, es grenzt nicht einen eigenständigen Bereich gegen das Schreiben ab, sondern es dient dem Schriftsteller als Katalysator. Es filtert, klärt, konkretisiert”. 2: “Es schafft die Verbindung zur sichtbaren Wirklichkeit, zwingt zur Konzentration auf Sichtbares […]”. 3: “Es hilft, die Realität, in der sich der Mensch und seine Umwelt befinden, zu begreifen, um sie beschreiben zu können”). A helpful collection on Grass’s double nature as a visual and a literary artist, which contains “Selbstaussagen” of the author as well as essays by literary critics is Günter Grass. Wort und Bild. Tübinger Poetik Vorlesung & Materialien. Ed. by Jürgen Wertheimer and Ute Allmendinger. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag 1999.

174 1984, “Should a film maker not retell a literary model as new rather than simply recounting it?”, Grass replies: “An enrichment must take place. Simple parrot-like repetition or copying will repel the reader of the book who goes to the cinema. This is because the moviegoer wants to experience in the cinema that which the book makes possible but can only be realised in film. The author must produce pictures with words, and the filmmaker must probably forget much of that if he wants to achieve a comparable power of image”.10 With regard to Die Blechtrommel this statement reads as follows: “Only when I realised that Schlöndorff was somebody who had the strength and the power of imagination to adapt material according to his own aesthetic, the aesthetic of the filmmaker, was I reassured. […] Only when I realised that Schlöndorff was able to translate the syntax of the writer, the writer’s formation into the view of the camera, was the matter settled for me”.11 What has been said about Grass’s attitude towards the filmic adaptation of Die Blechtrommel in general is also valid for the handling of the I-narrator in particular. Thus the novelist argues: “He [Schlöndorff] has substantially altered the narrative position and made it simpler and more filmic than it was in the book, and has therefore arrived at quite a different point of view. That interested me, how material familiar to and yet already remote from me is seen in a new way by another talent, without Schlöndorff having done anything that would contradict me”.12 10

Halstenberg: “Muß nicht überhaupt ein Filmemacher eine literarische Vorlage weniger nacherzählen und mehr neu erzählen?” – Grass: “Es muß eine Bereicherung stattfinden. Das bloße Nachplappern oder Nachzeichnen wird den Leser des Buches, der ins Kino geht, eher abstoßen. Denn der Zuschauer möchte im Kino erleben, was das Buch möglich macht, aber sich erst im Film realisieren läßt […]. Der Autor muß mit Wörtern Bilder herstellen, und der Filmemacher muß wahrscheinlich vieles davon vergessen, wenn er zu einer vergleichsweisen Bildkräftigkeit kommen will”. Grass: Respekt vor dem Filmemachen. P. 321 f. Being asked in the same interview, “why do not you adapt your books into film yourself?”, Grass replies: “I have too much respect for filmmaking – perhaps too much respect, but I know that filmmaking is difficult” (Halstenberg: “Warum verfilmen Sie Ihre Bücher nicht selbst?” – Grass: “Ich habe zuviel Respekt vor dem Filmemachen: vielleicht zuviel Respekt, aber ich weiß, Filmemachen ist schwierig”). Ibid. 11 “Erst als ich merkte, daß der Schlöndorff jemand ist, der die Kraft und die Vorstellungskraft hat, aus seiner Ästhetik heraus, aus der Ästhetik des Filmemachers Stoff zu adaptieren, da war ich beruhigt. […] Erst, als ich merkte, daß der Schlöndorff in der Lage ist, die Syntax des Schriftstellers, den Periodenbau des Schriftstellers in die Optik der Kamera zu übersetzen, da war die Sache für mich geklärt”. Grass/Schlöndorff: Aus der Sendung Notizbuch, Bayerischer Rundfunk (6.10.1978). In: Schlöndorff: “Die Blechtrommel”. Tagebuch einer Verfilmung. Pp. 23–25: P. 24. 12 “Er [Schlöndorff] hat die Erzählposition wesentlich geändert und viel einfacher und filmischer gemacht als im Buch und ist deshalb zu einer ganz anderen Optik gekommen. Und das hat mich dann interessiert, wie ein mir vertrauter und doch schon entlegener Stoff von einem anderen Talent neu gesehen wird. Ohne daß Schlöndorff etwas gemacht hat, was mir widersprechen würde”. Grass: Respekt vor dem Filmemachen. P. 321.

175 If one seeks to comprehend the aesthetic transformation of the novel’s I-narrator in Schlöndorff’s film, it is essential to first of all grasp the ideas that lie behind Grass’s use of his narrator, because only then can one realise what actually is at stake when Schlöndorff tackles his literary model.13 Throughout the novel Grass keeps the reader aware of the fact that the story is being narrated by Oskar Matzerath. To do so he repeatedly lets Oskar comment on his way of telling his past: “Just to heighten the suspense, I’m going to wait a while before telling you the name of the city at the mouth of the Mottlau, though there’s ample reason for mentioning it right now because it is there that my mama first saw the light of day”,14 or: “I have no idea how I managed to cross the Kohlenmarkt […]. Probably a grown-up, perhaps a policeman, took me by the hand […]”,15 and: “Oskar has been getting ahead of himself; now he must smooth the creases out of Matzerath’s brow, for on the night of my arrival he beamed […]”16 – to quote just a few cases in which the process of narrating is kept at the forefront of the reader’s mind. By thematising the act of narrating, Oskar Matzerath draws our attention to the fact that his narrative is based upon his memory. This is not striking in itself, because he is writing about his past. What is quite striking, however, is the way in which Oskar presents the act of recollecting: “If I didn’t have my drum, which, when handled adroitly and patiently, remembers all the incidentals that I need to get the essential down on paper, and if I didn’t have the permission of the management to drum on it three or four hours a day, I’d be a poor bastard with nothing to say for my grandparents”.17 Here, memory is shown to be a creative act. Oskar relies on his tin drum, a musical (i.e. creative) instrument, to access his story – a process

13

I would like to thank Stefan Trappen, whose seminar on Die Blechtrommel (some time ago) provided me with helpful material and ideas on narrative techniques employed by Grass. 14 Günter Grass: The Tin Drum. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. London: Wintage 1998. P. 12. “Nur um die Spannung etwas zu erhöhen, nenne ich den Namen jener Stadt an der Mottlaumündung noch nicht, obgleich sie als Geburtsstadt meiner Mama jetzt schon nennenswert wäre”. Günter Grass: Die Blechtrommel. In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. II. P. 19. 15 The Tin Drum. Pp. 87 f. “Ich weiß nicht, wie ich über die Fahrbahn des Kohlenmarktes kam […]. Vielleicht nahm mich ein Erwachsener, ein Polizist womöglich bei der Hand […]”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 117. 16 The Tin Drum. P. 328. “Oskar hat vorgegriffen, muß wieder Matzeraths Gesicht glätten, denn am Abend meiner Ankunft strahlte er […]”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 426. 17 The Tin Drum. P. 11. Hätte ich nicht meine Trommel, der bei geschicktem und geduldigem Gebrauch alles einfällt, was an Nebensächlichkeiten nötig ist, um die Hauptsache aufs Papier bringen zu können, und hätte ich nicht die Erlaubnis der Anstalt, drei bis vier Stunden täglich mein Blech sprechen zu lassen, wäre ich ein armer Mensch ohne nachweisliche Großeltern”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 19.

176 referred to by Volker Neuhaus as “drumming as narrating”.18 Hence memory is not the passive process of receiving images from the past, as it might commonly be regarded, but rather an ambitious effort to re-construct these images.19 To a significant extent, memory creates the past. Oskar’s creative way of recollecting the past shows severe implications for the entire narrative, because it obviously influences the object of his memory. That is to say that Oskar Matzerath, the narrator, ultimately helps to constitute Oskar Matzerath, the protagonist. Literally from the famous first sentence on, the narrator highlights the creativity of his story-telling, presenting himself as an unreliable source with regard to factual objectivity: “Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me”.20 A perfect example of the area that lies behind this “warning sign at the beginning of the novel, indicating in no uncertain terms that an unreliable narrator is at work”,21 can be found when Oskar recalls his visit to the opera-in-the-woods. Here the narrator’s creative memory helps to constitute his past in the following way. Oskar explains that he fell asleep until he suddenly 18

“Trommeln als Erzählen”. Volker Neuhaus: Günter Grass. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler 2nd ed. 1992. Pp. 36–38. 19 The activity involved in this process is emphasised by the fact that Oskar presents the act of recollecting as hard work: “I have just drummed away a long morning, asking my drum all sorts of questions. I wished to know, for instance, whether the light bulbs in our bedroom were forty of sixty watts. The question is of the utmost importance to me, and this is not the first time I have asked it of myself and my drum. Sometimes it takes me hours to find my way back to those light bulbs. For I have to extricate myself from a forest of light bulbs, by good solid drumming without ornamental flourishes I have to make myself forget the thousands of lighting mechanisms it has been my lot to kindle or quench by turning a switch upon entering or leaving innumerable dwellings, before I can get back to the illumination of our bedroom in Labesweg”. The Tin Drum. P. 32. “Ich habe heute einen langen Vormittag zertrommelt, habe meiner Trommel Fragen gestellt, wollte wissen, ob die Glühbirnen in unserem Schlafzimmer vierzig oder sechzig Watt zählten. Es ist nicht das erste Mal, daß ich diese für mich so wichtige Frage mir und meiner Trommel stelle. Oft dauert es Stunden, bis ich zu jenen Glühbirnen zurückfinde. Denn müssen nicht jedesmal die tausend Lichtquellen, die ich beim Betreten und Verlassen vieler Wohnungen durch Ein- und Ausschalten der entsprechenden Schaltdosen belebte oder einschlafen ließ, vergessen werden, damit ich durch floskellosestes Trommeln aus einem Wald genormter Beleuchtungskörper zu jenen Leuchten unseres Schlafzimmers im Labesweg zurückfinde?” Die Blechtrommel. Pp. 45 f. 20 The Tin Drum. P. 1. “Zugegeben: ich bin Insasse einer Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, mein Pfleger beobachtet mich, läßt mich kaum aus dem Auge; denn in der Tür ist ein Guckloch, und meines Pflegers Auge ist von jenem Braun, welches mich, den Blauäugigen, nicht durchschauen kann.” Die Blechtrommel. P. 6. 21 Noel L. Thomas: The Narrative Works of Günter Grass. A Critical Interpretation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1982. P. 12. The section on Die Blechtrommel has been republished seperately as Noel L. Thomas: Grass. Die Blechtrommel. London: Grant & Cutler 1985.

177 […] awoke for good, because a woman was standing all alone in the forest, screaming for all she was worth. She had yellow hair and she was yelling because a spotlight, probably manipulated by the younger Formella, was blinding her. “No!” she cried. “Woe’s me!” and: “Who hath made me suffer so?” […] A brilliant voice, but its efforts were of no avail. It was time for Oskar to intervene, to locate that importunate source of light and, with a single long-distance cry, lower-pitched than the persistent buzzing of the mosquitoes, destroy it.22

This scene starts out entirely in the realm of the realistic: Oskar, his parents and Jan Bronski are visiting the open-air performance of an opera. While the music is playing the boy is becoming bored and dozes off, until the singing of an obviously rather dramatic aria wakes him. At this point the realistic scene changes into an imaginative one: “She had yellow hair and she was yelling because a spotlight […] was blinding her”.23 Here, the creative part of Oskar’s memory is taking over. The singer does not, of course, yell because of the spotlight. In fact, she does not yell at all, but rather she sings in a way that a naïve child might perceive as yelling. This distinction between fact and perception, however, has no place in the narrator’s account of the situation. Instead Oskar presents the version that originates from his imagination as if it were the objective truth. Thus the narrative that started out in a realistic manner tacitly takes off into the realm of fantasy without giving any indication of that shift. This merging of fact and fantasy, which is to be found in Oskar’s way of remembering and narrating his past, strikingly corresponds to Grass’s notion of reality. In a conversation with Siegfried Lenz in 1981 Grass explains: “For me, that which, isolated from reality, is always labelled ‘fantasy’, is a part of reality. This split – here reality, there fantasy – is not something I agree with”.24 The extent to which Grass integrates both aspects into his concept of reality becomes clear when he distinguishes it from two more one-sided models. On the one hand he identifies the exclusion of fantasy as a reduction of reality: “One is forced repeatedly to prove how this reality is hidden by very uninventive imagination. We have yielded to very specific definitions and accepted 22

The Tin Drum. Pp. 97 f. “[…] bis Oskar endgültig erwachte, weil mitten im Wald ganz einsam eine schreiende Frau stand. Gelbhaarig war die und schrie, weil ein Beleuchter, wahrscheinlich der jüngere Formella, sie mit einem Scheinwerfer blendete und belästigte. ‘Nein!’ schrie sie, ‘Weh mir!’ und: ‘Wer tut mir das an?’ […] Ihre Stimme, obgleich begabt, versagte. Oskar mußte einspringen, die unerzogene Lichtquelle ausfindig machen und mit einem einzigen, fernwirkenden Schrei, die leise Dringlichkeit der Mücken noch unterbietend, jenen Scheinwerfer töten.” Die Blechtrommel. P. 130. 23 “Gelbhaarig war die und schrie, weil ein Beleuchter […] sie mit einem Scheinwerfer blendete und belästigte”. 24 “Für mich ist das, was isoliert von der Wirklichkeit immer als ‘Phantasie’ bezeichnet wird, ein Teil der Wirklichkeit. Ich mache diese Spaltung – hier Wirklichkeit, dort Phantasie – nicht mit”. Grass: Phantasie als Existenznotwendigkeit. P. 256.

178 them as reality, for example this corset of the chronological concept of time”.25 On the other hand, he criticises the concept of an independent fantasy: Asked by Siegfried Lenz “Does imagination depend on such wide-ranging experience in order to legitimise itself? Does experience absolutely have to precede imagination?”, Grass replies, “Yes, because the imagined belongs to reality. I go back to my old term of ‘bottomless imagination’. Experiences belong to it, otherwise it becomes bottomless”.26 At another occasion, Grass even applies his concept of reality directly to Die Blechtrommel.27 Asked by Ekkehart Rudolph whether there is a statement or even a message in Die Blechtrommel, Grass replies: “Well, the statement cannot be captured so easily in simple points. What I would certainly like is this: to extend the concept of realism, the inclusion of the subconscious, the imagination, the dreamlike, the fantastic – simply things which are often denounced as not real because they are not visible at first sight”.28 25 “Man ist immer wieder gezwungen nachzuweisen, wie gerade diese Wirklichkeit verstellt ist durch sehr erfindungsarme Phantasien. Wir haben uns ganz bestimmten Definitionen gebeugt und sie als Wirklichkeit akzeptiert; z. B. dieses Korsett des chronologischen Zeitbegriffs”. Ibid. 26 Lenz: “Ist das Phantastische auf so weitreichende Erfahrung angewiesen, um sich zu legitimeiren? Muß die Erfahrung unbedingt vorausgehen?” – Grass: “Ja, weil das Phantastische zur Wirklichkeit gehört. Ich komme wieder auf meinen alten Begriff ‘bodenlose Phantasterei’ zurück. Es gehören Erfahrungen dazu, sonst wird es bodenlos”. Ibid. P. 265. Cf. also p. 264, and Grass: Ambivalenz der Wahrheit. P. 186. 27 Even though Grass applies this concept to his novel, he by no means restricts it to the literary field. Instead, he is aware that in different arts his notion of reality which ultimately motivated the “narrator’s position” in the novel has to be expressed in different ways. Thus he argues with regard to literature and the visual arts: “We must mistrust our reduced conception of reality, then secondly have the tools, be it in one discipline or another, as a graphic artist for example, as a painter or an author, to describe this other shadow cast by reality which is also present” (“Wir müssen unserem reduzierten Wirklichkeitsbegriff mißtrauen und dann, zum zweiten, das Handwerkszeug haben, sei es in der einen oder anderen Disziplin, als Graphiker zum Beispiel, als Maler oder als Schriftsteller, diesen auch vorhandenen anderen Schattenwurf [der Realität] zu beschreiben”). Phantasie als Existenznotwendigkeit. P. 261. 28 “Also die Aussage läßt sich nicht so einfach in Thesen fassen. Was ich sicher möchte, ist dies: den Realismusbegriff erweitern, das Einbeziehen des Unterbewußten, der Phantasie, des Traumhaften, des Phantastischen; – lauter Dinge, die oft genug diffamiert werden als angeblich nicht real, weil nicht sichtbar auf den ersten Blick”. Grass: Ambivalenz der Wahrheit. P. 181. This concept of reality reaches far beyond Grass’s literary conception and involves a biographical element: “This is why what I expressed theoretically earlier on is of great importance – this expanded conception of reality in which imagination has an equal place and is not pushed to the edge. This for me, through experience, through social experience, has been a prerequisite of my existence. I would not have been able to endure my existence at that time – in a two-room flat, and later on living in a barracks – if, in the then constricted conditions, in which there was no personal space for me, I had not had the ability to create rooms for

179 The fact that Grass relies on experience when it comes to exploring the realm of fantasy brings in a second idea which is of utmost importance for the narrative concept of Die Blechtrommel and, indeed, the perspective of Oskar Matzerath. As the protagonist of the narrative, Oskar has all the experiences he eventually describes as the narrator, in the time before, during and after World War II. The historical events of that period form the basis of many an experience Oskar recollects eventually. For instance, he is in the Polish post office in Gdansk when it is being attacked by German soldiers,29 and he witnesses Matzerath being shot dead when Russian troops invade the city.30 Given that Grass carefully constructs this highly significant framework, the perspective of his protagonist leads the narrative into a somewhat surprising direction, because it makes us witness a whole variety of experiences that, at first sight, seem to have nothing to do with their historical setting whatsoever. Throughout the first two parts of the novel Oskar, although mentally an adult from the instance of his birth, is seen as a child by all other characters of the book. This status of the protagonist is essential, because as the adults are not aware of Oskar’s mental capacities, but rather take him to be an innocent, harmless and naïve boy, they do not feel the necessity to hide anything from him. Gretchen Scheffler, for instance, does not hide her sexual arousal when reading Rasputin with Oskar,31 and Herbert Truczinski tells him all about the scars on his back.32 Moreover Oskar witnesses events only a child can witness, either because of his physical height or because of the special protection children enjoy in an adult world. The former can be seen when Oskar observes Jan Bronski’s foot between Agnes’s legs, because he is hidden underneath the table,33 the latter myself ” (“Deswegen ist auch das, was ich anfangs theoretisch geäußert habe, von großer Wichtigkeit – dieser erweiterte Wirklichkeitsbegriff, in dem die Phantasie ihren gleichwertigen Platz hat und nicht an den Rand gedrückt wird, das ist für mich durch Erfahrung, durch soziale Erfahrung, Voraussetzung meiner Existenz gewesen. Ich hätte meine damalige Existenz – Zweizimmerwohnung, später Barackenleben – kaum aushalten können, wenn ich nicht in den jeweils engen Verhältnissen, in denen es keinen eigenen Raum für mich gab, die Fähigkeit gehabt hätte, mir dennoch Räume zu schaffen”). Phantasie als Existenznotwendigkeit. P. 259. 29 Cf. The Tin Drum: “The Polish Post Office” (Pp. 203–317), and “The Card House” (Pp. 217–289); Die Blechtrommel: “Die Polnische Post” (Pp. 267–284), and “Das Kartenhaus” (Pp. 285–297). 30 Cf. ibid.: “The Ant Trail” (Pp. 363–375); “Die Ameisenstraße” (Pp. 470–486). Quite a number of events Oskar experiences as the protagonist of the narrative do not actually show such an immediate link to the history of World War II, but they are nevertheless all set in the frame of a particular historical environment. 31 Cf. ibid.: “Rasputin and the Alphabet” (Pp. 69–81); “Rasputin und das ABC” (Pp. 94–108). 32 Cf.: “Herbert Truczinski’s Back” (Pp. 154–167); “Herbert Truczinskis Rücken” (Pp. 202–218). 33 Cf. The Tin Drum. P. 55; Die Blechtrommel. P. 75.

180 when Oskar is the only inmate who is not executed after the Germans have conquered the Polish post office in Gdansk, because he is taken to be a child.34 Thus the perspective of the child gives access to the adults’ private, even intimate world. The striking combination of a highly significant historical framework on the one hand and a perspective that brings to light rather private, even intimate, in any case historically insignificant events on the other derives from a specific understanding of history. Grass describes this understanding in his famous speech Über meinen Lehrer Döblin (1967): This is how Döblin places the emphasis: victory, defeat, matters of state, that which has always secured itself in dates as the Thirty Years War is to him worth a sub clause, often only a conscious omission. Important to him is the confusion of the army wandering back and forth seeking winter lodging, the labyrinthine court intrigues dragged out through chancelleries, court gardens and silenced galleries and into confessionals. […] The contrived ceremonies of cunning preparations […] writhe distorted, mystically intensified over the pages, as if placed before a concave mirror, whilst the result of courtly efforts […] is simply related in a pronouncedly careless manner, because it belongs to all of this, but history, and that means the multitude of nonsensical and simultaneous courses of events, history, as Döblin wants to debunk it, it is not.35

Seen from that angle it becomes clear that Grass does not ignore or even neglect history at all when he directs the perspective onto private events, but rather focuses on it. He fills a gap which academic historiography leaves open: Such historiography overlooks the individual in the mass of sufferers. It puts clearly into order that which days before lay in a chaotic pile. The view from below is omitted. […] 34

Cf. The Tin Drum. P. 230; Die Blechtrommel. P. 300. “So setzt Döblin die Akzente: Sieg, Niederlage, Staatsaktionen, was immer sich datenfixiert als Dreißigjähriger Krieg niedergeschlagen hat, ist ihm einen Nebensatz, oft nur die bewußte Aussparung wert. Ihm liegt am wirren Hin und Her der Winterquartiere suchenden Heere; ihm liegt an labyrinthischen, durch Kanzleien, Hofgärten und verschwiegene Galerien, in Beichtstühle verschleppten Hofintrigen. […] Die verstrickten Zeremonien listiger Vorbereitung […] wälzen sich, verzerrt und wie vor Hohlspiegel gestellt, mystisch gesteigert über Seiten, während das Ergebnis höfischer Anstrengungen […] lediglich mitgeteilt wird, betont achtlos, weil es nun mal dazugehört; aber Geschichte, und das heißt die Vielzahl widersinniger und gleichzeitiger Abläufe, Geschichte, wie Döblin sie bloßstellen will, ist das nicht”. Günter Grass: “Über meinen Lehrer Döblin” (1967) In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. IX. Pp. 236–255: P. 243. For an account of Döblin’s impact on Grass see Bernhard Böschenstein: Günter Grass als Nachfolger Jean Pauls und Döblins. In: Jb. Der Jean-Paul-Gesellschaft 6 (1971). Pp. 86–101; and Rolf Kellermann: Günter Grass und Alfred Döblin. In: Grass. Kritik – Thesen – Analysen. Ed. by Manfred Jurgensen. Bern/München: Francke 1973. Pp. 107–124. 35

181 Could the author therefore be employed on the side as a gap-filler for official history? He fills out what in the historical process is glossed over: for instance, Grimmelshausen’s Simplizissimus as a supplementary volume to the history of the Thirty Years War.36

As indicated by the phrase “the view from below”, this concept of history is closely linked to the perspective of the experiencing I in Die Blechtrommel. Oskar Matzerath, the child who lives in Gdansk in the years preceding and during World War II, is the one who has this “view from below” and thus can eventually convey what he saw. In fact, it was this perspective that led Grass to make Oskar Matzerath the protagonist of his novel in the first place: “Interesting alone remained the search for a dislocated perspective. The over-hightened standpoint of the pillar saint was too static. Only the three-year-old size of Oskar Matzerath offered mobility and distance simultaneously. Oskar Matzerath, if you will, is a pillar saint with reversed polarity”.37 36

“Solche Geschichtsschreibung geht über den einzelnen in der Masse der Leidenden hinweg. Übersichtlich ordnet sie, was vorgestern noch chaotisch zuhauf lag. Der Blick von unten bleibt ausgespart. […] Wäre also der Schriftsteller, wie im Nebenberuf, als Lückenbüßer der offiziellen Geschichte in Dienst zu nehmen? Er füllt aus, was im historischen Prozeß so groß- wie breitspurig übersprungen wird: etwa Grimmelshausens Simplizissimus als Ergänzungsband zur Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges”. Günter Grass: Als Schriftsteller immer auch Zeitgenosse (1986). In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. IX. Pp. 921–931: Pp. 922 f. For a detailed analysis of the historical dimension in Die Blechtrommel see Hanspeter Brode: Die Zeitgeschichte im erzählenden Werk von Günter Grass. Versuch einer Deutung der “Blechtrommel” und der “Danziger Trilogie”. Frankfurt/Main: Lang 1977, especially chapter 2 “Die Blechtrommel als kleinbürgerliche Sozialgeschichte” (Pp. 17–25); also Jürgen Rothenberg: Günter Grass. Pp. 9–13. 37 “Interessant alleine blieb die Suche nach einer entrückten Perspektive: Der überhöhte Standpunkt des Säulenheiligen war zu statisch. Erst die dreijährige Größe des Oskar Matzerath bot gleichzeitig Mobilität und Distanz. Wenn man will, ist Oskar Matzerath ein umgepolter Säulenheiliger”. Günter Grass: Rückblick auf die Blechtrommel – oder Der Autor als fragwürdiger Zeuge – Ein Versuch in eigener Sache. In: Grass: Werkausgabe. Vol. IX. Pp. 624–633: P. 627. Grass refers here to a poem of his which is entitled “Der Säulenheilige” (cf. Werkausgabe. Vol. I. P. 240). He emphasises the connection between his concept of history on the one hand and the protagonist’s perspective on the other, when he explains with regard to Simplicissimus: “Similarly to Döblin later on, Grimmelshausen left the great event of battle aside; indeed, more than Döblin did, he made the limited perspective [!] of the both dim-witted and cunning survivor who could not see anything more than the respective winter lodging, than the siege dragging itself out over weeks, than the desire to forage, to the narrative perspective [!]. Wallenstein is not mentioned by Grimmelshausen” (“Ähnlich wie später Döblin hat Grimmelshausen das große Schlachtgeschehen beiseite gelassen; ja, mehr als Döblin hat er die beschränkte Perspektive [!] des tumben wie schlauen Überlebenden, der nicht mehr sehen kann als das jeweilige Winterquartier, als die sich über Wochen hinschleppende Belagerung, als die Lust am Furagieren, zur Erzählperspektive [!] überhaupt gemacht. Wallenstein kommt bei Grimmelshausen nicht vor”). Über meinen Lehrer Döblin. P. 243.

182 Despite the important function of the narrrator outlined so far, Schlöndorff did not hesitate to change this crucial element of Die Blechtrommel for a single moment when approaching the novel to turn it into a film. Thus he notes in his Tagebuch: “This narrator’s position is clear, but the first screenplay that Franz Seitz wrote in this sense, with many flashbacks encapsulated within each other and off-texts Oskar’s, becomes the incomprehensible biography of a certain Oskar Matzerath, who thus interests nobody. I prefer to do without this narrator’s position and erect a chronological series of pictures which follow one another without explanatory transitions”.38 Schlöndorff does not stand alone with his argument of simplicity; he can even rely on the novelist himself: “The separation of the director and the scriptwriter from the literary conception – that meant: giving up the narrator’s position. There would have been a constant flashback otherwise ponderous and with unnecessary detours. What can be achieved with a semicolon in writing becomes ponderous in film”.39 The reasons for Grass’s general willingness to accept even drastic changes in a filmic adaptation of Die Blechtrommel have been discussed above. It is now necessary to analyse these changes in some detail to prove that Schlöndorff manages to compensate for the loss of the “narrator’s position” in the film without losing Grass’s idea of reality and history expressed by this position.40 Schlöndorff’s film presents us with the same blend of fact and fantasy that Grass achieves in his novel. The realistic level on which Oskar’s fantastic adventures take place are kept visible by a variety of references to the historical background of the plot. On numerous occasions, for instance, Nazi symbols are displayed in private settings: when Jan Bronski is on his way to visit the Matzerath family he is welcome with “Heil Hitler” by children who are playing with little swastika flags in front of the flat; after Matzerath has surprised his wife with a radio, he replaces the Beethoven portrait next to the new radio with a portrait of Hitler; and at Kurtchen’s christening a guest entertains the baby by 38

“Diese Erzählerposition ist klar, aber das erste Drehbuch, das Franz Seitz in diesem Sinne geschrieben hat, mit vielen ineinander verschachtelten Rückblenden und OffTexten Oskars, wird zur schwer nachvollziehbaren Biographie eines gewissen Oskar Matzerath, der so niemanden interessiert. Ich verzichte lieber auf diese Erzählerposition und stelle chronologisch eine Serie von Bildern auf, die ohne erklärende Übergänge einander folgen”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 38. 39 “Die Lösung des Regisseurs und Drehbuchautors von der literarischen Konzeption – das hieß: die Erzählerposition aufgeben. Es hätte sonst eine ständige Rückblende gegeben, umständlich und dreimal um die Ecke; was man mit einem Semikolon beim Schreiben machen kann, wird im Film umständlich”. Grass: Sendung Notizbuch. P. 23. 40 For a detailed analysis of different narrative perspectives in both literature and film see Matthias Hurst: Erzählsituationen in Literatur und Film. Pp. 13–153 (“Theoretische Grundlagen”). Unfortunately Schlöndorff’s Die Blechtrommel does not feature among the films Hurst analyses in the second part of his book with regard to the cinematic transformation of narrative perspectives in literary texts.

183 waving a little swastika badge in front of Kurtchen’s eyes as if it were a toy rattle. The use of dialogue also helps to establish the connection between historical events and private experiences and thus contributes to the depiction of the realistic basis of the storyline. When Matzerath sees Jan reading a newspaper, for instance, he objects: “You should read the Danziger Vorposten. Your opting for Poland is a crazy idea. I’ve always told you that”. When Jan, whose serious almost heroic facial expression is presented in a close up, responds in the manner of confession “I am Polish”, Matzerath answers: “Consider it again”.41 A similarly comic, albeit not unrealistic, development of thought can be found when Matzerath, at lunch, claims that the Russians ought to be starved out in order to carry on the conversation by asking a guest, whether she would like to have breast or leg of the bird he prepared for the meal.42 By weaving history into the fabric of the film and presenting it from the perspective of Oskar Matzerath, Schlöndorff follows Grass’s approach to history as “history from below”. By the same token he, just like Grass, potrays the political consequences of the characters’ behaviour. Hence Jan Lüder Hagens argues rightly that the “[…] limited ability and willingness to keep in sight their own political context makes Oskar’s relatives and friends liable to drift from an initial distance from, or indifference about, Nazism toward an identification with Nazism, and thus toward political disaster. Schlöndorff presents us with numerous examples of infantile, immature, and deluded political behavior and of an opportunist hunger for power”.43 Schlöndorff was very aware of his approach to world history via the everyday experience of Oskar Matzerath. Having read the novel, he notes in his Tagebuch zur “Blechtrommel”: “I’m trying to imagine a film that starts out from Die Blechtrommel. That could become a very German fresco, world history seen and experienced from beneath: gigantic, spectacular pictures held together by the tiny Oskar”.44 This phrase needs to be clarified in order to illustrate that Schlöndorff takes up yet another feature of the literary character. At first sight the idea of images 41

Matzerath: “Du solltest den Danziger Vorposten lesen. Daß du für Polen optiert hast, ist und bleibt ‘ne Schnapsidee. Ich hab’ Dir das immer gesagt”. – Jan: “Ich bin Pole”. – Matzerath: “Überleg’ Dir das nochmal”. 42 For a detailed analysis of cooking and eating in Die Blechtrommel see Angelika Hille-Sandvoss: Überlegungen zur Bildlichkeit im Werk von Günter Grass. Stuttgart: Heinz 1987. Pp. 258–282. 43 Jan Lüder Hagens: Aesthetic Self-Reflection and Political Consciousness in Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum. In: Signaturen der Gegenwartsliteratur. Festschrift für Walter Hinderer. Ed. by Dieter Borchmeyer. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1999. Pp. 99–111: P. 101. 44 “Ich versuche mir einen Film vorzustellen, der von der Blechtrommel ausginge. Das könnte eine sehr deutsche Freske werden, Weltgeschichte von unten gesehen und erlebt: riesige, spektakuläre Bilder, zusammengehalten von dem winzigen Oskar”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 37.

184 “held together by the tiny Oskar” seems to refer to the camera perspective. However, this is just one part of Schlöndorff’s concept. Even though he does occasionally try to immitate Oskar’s visual perspective by shooting pictures from a low angle corresponding to Oskar’s hight (approximately one metre), he is aware that this is a rather limited way of transforming the literary perspective into a cinematic one. What he tries to establish instead hits exactly the target Grass was aiming at by introducing a figure who appears to be a naïve child: he seeks to open up the perspective onto an adult world with no disguise: “Oskar experiences the world from the perspective of a child. One cannot, however, produce the perspective of the child by setting the camera 90 cm high. It is more the behaviour of the people in the rooms that comes across differently in the perspective of the child. It’s a mental perspective, not an optical one”.45 The attempt to gain access to an undisguised adult world in order to portray “history from below”, would serve as a sound basis for a documentary, but it could not transform Grass’s idea of reality onto the screen. This is, however, achieved when Schlöndorff presents a whole range of fantastic elements that depart from the protagonist’s factual (historical) experiences. The scene in which Oskar disturbs the Nazi rally, for example, serves as an occasion to portray the unity of fact and fantasy as outlined by Grass. In order to emphasize the realistic starting point of this event, Schlöndorff shows Oskar in front of a radio listening to the voice of a Nazi official, which is to be heard in the style of the Volksempfänger. We then see this man in the way the Wochenschau would have shown him: “Instead of film negative we used positive material for this, so that the sequence looks like it has been taken from the archives”.46 As a result the spectator perceives the event like a historical – and that is to say: a real – document. As soon as Oskar joins the rally, however, the style changes: “We adopt Oskar’s perspective only when he first arrives on the Maiwiese”.47 Here the film presents what in the novel is achieved by the narrator: The level of facts is being changed into the level of fantasy, when Oskar uses his drum to turn the military march into a walz and thus transforms a fascist rally (fact) 45

“Oskar erlebt die Welt aus der Perspektive des Kindes. Aber die Perspektive des Kindes kann man nicht dadurch herstellen, daß man die Kamera auf 90 cm Höhe einstellt. […] Es ist eher das Verhalten der Menschen in den Räumen, das in der Perspektive des Kindes anders wirkt; es ist eine geistige Perspektive, nicht eine optische”. Ibid. P. 25. 46 “Statt Filmnegativ benutzten wir dabei Positivmaterial, so daß die Sequenz wie aus dem Archiv geholt wirkt”. Ibid. Pp. 61 f. 47 “Erst mit Oskars Ankunft auf der Maiwiese übernehmen wir seine Perspektive”. Ibid. P. 62. Oskar’s arrival on the rally behind the stage again illustrates the “Perspektive von unten”: While the crowd gathers in front of the stage, we, following Oskar, see a little child relieving himself behind the stage.

185 into a peaceful dancing ball (fantasy). A similar technique of combining fact and fantasy is to be found in the scene at the Polish post office. Both at the beginning and at the end of this scene, Schlöndorff uses the means of historical documentary: The Volksempfänger at the beginning, and the Wochenschau camera at the end (even though this time we see someone filming with this camera rather than the scene through the camera). In between, however, we watch Oskar’s personal experiences in the office during the German attack. Another filmic device to compensate for the absence of the narrator is the use of the camera. When the film covers the time before Oskar is born, Schlöndorff uses “optical alienation”,48 combined with guimbard sounds as accustic allusions to childhood days, and voiceovers in which Oskar alias David Bennent tells the story of his origin. Once Oskar is born, the film takes up a key feature of the way in which the I-narrator of the novel talks about himself in the past. Grass’s narrator keeps oscillating between a first and a third person narrative by referring to himself as both “I” and “he”, as can be seen in the following sentence, for example: “If grown-ups wished to regard me as a bed-wetter, that I could accept with an inner shrug of the shoulders, but that I should have 44 to behave like a simpleton year in year out was a source of chagrin to Oskar and to his teacher as well”.49 Schlöndorff transforms this oscillation into his camera perspective and notes: “Where is Oskar’s view? Where is the view on Oskar. This change between subjective and objective presentation creates all of the tension. As Oskar speaks sometimes in the first, sometimes in the third person, so must we sometimes film from his perspective and sometimes observe him like a strange animal”.50 48

“Optische Verfremdungen”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 57: “We want to film here with the ASKANIA (an old silent film camera driven with a hand crank), partly in positive rather than negative material” (“hier wollen wir mit der ASKANIA (einer alten Stummfilmkamera mit Handkurbelantrieb) drehen, zum Teil auf Positiv- statt Negativmaterial”). 49 The Tin Drum. Pp. 76 f. “Daß die Erwachsenen in mir einen Bettnässer sahen, nahm ich innerlich achselzuckend hin, daß ich ihnen aber jahraus, jahrein als Dummerjan herhalten mußte, kränkte Oskar und auch seine Lehrerin”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 103. For a thorough analysis of the oscillation between 1st and 3rd person narrative in Die Blechtrommel see Dieter Arker: Nichts ist vorbei, alles kommt wieder. Untersuchungen zu Günter Grass’“Blechtrommel”. Heidelberg: Winter 1989. Pp. 78–91. 50 “Wo ist Oskars Blick? Wo ist der Blick auf Oskar. Dieser Wechsel zwischen subjektiver und objektiver Darstellung macht die ganze Spannung aus. So wie Oskar mal in der ersten, mal in der dritten Person spricht, müssen wir mal aus seiner Perspektive filmen, mal ihn beobachten wie ein fremdes Tier”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 72. Bjørn Bastiansen points out to yet another cinematic technique of transforming the novel’s first-person narrative. He argues that the striking presence of the observing (as opposed to the acting) Oskar on the screen creates the impression that the film is being told by him, because “such a focussing on one person leads one to see the space presented in the film as this person’s space” (“ein solches Fokussieren auf eine Person [führt] dazu, daß man den filmatisch wiedergegebenen Raum als den Raum dieser Person auffaßt”).

186 The frequent change of camera perspectives is most notable in three key scenes of the film. The shooting of Oskar’s birth changes back and forth from Oskar’s point of view (from which we see Jan and Matzerath upside down, while the midwife is holding Oskar at his feet) to a third person point of view in which we see the baby. The same play with the camera perspective recurs in the scene of Oskar’s fall from the cellar stairs. Before jumping, Oskar puts his tin drum on the bottom of the stairs. The audience then witnesses the fall in slow motion getting to see Oskar’s face (third person), the tin drum through Oskar’s eyes as he approaches it falling (first person), his face again, the tin drum again, then Oskar landing on the floor (third person), and eventually the open basement hatch from Oskar’s perspective (first person). Yet another example is the scene in which Alfred Matzerath and Maria are having sex on the couch: Before we learn what is happening precisely, we see Oskar entering the room observing the incident (third person), the camera then shoots the couple on the couch from Oskar’s angle with the table in the way (first person), and eventually shows Oskar climbing onto Alfred’s back (third person). Just as in the novel, in all these scenes the first person perspective is restricted to Oskar, thus reserving the position of the potential narrator exclusively for him. This becomes strikingly clear in the scene where Alfred Matzerath tries to take away the tin drum from his son: We see the action either through Oskar’s eyes or from behind Alfred’s back, but never through Alfred’s eyes. Even though Schlöndorff uses several cinematic devices to transmit Grass’s narrative targets onto the screen, he does not meet the novelist’s concept of the narrator entirely, but changes it in a crucial way. Grass constructed Oskar Matzerath as a highly ambivalent character who comprises several features that do not fit together. On the one hand Oskar shows psychological reactions like sadness at Roswitha’s death51 and fear of “the black witch”;52 on the other hand his mental capacities from his birth on53 as well as his capability to refuse growth lack any psychological plausibility.54 Oskar’s moral position is also Bjørn Bastiansen: Vom Roman zum Film. Eine Analyse von Volker Schlöndorff’s Blechtrommel-Verfilmung. Germanistisches Institut Universität Bergen 1990. P. 166. 51 Cf. The Tin Drum. P. 326; Die Blechtrommel. P. 424. 52 The Tin Drum. P. 565; “die schwarze Köchin” Die Blechtrommel. P. 731. 53 “I might as well come right out with it: I was one of those clair-audient infants whose mental development is completed at birth and after that merely needs a certain amount of filling in”. The Tin Drum. P. 33. “Damit es sogleich gesagt sei: Ich gehörte zu den hellhörigen Säuglingen, deren geistige Entwicklung schon bei der Geburt abgeschlossen ist und sich fortan nur noch bestätigen muß”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 46. 54 It is important to note that Oskar’s fall down the cellar stairs is not presented as the cause of his failure to grow, but rather as an excuse which the adults will be able to understand (cf. The Tin Drum. P. 47/Die Blechtrommel. P. 65). After all, Oskar eventually decides to grow again, which would be impossible if he had stopped growing for a medical reason in the first place.

187 highly ambivalent: on the one hand he seems to be the innocent and helpless child, who is teased and even tortured by his comrades;55 on the other hand he acts like a mean and evil dwarf who kills his own father by handing over the party badge to him while Russian soldiers are invading the basement in which the family is hiding.56 The same extent of ambivalence can be found in the narrator: on the one hand he seems to control the narrative by means of his imaginative recollections (as shown above), on the other hand he becomes repeatedly overwhelmed by his past and has to suffer from memories, such as Greff’s suicide: “[…] to this day Oskar feels that same gagging, that same knife thrust, when anyone speaks of hanging in his presence, even of hanging out washing”.57 It would require a separate study, of course, to identify and discuss the various literary traditions that helped to shape such a complex and multi-dimensional character.58 For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to make ourselves aware of the fact that Grass’s Oskar is such a highly complex and ambivalent figure, 55

Cf. The Tin Drum. Pp. 83 f., Die Blechtrommel. Pp. 111–113, where other children force Oskar to drink a soup consisting of a variety of disgusting ingredients. 56 Cf. The Tin Drum. Pp. 374 f., Die Blechtrommel. Pp. 484–486. 57 The Tin Drum. P. 296. “[…] es sticht und würgt Oskar heutzutage noch, wenn jemand in seiner Gegenwart vom Hängen, selbst vom Wäscheaufhängen spricht […]”. Die Blechtrommel. P. 386. Also Oskar’s comment on his recollection of Luzie Rennwand: “Who will eface the triangle from my mind? How long will it live within me, […] smiling as only triangles […] can smile”. The Tin Drum. P. 362. “Anblick, der mich stempelte. Wer nimmt mir das Dreieck von und aus der Stirn? Wie lange wird es noch in mir kauen […] und lächeln, wie nur ein Dreieck lächeln kann […]?” Die Blechtrommel. P. 469. 58 So far literary critics have focused on two traditions behind Oskar Matzerath: the picaresque novel and the Bildungsroman. See, for instance, Volker Neuhaus: Günter Grass. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler 2nd ed. 1992. Pp. 28–36; and Detlef Krumme: Günter Grass. Die Blechtrommel. München/Wien: Hanser 1986. Pp. 52–65 (“Elemente des Schelmenromans”) and pp. 66–80 (“Die Blechtrommel als Bildungsroman”). There are several features supporting especially the claim for a picaresque background, such as Oskar’s uncertain descent (from either Jan Bronsky or Alfred Matzerath) which eventually is passed on to Kurt (for whom both Oskar and Alfred Matzerath claim fatherhood), the tension between the experiencing and the narrating I, and the isolation in which the narrator recollects his past (Oskar is inmate of a mental asylum). For a list of further picaresque features see Adolf Haslinger: Günter Grass und das Barock. In: Günter Grass. Werk und Wirkung. Ed. by Rudolf Wolff. Bonn: Bouvier 1985. Pp. 75–86: Pp. 75 f. Next to elements of the picaresque novel and the Bildungsroman, features of Cassubian folklore in Oskar Matzerath have been identified by Michael Hollington: Günter Grass. The Writer in a Pluralist Society. London/Boston: Marion Boyars 1980. Pp. 25 f. Without denying any of these features, I would consider it worthwile looking into a futuristic dimension of Oskar, because his psychological implausibility seems to be linked to the futurists’s claim to destroy the character’s psychology (cf. Die futuristische Literatur. Technisches Manifest von F. T. Marinetti. In: Der Sturm 3 (1912). Pp. 194 f.). This link seems especially promissing as Grass himself admitted to have been stimulated by futurism (cf. Über meinen Lehrer Döblin. P. 237). The connection between Grass and Futurism

188 because only then one can see that Schlöndorff’s Oskar differs from his literary counterpart in a striking way. Whilst the film maintains Oskar’s extraodinary talents, the ability to refuse growth and to scatter glass with his voice, it shows hardly any sign of the ambivalence which characterises the literary Oskar. Instead, Schlöndorff seeks to create a character with whom one can identify – a reaction which, for reasons given above, is hardly possible with regard to the book.59 Already at an early stage of the film production, he notes in his diary: “I must first of all make clear my relationship with Oskar. I’m orientating myself by my childhood, seeking the Oskar within me. My films are only good if I can identify with a person so well that I can gain access”.60 As this quotation shows, the search for an object of identification turns the rather complicated character of Oskar Matzerath primarily into a simple child, because: “With a child we can all identify, with a dwarf only few”.61

has been investigated by Peter Demetz: Worte in Freiheit. Der italienische Futurismus und die deutsche literarische Avantgarde (1912–1934). München/Zürich 1990. Pp. 132–137; also Stefan Trappen: Grass, Döblin und der Futurismus. Zu den futuristischen Grundlagen des Simultaneitätskonzepts der Vergegenkunft. In: Euphorion 96 (2002). Pp. 1–26. For a more sceptical view on Grass’s relation to Futurism see Rolf Kellermann: Günter Grass und Alfred Döblin. Pp. 112–119. 59 This difference is also highlighted by Noel Thomas: The Narrative Works of Günter Grass. Pp. 5 f. See also Thomas’s detailed analysis of the narrative perspective in the novel (Pp. 10–29) 60 “Ich muß also zunächst einmal meine Beziehung zu Oskar klarstellen. Ich halte mich an die Kindheit, suche den Oskar in mir. Meine Filme sind nur gut, wenn ich mich mit einer Person so identifizieren kann, daß sie mir den Einstieg möglich macht”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 39. The question of whether or not Schlöndorff’s audience is made to identify with Oskar and the other characters has been widely discussed. Ingeborg Hoesterey identifies “A clear divergence in the modes of reception […]. The text of the novel does not impose an identification with the character and his fate on the reader at all, the film encourages this identification, indeed it demands it of the viewer through what seems the immediately present physicality of the living characters” (“Eine deutliche Divergenz in den Rezeptionsmodi […]. Der Romantext drängt den Lesern keinswegs eine Identifikation mit der Figur und ihrem Schicksal auf, der Film fördert diese Identifikation, ja, er fordert sie dem Zuschauer durch die wie unmittelbar gegenwärtige Körperlichkeit der agierenden Figuren ab”) (Ingeborg Hoesterey: Das Literarische und das Filmische. P. 28). John Flasher, on the other hand, argues that despite Schlöndorff’s attempt to present a character with whom one can identify, the film does “arouse ambivalent emotional reactions” (John Flasher: The Grotesque Hero in The Tin Drum. In: Holding the Vision. Essays on Film. Proceedings of the First Annual Film Conference of Kent State University. Ed. by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead. Kent, Ohio: International Film Society 1983. Pp. 87–93: P. 87. For a very differentiated view on the problem of “identification and distanciation” with regard to Schlöndorff’s film see Jan Lüder Hagens: Aesthetic Self-Reflection and Political Consciousness. Pp. 99–111. 61 “Mit einem Kind können wir uns alle identifizieren, mit einem Zwerg nur wenige”. Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 40. Also Pp. 94 f.: “Oskar Matzerath has been the way into Die Blechtrommel for me, because I do not have the same history as Günter Grass and

189 Unlike the abandoned I-narrator, the complex and intriguing character of Oskar Matzerath has no cinematic equivalent, but becomes transformed into (or rather reduced to) a being who is by no means able to express any of the aesthetic forces that helped to shape the literary character: “The Oskar of the film is opposed to the one of the novel”.62 Thus we have reached a point in which Schlöndorff’s filmic adaptation distances itself from the literary model. Even though the gap being left behind does, of course, not diminish the achievement of the way in which Schlöndorff handles the use of perspective, it nevertheless belongs to the whole picture of the relation between novel and film. Schlöndorff’s work is not simply a cinematic mirror of Grass’s novel, not even beneath the surface, but an individual piece of art which keeps certain ideas of the novelist alive while dismissing others.63 With that in mind one can nevertheless claim that Schlöndorff did indeed find ways to convey the “inner energy” (as he put it) or the “power of image” (as Grass said) of the novel in his film. He managed to keep Grass’s idea of reality and his approach to history alive even though he had to sacrifice a key feature of the novel’s narrative strategy, namely the “narrator’s position”. On the basis of his own experiences of treating objects in literature as well as in the visual arts, however, changes of that kind, that is to say changes on the aesthetic surface, are exactly what Grass requires from an adaptation. Therefore he could not have expressed his approval of Schlöndorff’s film in stronger terms than he eventually did by saying: “I forgot the book and saw a film”.64 I had to find a key, something in common. It was childhood. […] This seriousness of childhood is also what brought the book and the character closer to me” (“Oskar Matzerath ist für mich der Einstieg in die Blechtrommel gewesen, denn ich habe nicht dieselbe Geschichte wie Günter Grass, und ich mußte […] einen Schlüssel finden, etwas Gemeinsames. Es war die Kindheit. […] Dieser Ernst der Kindheit ist auch das, der mir das Buch und die Figur nahegebracht hat”). Even though the transformation of Oskar into a child clearly results in a reduction of the literary character, it helps to free the readers’ perception of the novel’s protagonist from a widely spread tendency to view Oskar exclusively as a devilish gnome, a mean dwarf, or even a horrible monster, as Volker Neuhaus points out (V. N.: Günter Grass. Die Blechtrommel. München: R. Oldenbourg 1982. P. 113). Hence the cinematic transformation of Oskar Matzerath also helped to counteract a mis-perception of the literary character. Noel Thomas even starts out his discussion of the novel by analysing the film, thus employing Schlöndorff’s work in order to find a fresh way into the book (N. T.: The Narrative Works of Günter Grass. Pp. 2–10). 62 “Der Oskar des Films richtet sich gegen den des Romans”. Knut Hickethier: Der Film nach der Literatur ist Film. P. 192. Cf. also the chapter “Die Figur des Oskar Matzerath” (Pp. 190–193), in which Hickethier draws the comparison between the literary and the cinematic Oskar that eventually leads him to the conclusion quoted above. 63 A profound justification of this freedom, which is ultimately based upon the claim that film – including filmic adaptations, of course – is an independent aesthetic form in its own right, is provided by Ingeborg Hoesterey: Das Literarische und das Filmische. 64 “Ich habe das Buch vergessen und einen Film gesehen”. Grass quoted by Schlöndorff: Tagebuch. P. 121.

DIE BLECHTROMMEL - Deutschland/Frankreich 1978 Regie: Volker Schlöndorff Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Carrie Smith-Prei

“Their Adam’s Apple Put Them on Screen”: Hansjürgen Pohland’s Cat and Mouse and the Narrative of the Male Body The 1966 filmic adaptation of Günter Grass’s Cat and Mouse, written, produced, and directed by Hansjürgen Pohland, visually tackles the narrative structure of the novella by placing the male body at its center. Like the original text, the film problematizes the nature of memory by positing that the narrator, Pilenz, constructs himself just as he constructs the memories of his childhood in wartime Danzig. The film represents this through the use of an adult Pilenz interacting on screen with the adolescent bodies of his friends, mostly male, of his childhood. Through his body’s presence in the act of (re)creating memory, Pilenz participates in and authorizes the narrative of adolescent masculinity while at the same time rupturing the dominant image or ideal of masculinity towards which Mahlke and the other boys strive. Thus, at the center the adaptation is the narrative of the male body.

Two-thirds of the way into Hansjürgen Pohland’s 1966 adaptation of Günter Grass’s 1961 novella Cat and Mouse, the viewer is confronted with a scene that is emblematic of the narrative construction of the film.1 It exemplifies Pohland’s interest in the visual union of temporal and corporeal constructions that dominate the film while providing a reflection on the filmic medium itself. The camera cuts to a view inside a streetcar, the adult Pilenz sitting at the window. Through this window, framed as if on a movie screen, Tulla, the only female figure to play a dominant role in the film, and the boys bike alongside the streetcar. Pilenz does not seem to notice, his eyes closed, the images a projection of his fantasy. Throughout the scene, the camera remains in the streetcar, Pilenz’s presence made felt in each shot. Thus, the camera functions not merely as the apparatus for the portrayal of Pilenz’s memories, but also as the medium that allows for the convergence of the past with the present. The visual containment of temporal difference in separate spaces, that is the inside of the streetcar Pilenz’s present and the outside his past, allows for the grown man to coexist with his childhood memories. At the same time, these two spaces, moving forward in a parallel trajectory, are separated by a pane of glass, expressing the transparency of Pilenz’s fantasy of memory and allowing for the superimposition of his body over the projection of this memory. Because Pilenz’s body takes the visual center of this scene as the fixed point for the camera’s reference it is revealed as central to the construction of the narrative’s ordering of temporality. 1

Katz und Maus. Dir. by Hansjürgen Pohland. Perf. by Lars Brandt, Peter Brandt, Claudia Bremer, and Wolfgang Neuss. Gloria 1967.

192 The 1961 novella also expresses temporal simultaneity that is mediated by Pilenz. In Grass’s text, Pilenz is the narrator/writer who remembers his childhood in 1940s Danzig. He recounts in flashback form his experiences with Mahlke, Tulla and the other boys populating these memories, filled with guilt at his possible hand in Mahlke’s death. Mahlke becomes the centerpiece of Pilenz’s memories of adolescence and by extension, is synonymous for Pilenz’s experience of WWII. The reader is alerted to his working through of the past in moments where the narrator reveals himself as author, writing in the post-war flourish of West Germany. It is in these moments that Pilenz comments on his own constructed nature, aware that as he writes down the words, he too is being written. Early on in the novella, the narrator explains: “And now it is up to me, who called your mouse to the attention of this cat and all cats, to write. Even if we were both invented, I should have to write”.2 This commentary on the act of invention, the narrator and writer just as invented as his own textual figures, puts to question the construction of the images of memory that the narrator Pilenz produces, destabilizing his authorial voice and the fidelity of his memory. The streetcar scene is characteristic for director/producer Pohland’s approach to this temporal problematic of Grass’s text. The streetcar encloses the1960s space that carries Pilenz through the 1940s space, the window both separating the temporal simultaneity and providing the self-reflexive screen onto which the images of the past are projected. Speaking to the Süddeutsche Zeitung on August 20th, 1966, Pohland comments: “I want to try to show, with a completely new technique, how, during the course of the film, the past for Pilenz dematerializes in the present”.3 The Illustrierter Film Kurier, a pamphlet provided for sale at the release of the film, attends to the realization of this intention, noting the film, “shows Pilenz as a grown man. And he places him exactly as this in the past”.4 Though the main action occurs in the 1940s, because it is he who remembers, Pilenz (played by Wolfgang Neuss, himself a specular body as a well-known cabaret star) remains the 1966 adult throughout. The cinematographic realization of the flashback form of the novella is created through the representation of Pilenz’s unchanged body, which, in turn, becomes the organizing principle of the film. This feature is so striking, not merely because of the innovation Pohland suggests nor fidelity to the novella but primarily because of the strong impression 2

Günter Grass: Cat and Mouse. Trans. by Ralph Manheim. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World 1963. P. 8. 3 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. “Ich will mit völlig neuen Mitteln zu zeigen versuchen, wie sich im Laufe des filmischen Geschehens die Vergangenheit für Pilenz in der Gegenwart entmaterialisiert”. Klaus von Schwarze: Katz und Maus auf See: Hansjürgen Pohland verfilmt Grass in Danzig. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (20 August 1966). 4 “[…] zeigt Pilenz als erwachsenen Mann. Und er versetzt ihn genau so in die Vergangenheit”. Katz und Maus. In: Illustrierter Film Kurier 167 (1967).

193 Pilenz’s adult body makes among the often sparsely clothed adolescent boys, specifically along side the body of Mahlke, the younger and elder played by Lars and Peter Brandt respectively. Due to the plot’s focus on adolescent masculinity and the changing male body, Pilenz’s adult body both disturbs the visual flow of the narrative as well as creates the space for its development. Through his body’s presence in the act of (re)creating memory, Pilenz participates in and authorizes the narrative of adolescent masculinity while at the same time rupturing the dominant image or ideal of masculinity towards which Mahlke and the other boys strive. The male body as the organizing principle for the narrative is a feature that appears in the literary original. In the beginning of Grass’s text, Pilenz illustrates how he pieces the narrative together from the parts of Mahlke’s body. Over and over again the fellow who invented us because it’s his business to invent people obliges me to take your Adam’s apple in my hand and carry it to the spot that saw it win or lose. And so, to begin with, I make the mouse bob up and down above the screwdriver, I fling a multitude of replete sea gulls into the fitful northeast wind, high over Mahlke’s head, call the weather summery and persistently fair, assume that the wreck was a former mine sweeper of the Czaika class, and give the Baltic the color of thick-glass seltzer bottles. Now that the scene of action has been identified as a point southeast of the Neufahrwasser harbor buoy, I make Mahlke’s skin, from which water is still running in rivulets, take on a texture somewhere between fine and coarse-grained.5

The narrator Pilenz, while aware that he too is constructed as a figure in the text, comments on his task of telling Mahlke’s story. This he does by beginning with the Adam’s apple, adding the elements of the setting into the story – the water, the seagulls, and the minesweeper – that then meld with the terrain of skin. This technique of creating a fiction of the body and thus a fiction of masculinity is translated in Pohland’s film to the image of the adult Pilenz’s body occupying the space on screen among the young bodies of his past.6 No longer does Pilenz write the male bodies, as in Grass’s text, but rather allows for the appearance of the young bodies through his own body’s presence, consequently disturbing their visual autonomy. The following will analyze the filmic representation of the male body, identifying the social structures that mold the 5

Grass, Pp. 8–9. This concept of the fiction of masculinity is explored by Leonard Duroche in an article entitled “Günter Grass’s Cat and Mouse and the Phenomenology of Masculinity”, in which he writes, the text and the writing process “thematize the notion of male as invention”, which Duroche identifies historically as the invention of a generation of males due to their absence of fathers. Leonard Duroche: Günter Grass’s Cat and Mouse and the Phenomenology of Masculinity. In: Fictions of Masculinity: Crossing Cultures, Crossing Sexualities. Ed. by Peter F. Murphy. New York: New York University Press 1994. Pp. 91–92. 6

194 male bodies as they interact with one another in their negotiation of adolescence and arguing for the temporal organization of the narrative in Cat and Mouse as authorized by the body. In order to facilitate my analysis, I will first briefly sketch a theoretical framework that joins the male body with narrative theory. Daniel Punday, in his Narrative Bodies, stresses that the bodies of characters that populate the narrative are constructed according to, among other things, narrative concern, that is, with fidelity to the story at hand and interest in its perpetuation. These character bodies interact with one another to create a system of narrative understanding.7 This interaction also creates what Punday terms a general body, which can be described as an imaginary body created by the social structures of the text, a meta-body as it were. Counter to the general body is the unruly body, which directs plot and temporal movement of the narrative as it resist it.8 This body is discursive, “constructed to make sense in the light of the general body to which it is contrasted”.9 Plot development and resolution occur as the unruly body fights with and is absorbed by the general body, that is, adapts to the textual expectations of the normative body. The narrative of the film is made up of an unruly body, Pilenz, measured against the general body, the social construction of adolescent masculinity as represented by Mahlke. But what causes Pilenz’s bodily unruliness? In order to answer this question, I turn to Kaja Silverman’s concept of the dominant fiction and historical trauma. The dominant fiction, which can be understood as the Men’s Studies catchphrase hegemony, is an imaginary, supported by societal expectations and ordering both individual and social identity. Silverman stresses that “the dominant fiction […] forms the stable core around which a nation’s and a period’s ‘reality’ coheres”.10 Key to the construction of the dominant fiction as well as its most vulnerable component is the conflation of the phallus with the anatomical penis that provides the basis for male power dominance. Because the dominant fiction is a collective imaginary, social formations depend on their respective dominant fictions in identity construction.11 This reliance, however, also means that the dominant fiction can be ruptured by what Silverman terms historical trauma, defined as an historical event “which brings a large group of male subjects into such an intimate relation with lack that they are at least for the moment unable to sustain an imaginary relation with the phallus, and so withdraw their belief from the dominant fiction”.12 7

Daniel Punday: Narrative Bodies. New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2003. P. 53. Punday: Narrative Bodies. P. 92. 9 Punday: Narrative Bodies. P. 100. 10 Kaja Silverman: Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York: Routledge 1992. P. 41. 11 Silverman: Male Subjectivity at the Margins. P. 54. 12 Silverman: Male Subjectivity at the Margins. P. 55. 8

195 The dominant fiction, held up by the phallus/penis equation, is essential for the constitution of the Subject. When the equation is removed through historical trauma, the dominant fiction is punctured and the Subject destabilized. Incongruous with the adolescent masculine bodies and defiant of temporal law, Pilenz’s body becomes unruly as it grapples with the historical trauma of WWII, represented in Cat and Mouse as Mahlke’s individual death. Pilenz’s body resists the narrative at the same time that it creates it, carving out the imaginary space of memory for the plot to unfold while puncturing the social construction of masculinity towards which Mahlke strives. Because the meaningful presentation of temporal change is a major element of narrative and because the general body is essential to narrativity, the collapse of temporal distance between the unruly and the general body in the film ruptures the fantasy of the general body. Thus, whereas Punday suggests narrative resolution occurs in the absorption of the unruly body by the general body, I argue that the general body in Cat and Mouse is itself destabilized and becomes unruly, leading to the hysteric breakdown of both. The title sequence of the film reveals Pilenz on a journey that will return him to the place of his childhood. The 1966 West German Pilenz is taken to his 1940s Danziger youth as the car speeds past cattle, fields, horses, and farmhouses, underscored by jazz. The opening credits roll over these images seen through the windshield as if scrawled on the glass. The voice over begins: 20 years after the war a German is traveling to the city of his youth, to Danzig. And he sees this city, now called Gdansk, the way it is today. The adult man Pilenz meets the memory of his school friend Mahlke at every turn, in whose tragic death he took part. The past melts with the present. Just like no one puts on their clothing of childhood when they think of their past, Pilenz does not appear among his school friends as their contemporary, but rather enters the circle of youths of yesterday as an adult man of today.13

During this voice over alerting the viewers to be aware of the construction of the film, the camera looks out the front of the car from the passenger seat. It is Pilenz’s physical movement that takes the viewer as passenger to Danzig, the setting of the film, while the speeding jazz music highlights ruins of the wartorn city. In her article entitled “Wenders’s Windshields” Alice Kuzniar writes 13

“20 Jahre nach dem Kriege reist ein Deutscher in die Stadt seiner Jugend, nach Danzig. Und er sieht diese Stadt, die jetzt Gdansk heißt, wie sie heute ist. Auf Schritt und Tritt begegnet dem erwachsenen Mann Pilenz, die Erinnerung an seinen Schulfreund Joachim Mahlke, an dessen tragischen Schicksal er die Mitschuld trägt. Mit der Gegenwart verschmilzt die Vergangenheit. Sowie sich niemand die Kinderkleider anzieht, wenn er sich an seine Kindheit erinnert, so steht auch Pilenz nicht als Gleichaltriger unter seinen Klassenkameraden, sondern er tritt als erwachsener Mann von heute in den Kreis der Jugend von damals”.

196 that windshields “function in ways similar to the photographic or cinematic simulacrum. The glass surface, like the lens of a camera, refracts and frames the passing roadside. But the windshield and car mirrors are not only lenses, they are also screens across which images flicker and disappear”.14 Like the streetcar window above, the windshield through or rather on which we see the Polish landscape frames and directs vision. Similar to the projected images of the movie screen, “[t]he windshield registers the landscape as if through a camera that does not pan”.15 As a result, the passing landscape is experienced by the viewer as a literal motion picture, the car’s movement effectively choosing what the viewer sees. This road movie scene’s documentary style is disrupted, and with it the audience’s expected reliance on the visual, by a stuffed cat splattering on the windshield in cartoon-like parody of the title of the film scrawled across that same windshield. Visual autonomy is destabilized already in this early sequence by the insertion of an unexpected element into a seemingly intact scene of landscape. The following sequence turns to the Conradium, the school Pilenz attended. The camera cuts to the sign of the school above the doorway, panning down to the left to reveal a rusty anchor, then over to a profile of Pilenz, looking at the ruins of the school. As he moves toward the school, the camera cuts to a close-up shot of his feet on the cobblestones, panning up his body to reveal the backdrop of graffiti-covered walls and a schoolyard full of rubble. Pilenz is suddenly small and foreign among objects of ruin. This sequence establishes the passage of time; both Pilenz and the school have aged. The close up shot of Pilenz’s feet in effect walk the viewer back in time. The next image returns to the cobblestones. Pilenz’s feet have now been replaced by the feet and legs of boys playing, transporting the viewer from the ruins of the 60s to the lively school of the 40s, Pilenz’s body being the medium for the temporal shift. The camera becomes one of the boys, trapped among the playing bodies. Disentangling itself to scan the crowd, the camera finds a lone figure between the heads of the boys, standing in the background. Thus, our first image of Joachim Mahlke is of a boy whose body is outside the social boundaries of the schoolyard. This shot introducing the viewers to Mahlke establishes his character’s relationship to the other boys. From this moment on Mahlke’s body and its placement outside the group remains the visual focus. The camera moves from its location among the playing boys to outside the crowd, apparently looking on at eye-level. But what at first seems to be Mahlke’s perspective is jarred as the camera pans left to an extreme close-up from behind Mahlke’s right ear, thereby placing his entire body at the origin of the camera’s gaze. The disturbance of the expected organization of the 14

Alice Kuzniar: Wender’s Windshields. In: The Cinema of Wim Wenders. Ed. by Roger F. Cook and Gerd Gemünden. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1997. P. 223. 15 Kuzniar: Wender’s Windshields. P. 226.

197 senses through the transference of sensory function from one body-site to another, that of the visual from the eye to the ear, situates the body at the source of the organization of the filmic medium. The body directs the camera and creates Mahlke’s, and thus the viewer’s, sensory experience. Additionally, the visual focus on the ear exacerbates Mahlke’s separation from the others: the image of the crowd of playing boys seen beyond the shot of the ear is supported by the acoustic dynamic of the boys talking and laughing, Mahlke listening, literally all ears, in the background. Ending this sequence, the second voice over of the film introduces Mahlke: “When Joachim Mahlke turned 14 shortly after the beginning of the war, he could neither swim nor ride a bike, always stood apart, and was missing the Adam’s apple that later would tempt the cat”.16 This sequence establishes the visual reference point for the camera and narrative: the representation of Mahlke’s body as it grapples with social norms. His peripheral status is furthered in the sequence that follows, introducing the large Adam’s apple. In this sequence, Pilenz stands among the boys, who are all dolls, on the rounder field. Mahlke’s Adam’s apple is represented in a series of shots edited together so that the paper maché hump shoots into the air and retracts repeatedly. Pilenz calls attention to this feature by placing a cat on Mahlke’s “mouse”. This use of paper maché dolls to represent the boys’ bodies appears throughout the film in an aesthetic move reminiscent of Hans Bellmer’s 1930s surrealist dolls. The dolls’ appearance is problematic, however, as their hyper-artificiality leaves them outside the actual narrative of the film, their appearance incongruous with the previous representation of memory. Like Pohland’s repeated use of documentary footage of the battles of WWII, the insertion of the dolls at key moments in the film disturbs the narrative and becomes a continual reminder of Pohland’s avant-garde endeavors. The dolls signal a temporal movement from the 1940s back to 1966, their various states of dissolve a reminder of the passage of time, the youthful bodies turned to decay. However, as the dolls are a construction of Pilenz’s fantasy of the present, they also represent the instability of memory, Pilenz’s adult body disturbing the visual representation of his recollection of the past by changing the youthful bodies to fractured and immobile dolls. The introduction of the Adam’s apple on the doll serves to exaggerate both its size and meaning through artificiality, thus exacerbating the adolescent struggle with the changing body. Pilenz’s introduction of the Adam’s apple leads to Mahlke’s first negotiation with the social construction of masculinity. The scene that follows shows the boys showering together as they recite facts about European warships. We begin with a close-up of Mahlke’s head to cut to a medium shot of the other six 16

“Als Joachim Mahlke kurz nach Kriegsbeginn 14 Jahre alt wurde, konnte er weder schwimmen noch radfahren, stand immer abseits und lies jenen Adamsapfel vermissen, der später die Katze anlockte”.

198 boys, all in the frame, naked under the showers with the mist obstructing much of the view. The subsequent shots follow questioner and responder as the boys rattle off: Winter: What year was the battle cruiser “Eritrea” launched? Hotten Sonntag: Thirty-six. Kupka: Special features? Esch: The only Italian cruiser for East Africa.17

This call and answer ends as Winter asks: “How many destroyers does the Polish fleet have?”.18 The camera cuts to Mahlke who answers the question in a long monologue while studying himself in the mirror. The shot begins by also looking in the mirror, tilting to the right to reveal the other boys, marching out naked one by one, mustering Mahlke as he delivers his speech. Their interest in him continues as they towel dry their hair, the camera returning to Mahlke as he inspects his Adam’s apple, scratched by the cat in the previous scene. After clothing himself, Mahlke comes to the close of the speech, turning suddenly away from the mirror to face the boys in a scream, “and I say to you, it is the Rybitwa”.19 The reflexive moment here is three-fold: the boys gaze on at Mahlke gazing at himself while the camera’s move from looking in the mirror with Mahlke to looking at him in full body occupies the two positions. In this manner, the viewer is able to assume both gazes, establishing an intimacy with Mahlke while at the same time marginalizing him. This moment reveals the structures of social masculinity that inform the boys’ negotiations while placing the body at the visual center. The locker room shower suggests the realm of organized sports, which has social and physical meaning for the film. The previous scene on the rounder field visually introduces the social and physical distinction among the boys as they are arranged in a closed circle, Mahlke laying separate, suggesting his subordination. The boys’ and Mahlke’s bodies are also replaced by dolls, their artificial construction highlighting the boys’ missing real bodies. This social organization of sports is continued in the locker room scene where only Mahlke does not stand with the boys under the shower. Additionally, the bodies continue to dominate the scene, though here their nakedness stands in stark opposition to the preceding artificial dolls. In the scene on the rounder field the dolls are spread out on the

17

“Winter: In welchem Jahr lief der Kreuzer ‘Eritrea’ vom Stapel? Hotten Sonntag: Sechsunddreißig. Kupka: Besonderheiten? Esch: Einziger italienischer Kreuzer für Ost-Afrika”. 18 “Wieviel Zerstörer hat die polnische Flotte?”. 19 “[…] und ich sage euch, es ist die Rybitwa”.

199

Pilenz plays with dolls – the hyper-artificial construction of memory and masculinity.

field for the viewer’s gaze as an imitation of the boys’ bodies. This represents the constructedness and instability of Pilenz’s memory as suggested above. The shower scene, on the other hand, displays the boys, including Mahlke, in the act of negotiating their own physical construction as they find themselves at the intersection of multiple gazes, the most decisive gaze being their own. Yet another institution that informs the social construction of masculinity is the subject of the boys’ conversation in the locker room: war. The structures of sports and war are united in the visual representation of body. The focus on the gaze, both in the mirror and of the other boys, reveals Mahlke’s battle with his body’s visible assertion of pubescent masculinity. The other boys, watching him, highlight not the flow of military words from his lips, but the importance of body in the construction of the socialized (male) subject. In this vein, I would like to take a moment to define sociologist Robert Connell’s concept of body-reflexive practices as outlined in his text Masculinities. He posits that bodies, through the movements they inscribe, define and are defined by social practices. This he describes as body-reflexive practices: “They involve social relations and symbolism; they may well involve large scale social institutions. Particular versions of masculinity are constituted in their circuits as meaningful bodies and embodied meanings. Through body-reflexive practices,

200 more than individual lives are formed: a social world is formed”.20 Thus, the individual practice of the body constitutes a world that is made up of social relations and institutions that are themselves bodily. Like Punday’s general body that is created through character bodies’ interaction in the narrative, the body-reflective practices, too, create a social world that is rooted in the actions of the body. Returning to the shower scene, the boys direct the camera through their questions and answers of war. The spoken steel metal of the warships is in direct contrast to the adolescent bodies as, though also in water, the bodies are naked and exposed, the shower mist softening their edges. Mahlke’s takeover of the conversation, conjoined with the scrutiny of his own neck in the mirror, inscribes the narrative of war onto his body as he grapples with exposed pubescent sexuality, the Adam’s apple. This conversation also posits the institution of war, expressed in the film in repeated documentary footage, as bodily itself. Interesting is Pilenz’s absence in this scene, although through his actions on the rounder field he called attention to the marker of pubescent sexuality that is the visual focus of this scene. This leaves the viewer to question whether the appearance of the boys without Pilenz’s body’s presence is a rupture of the narrative of memory, a fantasy of that memory, or whether he is watching, like the viewer, outside the scene. The intimacy and the marginalization established by the camera as described above is also the dual nature of Pilenz’s construction of Mahlke’s body in memory and it could therefore be argued that the camera is equivalent to Pilenz’s gaze, his body absent from the frame. This representation of the socially organized masculine body informs Mahlke’s physical development, announced in the film in gothic lettering as “Mahlke’s rise to power begins” and created of practices of both sports and war introduced in the previous scenes: Mahlke’s performance of chin-ups and swimming is interspersed with newsreel footage of marching Nazi troops in a montage of body and power.21 What began as a verbal inscription on the body in the shower turns to practice as athletics and war are visually combined. This moment changes Mahlke’s relationship to the other boys: though still an outsider, he moves from striving to join the group, to becoming their figurehead, the voice over expressing this: “Mahlke showed us and was great from the first day on”.22 Mahlke’s placement in the hierarchy of boys is solidified in a display of genital masculinity spurred on, again, by the military, this time the fetish of the Knight’s Cross. Following a scene in which a soldier recounts to the boys the incidents leading up to his receipt of the medal, the camera finds Mahlke sunbathing on the deck of the minesweeper. The boys run in and out of the frame 20

Robert W. Connell: Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press 1995. P. 64. “Mahlkes Aufstieg beginnt”. 22 “Mahlke bewies es uns und stand vom ersten Tag an ganz groß da”. 21

201 as Tulla, having fittingly joined the group in the moment of sexual exhibition, pleads with Schilling to masturbate, Schilling refusing: “Not after swimming, tomorrow”.23 Pilenz sits above the others and watches as Tulla turns to Mahlke: “Can ya do that, too? Come on. Or can’t ya? Won’t ya? Aren’t ya allowed?”.24 A close-up of Pilenz’s face fills the screen as he vocally joins in with the other boys. Here, Pilenz interacts with the boys for the first time. Mahlke finally gives in with “[f]ine, only so you’ll shut your trap”, slapping Tulla who laughs and disappears out of the frame in a backbend, the camera panning down to reveal Tulla’s upside down and laughing face, her bent body taking the central focus as the boys walk off camera.25 Mahlke’s genital display begins as Pilenz, still on his perch, starts to laugh, his face then freezing and falling. With Tulla’s bent body framing the upper-half of the screen, the camera cuts to a close-up of Mahlke’s exposed buttocks. Tulla’s body lowers in unison with Mahlke pulling down his swim trunks to reveal the other boys crowded around to watch. Tulla sits up to look, her u-shaped body now providing the lower frame as Mahlke begins to masturbate. The camera cuts to a close-up of the boys, looking down, their comments in quick succession: “Damn. Measure it. At least 30 centimeters. That’s an exaggeration. Huh, Schilling? You can’t beat that”.26 The moment of orgasm is replaced by an image of the boys racing down a track, Tulla sitting at the finish line as Mahlke crosses first. The scene ends as Pilenz’s voice over assures the audience that Mahlke never had to repeat the display again, “because none of us, at least not after swimming, ever attained his record. Because, no matter what we did, we participated in sports and followed the rules”.27 The boys adhere to the physical and social rules of both the body and sport. The configuration of the boys’ bodies begun in the shower scene through the discourse of war continues in a replacement of budding sexuality in joint masturbation with the visual image of a race. Mahlke’s victory in the race furthers the isolation of his body from the others, as they never attain his record. When comparing the image of the finish line to the preceding speech given by the soldier, the role of the leader in athletics and the military is sexualized as the length of Mahlke’s penis and its seemingly extraordinary function is equated to a triumph worthy of a medal. Tulla and Pilenz’s presence in this scene questions the innocuous display of masturbation. Tulla, though remaining apart from the circle of boys, directs the 23

“Nicht nach dem Baden, Morgen wieder”. “Kannste das auch? Mach doch mal. Oder kannste das nicht? Willste nicht? Darfste nicht?”. 25 “[…n]a schön, damit du endlich deine Schnauze hältst”. 26 “Donnerwetter. Mess doch mal nach. Mindestens 30 Zentimeter. Übertrieben. Na Schilling? Da kannst du nicht mit”. 27 “[…] weil keiner von uns, jedenfalls nicht nach dem Schwimmen, seinen Rekord erreichte. Denn was wir auch taten, wir trieben Sport und achteten die Regel”. 24

202 action as her body organizes Mahlke’s specularity. Her back-bend has a circuslike quality that enhances the performative aspect of masturbation while also enforcing the specular quality of the masculine body that is normally reserved for the female. Tulla’s body is not center screen but instead frames it, above and then below, mediating and directing the sexualized gaze of the viewer: the viewer must first look through her to then see Mahlke’s nakedness. Pilenz’s body, on the other hand, disrupts the adolescent scene. Pilenz’s obvious age difference from the almost-naked boys is disturbing. His position away from and above the group conjoined with his verbal egging on of Mahlke lends the moment a voyeuristic and almost lecherous quality that destabilizes the innocence of sexuality. Pilenz’s body, out of time as it were, ruptures the social unity of the negotiation of genital masculinity. The second speech given by an officer who is a recipient of the Knight’s Cross marks Mahlke’s move from adolescence to young adulthood and the ultimate hysterical breakdown of his body. This begins in the merging of the specular masculine body with the social imaginary of the war hero that the cross symbolizes. After Mahlke steals the officer’s cross, we see him dancing on the minesweeper with the medal to jazz. The poses highlight Mahlke’s body in silhouette as he dances, swinging his hips, letting the cross gently dangle on his naked breast, underscoring both his naked body and the heavy metal of the cross. When Pilenz finds Mahlke on the minesweeper, he is languidly stretched out with the medal resting on the crotch of his shorts. Their isolation on the ship, apart from the others, permits Mahlke to speak to the adult Pilenz for the first time: “Huh, Pilenz? Quite an apparatus, isn’t it?”.28 Pilenz responds with, “[l]et me touch it”.29 Underscoring the obvious sexual play on words, especially when we remember the boys’ comments on the impressive size of Mahlke’s genitals, the camera cuts to a close-up of Pilenz’s hand grabbing for the cross. Whereas above Pilenz was merely a voyeur, here he actively joins Mahlke’s physical display. This sexualization of the cross conjoined with the jarring interaction of the adult body with the adolescent body is transformed to a parody of war as Mahlke comments, “[h]onestly earned, right?”.30 The Knight’s Cross is Mahlke’s medal for winning the masturbation race above. The two then play at war, marching and singing, as a montage of battle at sea is comically scored by jazz. The social construction of masculinities begun with the negotiation of the body in sports, war, and finally sexuality, culminates here in the symbolic attainment and sexualization of the Knight’s Cross. This melding of bodily specularity with the imaginary of war marks the end of Mahlke’s adolescent body as he is expelled from the Conradium and enlists 28

“Na Pilenz? Ganz schöner Apparat, was?”. “[…l]aß mal anfassen”. 30 “[…e]hrlich verdient, oder?”. 29

203 in the army. When Pilenz meets Mahlke again, it is no longer his naked body that dominates the frame but the phallic shell of the uniform. As the director of the school refuses to allow Mahlke to hold a speech at the Conradium following his official receipt of the Knight’s Cross as a war hero, Mahlke decides to defect, Pilenz convincing him to hide in the minesweeper. When they arrive at the minesweeper, Pilenz rushes Mahlke with “come on, come on”, words reminiscent of the masturbation scene.31 Here, too, they incite Mahlke to strip out of his clothing, the naked body awkward, without protection next to the clothed Pilenz. The shedding of the uniform removes the social structures of body and, in jumping into the water, Mahlke’s defecting body accepts its ultimate breakdown. The final shot looks down on Pilenz from the mast as he gets into the motorboat and speeds away, leaving the minesweeper, the camera from the point of view of Mahlke’s lost body ending the film. Mahlke’s disappearance leads to the dissolution of memory and narrative, the source of Pilenz’s unruliness, his guilt in Mahlke’s death, exposed. As has been shown, Pilenz’s adult body as the unruly body orders the temporal movement of the narrative. This allows for Mahlke’s creation and his subsequent negotiation of the social structures of adolescent masculinity, or the general body. This negotiation begins as Pilenz exposes Mahlke’s Adam’s apple, transporting him from the outskirts of the adolescent world, to the central focus of the adolescents’ gaze: the adolescents watch as Mahlke grapples with social, sexual, and imaginary constructs of the male body. Pilenz’s repeated puncture of the construction of this adolescent world through his refusal to adhere to the dominant fiction and his ensuing bodily reorganization of temporal structures ultimately results in the destabilization and unruliness of the focus of memory, Mahlke. These elements of memory, social and institutional structures of masculinity, and the unruly male body are united in the media attention to the director’s casting of the specular bodies of Lars and Peter Brandt in the film, the sons of then soon-to-be chancellor Willy Brandt. An article appearing in the Abendzeitung in Munich reports: [W]anted was a young man, unknown actor, only stipulation: a prominent Adam’s apple […]. It was supposedly pure chance that Pohland stumbled upon the 17-yearold Peter Brandt […]. Additionally, Peter Brandt was able to produce the desired Adam’s apple […]. Because the role of Mahlke also demanded a second Adam’s apple, director Pohland also had to keep his eyes open for another young man, whose “protruding part of the thyroid cartilage” (Brockhaus) was as prominent as it was aesthetic. It was therefore a happy coincidence that Peter Brandt discovered just such a mark of masculinity on his 14-year-old brother Lars.32

31

“[…m]ach doch, mach doch”. “[G]esucht wurde ein junger Mann, unbekannter Schauspieler, Bedingung: starker Adamsapfel […]. Es soll dann ein wahrer Zufall gewesen sein, daß Pohland auf den 32

204 The language of this report reduces the Brandt boys to their Adam’s apples, even suggesting the elder’s scrutiny of his brother’s body and ensuing discovery of the marker of puberty. The dictionary definition lends a scientific slant to the boys’ bodies, displayed for inspection by viewers of the film. Thus, their bodies become objects worthy of filmic adaptation in their prominent indication of masculinity. An article from the Telegraf turns solely to Peter Brandt: “A sixteen-year-old is sitting across from us, thin, fine face, intelligent type, however from his physiognomy not of the species ‘beast’”.33 This description, with its reference to the beast, locates Peter Brandt’s body in history by using classification reminiscent of Nazi ideology itself. The body is rooted in the national past through negative identification. The social aspect of the specular body of both Brandt boys reaches full heights as the body is inscribed with the political when their father, at the time Foreign Minister of West Germany, is brought into the discourse. The Spandauer Volksblatt quotes Ludwig Erhard, who had just stepped down as chancellor, with the following: “Just think about where we are headed if a man like Brandt becomes chancellor. Both of his sons defiled the national symbol of the Iron Cross by wearing the Knight’s Cross on their bathing trunks”.34 Willy Brandt becomes the focus of a debate over a symbol, his sons’, now unruly, specular bodies at the center. If we remember from Silverman that the dominant fiction also creates a period and nation’s reality and that this dominate fiction is supported by phallic identification, then Erhard’s comments here are telling. The image of the cross on the crotch of the bathing trunks worn by the sons of a leading political figure threatens the social imaginary of national memory as the phallic identification of the military medal is undermined by the specular image of adolescent sexuality. Thus, without a doubt, not the Brandt boys’ bathing trunks are meant here, but what is underneath. 17jährigen Peter Brandt stieß […]. Zudem konnte Peter Brandt den gewünschten Adamsapfel vorweisen […]. Da die Rolle des Mahlke auch noch einen jüngeren Adamsapfel verlangt, mußte Regisseur Pohland nach einem zweiten jungen Mann Ausschau halten, dessen “hervortretender Teil des Schildknorpels” (Brockhaus) ebenso markant wie ästhetisch ist. Da fügte es sich glücklich, daß Peter Brandt an seinem 14jährigen Bruder Lars ein solches Zeichen der Männlichkeit entdeckte”. Interesting is also the title of this article, which provided the title for this essay: the Adam’s apple in the singular is linguistically shared by both boys. Alexander Abend: Ihr Adamsapfel hat sie zum Film gebracht. In: Abendzeitung (29 June 1966). 33 “Ein Sechzehnjähriger sitzt uns gegenüber, schmales, feines Gesicht, intelligenter Typus, aber von der Physiognomie her nicht Spezies der ‘Bestie’”. Mappe zu – Klappe auf. In: Telegraf (6 October 1966). 34 “Denken Sie bloß einmal, wo wir hinkommen, wenn ein Mann wie Brandt Kanzler wird. Dessen beide Söhne schänden das nationale Symbol des Eisernen Kreuzes, indem sie das Ritterkreuz auf dem Badeanzug tragen”. Christa Maerker: Orden auf der Hose. In: Spandauer Volksblatt (15 January 1967).

205

Pilenz, Mahlke, and the Knight’s Cross.

Acknowledgements Many thanks to the Filmmuseum Berlin – Deutsche Kinemathek for the provision of photos and other material that contributed to this essay.

HEINRICH BÖLL Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Gisela Holfter

From Bestseller to Failure? Heinrich Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) to Irland und seine Kinder (Children of Eire) Heinrich Böll’s book of his impressions of Ireland from the 1950s, published fifty years ago, has aged well and is still a bestseller among German literature about Ireland. His film on Ireland is basically forgotten. In this paper I will analyse the relationship between Heinrich Böll’s influential Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) and his film Irland und seine Kinder broadcast in Germany in 1961 and in Ireland (under the title Children of Eire) in 1965. I will examine the nature and possible cause of the divergent reception of the film in Germany compared with that in Ireland at the time and now.1

Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) numbers among the most important German writers of the 20th century. He has also shaped in a unique way the impressions many Germans have of Ireland. His Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) was immediately critically acclaimed and is arguably still today the most influential German publication on Ireland.2 Published in 1957 and currently having sold more than 1.4 million copies, Irisches Tagebuch inspired hundreds of thousands of Germans to visit Ireland. For many more it provided a vision of a country with friendly inhabitants, a simple but unrushed life-style where people had time to tell stories and for each other. Indeed, it was said by many critics, foremost Marcel ReichRanicki, that Böll had written implicitly a critique of his homeland, a “hidden book on Germany”.3 On closer inspection this interpretation is far too limited (and trite: every traveller compares the new experience with what he knows): it gives no credit to Böll’s astute awareness of an Ireland that existed at the time. But one can argue that Böll found a country that fulfilled some of his ideals 1

I want to thank Jochen Schubert, Rene Böll, Lynne Tatlock and, as always, Glenn Cooper for reading the article at different stages and contributing with suggestions and constructive criticism. 2 For an overview of the reception and the impact of the Irische Tagebuch see Gisela Holfter: Erlebnis Irland – Deutsche Reiseberichte über Irland im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 1996. Pp. 139–141 and pp. 147–154. See also Eoin Bourke: Romantisierende Irlandbücher ⫽ versteckte Deutschlandbücher? Das Irlandbild in den neueren deutschen Reiseliteratur. In: Europa in den europäischen Literaturen der Gegenwart. Ed. by W. Segebrecht, C. Conter, O. Jahraus, U. Simon. Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2003. Pp. 187–199, 188. 3 “Es ist ein verstecktes Deutschlandbuch, denn mit seinen Reisenotizen strebt Böll eine mittelbare Kritik der einheimischen Verhältnisse an: Irland wird immer wieder als Gegenbild zur Bundesrepublik gezeichnet”. Marcel Reich-Ranicki: Deutsche Literatur in West und Ost–Prosa seit 1945, München: Piper 1963. P. 135.

208 and through his writing he passed on his vision to many readers.4 This of course indicates strongly that not only for Böll but also for his readers, Ireland became a means to a chosen alterity, a nearly utopian vision. Still today, most readers of this article will know of Irisches Tagebuch. In contrast, hardly anyone has seen or indeed even heard of Böll’s film on Ireland, Irland und seine Kinder. Heinrich Böll wrote the script and oversaw the filming in Ireland with a crew of cameramen just a few years after the publication of Irisches Tagebuch. So my first question is – why has the film been forgotten while the book has become a “cult book”?5 Has Böll concentrated on different topics, a different style and format that has not aged so well, or is there something inherent in the different medium, film, that is simply not as durable? Another striking discrepancy is the reception of his film in Germany and in Ireland in the 1960s. Irland und seine Kinder was first broadcast in Germany by the WDR, a regional channel, on the ARD, the first state television channel, on 8th March 1961 and received very positive feedback. Later it was also shown on Danish, Dutch and Swiss TV. The Irish broadcast was on 3rd February 1965 (under the title Children of Eire) and received a very mixed reaction. Again, the question is, what accounts for this difference? Is it the possibly problematic view of the outsider that was rejected in Ireland (which could be examined by comparing it with the reception of other films about Ireland), was it due to the contents of the portrayal that had different resonances in each country, or were there other aspects that played a role? I will attempt to find some answers to these questions by contrasting book and film by examining style, format and the main topics. I also want to compare the highly successful reception that Irisches Tagebuch has enjoyed with the very different reception of the film, while also briefly looking at another German documentary about Ireland of the time.

Irisches Tagebuch Given that Böll was a prolific fiction writer, it is not surprising that his book Irisches Tagebuch is very imaginative and lyrical, at times abandoning descriptions of realistic situations and observations and moving into outright fiction, as in the chapter “The Dead Redskin of Duke Street” (which at one stage was Böll’s 4 He even managed to fascinate a number of his literary colleagues such as Alfred Andersch or Arno Schmidt who contemplated emigration to Ireland. 5 Doris Dohmen: Das deutsche Irlandbild – Imagologische Untersuchungen zur Darstellung Irlands und der Iren in der deutschsprachigen Literatur. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi 1994. P. 158. 6 The other working title that was used often in correspondence between the publisher Joseph Caspar Witsch and Böll was “Irische Impressionen”, see Irisches Tagebuch – Entstehung, in: Heinrich Böll: Werke. Kölner Ausgabe, Vol. 10. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2006.

209 chosen title for the collection of his articles, rather than Irisches Tagebuch6) or in the last chapter “Farewell” in which traces of inner monologue can be found: […] in the boarding house (the cheapest we could find in the evening paper) the floors were so sloping that we seemed to be sinking headfirst into bottomless depth; on a gently slanting roller coaster we glided through the no-man’s-land between dream and memory, across Dublin threatened by the chasms around our bed which stood in the middle of the room, the noise and the neon lights of Dorset Street searching round us; we clung to one another; the children’s sighs from the bed against the wall sounded like cries for help from a shore we could not reach.7

It quickly becomes clear that this is not the normal travelogue with a set structure, a chronological and geographical order. Irisches Tagebuch consists instead of 18 chapters which offer impressions of Ireland like a colourful mosaic, only loosely held together by a number of recurring motifs and the chapters describing arrival and departure. Most of the chapters had been published in the two and a half years prior to the appearance of the book, mainly in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or through radio broadcasts. However, Böll had taken care to revise and at time rework nearly all chapters and added three entirely new ones. By combining individual stories that were nearly all already acclaimed in their own right and thereby allowing the reader to pick up the book for different chapters and never claiming to portray a complete picture, Böll has managed to allow his readers the space to add their own impressions. This way, the readers through the decades can contemporise his portrayal with their own experiences and conceptions. Regarding the composition of the structure of the Irisches Tagebuch, the editor of volume ten of the Köln edition of Heinrich Böll’s works, has come up with a very exiting hypothesis – that Böll might well have structured the book according to the structure of Joyce’s Ulysses. A number of arguments support this claim: both books consist of 18 chapters, having two beginnings, starting in the morning and covering – with a bit of imagination – one day; in chapter four a change of perspective occurs (from Stephen Dedalus to Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, from Dublin to the west of Ireland in the Irisches Tagebuch); even the narrative style in the last chapter is reminiscent of Molly Bloom’s famous monologue.8 Böll knew Ulysses well. Indeed, according to his diary, he read it on his trip to Ireland in 1954. Böll used from early on composition schemes for his work that were not immediately obvious and often went unnoticed.9 7

Heinrich Böll: Irish Journal, translated by Leila Vennewitz. London: Secker & Warburg 1967. P. 113. 8 For further textual examples for the hypothesis of the affinity of the Irisches Tagebuch with Ulysses, see Entstehung, In: Heinrich Böll: Werke. Kölner Ausgabe, Vol. 10. (in print). 9 See for example Wo warst Du, Adam? (published in 1951) and his letter regarding his composition scheme: “Mir scheint, daß Sie ‘Wo warst Du Adam’ unterschätzen: ich habe darin ein neues, ganz bestimmtes Kompositionsschema zu erproben versucht: die Handlung nicht an einen Helden zu hängen – deshalb auch gleichgültig, daß er kapitelweise gar nicht auftaucht –, sondern an völlig belanglose Gegenstände: Tisch, Hose,

210 Böll’s approach towards Ireland in the book is very personal. Already in the beginning of the Irisches Tagebuch Böll gives three clear warnings to the reader of his partiality and possible ineptness, and the general problems of preconceptions, expectations and misconceptions every traveller faces: first with his preface, “This Ireland exists, but whoever goes there and fails to find it has no claim on the author”;10 secondly with the episode after his arrival in Ireland in which he speaks of his limited language abilities and his decision to trust more his eyes than his tongue and ear in order to understand Ireland (and implicitly following his knowledge of Irish literature); and thirdly with the encounter with another German in the same chapter in which Böll defends Ireland passionately against accusations and expectations he doesn’t even understand. In his book Böll presents a very sensual approach to Ireland from the beginning. In the very first sentence he writes: “[…] I could see, hear and smell that I had crossed a frontier”.11 This sensory perception is the key to his approach to Ireland.12 The book concentrates to a considerable extent on everyday life, as seen by an outsider from Germany. This concentration on everyday life in the Irisches Tagebuch was an unusual feature for a travelogue in the 1950s, but it still serves German tourists today as an introduction to Ireland, even if Ireland has changed nearly beyond recognition in the fifty years since the texts were written. Another important feature in both today’s travel descriptions and Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch is the image of friendliness and hospitality of the Irish towards the German traveller. In the Irisches Tagebuch most encounters with the locals that Böll describes show very helpful and friendly people, and there hardly seems to be an Irish woman who doesn’t smile at him. Especially for someone coming from Germany in the 1950s, this was not necessarily to be expected. Böll’s astute descriptions of important parts of everyday Irish life – conversations about the weather and the Irish rain (which he saw as “absolute, magnificent and frightening”),13 the pubs as social meeting places, the interest in colourful stories and an often more personal relation rather than a strict rule-abiding code of conduct circulate even today as clichés about the country and its inhabitants. Böll Kuchen. Freilich nützt es wenig, solche Dinge, die bei der Lektüre hätten ‘heraus’kommen müssen, nachträglich zu erklären”. In: Heinrich Böll Werke, Kölner Ausgabe, Vol. 5. Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln 2004. P. 431. 10 “Es gibt dieses Irland: wer aber hinfährt und es nicht findet, hat keine Ersatzansprüche an den Autor”. Heinrich Böll: Irisches Tagebuch. Mit Materialien und einem Nachwort von Karl Heiner Busse. Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln 1988. P. 11. 11 “(Als ich an Bord des Dampfers ging,) sah ich, hörte und roch ich, daß ich eine Grenze überschritten hatte”. Böll: Irisches Tagebuch. P. 13. 12 See also Thorsten Päplow: Wer suchet, erfindet: Identität und Heimat in Bölls Irisches Tagebuch. Paper delivered at conference Grenzen der Fiktionalität – Autobiographisches Schreiben in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Hanasaari, 25–29 May 2005, to be published in conference proceedings. 13 “absolut, großartig und erschreckend”. Böll: Irisches Tagebuch. P. 79.

211 expresses his observations in colourful stories, mainly in the form of personal encounters and adventures, a few times also as stories about individuals such as Mary McNamara in chapter ten, Seamus in chapter thirteen and Siobhan in chapter fourteen, illustrating particular aspects of Irish life.14 As mentioned before, the influence of the book on the reception of Ireland in Germany has been enormous. Before Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch, nearly all references to Ireland in German travel literature were combined with a comparison with England or even with the conviction that Ireland was an obscure place. Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch put Ireland on the map for Germany and made Ireland interesting and important in its own right again. The German reviews of the book were overwhelmingly positive,15 and it is still one of the strongest selling of all of Böll’s works. Since 1991, when Annemarie Böll received a golden paperback of the dtv edition for one million sold copies, 254,000 more copies have been sold of the dtv edition alone16 and it is still referred to in recent travel descriptions about Ireland, for example in articles about Cork, the European Capital of Culture in 2005.17 It has also captured the interest of numerous MA and PhD students in Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Italy and France and is still used as the background against which contemporary writing on Ireland in German is analysed in academic studies.18

Irland und seine Kinder If one looks at the film an obvious feature of Irland und seine Kinder (from today’s point of view) is that it is shot in black and white, which was not unusual for documentaries of the time, although the use of colour had increased considerably since the early fifties.19 For the narrative text Böll used a lot of quotations, including a great deal of poetry by Irish authors, among them Monk Gibbon, 14

The Most Beautiful Feet in the World, When Seamus Wants a Drink, Mrs. D’s Ninth Child. 15 See Gisela Holfter and Hermann Rasche: German travel literature about Ireland – the saga continues. In: Cross-Cultural Travel. Ed. by Jane Conroy. New York: Peter Lang 2003. Pp. 459–468 and G. Holfter: Erlebnis Irland (endnote 2). 16 I want to thank Mr Rudolf Frankl, director of marketing, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag Munich, for providing this normally well guarded information. He also confirmed my guess that the Irische Tagebuch is – with the exception of Böll’s Ansichten eines Clowns and Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, which are often compulsory literature for school children in Germany – the best selling book of Böll, indeed, with a considerable gap (“mit weitem Abstand”, email 6.7.2005). 17 Christian Röwekamp: Cork ist Kulturhauptstadt 2005. In: Der Spiegel (7.12.2004), see also ⬍http://www.spiegel.de/reise/metropolen/0,1518,331342,00.html⬎. 18 Eoin Bourke’s article “Romantisierende Irlandbücher ⫽ versteckte Deutschlandbücher? Das Irlandbild in den neueren deutschen Reiseliteratur” (see endnote 2) published in 2003 is one of the recent examples. 19 See for example the films of George Henri Anton Ivens ⬍http://www.k-fish.de/ uploads/media/joris_ivens.pdf ⬎.

212 Fiona MacLeod, W.B. Yeats, Columban and one attributed to St Brigid. Personal references, quite frequent in the book, are omitted. Böll’s portrayal of Ireland in the film is clearly not the expressly personal, subjective and partial description of the book. Instead, it takes on an authoritarian quality, reinforced by the usage of quotes of Irish saints and authors. But not only the quoted poetry (which is often not expressly attributed to the Irish authors) but also his own descriptions are lyrical rather than factual accounts of Ireland and its special features, for example in the attributes he gives time: “Still, time doesn’t show its rational face, where clock hands and numbers determine its physiognomy. It is only there, goes to and fro like the tide coming in and out, returns all the time. It pushes forward, pushes towards game and bet”.20 The structure of the film broadly follows the life cycle, starting with children going to school, then mentioning universities and Irish literature, entertainment for younger and older generations like the cinema, dancing, travelling shows, dog races, church festivals and work activities such as shark fishing – to finish with graveyards and – as a last scene – school children again. This cycle is reinforced through the narrative; the starting and finishing paragraph, each describing Irish children, are nearly identical: “all of royal ancestry, free as kings, as long as they are children” (first paragraph) and “almost all of royal ancestry, living in a royal landscape, free as kings, as long as they are children” (last paragraph).21 As in the book, sensual perceptions are of prime importance in the film, appropriately to this different medium. In early scripts Böll started his text with the demand that one would need different eyes to understand the island.22 Ireland takes on almost mystical features, if one uses Ernst Cassirer’s definition of myth,23 in other words, a shift in perspective, a changed perception, in 20 “Noch zeigt die Zeit nicht ihr vernünftiges Gesicht, ihre Oberfläche, wo Zeiger und Zahlen ihre Physiognomie bestimmen. Sie ist nur da, geht hin und zurück wie Ebbe und Flut, kehrt immer wieder. Sie drängt, drängt aber auch zum Spiel, zur Wette”. Heinrich Böll: Irland und seine Kinder, first printed in Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Jahrbuch 1960/1961. Köln 1961. In: Heinrich Böll: Hörspiele, Theaterstücke, Drehbücher, Gedichte I 1952–1978. Ed. by Bernd Balzer. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1978. Pp. 389–402, 392. 21 “Sie stammen alle von Königen ab, sind frei wie Könige, solange sie Kinder sind”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 389; “fast alle stammen von Königen ab, leben in einer königlichen Landschaft und sind frei wie Könige, solange sie Kinder sind”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 402. 22 “Wer Irland und seine Kinder und die hier gezeigte Bildfolge verstehen möchte, müsste eigentlich aufgefordert werden, anstelle der Augen, die ihm gegenwärtig dazu dienen, seine Umwelt zu betrachten, andere einzusetzen: was hier arm wirkt, ist nicht immer arm, was ärmlich wirkt, nicht immer bescheiden, sondern stolz”. Heinrich Böll: Manuscript for Irland und seine Kinder, no title, no date. Historisches Archiv Stadt Köln. 23 Cf. John Michael Krois: Der Begriff des Mythos bei Ernst Cassirer. In: Philosophie und Mythos. Ed. by Hans Poser. Berlin: de Gruyter 1979. Pp. 199–217, 199.

213 order to understand and appreciate the differences in Ireland, foremost in terms of the relationship with poverty. But it was not only “the great freedom” to be allowed to be poor that Böll praises in the film,24 or poverty as an irrelevant part of social order, as mentioned also in the beginning of the Irisches Tagebuch. Of significance are also space, religion, innocence and sympathy with the weak. Böll describes Ireland in an almost dialectic fashion in contrast to a world dominated by materialism, narrowness, procrastination, profit and survival of the fittest.25 In Irland und seine Kinder Böll admires “the mystique of waiting that appears in the eyes of the activity anxious middle-European as nearly Oriental”.26 This construction of otherness appears to be almost the opposite of the understanding of Orientalism of Edward Said’s, who analysed the dichotomy between a superior Western world and the Orient. Instead, Böll creates in the film a nearly utopian world in Ireland, a world that is not entirely of this world, but still firmly belonging to this world.27 The final narrative plus directions only encompasses 14 pages. To keep the text to a minimum was a deliberate decision in order to allow a lot of original sound,28 and particularly the sound of the sea which features on several occasions. Also the visual style is characterized by long shots of nature and sequences on people, quite often on faces, and intermittently on various clocks. Material held in the Historical Archive in Cologne indicates that Böll intended to use frequent camera shots of landscape and water as punctuation; he hoped that “with this repetition (nearly like a litany) they would be suggestive”. This repetition is not only confined to vision and sound, it is also contained in the 24

“Sie dürfen – eine große Freiheit – arm sein”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 390. This modern world is referred to now and then in Irisches Tagebuch but only rarely in Irland und seine Kinder where it is implicitly contained. A very clear explicit contrast of both worlds can be found in another of Böll’s publications: his essay from 1963 ‘Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitslosigkeit’ in which the relaxed (Irish) fisher, who is poorly dressed, enjoying sunshine and life without worrying about the future is sharply contrasted with the nervous, excited (German) tourist, taking pictures with his camera, worrying and finally realising that it is not the fisher who is to pity but himself. 26 “[…] eine Mystik des Wartens […], die dem nach Tätigkeit sich drängenden Mitteleuropäer fast orientalisch vorkommt”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 391. 27 Though there is an approximation of an utopian idea, Ireland is no paradise as Böll makes clear. Only children enjoy all freedom, as adults they have to face the “reasonable” time, have to emigrate – not only because of economic necessity but also because of cultural narrowmindedness that leads writers such as Joyce and Beckett having to leave the country: “Das Land, das seine Kinder liebt, ist eifersüchtig auf sie und streng zu ihnen, wenn sie erwachsen sind. […] Geboren sind viele Dichter in dieser Stadt […] Gelebt haben die meisten von ihnen anderswo; anderswo sind sie begraben”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 389. 28 “[…] nicht viel Text, da sehr viel Originalgeräusche mit aufgenommen werden […]”. Brief Heinrich Bölls an Annemarie Böll, 22 June 1960. In: Heinrich Böll: Rom auf den ersten Blick – Landschaften, Städte, Reisen. Bornheim/Merten: Lamuv 1987. P. 117. 25

214 narrative. This goes for the main topic of Irland und seine Kinder, emigration, as much as another key aspect, time. Already in the Irisches Tagebuch one of the most quoted chapters is the one in which Böll ponders time. He (and countless German tourists later) was impressed by the Irish attitude that “when God made time he made plenty of it”.29 In the book this impression is presented as the explicit view of the outsider – Böll waits in the cinema for the movie to start and declares his amazement that no one cares about the delay – and at the same time he makes it clear that he as the outsider benefits and learns from this different perspective. However, in the film time is often personified, as a subject offering hours in vain,30 existing only, moving like tide movements,31 depending on the fastest horse or dog,32 appearing unreasonable33 and mad34. But not only time seems to have different qualities and characteristics in this description of Ireland – Böll sees the country as a place that is full of paradoxes, where exaggeration is law and heartfelt children’s prayer, pious men and utter desperation are side by side.35 Despite the inherent contradiction of the strictly limited space in the island, the travelers (or “Irish gypsies”, as Böll calls them): […] find never-ending space and time on the small island of Ireland, time for them is only in the form of seasons, weather, birth, death, growing up of children and horses. Death, birth and hunger are their only punctuality, ‘because the stars that wake up the winds waft through their blood’.36

Ireland is portrayed as a place where statues of Mary are to be found in airports rather than clocks,37 where religion has almost become nature38 and time has “no reasonable face, only a heart, a rhythm and a melody”.39

29

Böll: Irish Journal. P. 53. “[…] auch die Zeit wartet, sie scheint ihre Stunden vergebens anzubieten, vergebens ihre Zeiger zu bewegen, vergebens pünktlich zu sein”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 391. 31 Ibid. P. 392. 32 Ibid. P. 393. 33 Ibid. P. 392 and 398. 34 Ibid. P. 393. 35 “(wo Übertreibung Lebensgesetz ist) wohnen inniges Kindergebet, fromme Männer und tiefe Verzweiflung nahe nebeneinander”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 395. 36 “[…] finden sie die Unendlichkeit des Raumes und der Zeit. Zeit ist für sie nur Jahreszeit, Wetter, Geburt, Tod, Heranwachsen der Kinder, der Pferde. Tod, Geburt und Hunger sind ihre einzigen Pünktlichkeiten, ‘denn die Sterne, die Winde erwecken, wehen durch ihr Blut’”. Böll: Irland und seine Kinder. P. 396. 37 Ibid. P. 393. 38 Ibid. P. 395. 39 “Wo die Zeit kein vernünftiges Gesicht hat, nur ein Herz, einen Rhythmus und eine Melodie”. Ibid. P. 398. 30

215 Reception Viewers in Germany liked Böll’s portrayal of Ireland. When it was shown on German television in 1961, 47% of the potential audience watched the film according to infratest and very positive comments by viewers and reviewers alike were the result.40 The Mang fallbote praised the “lyrical description, which did not only concern itself with reality but managed to conjure the atmosphere beyond the realities, as is only possible with the poetic word”.41 The Rheinische Post declared that it “seemed to be composed according to musical rules”, and that it was artistic and balanced.42 Letters to the editor of the TV Fernsehwoche congratulated the TV programmers on the excellent feature, “a symphony of word and image”, noting that it not only informed the audience about Ireland but “gave [the viewer] an artistic experience”.43 Böll’s hope of creating a suggestive image through a strongly imposed form seems to have been successful and was expressly appreciated. Given the enthusiastic reception of both book and film one can assume Böll succeeded in bringing across a positive introduction to a country he loved. Unfortunately, this was seen differently in Ireland. Böll’s film was shown in Ireland as part of the series “As others see us”. It created great controversy, resulting in one critic demanding an apology from the German government. It can be assumed that it had a fairly large viewing audience given the letters to the editor in different newspapers and the fact that there had been a long article beforehand in the RTV Guide by Patrick Gallagher introducing the Irish audience to Heinrich Böll and the film. Gallagher mentions meeting him in Cologne a few years before when Böll “had just made a name for himself as a satirist whose novels nonetheless had a spare human passion” and declares that “Children of Eire is a film of considerable beauty, and to me a perfectly fair and valid camera and poet’s eye view of aspects of the West of Ireland”. He also gives a warning: Essentially, the film is the view of a poet, and some of us believe that poetic truth beats literal truth hands down. That, however, is a subjective judgement of ‘Children 40

Information according to material in the Böll files in the Historische Archiv Köln. “[…] sondern eine poetische Schilderung, die deshalb nicht weniger den Realitäten nachging, aber hinter den Realitäten die Atmosphäre spürbar werden ließ, wie es eben nur dem dichterischen Wort gegeben ist”. N.A.: Die poetische Reportage. In: Mangfallbote, Bad Aiblingen (14 March 1961). 42 “Das wirkte nach musikalischen Gesetzen komponiert, war kunstvoll und – im Blick auf das gesamte Fernsehpublikum – wohl nur gelegentlich zu anspruchsvoll formuliert”. N.A.: Dichterische Dokumentation. In: Rheinische Post (10 March 1961). 43 “[…] eine Sinfonie von Wort und Bild”. R.A., Neunkirchen/Siegen; “Der Bericht über die ‘grüne Insel’ war nach meinem Dafürhalten eine in Bild und Wort gelungene Komposition. Sie ließ die Fernseher nicht nur etwas über Irland sehen und hören, sondern vermittelte den Zuschauern ein künstlerisches Erlebnis”. F. Sch. BerlinWilmersdorf. Dank für die ‘grüne Insel’. In: TV Fernsehwoche (2 April 1961). 41

216 of Eire’. Viewers should watch for themselves. The odd ear may burn, but not many an eye will tire of the photo-imagination that pervades the film.

That this warning was necessary became obvious in the studio discussion that followed the programme. Three Irishmen, Patrick O’Keefe, an agricultural editor, Donal Nevin, trade unionist and John O’Donovan, an author and playwright, had, it seems, an interesting discussion. As Gabriel Fallon wrote in the Evening Press – the “pleasing, if somewhat limited German film of Irish life” was well worth showing “if only for the lively discussion it provoked”. John O’Donovan in particular, was quite simply disgusted. In an article in the Sunday Press he stated: “I say this disgraceful production must be withdrawn […] little was left out of ‘Children of Eire’ that could help to exhibit us as the most hapless and hopeless race in the northern hemisphere”. Not all commentators agreed with him, one writing that “How one could see it as a picture of the whole country beats me”, comparing it to images of Ireland by Joyce, Kavanagh and Shaw, and concluding: To me, ‘Children of Eire’ was what Mr. Nevin and Mr. O’Keeffe claimed it was: a poet’s-eye view of a very real place. What if the poet happens to have a touch of the satirist? We have produced so many poet-satirists ourselves that we cannot reasonably complain. ‘Children of Eire’ was in many ways reminiscent of ‘Man of Aran’. The essential difference was that in shooting the German film the camera was more sharply focussed.44

Though Böll probably had no satire in mind when writing Children of Eire he would surely have been pleased with the comparison with Joyce, Kavanagh and Shaw. One reason for the negative reception of the film was certainly the delay of its broadcast in Ireland and the setting. A substantial part of the film was shot on Achill Island where Böll had bought a cottage – and which is also the atmospheric setting for most of the chapters of the Irisches Tagebuch. Achill Island, in the north-west of Ireland, had been connected with the mainland by a bridge since 1887. However, in many respects its development followed a quiet pace. In 1969 there were still only 145 telephone connections and these mainly in 44

Irish Press, 6 February 1965. Of interest in the discussion about Böll’s portraying poverty the letters of Francis John Byrne, University College Dublin (10.2.1965) and J.W. Millar are of interest, the former claiming that Böll was remarkable insofar as he “however perversely, delights in this state of affairs” referring to poverty and dirt of the Irish life, and, as a reaction to the “soulless new Germany of the Wirtschaftswunder”, Böll was admiring a country where to be poor is no disgrace, something possibly not applicable to the Ireland of Byrne’s time. Millar replies to that it was very far from the truth that Böll saw poverty as virtue, explaining that he had the benefit of knowing Böll personally and having discussed the issue at numerous times.

217 hotels, guest houses and administrative premises.45 Electricity was introduced in 1952, but “many islanders declined to have their homes connected to the supply at the outset and several years elapsed before the Electricity Supply Board offered a post-development scheme”.46 Emigration had had a terrible impact – between 1951 und 1961 the island lost nearly 20% of its population.47 It comes as no surprise therefore that the topic of emigration features so strongly in both book and film. But it needs to be remembered here that the Irish economic situation had changed considerably in the intervening years up to 1965. Sean Lemass, the new Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) had created a fairly successful economy, lowering unemployment and improving the balance of trade (which according to Böll’s film headed for a catastrophe which only thanks to support from the emigrants to the US etc was avoided). The “age of innocence” of Ireland had ended.48 Changes to a more modern country had certainly already started in the late 1950s but were confined mainly to urban areas, foremost Dublin. Changes in Achill were far slower and it would have been interesting to hear what people of Achill Island had to say about the film in the 1960s. That the discussion took place in Dublin makes it also an example of the city-country divergence. Böll tried to answer his critics in his essay “A reply to the critics of Children of Eire”.49 To avoid similar criticism about the book he added in 1967 the essay “13 years later” (referring to the elapsed time since his first visit to Ireland in 1954) to the English translation of Irisches Tagebuch (⫽ Irish Journal ) trying to explain why he had not referred to the economic improvement that Ireland had experienced since the mid-fifties, and stating his love for Ireland. He also added a brief foreword: “The Ireland described in this book is that of the mid1950s. My comments on the great changes that have taken place in that country since then are contained in the Epilogue” to make sure that no-one would be upset and stop reading before having reached the end.50 45

Cf. Kenneth McNally: Achill. Newton Abbot: David & Charles 1973. P. 136. McNally: Achill. P. 157. 47 Population of Achill Island was 4918 in 1946, in 1951 – 4906, in 1956 – 4493 and in 1961 there were only 4069 people, thus Achill experienced a drop of nearly 20% of its population within only one decade. And the trend continued – in 1966 there were only 3.598 people left. Cf. McNally: Achill. P. 178. 48 See Brian Fallon: An Age of Innocence – Irish Culture 1930–1960. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1998. 49 Heinrich Böll: A reply to the critics of Children of Eire. In: Hibernia 29 (1965). 50 Unfortunately, I have to neglect the aspect of the reception of the Irish Journal in Ireland here. Hugo Hamilton only recently stated that while the Germans loved it, the Irish hated it. See: The loneliness of being German. In: The Guardian. (7 September 2004). This is probably meant polemically. No less than Sean O’Faolain praised humour and style. See: A land that bewitches. In: New York Book Review (13 August 1967). I think the most interesting aspect is the general lack of interest whether positive or critical. 46

218 So, the film produced a mixed but very definite reaction (or reactions) in both Germany and Ireland when it was first shown. However, despite the interest and discussion at the time, hardly anyone mentions the film today (with the notable exception of one interviewee on Achill Island in 2002 who mentioned the film as very important, having captured things that are all long gone).51 As far as I know the film does not figure in any academic writing or research on Böll. In 2005 parts of it were used in a film documentary on Achill Island but in two earlier films made specifically on Böll and Ireland no references are made to Irland und seine Kinder, although it would seem an obvious idea and very easy indeed to use some parts of the film to show changes in Ireland, to introduce areas Böll particularly liked etc.52

Reasons for the differing receptions Why has the film not been subject to any critical appraisal and hardly any notice since its initial favourable reception in Germany in 1961 and the ‘scandal’ it caused in Ireland in 1965? One can – literally – see that the film is far more dated than the book. The black and white portrayal makes it hard to fill in ones own ideas and possibly experiences of the proverbial green island. Also, the very personal approach of the book allows each reader to find his or her own Ireland – and therefore to succeed in meeting the challenge Böll throws out to his readers with his foreword “This Ireland exists […]”. The book combines stories that are all literary achievements in their own right, gives the reader space for his or her own imagination, uses an ambitious structure as well as a very artistic, yet accessible style. One can argue that Böll achieved a “philological understanding” of Ireland in his Irisches Tagebuch in the best 51

Interview with Tom McNamara, Achill Island, 26 August 2002. Beate Kuhn’s and Marc Delestre’s film about Achill Island with numerous references to Böll and indeed some scenes taken from Irland und seine Kinder was broadcast in the Bayrischer Rundfunk in February 2005. The two films on Böll and Ireland that failed to even mention the film are Rückkehr nach Irland – Erinnerungen an ein Tagebuch von Heinrich Böll, ZDF 1988, and Zwischen den Heimaten – Heinrich Böll in Irland. Deutsche Welle TV 1996. Extensive references and quotes from the Irisches Tagebuch (but no mention of the film) feature also in other films on Ireland, for example Barbara Dickenberger’s Reisewege Irland – Sligo and Mayo, Saarländischer Rundfunk 1995. If at all, the film is shown as part of a Böll homage, as for example in December 2002 by the ‘Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek’ and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Berlin. They introduced the film as: “IRLAND UND SEINE KINDER (1961) ist ein Zeugnis von Heinrich Bölls Liebe zur grünen Insel und seiner Bevölkerung. ‘Es gibt dieses Irland: wer aber hinfährt und es nicht findet, hat keine Ersatzansprüche an den Autor’. Heinrich Bölls Diktum, das seinem Irischen Tagebuch vorausgeht, gilt gleichermaßen für den Film, der jenseits von faktenreicher Reportage und ausschmückendem Feuilleton sich allein durch das dichterische Wort der Einzigartigkeit eines Landes, einer Insel und seiner Bewohner zu nähern versucht”. See ⬍http://www.fdk-berlin.de/arsenal/text2002/1202boell.html⬎. 52

219 tradition of German philology, to use and adapt Edward Said review of Orientalism 25 years later, by “sympathetically and subjectively” entering into the life of Ireland “as seen from the perspective of its time and its author”.53 But the crucial difference between book and film might well be that the author’s emotional attachment comes out very clearly in the book but is much more hidden in the film. Still worse from today’s perspective, the film now seems to present an almost colonial view of the lovely, uncivilised natives, who are free and happy as children but who are possibly contributing with their strange idleness to the terrible emigration that is tearing apart families – something Böll certainly never intended to convey. One could also argue that today’s myths – as well as their transmission in the medium of film – have changed dramatically. The mythical elements, the dreams, appear today dated, historical. Itinerant theatres with sentimental songs, films such as High Noon or indeed barefoot children do not any more carry any credibility as a utopian alternative. For viewers today, Böll’s continuous references to time can become tedious as much as the repetition of sounds and images. Böll himself was aware of the limitations of the film medium, and regretted the “one hundred thousand things” that remained inaccessible for a camera, its lack of an eye and vision and indeed the limited ability of the cameramen whose perception had been reduced to the vision of a camera.54 Böll also feared that places and people captured on camera would lose their charm, and thought filming “barbaric business”.55 Another more general aspect could also play a role in the differing impact of the book and film and refers back to the difference between film and book to begin with – the question of distribution. In Böll’s time no TV film, or movie for that matter, was available on video. It was only books that matured on the shelves, were passed on to family members, given as a present to a friend 53

Edward Said: Orientalism 25 Years Later – Worldly Humanism v. the Empirebuilders. In: Counterpunch (4 August 2003). ⬍http://www.counterpunch.org/ said08052003.html⬎. 54 “Das Schlimmste ist, daß man – ich habe die Notwendigkeit inzwischen eingesehen – fast alle Szenen ‘stellen’ muß und daß es hunderttausend Dinge gibt, die der Kamera – erst recht, wenn man deren Beute dann auf einem miesen Bildschirm sieht – immer unzugänglich bleiben werden; die Kamera hat eben kein Auge und keinen Blick; die Endlosigkeit des Moores etwa darzustellen […]. Schlimm ist auch, daß die Kameraleute zwar noch Augen haben und einen Blick, aber eben doch einen Kamerablick: Sie sehen nur noch durch ihr Instrument”. Böll: Rom auf den ersten Blick – Landschaften, Städte, Reisen. P. 122. 55 “Manchmal fürchte ich, daß die Orte und Menschen, die wir so gut kennen, auch Slievemore Village, an Charme verlieren durch die Tatsache, daß sie gefilmt worden sind – es ist doch insgesamt ein barbarisches Geschäft – aber dann hoffe ich, daß sie – die Orte und Menschen – sich wieder erholen”. Böll: Rom auf den ersten Blick – Landschaften, Städte, Reisen. P. 120.

220 before his or her Ireland trip. Today, however, there are probably as many if not more video shops as bookshops (though Böll’s Irland und seine Kinder has experienced no renaissance yet and is only available on very few videos from later TV broadcasts). Does that mean that movies can now achieve the same shelf-life as books or will the inherent advantages of books, the way they set the reader’s imagination free rather than confining it to a particular image, mean that books and books alone will retain their timelessness as Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch seems to indicate? Perhaps, this question is too general for this specific analysis which is not a general comparison of book against film but rather travel literature and a documentary film. It could therefore be of interest to have a brief look at another German documentary about Ireland of the time56 and to see whether it fared any better. In 1955 Rolf-Dietrich Nath from Stuttgart made three short films on Ireland. He wrote to the Dept. of External Affairs in Dublin explaining his plans: […] We want nature – untouched nature. Something we no longer have in our overpopulated country. We have no interest in towns or industries. We have these – it is these our people leave (and always for the south – since they are unaware of the beauty of other countries).57

Reminiscent of the later Böll film, one of the films is characterized by an employee of the Irish Legation as follows: “Haie am Netz (Sharks on the Net)” is a documentary, also very much in the Flaherty style (as Nebel ueber Donegal) of shark fishing at Achill, and of the people who engage in it. Once again the atmosphere is built up poetically, the bareness of the country, the individuality of the people and their position as an outpost of Gaelic culture.58

This film and another film Where the ways end had considerable commercial success in Germany as they were distributed for showing with two popular films Sohn ohne Heimat59 and Charley’s Tante60 and received the “Prädikat Wertvoll”. However, they were never screened in Ireland as neither the Department of External Affairs nor the newly established Bord Failte could see any potential in 56

Other German feature films on Ireland include two films by another travel writer, Margit Wagner, were broadcast on TV and received favourable reviews in 1959. 57 Letter Rolf-Dietrich Nath, 3 January 1955 to “Cultural Relations Comite (sic), Deparment (sic) of External Affairs, IVEAGH House Dublin Ireland”. See National Archives of Ireland, Dublin (NAI), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) 323/148: ‘Rolf Dieter Nath Stuttgart to make cultural publicity film on Ireland (1955–56)’. 58 NAI, DFA 323/148. 59 First shown 27 October 1955, directed by Hans Deppe, with Werner Krauss, Elisabeth Flickenschildt and Paul Bösinger. 60 First shown 19 January 1956, directed by Hans Quest, with Heinz Rühmann, Herta Feiler and Claus Biederstaedt.

221 it – even for the German market! Nath had unsuccessfully tried to argue for his film in a letter to the Department of External Affairs, already before the negative response (which was only issued after so many repeated inquiries that even the Irish Legation was embarrassed): We should like you to keep in mind that a foreigner views a particular country in quite a different way to the native. That is most important. We have presented your country in the way that appeals to the German mind – an American would have done it quite another [way] a Frenchman still in another way, but none of them would have [done it …] in the way an Irishman, who had grown up in his own splendid c[ountry] and had taken his environment for granted, would have approached it.61

In this respect Nath suffered the same problems as Böll’s film (and as noted above, Böll’s book, to which Böll added another chapter for the English translation). Regardless of its negative reception in Ireland or perhaps because of it, Böll’s film suggests the need to begin looking more deeply into outsider films on Ireland. Irland und seine Kinder is a fascinating historical document, not only on Ireland but also on Böll and the German perception of Ireland at the time. However, the film has not stood the test of time nearly as well as Irisches Tagebuch. To some extent that may be explicable by factors inherent in the film medium, but more important are the different structure and style of the film which lack the personal, human and timeless qualities that have made the stories of the book resonate for more than 50 years. 61

No date, NAI, DFA 323/148. Nath might have suffered also from having been a bit “too casual” in his initial approaches to the Irish Legation in Bonn, resulting in a letter by the then Minister Plenipotentiary John A Belton to Secretary Dept of Foreign Affairs on 5th May 1955: “We were not over-impressed with Herr Nath’s rather casual approach to us and in addition he had not considered taking the Foreign Office into his confidence. This has now been rectified and we understand from Baron Richthoven that the Legation in Dublin is informed. We were then surprised to learn from Herr Nath that he has for some time been in correspondence both with Fogra Failte […] and with the Cultural Section of the Department”. This was remembered some months on when Brian O’Ceallaigh wrote from the Irish Legation to the Secretary Dept of Foreign Affairs on 29th July 1955 about Nath’s request for Irish music for his films. O’Ceallaigh asked for sample recordings from the Folklore Commission, which would not involve copyright difficulties, and stated he would be very glad to receive it for transmission as soon as possible. There were duly detailed discussions with the Folklore Commission, which was willing to help with its extensive library, but issued a clear warning: “The Folklore Commission are definitely unwilling to provide music which might not be properly used – naturally as they have an excellent reputation internationally and would loath to be associated with a venture which was slipshod or of a poor standard. It may be recalled your minute of 5th May did refer to the rather careless approach of Herr Nath”. Ibid.

Jan Röhnert

A German Poet at the Movies: Rolf Dieter Brinkmann With kindness to Larry Fagin and Ron Padgett, remembering New York, spring 2004. Throughout the 20th century, cinema has fascinated modernist and avant-garde poets. Yet the ‘screen history’ of poetry is still largely unwritten. The following contribution is a small extract from a much larger study on that topic dedicated to French, American and German “poets at the movies”. Though it cannot be claimed that Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (1940–1975) was the first to introduce the cinema into German poetry, he was the first poet after 1945 to deal with the cinema in a radically innovative poetic style previously unknown in the German tradition.

I Bringing together contemporary German poetry with the medium of film and the attraction of the cinema still seems to be a project out of the ordinary – at least for those readers unfamiliar with the writing of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann. Given that an avant-garde like that found in Apollinaire’s Paris, or in the postwar New York scene around Frank O’Hara, could scarcely be said to exist within the academic German scene of the 1950s and early 1960s that was dominated by Gruppe 47, Brinkmann may well have been the only real representative of his generation who attempted to create a literary avant-garde in postwar Germany in the manner of the early Parisian or the postwar New York authors. Due to his premature death in a car accident in London in 1975, much of his writing remains neglected, or is known to the public only through fragmentary scrapbooks and letters published by his widow between 1976 and 2005. However, most of the books he published during his lifetime are still accessible, at least through second-hand bookstores or in reprint versions, and it is these books that have helped to create an image of Brinkmann as an angry, outspoken young man who cannot be subsumed under commonplace literary criteria. The publication that made his name both popular and notorious was an anthology that contained none of Brinkmann’s own writing, with the exception of one major essay included as an afterword. Brinkman edited the book with his lifelong friend Ralf Rainer Rygulla, a bookseller and disc jockey, and they called it “ACID”, a word which was by then, in 1969, closely associated with the emerging American counterculture of the Beat generation and the New York School – the poets that Brinkmann and Rygulla wanted to introduce to a German audience with the book. What made “ACID” appear so provocative back then was the outrageous,

224 aggressive way the texts were grouped by the editors, rather than the actual texts or authors – the texts appeared in a collage-like pattern that broke all the rules of continuity and cohesion, and mixed images from American popular culture (movies, pop stars, etc.) with representations of American counterculture. Brinkmann and Rygulla celebrated the “Neue amerikanische Szene” (the subtitle of the book) through such diverse figures as William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Michael McClure, Frank O’Hara, Taylor Mead, Ted Berrigan and many others. They seemed to be avoiding any comparison to what poet and academic Walter Höllerer had introduced as “Junge amerikanische Lyrik” in 1961, eight years before, with the help of Gregory Corso. In the latter, new American poetry was presented as something new and of interest to a German audience, but within the range of international modernist writing. By contrast, “ACID” presented the “new” American avant-garde as the one and only possible paradigm for innovative writing. It was no coincidence that Brinkmann gave the essay that concluded the anthology the title “Der Film in Worten” (The Film in Words), drawing on a statement about the cinematographic qualities of writing originally made by Jack Kerouac. Brinkmann’s highly eclectic text, now much cited by those interested in tracing his poetological roots, contains his vision of a postmodern literature that interacts with new media and technologies and pays tribute particularly to film and cinema as patterns of perception in Western society. As he puts it in his own words, “Kunst schreitet nicht fort, sie erweitert sich” (Art does not advance forwards, it extends outwards). The medium of film, based on images, movement and artificial light, leads to the creation of a new type of literature that deals with the surfaces of our visual reality: For literature that means: traditional ideas about form have to be broken down and we have to put the usual addition of words behind us. Instead, images have to be projected – “Bookmovie is the movie in words” (Kerouac), … a movie, therefore images, that is, projections, not the reproduction of abstract, imageless syntactical patterns … Images that flicker and jump on highly sensitive film surfaces, surfaces that sensibility sticks to […].1

Although he rejects the traditional regard for the “avant-garde” as in itself too academic, he would not deny that this vision of crossing the borders of literature is itself largely indebted to Apollinaire’s avant-garde manifesto of 1918, 1

“Für die Literatur heißt das: tradiertes Verständnis von Formen […] aufzulösen and damit die bisher übliche Addition von Wörtern hinter sich zu lassen, statt dessen Vorstellungen zu projizieren – ‘Das Buch in Drehbuchform ist der Film in Worten’ (Kerouac) …ein Film, also Bilder – also Vorstellungen, nicht die Reproduktion abstrakter, bilderloser syntaktischer Muster … Bilder, flickernd and voller Sprünge, Aufnahmen auf hochempfindlichen Filmstreifen Oberflächen verhafteter Sensibilität […]”. See Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Der Film in Worten: In ACID. Neue Amerikanische Szene. Ed. by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann and Ralf-Rainer Rygulla. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1983 (1969). P. 387.

225 “L’esprit nouveau et les poetes”, where the role of the future poet among technology’s new inventions (cinema and gramophone, in the latter’s case) had already been defined. Apollinaire himself gives a good example of how early avant-garde poetry attempted to move out towards the margins of literature, where poets could join forces with other artists, including film-makers, in their striving to be “absolument moderne”, as Rimbaud puts it. Movie reviews and unfinished film script projects by Apollinaire exist, and the significance of his membership of the “société des amis de Fantomas”, which was founded by his poet friend Max Jacob in order to celebrate the screenings of this popular series of silent slapstick, is clearly significant here. Apollinaire’s fellow poet Blaise Cendrars even wrote his own theory of cinematography, “L’ABC du cinéma”, while working on a film (which has since been destroyed) in Rome’s Cinecittà in 1921. “L’ABC du cinema” does not only praise D. W. Griffith as the most progressive director of his time, it also contains an anthropological essay on man and the media that anticipates Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding media”. Cendrars’ own poetry, more radical than even Apollinaire’s, deals with the perception of movement, artificial surfaces, simultaneity, ubiquity and the urban environment, and shares a good deal with the aesthetics and the affinities of film as they are described by Siegfried Kracauer in his “Theory of film”. What Kracauer terms the “redemption of physical reality” in film had already been well expressed in one of the earliest pieces written by Louis Aragon. In “Du décor”, published in Louis Delluc’s cahiérs du cinéma in 1919, Aragon argues that cinema, like modernist art and poetry, suddenly reveals the beauty of seemingly banal objects of our daily reality, like a lady’s glove, a can of beef, or a bar door banging in the wind. Aragon’s insights explain the surrealists’ deep-felt affection for cinema, and it is well known that Philippe Soupault and Robert Desnos also produced a steady output of movie columns for French newspapers. I hope that these remarks do not seem too far removed from my subject matter, the way Rolf Dieter Brinkmann depicts film and cinema in his own poetry. The traditions he emerged from cannot be neglected, if we want to understand what drove him to proclaim that film and cinema were one of the main sources for contemporary American poetry, as he did in both “Der Film in Worten” and in “Notizen 1969 zu amerikanischer Lyrik” (Notes on American poetry 1969), which appeared as the foreword to the anthology Silverscreen, which mainly featured poetry by authors from the “second generation” of the New York school such as Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Larry Fagin, Anne Waldman and Gerard Malanga. In 1969, Brinkmann also translated the poetry of Frank O’Hara and wrote an essay introducing it, “Die Lyrik Frank O’Haras”. O’Hara was one of Brinkmann’s main “influences” after William Carlos Williams. What attracted Brinkmann so strongly to the New York art promoter and congenial flâneur was O’Hara’s deeply felt affection for cinema, especially

226 Hollywood B-movies of the film noir variety (which also influenced Nouvelle Vague filmmakers such as Godard or Truffaut significantly). O’Hara’s poems, even those that come close to praising the cinema, such as “To the film industry in crisis”, are not only thematically close to the movies – they also try to capture the immediacy, ubiquity and concrete quality inherent to the medium of film. It is a known fact that O’Hara’s passion for cinema in poetry did not develop out of the blue, but goes back to French avant-garde poets such as those mentioned above, and Brinkmann could not have failed to pick up on this. O’Hara regularly inserts quotations from Guillaume Apollinaire and Pierre Reverdy into his own poetic collages. The critic Marjorie Perloff has identified “the poetics of indeterminacy” as a defining feature of avant-garde writing from Rimbaud to Cage. O’Hara can definitely be included here, and I would even go so far as to say that the poetics of indeterminacy correspond to what we could, with reference to Kracauer, term the aesthetics of indeterminacy inherent to the medium of film. Starting from this point makes it far easier to appreciate Brinkmann’s attempts to incorporate the visual media of his time into his work through his poetics of the film in words as a type of “extended” poetry. I would like to summarize all the cinematographic and cineastic activities Brinkmann had in mind or was practically engaged in as he attempted to move beyond the neatly demarcated borders of literature, and then to finish up by presenting examples of Brinkmann’s poetry in which the lyrical ego ‘watches’ films or even ‘makes’ movies out of words.

II Film attracted Brinkmann on at least two levels. He enjoyed watching actual movies, and many images in his poetry are derived from films. He also experimented with the medium of film in making his own, private movies. Brinkmann’s posthumously published Briefe an Hartmut, a volume of letters he exchanged with a German-American friend in 1974/75, after he had taught German literature at the University of Texas in Austin in Spring 1974, are a good source of information on the films that Brinkmann was particularly drawn to, as they contain many self commentaries. In order to explain his poetics to his friend, Brinkmann is quick to highlight the analogy between his poetry and film. Looking back at his coming of age in a provincial town in Northwestern Germany in the late Fifties, there seems to have been nothing he enjoyed more than secretly sneaking into the cinema,2 as he remembers during his stay in Rome in Winter 1972. Briefe an Hartmut also recounts Brinkmann’s movie watching habits after the poet’s move to Cologne: Between 1962 and 1966, I was always going to late night shows after a quarter past 11 to watch these raw, unpretentiously made films with strange shots that appealed 2

“immer heimlich ins Kino schleichen […]”. Ibid.

227 to me more than trendy French art films, because of their exact observation and the way they treated details that were weird and commonplace at the same time, (like an empty dustbin rolling and rolling along an empty road through American suburbia in the morning). I really wanted that kind of raw, immediate effect, and not an arty effect that only showcases art itself.3

Brinkmann finds this “raw, immediate effect” above all in Hollywood B-movies dealing with gangsters, such as Bud Boetticher’s The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, a masterpiece of its own genre in the tradition of Howard Hawk’s Scarface, or Don Siegel’s The Killers. The film stars John Cassavetes and Ronald Reagan in a plot based on a short story by Hemingway. Brinkmann refers to these films in Keiner weiß mehr, his 1968 novel, which even at this early stage in his career evokes the qualities of a movie camera in its long passages of endlessly flowing descriptive prose. Brinkmann also mentions another low-budget American production frequently, Blast of Silence, directed by Alan Baron, which deals with the subject of a professional killer unsuccessfully trying to withdraw from his profession. This latter film has a dark, fatalistic storyline and shows a solitary man wandering through the streets of New York over Christmas. As such it is close to European productions of the time, with their existentialist attitude of confronting people with the crudity of reality. This same can be said of John Cassavetes’ own movies – Brinkmann recalls the directness of the behavior and expression of the actors and the way the camera captures abrupt and unconventional images of people’s gestures and actions in the films “Shadows” and “Faces”, both of which are very close to the ideal of a documentary “cinéma vérité” as well as to Antonin Artaud’s “théâtre de la cruauté”. However, Brinkmann also frankly admits to having enjoyed early Godard films4 and other kind of French cinema: He highlights Jean Vigo’s movies and Chris Marker’s idiosyncratic style of film-making. We may find it impossible to compare the highly poetic “stream of life” (in Kracauer’s phrase) in Vigo’s L’Atalante, or the sense of adolescent revolt in the latter’s Zero de conduite, both made in the early 1930s, to films made in the Sixties such as Russ Meyer’s brutal and trashy Mudhoney or Faster Pussycat Faster. But Brinkmann mentions them in the same breath and does not differentiate between them as most cineastes would. Rimbaud’s famous catalogue of oddities or banal and rejected 3

“Zwischen 1962 and 1966 bin ich dauernd in die Spätvorstellungen gegangen nach 1/4 nach 11 […] um mir diese rohen, ungebrochen gemachten Filme anzusehen, worin so befremdliche Aufnahmen waren, die mir wegen dieser genauen Beobachtungen und seltsamen und doch alltäglichen Details (etwa eine leere Mülltonne rollt lange eine morgendliche leere amerikanische Vorortstrasse entlang) mehr gezeigt haben als die schicken französischen Kunstfilme. […] Ich wollte wirklich einen rohen, unmittelbaren Effekt haben, und keinen Kunsteffekt, der dann Kunst so vorne rausstellt”. Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Briefe an Hartmut. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1999. P. 41. 4 Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Briefe an Hartmut. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1999. P. 114.

228 objects at the beginning of the prose poem “L’alchimie du verbe” could well come to mind when contemplating Brinkmann’s passion for the most diverse and idiosyncratic kinds of cinema. When reading his poetry or his poetological statements, one soon discovers that, of course, certain links exist between the “weird and commonplace details” with their “raw immediate effect” he identifies in his favorite movies, and the way he wants his poetry to come out. But Brinkmann’s preoccupation with cinema goes further than that. He was involved in XSCREEN, a Cologne cooperative of experimental filmmakers, between 1968 and 1971, and was thus able to keep up to date with American experimental cinema, especially with the movies of those filmmakers connected to the New York circle around Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas, both artists whose work is documented in “ACID”. It was in homage to them that Brinkmann began to make his own films, with an 8 mm home movie camera in the late Sixties. As he explains to his fellow poet Ron Padgett in New York in a letter dated Sept. 16, 1968, some of his films were about to be shown at an event at the Frankfurt book fair celebrating the launch of his new volume of poetry, Die Piloten: “I will show some of my little movies 8 mm – which I’ve made this summer … some naked girls, showing their pussys in Kodak-Colour and pressing instantly their breasts – or should I say ‘tits’ etc.?”. In a letter dated March 15, 1969, he tells Ron Padgett more about his own “home-movie” productions: “I think it’s lovely to make 3 minutes-movies, I’ve done some last year and now (if I have time) I will make some new in Super 8 mm […] they aren’t ‘great’ – they are just as I shot them with friends – mostly faces”.5 Brinkmann referred to his own movies as “wirklich schöne Sachen”6 (really nice things), but they remain under wraps until the present day, as his widow does not allow public access to them, with the exception of small snippets that have been shown in TV-documentaries and in a movie on his life in Cologne, Brinkmanns Zorn (Brinkmann’s Anger), which was recently screened in German art cinemas. We have only the evidence of the few remaining witnesses of his screenings to go by. One of them, Dieter Wellershoff, identified an affinity between Warhol’s underground movies and the kind of films Brinkmann made with a fixed camera. But according to Wellershoff, Brinkmann did not try to capture the Empire State building, but himself during the act of masturbation.7 American Poet Larry Fagin, however, remembers Brinkmann’s filmmaking differently. Fagin states that Brinkmann immediately asked him and his wife Joan if he could cast them in one of his films when they visited Cologne in 1969. In the still below, we can see Fagin in front of Brinkmann’s fixed camera. 5

Thanks to Ron Padgett in New York, who gave me access to Brinkmann’s letters to him. Ibid. P. 82. 7 Interview with Dieter Wellershoff . In: Too much – Das lange Leben des Rolf Dieter Brinkmann. Ed. by Gunter Geduldig and Marco Sagurna. Vechta: Eiswasser 2000. Pp. 111–128, esp. 123. 6

229

American poet Larry Fagin in a still of one of Brinkmann’s “home-movies”, most probably holding a copy of the anthology “ACID” (1969) in his hands.

The whole scene seems to have been shot in an abandoned lot in a Cologne suburb.8 Brinkmann’s own private filmmaking came to an abrupt end around 1970, but he never stopped taking photographs and assembling collages using images found in all kinds of magazines. He invested considerable energy into this between 1971 and 1974, a period during which he didn’t publish any new books. So this activity could well offer clues as to what motivated him to make films. His scrapbooks from that time and his “photographic novel” Schnitte (cuts) – its title evoking the literal cuts it is made of – show clearly enough that film was still a hugely important influence on Brinkmann’s work, but that the impact of film is now communicated less via a passion for the cinema, and more through a structural analogy between film techniques and Brinkmann’s literary experimentation in the combining of words with images. This discovery of film on two levels – first as a source of inspiration, and later as a technical equivalent of his private literary investigations, is also reflected in his poetry, from the early volumes of the Sixties up to his last volume in 1975. 8

Interview with Larry Fagin. Conducted March 14th 2004, in his New York apartment.

230 III Though film has always been a major impulse in all of Brinkmann’s writing, he may have succeeded best and most satisfyingly (at least for his reader’s taste) in turning the lens of the movie camera into a subject of his poetry. The authentic character of his poetry is not least due to his constant use of cinematographic topics and the structural analogies with film. From the very outset of his career, Brinkmann was not willing to emulate the ‘academic’ attitudes of the elder generation of postwar German writers, as the poem “Kulturgüter”9 (Cultural Assets) demonstrates. The poem was written around 1962 and reads like a kind of laconic Who’s Who of German intellectuals. A popular image of Marilyn Monroe’s “rote Morgenröcke” (red robes) is juxtaposed between the names of Böll, Andersch, Heissenbüttel, Bense, Enzensberger, Stockhausen and “das Vermächtnis von Borchert” (Borchert’s legacy), as if Brinkmann wanted to show that naming these literary figures can never produce any image in the readers’ mind, whereas Marilyn Monroe’s red bathrobes will forever do so: Her image is her legacy, the others leave nothing behind but words. Brinkmann was first widely recognized as a poet with his 1967 collection Was fraglich ist wofür, perhaps the most representative single volume of his early poetry. The title Was fraglich ist wofür echoes Robert Creeley’s poem “For no clear reason”, and Creeley’s minimalist style is by now much more important to Brinkmann than any German poet he may have learned from. Creeley’s poetry is written in plain, simple language, with rhythms flowing from line to line like regular breathing, as in a single cinematic movement. Later, in his Briefe an Hartmut, Brinkmann comments that these poems were an early attempt to deal with the artificial surfaces of urban life and with light and movement, both essential parts of cinema. This is why a short and seemingly spontaneous poem such as “Schlesingers Film” can turn out to be a programmatic comment on film and poetry. Written as a kind of verbal snapshot just after Brinkmann had seen the movie “Darling”10 (by English director John Schlesinger, starring Julie Christie), the poem can be read as an insight into the importance of lightning in film-making and/or the importance of choosing the right words in the right moment: (A bit // less, would still / have been too much / there. / Everything is / a question of / lightning).11 But the best poems in Was

9

See now his collected earlier poetry, in Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Standphotos. Gedichte 1962–1970. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1980. P. 13. 10 See Brinkmann: Briefe an Hartmut. P. 51. 11 “[ …] Etwas // weniger, wäre / schon zuviel. / Auch da. / Alles ist // eine Frage der / Beleuchtung”. See Brinkmann: Was fraglich ist wofür. Köln 1967. Also published in Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Standphotos. Gedichte 1962–1970. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1980.

231 fraglich ist wofür are those where Brinkmann succeeds in translating visually perceived movement into words. Thus, he often replaces the personal “I” or “me” of the speaker with the impersonal “eye” of the movie camera, its lens. As “Einfaches Bild” (simple picture) shows, this is not a naive attempt to attain a new objectivity in poetry. In fact, the evocation of camera-like perception helps him to reveal the subject hidden behind the camera. “Einfaches Bild” consists of simply one take, divided into three pans and several zooms. First, we see a girl approaching: “A girl / in / black / stockings / nice, the way / she / approaches”.12 The camera focuses on her legs “ohne Laufmaschen” (stockings without runs) before meditatively registering “her shadow / on / the street / her shadow / on / the wall”.13 There can be no doubt as to which part of her body attracts most of the voyeur’s attention, as the words simulating the camera demonstratively zoom in on her “black / stockings / without / runs / disappearing under / her skirt”14 as she leaves the scene.15 The poem “Film”16 – the title suggesting that the poem itself should be read as a movie is watched – deals in a different way with the analogy of a camera recording visible movement and a soundtrack. When explaining his poems in Briefe an Hartmut, Brinkmann often uses words like “Gedankenfilm” (thought film), “Gehirnfilm” (brain movie) or “Bewußtseinsfilm” (film of consciousness) to illustrate what he’s trying to do. In “Film”, we can follow one of these mind movies Brinkmann translates into poetry. The poet, in the exposition, conflates a personal situation: (I had /just / made / my bed // and some / coffee) with a sentence caught from the radio when the / speaker / on // the radio said/ Zbygniew Cybulski / was dead.17 The radio announcement evokes a death scene from a movie, and this image is then replaced with the scene of the Polish actor’s actual death, as reported on the radio: “it doesn’t hurt / when he / dies /on the rubbish tip// and then / again / at the station / in Breslau when he // jumps on the / moving/ express train and // falls”.18 Cybulski was at one point as famous as James Dean in Eastern Europe. The rubbish tip where he “dies” the first time is in Andrzej Wajda’s “Ashes and diamonds”. He actually died during the shooting of a new film where he had to jump onto a running train, as described at the end of the poem. “Film” brings the speaker’s personal situation on an ordinary morning 12

“Ein Mädchen / in / schwarzen / Strümpfen / schön, wie / sie / herankommt […]”. Ibid. “Ihr Schatten / auf / der Straße / ihr Schatten / an / der Mauer”. Ibid. 14 “[ …] schwarze / Strümpfe / ohne / Laufmaschen / bis unter / den Rock”. Ibid. 15 Brinkmann: Standphotos. P. 124. 16 Ibid. P. 115. 17 “Ich hatte / gerade / das Bett / aufgeschüttelt // und mir Kaffee / gemacht , als der / Sprecher im // Radio sagte / Zbigniew Cybulski / ist tot”. Ibid. 18 “[…] es tut nicht weh / während er / auf dem / Schutthaufen // stirbt and / noch einmal / auf dem Breslauer / Bahnhof beim // Aufspringen auf den / fahrenden / D-Zug and // stürzt”. Ibid. 13

232 together with outside reality (coming through the radio) and imagined death scenes from cinema and real life. It is certainly not a rehashing of Brecht’s “Zeitunglesen beim Teekochen” (Reading the paper while making tea) but rather, as Brinkmann himself says, “a snapshot of the moment when I heard the news of Zbygniew Cybulski’s death on the radio. The ordinary death of movie star. But I suppose death is always very ordinary, isn’t it?!”.19 What is so startling about Brinkmann’s treatment of the movies is that the theme is present in each volume of his poetry, but each volume deals with it in a uniquely different way. This definitely applies to Godzilla,20 a book using the name of the famous Japanese horror monster that resembles Frankenstein or King Kong in Tokyo after the detonation of the nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. In Brinkmann’s Godzilla, the zeitgeist does not intrude via images of a nuclear bomb, but through images of scantily clad female models posing for popular fashion magazines. Brinkmann’s Godzilla poems are printed against the background of these color photographs. His monster does not scare us in the way the Japanese horror movies try to, but rather by using vulgar, obscene, sexist vocabulary that was taboo in public speech and poetic language at the time; by juxtaposing this taboo speech with the openly advertised images of the fashion models; and finally by imagining the continuation of scenes from popular movies beyond the point where they are normally cut off—before they culminate in sexual intercourse. This can be seen clearly in “Celluloid 1967/68”,21 a long poem reviewing the movie schedule of the season the poem was written. Brinkmann uses syntagms of the verb “krümmen” (to bend or to curve) repetitively here, referring to the elasticity of a celluloid strip. The poem itself tries to evoke elasticity through its fluid, enjambed, diagonally printed lines consisting of single words. But Brinkmann also hints at hidden sexual meanings of “krümmen” in his descriptions of the actors’ and actresses’ movements, as in the section where he imagines Rachel Welsh being photographed by David Hemmings, who plays the role of the photographer in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up. What Brinkmann actually reveals are the close, though unexpected links between sexuality and the film medium actors and audience are exposed to. The surface of the celluloid strip is not only the material dreams are made of, but also the background against which sexuality is created and even conditioned through images that draw the viewers (or voyeurs) in and impact on their emotional life. The fact that Brinkmann spells Celluloid with a ‘C’ rather than the usual German ‘Z’ indicates that the author is fully aware of the cultural background of the artificial images. 19 “Momentaufnahme von dem Augenblick, da ich im Radio die Nachricht hörte vom Tod des Zb. Cybulski. […] Der Star des Films mit einem gewöhnlichen Tod. Der Tod ist ja immer sehr gewöhnlich, was?!” Brinkmann: Briefe an Hartmut. P. 47–48. 20 Reprinted in Brinkmann: Standphotos. Pp. 159–182. 21 Ibid. Pp. 169–171.

233 Even a brief summary of Brinkmann’s book of movie poems, Die Piloten,22 would go beyond the remit of this essay. Die Piloten came out in 1968 and is widely recognized as the poet’s attempt to catch up with the ‘Pop art’ of that period. Brinkmann was undoubtedly inspired by the American scene e.g. when he looks at Liz Taylor’s photograph while imagining her pubic hair, or imagines a letter written to Humphrey Bogart or parodies the haunting final shots of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. But, as for Frank O’Hara, to whose memory the volume is dedicated, all kinds of movies provide subject matter for Brinkmann, and he also refers to the era of silent movies in poems such as “Ohne Chaplin” (Without Chaplin), “Film 1924” or “Der nackte Fuß von Ava Gardner” (The bare foot of Ava Gardner). This latter poem deserves to be an all-time classic of poetry on the cinema, with its intense, breath-taking description of the speaker’s emotional engagement with the close-up scene of the actress’s toe (in the film The Barefoot Contessa). Like Godzilla, the following volume Standphotos23 (still photographs) is a remarkable collection of poetry that opens up new perspectives on the relationship between film and poetry. This time, the author refused to print his poems on regular paper – instead, a type of cellophane is used, which imitates the celluloid films are recorded on. The pages are transparent, so that the text of one poem is still visible after the reader has turned the page and gone on to the next poem. For Brinkmann’s lyrical range, these poems are quite abstract. “Cinemascope”24 is a sort of programmatic poem, which does not deal with specific movie characters, but reflects on nature, artificial images and the nature of artificial images when projected on the screen. To borrow a word from Walter Benjamin, it is the “aura” of perception he seeks when looking at images: “it is the images / we see, not what / it really is – // a man lifts / his hat / far away, and // a woman waves to him / from afar!”.25 Finally, the playful manner of the pop-artist happy with the medium he is working in becomes apparent when Brinkmann enthuses about the “absolute whiteness” of the screen or the “endless / extension of celluloid, when / the / sky / is / clearer / as usual!”.26 Cinema initially seems to be a rather more low-key affair in Westwärts 1&2, but pictures, images and motion are stressed more than ever before in Brinkmann’s poetry throughout this enormous collection. Cross-fertilization

22

Reprinted ibid. Pp. 183–280. Reprinted ibid. Pp. 281–297. 24 Ibid. P. 295. 25 “[…] es sind die Bilder, die / wir sehen, nicht das, was / es wirklich ist – // ein Mann zieht / in der Ferne / seinen Hut, und // eine Frau winkt ihm / von ferne zu!” See Brinkmann: Standphotos. Gedichte 1962–1970. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1980. 26 “[…] die endlose / Ausdehnung von Celluloid, wenn // der / Himmel / klarer / ist / als / sonst!” Ibid. 23

234 between film and print media reaches a new, structural level with this book. It is no coincidence that we enter and leave its pages via sequences of photographs shot by the poet – in an obviously random manner – that bear witness to the futility of beauty in everyday life. In fact, their arrangement can be read as a movie strip consisting only of still shots, as in Chris Marker’s haunting piece La Jetée from 1963. The lesson on personal remembering and the very nature of film taught us by the latter could well provide the key to understanding Westwärts 1&2. Such a cinematographic reading of Brinkmann’s most important volume has not yet been attempted. To give an example of what I’m trying to suggest, let me close with a short look at “Einige sehr populäre Songs” (Some very popular songs), one of the longer poems by Brinkmann that seem to flow like single breath. In part three, the poet tells a story which stars Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun during their most intimate moments together. These evil figures of German fascism, which had departed from the silver screen of history when the author was a mere five years old, are revealed in the everyday banality of their lives, thus reducing their taboo images to the level of comic strip characters. Even more radically, the narrator himself steps onstage and takes part in this unpleasant histoire by familiarizing us with facts from his own personal history, which he recalls while sitting in a shabby London hotel room reading W.C. Williams and Frank O’Hara, after having watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 – A Space Odyssey at a Soho cinema: “Now the computers are throwing bones / into the air, Stanley Kubrick, the special effect is // obvious, despite four channel stereo sound in the / red plush cinema in Soho, where I find myself one rainy / evening, walking through London on my own”.27 In Kubrick’s vision, mankind’s history will unravel in space, having evolved from the age of bones, the first tools used by primates, to the age of computer animated, bone-shaped spaceships. Brinkmann is thus able to give his histoire this poignant conclusion: “Now you have disappeared / into the historical photograph. Now the costumes walk / around. Now history has collapsed, is over”.28 In this era of the technical reproduction of images, history has become a matter of arbitrary construction, like the cutting of a film. “Movies”, as John Ashbery argues in his prose poem “The System” from 1972, “show us ourselves as we had not yet recognized us”.29 Though Brinkmann’s own story tragically came to an abrupt end, the cinematographic history of his books remains as his legacy to us, his readers. 27 “Nun werfen die Rechenmaschinen Knochen / in die Luft, Stanley Kubrick, der Filmtrick ist // durchschaut trotz vier Kanalstereogeräuschen im / roten Pluschkino Sohos, wo ich eines regnerischen /Abends bin, allein durch London gehend”. Rolf Dieter Brinkmann: Westwärts 1&2. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1975. P. 135. 28 “Nun bist du in dem historischen / Foto verschwunden. Nun gehen die Verkleidungen / herum. Nun ist die Geschichte, zusammengebrochen und aus”. Ibid. P. 139. 29 John Ashbery: Three Poems. New York: Viking 1974. P. 114.

Alasdair King

“Literatur und Linse”: Enzensberger Goes to the Movies To mark the centenary of cinema in 1995, a number of leading European newspapers decided to work together on their own ‘co-production’, an “Imaginäres Museum des Kinos”, a celebration of cinema with contributions from major European artists and writers. The leading German poet and cultural commentator, Hans Magnus Enzensberger was among those invited to contribute, a surprising inclusion given that for such an eclectic and wide-ranging writer and essayist, one has to search Enzensberger’s expansive oeuvre carefully for even the most fleeting reference to the world of film. Where the cinema does occur in his poems, it has tended to be viewed sceptically as a ‘dream factory’, blinding its audiences to the socio-political realities of the times. However, in his earliest publications, particularly between 1956 and 1957, thinking through the possibilities of the cinema in the Federal Republic played an important part in allowing Enzensberger to develop ideas on the role of the politically committed writer in a cultural environment dominated by the institutions of the ‘Kulturindustrie’. Significantly, his involvement with the possibilities of film predates even the publication in 1957 of his groundbreaking first volume of poetry, verteidigung der wölfe. It was at this point that he published two significant, but largely forgotten, essays on aspects of the contemporary cinema and submitted the extensive voiceover commentary for Ottomar Domnick’s acclaimed experimental film, Jonas, in 1957, interventions which placed him close to the centre of an emerging alternative film culture several years before the signing of the Oberhausen Manifesto.

1 To mark the centenary of cinema in 1995, a number of leading European newspapers decided to work together on their own ‘co-production’. They invited over fifty artists and writers, including figures as eminent as Milan Kundera, Susan Sontag and Slavoj Zizek, the latter with a sparkling reading of Kierkegaard in Casablanca, to contribute short articles in celebration of the medium of film. These were later published in book form by Suhrkamp in Germany as an “Imaginäres Museum des Kinos”, a title which immediately brings to mind Enzensberger’s “Museum der modernen Poesie” and his ballad collection charting the contradictory history of ‘progress’, Mausoleum. Indeed, Enzensberger was among those invited to contribute, a surprising inclusion given that for such an eclectic and wide-ranging writer and essayist, one has to search Enzensberger’s expansive oeuvre carefully for even the most fleeting reference to the world of film. Enzensberger’s piece, “Als das Kino noch etwas Verbotenes war”, described a scene from his childhood in 1941, in the city of Nuremberg, at the time subject to heavy bombing. The family Enzensberger were living in

236 a strange, labyrinthine building, which housed in its cellar a secret air defence command headquarters, with its accompanying radar equipment, decoders and radio transmitters. The cellar also held a small cinema, of great importance in keeping up the morale of the military personnel. Enzensberger describes how, as a curious twelve year old, he was desperate to enter the forbidden terrain of the underground cinema, and managed over a period of time to strike up friendships with the “Blitzmädchen” working there, who eventually were persuaded to smuggle him in to screenings. Enzensberger recalled a poster advertising the Ufa film, Achtung! Feind hört mit, and described watching in the cellar cinema another film, Die goldene Spinne, and admitted to identifying with the spy played by René Deltgen. In assessing this experience, Enzensberger defined the cinema as a specific kind of encounter, a visual trigger to set off the workings of memory and recollection: Perhaps film, this wistful medium, only comes to terms with itself as a memory. What flickers there before our eyes only yields its mysterious treasures over time. Memory rewrites the script, replaces the cast, reconstructs new sequences out of the edited material, which it preserves, and in this way transfigures the commonplace into a fairy tale.1

As the editors of the volume politely pointed out, Enzensberger had, in his recollections, actually confused two different films, ascribing to each features of the other, but this only underscored his point about the role of the active memory in creatively reconstructing a film from recalled fragments. For Enzensberger, then, in cinematic matters “die Erinnerung schreibt das Drehbuch um” – and he underlined this claim by stressing that it is in the act of reception and recollection that meaning might be given to a film text: In this way it would be the spectator, not the director, who is the true alchemist, able to make gold out of celluloid.2

Enzensberger’s version of the Barthesian ‘death of the author’ – his prioritising of the creative reconstruction involved in reception over the authorial majesty of the filmmaker – is a position familiar from his essays on poetry and on the institutions of literary criticism. It is a position that takes him in part closer, for 1

“Vielleicht findet der Film, dieses träumerische Medium, immer erst in der Erinnerung zu sich selbst. Was da vor unseren Augen flimmert, erst im Lauf der Zeit setzt es sein geheimnisvolles Depot ab. Die Erinnerung schreibt das Drehbuch um, tauscht die Besetzung aus, montiert aus dem Schnittmaterial, das sie aufbewahrt, neue Sequenzen, und auf diese Weise verklärt sie die Banalität zum Märchen”. Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Als das Kino noch etwas Verbotenes war. In: Bilder vom Kino. Literarische Kabinettstücke. Ed. by Wolfram Schütte. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1996. P. 44. 2 “Somit wäre nicht der Regisseur, sondern der Zuschauer der wahre Alchimist, der aus Zelluloid Gold machen kann”. Ibid.

237 example, to the arguments of Alexander Kluge, who has often spoken of how cinema first comes to being in the head of the spectator.3 However, it shouldn’t blind us to the fact that Enzensberger’s homage to cinema is revealing in that it involves placing himself in the subject position of a young adolescent encountering and enjoying, somewhat guiltily, the banal experience he associates here with genre cinema. For Enzensberger here, only the creative spectator can make meaningful the ultimately trivial phenomenon that is the cinema. Kluge, however, has taken the creativity of the spectator as the starting point for his work within the medium of cinema, and more recently television, where he has succeeded in constructing layered, essayistic films that draw heavily on techniques of montage and quotation to encourage the active participation of viewers in making associations between different kinds of discourse and visual imagery. Hence, for Kluge, film can make concrete certain abstract ideas concerning history, knowledge, power and subjectivity, thus making cinema an important medium for the enlightenment of the spectator, and a useful site for the constitution of a revitalised public sphere. Although Enzensberger has used a similar method of montage and quotation and to similar ends, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s, he has applied it almost exclusively to the printed word, producing semi-documentary literature and longer poems.4 In his equation of the cinema with illusionism, with dreams, visual trickery and fairy tales, he appears to harbour deep suspicions about the enlightenment potential of film. Given the opportunity to interview Enzensberger on the occasion of his 70th birthday, Kluge was moved to put this very question to his interviewee. According to Kluge, Enzensberger’s writing was concerned above all with “das ewige Lämplein der Aufklärung”, an expression Enzensberger had used with reference to his activities as a writer, translator and publisher of literature. But why books, Kluge insisted: Why must there be books, why are they the superior medium in the face of the modern media, which are arguably quicker, which are arguably more dynamic, which move more people?5 3

“Ich glaube, das ist der Kern: der Film stellt sich im Kopf der Zuschauer zusammen […]. Der Film muß deswegen mit den Assoziationen arbeiten, die, soweit sie berechenbar, soweit sie vorstellbar sind, vom Autor im Zuschauer ausgelöst werden”. Alexander Kluge, on the making of Abschied von Gestern, in: Filmkritik 9 (1966). P. 491. Quoted in Rainer Lewandowski: Die Filme von Alexander Kluge. Hildesheim and New York: Olms 1980. P. 11. 4 See particularly Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie, a ‘non-fiction novel’ that started life as a television documentary for WDR, and Der Weg ins Freie from the same period, and his longer poems, Mausoleum. Siebenunddreißig Balladen aus der Geschichte des Fortschritts and Der Untergang der Titanic. 5 “Warum muß es Bücher geben, warum sind sie das überlegene Mittel gegenüber den modernen Medien, die vielleicht schneller sind, die vielleicht dynamischer sind, die

238 Kluge’s question gained no direct answer from Enzensberger, who preferred to talk about the history of Enlightenment rather than be drawn into a debate about the possibilities of the cinema or other media. Unfortunately, the interview quickly moved on to other areas, and must count as a missed opportunity, as for all Enzensberger’s brilliance over almost fifty years in analysing the relationship of culture and politics in modern democracies, for such an inclusive, resolutely modern poet and essayist, he seems to have had little to say about the role of cinema or about individual films. At first sight, his references to cinema are fleeting and generally negative in his otherwise prolific and wide-ranging output. In several poems in his earliest collections, the cinema features as a metonym for the self-absorbed, vacuous German society of the Wirtschaftswunder. An attraction to cinema becomes, for Enzensberger, a typical attribute of the self-satisfied German Kleinbürger, blind to the restorative right-wing ideology that lay, for Enzensberger at this time, at the heart of the CDU-led rebuilding of the west German state after the war. The poem, “an einen mann in der trambahn”, for example, works by setting up a series of gazes, with the subject of the poem staring in contempt at the expression on the face of the typical citizen who is encountered on the tram or outside the cinemas. The lyrical subject’s questioning look cannot be returned directly, as the “mann in der trambahn” is fixated upon the possibilities offered by consumption and can only stare in wonder at the posters and screen presence of Sophia Loren.6 In this poem, interestingly, the lyrical subject initially appears to set up against the pleasures offered by the ‘Kulturindustrie’ here the wonders of nature and of ‘high’ culture in absolute binary fashion, yet his contempt for the cultural world of the Kleinbürger is more complex, and he discloses a repressed fascination with the latter’s concerns – haunted by the apparition of the “mann in der trambahn”, the subject finally declares him to be his “stinkender bruder”. The cinema’s supposed ability to corrupt and dupe its German audiences features several times in the 1960 volume landessprache, where the “Vorstadtkino” is part of the world of the “scheintoten”, where the newly rich forget their country’s recent history and instead enthusiastically smash up their cinema seats in the long title poem, and where, in a third poem, a stifling, suffocating “schaum” covers the eyes and mouths of the wretched population.7 mehr Menschen ergreifen?” Alexander Kluge: Im Gespräch mit Hans Magnus Enzensberger. “Deutscher sein ist kein Beruf ” – Spaziergang durch die Zeit. Erster Teil. In: du – Die Zeitschrift der Kultur (September 1999). P. 2. 6 Enzensberger: ‘an einen mann in der trambahn’. In: verteidigung der wölfe. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1957. Pp. 77–79. 7 Enzensberger: landessprache. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1960. See particularly “landessprache”, pp. 7–12, “die scheintoten”, pp. 15–16, and “schaum”, pp. 33–44, with its rhetorical question, “Wohin mit dem,/ was da hölderlin sagt und meint himmler, mit dem,/ was da raketen und raten abstottert, was da filmt/ und vögelt und fusioniert”.

239 In Enzensberger’s two book-length poems, broadly concerned with the themes of art’s place in an era of technological modernity, and with the role of myth in an era dedicated to scientific progress and mass reproducibility, the cinema seems unable to offer a site for political or social reflection or intervention. Although Enzensberger dedicates two ballads to pioneers of the early cinema in Mausoleum, he focuses in each case on film’s ability to deceive the spectator and to distort the natural world. Instead of film leading us to a closer understanding of the nature of physical reality, as Kracauer had argued, or to the destruction of the aura of the traditional work of art and the subsequent politicisation of aesthetics in Benjamin’s terms, Enzensberger’s poems on Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Méliès argue that under the gaze of the camera, physical reality is reduced to the status of an artefact. The development of the film studio particularly, it is suggested, allows the camera unprecedented scope for illusionism, particularly in the filmmaker’s ability to arbitrarily reconstruct historical events using special effects, thus entertaining but not enlightening its audience.8 In Der Untergang der Titanic, whose themes, as Kluge was quick to point out in his Enzensberger interview, uncannily anticipated the mass public response to the Hollywood Titanic blockbuster of 1997, the specific relationship of the cinema to modern ideas of catastrophe, myth and survival is only touched upon in a passing reference to the Clifton Webb/Barbara Stanwyck Hollywood Titanic film of 1953, the screening described merely as “eine morsche Kopie”.

2 These brief references can lead quickly to the conclusion that the cinema is, for Enzensberger, irredeemably a banal, but key, part of what he named the ‘consciousness industry’ (or “Bewußtseins-Industrie”) in an early essay, in a revision of Adorno’s famous analysis of the phenomenon of the ‘culture industry’ (or “Kulturindustrie”). However, that would be to overlook the fact that in his earliest publications, particularly between 1956 and 1957, thinking through the possibilities of the cinema in the Federal Republic played an important part in allowing Enzensberger to develop ideas on the role of the politically committed writer in a cultural environment dominated by the institutions of the ‘Kulturindustrie’. Significantly, his involvement with the media predates even the publication in 1957 of his groundbreaking first volume of poetry, verteidigung der wölfe. He had been contributing essays and reviews to newspapers and journals from 1955, and had taken up an appointment in the radio essay department of the

8

Enzensberger: Mausoeum. Siebenunddreißig Balladen aus der Geschichte des Fortschritts. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1975. P. 114. The ballad dedicated to ÉtienneJules Marey appears on pp. 103–105, with Georges Méliès featuring on pp. 112–114.

240 Süddeutscher Rundfunk, working under Alfred Andersch,9 as well as teaching in the dynamic and more applied environment of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, subsequently also home to Alexander Kluge, rather than in the literature department of a traditional university.10 It was at this point that he published two significant, but largely forgotten, essays on aspects of the contemporary cinema and submitted the extensive voiceover commentary for Ottomar Domnick’s acclaimed experimental film, Jonas, in 1957,11 interventions which placed him close to the centre of an emerging alternative film culture several years before the signing of the Oberhausen Manifesto. In June 1956, Enzensberger contributed to a forum on the theme of “Dichtung und Film” in the journal, Akzente. His piece, the humorously titled “Literatur und Linse und Beweis dessen, daß ihre glückhafte Kopulation derzeit unmöglich”,12 explores the possibilities for contemporary writers to contribute to the artistically moribund German film industry; it is above all a refutation of Adorno’s mandarin withdrawal from direct engagement with the media and a rallying cry aimed at encouraging writers into collaborative work with filmmakers: The culture industry belongs to our reality. Instead of moaning about it from on high, one should explore the laws which govern its operations.13

Enzensberger’s pragmatic approach to the question of the ‘Kulturindustrie’ stands as a motto for much of his subsequent cultural practice. However, despite his guarded optimism above, in his closer analysis of the contemporary status of German cinema, he finds little to praise. Eager to distance himself from what he 9

According to Andersch, this appointment ‘rescued’ Enzensberger from an unhappy time working for Reader’s Digest. See Stephan Reinhardt: Alfred Andersch – eine Biographie. Zurich: Diogenes 1990. Pp. 250–251. 10 See the “Vita” in Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Ed. by Reinhold Grimm. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1982. P. 341. The “Vita” claims that Enzensberger taught in Ulm between 1955 and 1957. 11 Christine Noll Brinckmann argues that Jonas made an important early contribution to the reinvigoration of the German Spielfilm in the late-1950s and early-1960s which led to the phenomenon of “Der junge deutsche Film” and, subsequently, to the New German Cinema. See Christine Noll Brinckmann: Experimentalfilm, 1920–1990: Einzelgänge und Schübe. In: Geschichte des deutschen Films. Ed. by Wolfgang Jacobsen et al. Stuttgart: Metzler 1993. P. 428. See Jonas, directed Ottmar Domnick, commentary H.M. Enzensberger, SüdWestFunk, 1957. 12 Enzensberger: Literatur und Linse und Beweis dessen, daß ihre glückhafte Kopulation derzeit unmöglich. In: Akzente 3 (1956). Pp. 207–213. 13 “Die Kulturindustrie gehört zu unserer Wirklichkeit. Statt an ihr gebildet zu nörgeln, sollte man ihre Gesetzmäßigkeiten erforschen”. Enzensberger goes on to argue: “Zu ihren Lebensbedingungen gehört es, daß sie über die unmittelbare Rentabilität hinauszudenken versteht. Was an ihr Industrie ist, muß die Kultur (als Bedingung ihrer Möglichkeit) künstlerisch und finanziell frei gedeihen lassen”. Ibid. P. 213.

241 terms “a cliché of conservative cultural criticism”,14 namely the trend to lament the passing of the age of literacy and to see in contemporary culture only the emergence of the illiterate “analphabet”, or “Massenmensch”,15 Enzensberger argues that those people who claim a stake in literary culture – writers and their readers – have a duty to take the emergence of the media seriously if they wish to help shape the intellectual and spiritual state of society.16 Although he claims that radio, and, to a lesser extent, television has managed to develop “to a large extent useful symbiotic relationships between authors and technologies”,17 he suggests that there is little real evidence of useful artistic collaboration between writers and the contemporary German film industry, artistically moribund yet economically thriving.18 Enzensberger’s implicit solution to this problem, a literarisation of the cinema, draws on his positive comparative analysis of the formal aesthetic properties of film and literature, leading him to claim that film can indeed be an effective critical medium: After all, the film is potentially a critical tool like the novel, precisely because of its relationship to reality. Therein lies its social function, which in practice of course is immediately twisted into its opposite, into the production of escapist dream worlds.19

Enzensberger’s understanding of cinema’s relationship to reality is not explicated beyond the sweeping claim that “the film is pure reflection; its mimesis related to that of the novel”.20 As his formal analysis is concerned above all to show that film can be compared directly with literature in that it is a language with its own semantic element, the individual image, its own syntax, the sequence, and its own structure or action, the organisation of sequences, he is more interested in 14

“[e]in Klischee der restaurativen Kulturkritik”. Ibid. P. 207. Ibid. 16 “Und sofern sie mehr als Schreiber und Leser sind, sofern sie wirklich als Verantwortliche für den geistigen Zustand ihrer Gegenwart sich fühlen, müssen sie Einfluß auf diese Medien, den Funk, das Fernsehen und den Film, fordern”. Ibid. P. 207. 17 “weithin brauchbare Symbiosen zwischen Autoren und Apparaten”. Ibid. Unfortunately, Enzensberger offers here no evidence to support this assertion. See also Bertolt Brecht on the radical potential of radio in Brecht: Gesammelte Werke 18. Schriften zur Literatur und Kunst I. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1967. Pp. 117–134. 18 “Mag die deutsche Filmindustrie wirtschaftlich ungesund, mag sie, wie ihr häufig vorgeworfen wird, unsolide sein: so dreht sie doch auf vollen Touren, die Kinos sind gefüllt, kein Anlaß zur Beunruhigung ist gegeben. Was hier vorliegt, ist keine Absatzkrise, es ist ein chronischer künstlerischer Notstand”. Enzensberger: Literatur und Linse. P. 207. 19 “Schließlich ist der Film potentiell, wie der Roman, ein Instrument der Kritik, eben auf Grund seines Wirklichkeitsverhältnisses. Darin liegt seine gesellschaftliche Funktion, die in der Praxis freilich stracks ins Gegenteil, in die Erzeugung von eskapistischen Traumwelten, verkehrt wird”. Ibid. P. 211. 20 “Der Film ist reines Abbild; seine Mimesis der des Romans verwandt”. Ibid. P. 210. 15

242 underscoring the possibilities available for a critical cinema through editing and montage, rather than in the physical properties and philosophical implications of the individual image. Importantly, he argues that the meaning of a single image, whose visual meaning could be supported or subverted by the secondary element of sound,21 was not fixed but contingent, first, on its place in a sequence, and second on the context of its production and reception.22 Enzensberger’s own poetics, drawing heavily on montage and quotation at this point, are clearly influenced by the author’s reading of film, as his comparison of camera and editing techniques with the mechanics of verse indicates.23 In terms of the organisation of sequences into a coherent “Handlung”, Enzensberger claimed close kinship between the epic novel and the film. This is a crucial point for Enzensberger, as he argues that to misunderstand the compositional attributes of film, that is, to attempt to align film with the theatre, with the dramatic rather than epic mode, is precisely what leads to commodified rather than to critical cinema: It follows from all of this that the construction of action along the lines of the drama must lead to models which are alien to film. This does not result in a legitimate transposition, but rather in the flight into an illusory world. And here lies the aesthetic root of the general mendacity of the popular film.24

21

It is interesting in this respect to note just how important the tension is between sound and image in the film, Jonas. While the narrative and camerawork is largely conventional, the use of sound and particularly Enzensberger’s commentary (a montage of advertising slogans, religious and political quotations and dramatic voices representing the fragmented psyche of the eponymous hero in the Federal “Wirtschaftswunderland”) is so unusual and well-achieved as to make the film as a whole nearer to an experimental piece than a conventional Spielfilm. 22 “Seinen eigentlichen Gehalt gewinnt es erst aus dem Kontext, aus dem Zusammenhang, aus dem und in den es gesetzt wird”. Enzensberger: Literatur und Linse. P. 209. This compositional aesthetic, largely based on techniques of montage, is also applicable to so much of Enzensberger’s early poetry. 23 “Ausschnitt, Verkürzung, Totale, Nah- und Großaufnahme, Helldunkel und Farbwert, Korn, symbolische Potenz werden erst durch solchen Bezug wirksam, mag er nun ausdrücklich, das heißt im Film selbst, oder imaginativ gegeben sein. In ganz ähnlicher Weise wirkt das dichterische, und zwar besonders das lyrische Wort. Das läßt sich an der Mechanik der Metapher gut nachweisen”. Ibid. P. 209. He extended his comparison of the aesthetics of the image and of the lyrical phrase by suggesting that they share a similar relationship to time: “Auf eine solche Entsprechung von lyrischem Wort und filmischem Bild weist auch beider Zeitverhältnis hin, ihre Gegenwärtigkeit: beide holen weder Vergangenheit episch auf, noch entwerfen sie dramatisch Zukünftiges. Führen wir den Vergleich noch einen Schritt weiter, so wäre als Analogon zum Vers die Einstellung zu nennen. Dabei entspräche dem Zeilenende der (harte oder weiche) Schnitt”. 24 “Aus alldem folgt, daß der Aufbau von Handlung im Sinn des Dramas zu filmfremden Mustern führen muß. Es kommt so nicht zu legitimer Transposition, sondern zur

243 However, whatever potential film might have as a critical medium, it is, according to Enzensberger, rarely utilised owing to the economic structures that govern the film industry in practice. In Enzensberger’s view, this is largely down to the expenditure needed for film production – equipment, personnel and investment – which in practice means that producers and hence investors control the kind of films made, and so “all standards which apply to the production of films are derived from the sphere of consumption”.25 Although the director is sometimes strong enough to be the marketing focus of a film and to stand up to investors, the writer never can be. For this reason it is inconceivable, for Enzensberger, for a first-rate writer to work in film at this time.26 Enzensberger suggests that little has changed since Brecht’s description of the supply character of opera in 193127 – writers deliver what now amounts to raw material to the “Apparat” or industry, and the “Apparat” produces the finished work, which is never the work of art intended by the writer. Echoing Brecht, Enzensberger concludes: We have tested the system to see its suitability for supporting the work of art. It is unsuited.28

Enzensberger’s solution for a critical cinema, a third way between the commercial distributors such as Herzog-Film and the state-sponsored DEFA cinema in the GDR, would be to align filmmaking with an independent democraticallycontrolled public broadcasting organisation, along the lines of the larger German companies or the BBC. Here, Enzensberger’s thinking was arguably ahead of its time: the film project, Jonas, enjoyed support from SüdWestFunk, and to a great extent, this kind of film-television company collaboration subsequently became the dominant model for funding German filmmaking, particularly after 1974, leading to the heavy involvement of German broadcasters in defining German cinema for several decades.29

Flucht in eine Scheinwelt. Hier liegt die ästhetische Wurzel der allgemeinen Verlogenheit des Konsumfilms”. Ibid. 25 “Alle Maßstäbe, die für die Herstellung von Filmen gelten, werden aus dem Konsum abgeleitet”. Ibid. P. 211. 26 “Dem einen oder anderen, der sie versucht, mag es gelingen, einen Dialogfetzen durch eine Produktion hindurchzuretten; mancher wird einen Stoff verkaufen und nach dessen totaler Verstümmelung durch einstweilige Verfügung erreichen, daß sein Name nicht im Vorspann erscheint: der Rest ist hackwriting und Leichenfledderei. Der Rest ist das Schweigen der Besten”. Ibid. P. 212. 27 Ibid. See Steve Giles: Bertolt Brecht and Critical Theory. Marxism, Modernism and the Threepenny Lawsuit. Bern: Peter Lang 1997. 28 “Wir haben den Apparat auf seine Eignung für das Kunstwerk hin überprüft. Er ist ungeeignet”. Enzensberger: Literatur und Linse. P. 212. 29 Jörg Lau makes a similar point. See Lau: Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Ein öffentliches Leben. Berlin: Alexander Fest Verlag 1999. P. 72.

244 3 Enzensberger’s second analysis of the contemporary cinema appeared in Frankfurter Hefte in 1957, and was subsequently republished in his essay collection, Einzelheiten. Focusing not on feature films, but on the newsreels that accompanied film screenings, Enzensberger’s media case study stands alongside his more famous early analyses of the language of Der Spiegel and of the current affairs reporting in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, both of which created considerable debate about the health of the German public sphere. Enzensberger’s “Die Anatomie einer Wochenschau” was also quickly picked up by the leading German film scholar, Enno Patalas, and reprinted in his new journal, F Film 58, published in Frankfurt by the Filmkritik group. Patalas, together with Wilfried Berghahn, Ulrich Gregor and others, was trying to establish a left-oriented film criticism in the Federal Republic, publishing extracts from Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialektik der Aufklärung alongside Enzensberger’s piece, as well as providing an invaluable link to developments in France (and other countries) by discussing Bazin and the emerging work of the Cahiers du Cinéma group. Patalas and his colleagues, frustrated by the tendency in German newspapers of the time to publish only superficial and impressionistic film reviews, promoted above all a deeper sociological film criticism inspired largely by Adorno, Benjamin, Kracauer and the Frankfurt School tradition, and Enzensberger’s piece fitted closely with this approach in its focus on the ideological implications of the Wochenschau. Enzensberger’s analysis echoed many points made by Kracauer some thirty years previously.30 Kracauer had argued that, although the weekly newsreels utilised extensive documentary material in order to construct a comprehensive representation of contemporary events, the finished films presented an illusory world which deliberately masked the economic inequalities and harsh social realities faced by their audiences.31 Kracauer analysed several constituent

30

See Siegfried Kracauer: Kino. Essays, Studien, Glossen zum Film. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. 1974. Pp. 11–15, and Theorie des Films. Die Errettung der äußeren Wirklichkeit. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1985. Pp. 259–261. There is no mention of Kracauer in the lengthy name index included in Einzelheiten. 31 “Aber die Welt in diesen Wochenschauberichten ist gar nicht die Welt selber, sondern das, was von ihr übrigbleibt, wenn alle wichtigen Ereignisse aus ihr entfernt werden. […] Denn veranschaulichte man die Dinge, wie sie heute sind und zu geschehen pflegen, so könnten die Kinobesucher beunruhigt werden und an der Güte unserer derzeitigen Gesellschaftsordnung zu zweifeln beginnen”. Kracauer: Kino. Essays, Studien, Glossen zum Film. Pp. 11–12. For a fuller discussion of Kracauer’s work on film, see Heide Schlüpmann: Ein Detektiv des Kinos. Studien zu Siegfried Kracauers Filmtheorie, Basel – Frankfurt/Main: Stroemfeld/Nexus 1998, and Sabine Hake: The Cinema’s Third Machine. Writing on Film in Germany 1907–33. Lincoln – London: University of Nebraska Press 1993. Pp. 247–270.

245 elements in the generic repertoire of the film newsreel, which were utilised to construct this illusory world. These included sequences showing natural disasters,32 scenes showing children and animals,33 and representations of sporting events.34 According to Kracauer, these stock elements encouraged political resignation rather than the political enlightenment of the audience. Enzensberger’s methodology and conclusions are remarkably similar, and point to an unacknowledged debt to Kracauer’s essay. For Enzensberger, the Wochenschau can only be fully understood by an analysis of its structure, not by examining the themes of individual items. According to Enzensberger, the format of the Wochenschau is consistent, as the stories told in the newsreels always conform to one of six basic narrative types, each of which conditions the viewer in a specific way.35 The stories range from those which focus on animals or celebrities and which act as distractions, or which again make the viewer into, quite literally, the voyeur of history and politics, to those which continually promote the wonders of technological progress and the spurious pleasure of identification with crowds at mass events. Enzensberger is most critical about the news items which focus on catastrophes and which attempt to explain political and historical events as the workings of natural law, thereby reinforcing a sense of helplessness and passivity in the audience. As Enzensberger shows, the newsreels produce their effects not just through the language they use, but through a combination of selected images, camerawork, dramatic music and careful selection of the length of each item. This skilful employment of a number of different technologies results in the conditioning, not in the education, of the viewer. Although the reels claim to offer an account of current events and news, Enzensberger insists that in terms of the information offered and the topicality of their reports, they are worthless, and an “instrument for the numbing, rather than the development, of consciousness”.36 Enzensberger notes particularly that the stories 32

“Durch die Bilder der aufgewühlten Natur, in die sie sich immer von neuem zurückziehen, wird zugleich im Zuschauer die Vorstellung erweckt, daß auch das gesellschaftliche Geschehen so unabwendbar wie irgendein Hochwasserunglück sei”. Kracauer: Kino. Essays, Studien, Glossen zum Film. P. 12. 33 “Der Ansturm der Babys entspricht der Neigung breiter Schichten der Bevölkerung, sich der Reife zu entäußern, die sie zu einer bewußten Durchdringung der sozialen Verhältnisse verpflichtete”. Ibid. P. 13. 34 “Wie ihre allzu häufige Wiederkehr dem Sport eine Bedeutung verleiht, die ihm im Vergleich mit der sozialen und politischen Betätigung nicht zukommt, so verhindert sie den Aufweis vieler Ereignisse, die im entscheidenden Sinne aktueller sind als die sportlichen”. Ibid. P. 14. 35 Enzensberger’s focus on the structure of the Wochenschau leads Lau to compare his approach here with the Roland Barthes of Mythologies. See Lau: Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Pp. 76–77. 36 The Wochenschau is “[…] ein Instrument zur Lähmung, nicht zur Entfaltung des Bewußtseins. Gleichwohl entwirft sie ein ganz bestimmtes, genau definierbares

246 offered in the newsreels construct a deterministic history of society, a pessimistic narrative of inevitable progression towards catastrophe. However, Enzensberger distances himself from this kind of philosophical fatalism. For him, neither the audience nor the technology of popular cultural forms is really to blame for political passivity. Once more, he proposes that popular cultural forms can be used to provide a critical, democratic, enlightened forum. The failure of the film newsreels in this process must be traced back to the economic interests of those companies which control their content and which are happy to discourage the active participation of the audience in the political questions of the day.37 Like Kracauer, who had argued that a formal restructuring of the newsreel would allow it to be used effectively as a medium for radical politics, Enzensberger sees no reason why, under changed economic conditions, the newsreel should not contribute to public education and debate.38 At this point, Enzensberger does not explicitly raise the question of the negotiation of meaning by audiences, particularly the issue of whether audiences might be able to read against the grain representations which seek to maintain a dominant ideology. There is no mention at this stage of the critical expertise of the audience of such films, which, according to Benjamin, following Kracauer’s theory of distraction, had made the commercial cinema into a potential site for the emergence of a radical politics.

4 Enzensberger’s optimism regarding the collaborative possibilities between “Literatur und Linse” was justified in the light of his involvement in Ottomar Domnick’s independent film, Jonas (1957). Domnick, a Stuttgart psychiatrist Weltbild und hämmert es ihren zahllosen Besuchern ein, ohne ihnen die geringste Möglichkeit zur Kritik zu geben. Dieses Weltbild ist trostlos und niederträchtig. Das wäre an sich noch kein Einwand. Es ist aber darüber hinaus ganz und gar verlogen”. Enzensberger: Scherbenwelt. Die Anatomie einer Wochenschau. In: Einzelheiten I: Bewußtseins-Industrie. P. 123. 37 “Zur Erklärung des Übelstandes ist keine geschichtsphilosophische Theorie erforderlich; zuständig ist vielmehr die Volkswirtschaft. Sie lehrt, daß es eine wahrhaft unabhängige, intelligente Wochenschau nicht gibt, nicht geben kann, solange die bestehenden Marktverhältnisse unverändert bleiben. Ästhetische, moralische und politische Einwände nützen wenig, sofern sie diese Tatsache nicht berücksichtigen”. Ibid. P. 128. 38 Kracauer argues that the newsreel “sagt nicht mehr über die Zusammenhänge aus, die uns betreffen, wenn man zu ihren Luftschiffen und Volksfesten noch eine Arbeiterdemonstration hinzuaddiert; sie füllte sich nur dann mit Inhalt, wenn man ihre Konstruktion entscheidend veränderte. Wichtiger beinahe als die Aufnahme belangvoller Vorgänge ist der Wandel ihres Arrangements”. Kracauer: Kino. Essays, Studien, Glossen zum Film. P. 15. He adds no further information on the kind of formal reconstruction of the newsreel that he has in mind.

247 by profession and noted collector and patron of modern abstract sculpture, had already made two successful short documentary films to introduce audiences to contemporary art, including the appropriately titled Neue Kunst, Neues Sehen (1950). Inspired in part by the reissue of the German translation of Joyce’s Ulysses in 1956, Domnick wanted to experiment with the formal possibilities of narrative film, deliberately refusing to follow the German norm and to raise a budget for stars, studio sets and mainstream distribution. Instead, utilising a deliberate anti-industrial strategy, he filmed, often at night, in the busy streets of Stuttgart and engaged the then-unknown Munich stage actor, Robert Graf, to play Jonas.39 Herbert Vesely, the Austrian experimental filmmaker and director of nicht mehr fliehen (1955) undertook initially to direct Domnick’s screenplay, but swiftly amicably handed the reins back to Domnick. The basic plot of Jonas hardly does justice to its formal innovation. Jonas, an outsider in the bustling, anonymous modern city, works as a printer. After his new hat is stolen, he in turn steals a replacement, but is overcome by guilt when he sees the monogrammed initials m.s. inside the hat. By chance, the initials are also those of a friend deserted by Jonas as both tried to escape from a war-time camp, an episode shown in a series of flashbacks. Jonas’s anxiety increases until he eventually tries to flee, disappearing into the darkness of the city. The film, with its complex, layered soundtrack, occasionally abstract cinematography influenced by Walter Ruttmann and provided by the Dutch-based documentarist Andor von Barsy, and challenging narrative, nevertheless sparked off much audience interest and provoked considerable public, as well as critical, debate. Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, leading film critic Günter Groll was swift to register how unexpected and significant the outsider Domnick’s success was, commenting “what happened here was considered impossible”.40 The completed film gained Domnick and his team several prizes at the Berlin Film

39

Graf won the Deutscher Filmpreis: Filmband in SilberFilmband (Bester Nachwuchsdarsteller) for his role in Jonas and went on to star in Wir Wunderkinder (1958), Buddenbrooks (1959) and as Werner, ‘The Ferret’, in The Great Escape (1963). 40 “Was hier geschah, galt als unmöglich. Ein Außenseiter, der Nervenarzt Dr. Domnick, schrieb eines Tages, jenseits der Filmindustrie, ein Drehbuch, holte sich den Kameramann Andor von Barsy, der vor 25 Jahren den meisterhaften Kulturfilm Tote Wasser photographierte, und drehte, immer noch jenseits der Filmindustrie, auf Straßen und Dächern, ohne Atelier, ohne Stars, ohne Schminke, ohne Erfahrung, ohne Verleih und zu allem Überfluß fast ohne Handlung, für ein Bruchteil der Gelder, die unsere ärmlichsten Schnulzen zu kosten pflegen, einen Film, der nicht nur Preis um Preis errang (und jeder Preis war zugleich eine Provokation an die Adresse der professionellen Filmbranche), sondern auch noch Kassenerfolge”. Gunter Groll: Süddeutsche Zeitung. 25 November 1957. Reprinted in Zwischen Gestern und Morgen. Westdeutscher Nachkriegsfilm 1946–1962. Ed. by Hilmar Hoffmann and Walter Schobert. Frankfurt/ Main: Deutsches Filmmuseum 1989. P. 394.

248 Festival where it premiered, as well as the Deutscher Kritikerpreis and a Bambi award (for “Künstlerisch wertvollster deutscher Film”) in 1957. In his autobiography, Domnick recounts meeting Enzensberger only after filming and editing were completed, with Enzensberger producing his commentary swiftly to accompany the finished images.41 The soundtrack to the film was composed fully in a studio, with no natural sound of traffic or people in the city streets featuring, and with dialogue spoken mostly as voiceover, except for occasional brief passages where the characters’ lip movements and the soundtrack were conventionally synchronised. Instead, the sound in the film is a collage drawing on musical contributions from the avant-garde composer Winfried Zillig and extracts from Duke Ellington’s Liberian Suite and Enzensberger’s spoken commentary, a montage that uses to considerable effect puns and everyday clichés, legal discourse, biblical passages, police reports and advertising slogans as well as the interior voices that Jonas seems to hear and which represent the fragmented psyche of the eponymous hero in the Federal “Wirtschaftswunderland”. It is the relationship between sound and image, which Enzensberger had mentioned in his “Literatur und Linse” essay as a way of breaking through the conventions of the banal “Konsumfilm”, that give the film its unique character. While the camerawork is rarely in itself disorienting, the use of sound, and particularly Enzensberger’s commentary, is so unusual and well achieved as to make the film as a whole nearer to an experimental piece than a conventional Spielfilm.42 Making Jonas a printer in a daily newspaper in Stuttgart is also an apt choice of profession by Domnick as it immediately allows for a degree of literarisation in the film. Domnick and Enzensberger are able regularly to foreground printed, textual fragments and quotations in both the visual framing of the narrative and in the voiceover. The juxtaposition of these aural fragments – not dissimilar to Enzensberger’s early poems in compositional method, and there are even lines which feature subsequently in his poems43 – with the images of Jonas set against the architecture and anonymous passers-by in the city has led Norbert Grob to call it “ein existenzialistisches Filmpoem” and Christine Noll Brinkmann to count it as an important forerunner of “Der junge

41

Ottomar Domnick: Hauptweg und Nebenwege. Psychiatrie, Kunst, Film in meinem Leben. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag 1977. P. 250. 42 On the use of sound in Jonas, see Guntram Vogt: Die Stadt im Film. Deutsche Spielfilme 1900–2000. Marburg: Schüren Verlag 2001. P. 478, and Ursula von Keitz: Film als Partitur. Polyphonie und Gedächtnis in Ottomar Domnicks Jonas. In: Text und Ton im Film. Ed. by Paul Goetsch and Dietrich Scheunemann. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag 1997. Pp. 237–249. 43 See, for example, the refrain “verraten und verkauft”, which recurs in Enzensberger’s “geburtsanzeige”. In: verteidigung der wölfe. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1957. Pp. 65–66.

249 deutsche Film” in the early 1960s, not least of works like Kluge’s Abschied von Gestern.44 In this instance, the collaboration of “Literatur und Linse” appears, despite Enzensberger’s misgivings, to have been a significant moment in German film history.

44

Christine Noll Brinckmann argues that Jonas made an important early contribution to the reinvigoration of the German Spielfilm in the late-1950s and early-1960s which led to the phenomenon of “Der junge deutsche Film” and, subsequently, to the New German Cinema. See Christine Noll Brinckmann: Experimentalfilm, 1920–1990: Einzelgänge und Schübe. In: Geschichte des deutschen Films. Ed. by Wolfgang Jacobsen. Stuttgart: Metzler 1993. P. 428.

SONNENALLEE - BRD 1999 Regie: Leander Hausmann Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Muriel Cormican

Thomas Brussig’s Ostalgie in Print and on Celluloid Through close readings of Thomas Brussig’s novels Helden wie wir and Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee and comparisons of these novels to the films of the same names, this essay traces Brussig’s evolving attitude toward former East Germany, German unification, the current shaping of national memory and identity in post-unification Germany and the role nostalgia, or more specifically, Ostalgie, plays in the shaping of national identity and national memory. By means of a self-parodying reflection on the very Ostalgie that they rely upon and engender, all four of these works fundamentally question Ostalgie and refuse to allow an unqualified idealization of the East German past. But, with one exception, they also refuse to allow an unquestioning idealization of what has replaced the GDR. Over the course of the 1990s, Brussig appears to have evolved from an author whose criticism of the East and of those who remembered it nostalgically took center stage into one whose criticism of the East and of Ostalgie has softened and become combined with an increasing and legitimate skepticism toward the West.

1990s Germany has witnessed a spate of films and novels about former East Germany from Thomas Brussig’s widely hailed 1995 novel Helden wie wir (Heroes like us) to the most recent international cinematic hit, Goodbye Lenin, directed by Wolfgang Becker.1 Contemporary German cultural production seems to have been revitalized by the pervasive concept of a new and more assimilable past. Rather than feel the personal and public necessity to wholly reject a clearly problematic recent past and to purge themselves of it, Germans suddenly face a past that is morally and ethically more ambiguous, one that can possibly be successfully integrated into an early twenty-first-century articulation of German national identity. Germans, one might argue, have rediscovered nostalgia; something made impossible for decades by the third Reich and the Holocaust, and the nostalgia that they have rediscovered is unique. Termed Ostalgie in current parlance, this specifically German nostalgia involves the preservation of the material, social, and pop culture of the former East Germany in current pop and mass culture. It entails, as all nostalgia, a fond remembrance of a lost place and time and is as much about the present as it is about the past. It has, however problematically, a healing effect on Germany in general, providing for both a sense on the part of former East Germans that East Germany and their personal and national pasts matter and, with its often 1

Thomas Brussig: Helden wie wir. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 1998. This group of films and novels also includes Brussig’s Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, Sebastian Peterson’s film Helden wie wir, Leander Haußmann’s film Sonnenallee, Ingo Schramm’s Entzweigesperrt and Fichters Blau, to name but a handful.

252 critical impetus, allowing West Germans to maintain a sense of superiority over political and economic systems and a material culture so alien to them. Ostalgie as it has come into being in Germany since the mid nineties, that is as something of interest to both East and West Germans, is the sign of a delayed acknowledgement of the relationship of space, material objects, and time to identity. In the first years of German unification, a general, though by no means universal, euphoria at the sense of freedom and new opportunity allowed for healthy integrative tendencies among East Germans. East and West Germans became simply Germans. The novelty of the situation proved enough to temporarily balance the East German sense of inferiority in the face of a capitalist western power that refused to fully accept their educational backgrounds, political and social tendencies, and that belittled their lack of material sophistication. In the early years of unification, there existed the promise of something better, but five and more years later, Germany’s problems of integration and of a unified national identity intensified as many East Germans remained alienated and only partially at home in what was essentially a foreign country. Linda Hutcheon traces the evolving meaning of nostalgia from its coining in a Swiss medical dissertation in 1688 to its postmodern usage.2 Originally the designation for a “literally lethal kind of severe homesickness”, a physical ailment that could be cured by returning the sufferer to his/her home, it was seen already by the eighteenth century as “a disorder of the imagination” (Starobinski, 87).3 The significant shift, so Hutcheon, was one “in site from the spatial to the temporal” (3). People suffering from nostalgia did not want to return to a place but to a time, the place simply represented the time, promising renewed access but ultimately failing to deliver, as implied in Thomas Wolfe’s frequently quoted “you can’t go home again” from Look Homeward Angel. Hutcheon cites James Phillips’ concise rendering of the change: “Odysseus longs for home; Proust is in search of lost time” (65).4 Phillips’ phrasing suggests that the modern or postmodern ailment is perhaps a more serious one because it is ultimately incurable: time, unlike place, is irrecoverable. But for East Germans, space and material culture too are becoming increasingly irrecoverable. Little comfort can be taken in the aura of a place, a candy bar, a product from their home because East German towns have often undergone major changes, Westerners have bought up land and property cheaply, the products that East Germans lived with day-to-day are no longer available for purchase, their cars no longer produced, their television and 2

Linda Hutcheon: “Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern”. In: University of Toronto English Library Criticism and Theory Resources 1997. ⬍http://www.library.utoronto. ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html⬎. 3 Jean Starobinski: “The Idea of Nostalgia”. Diogenes 54 (1966). Pp. 81–103. 4 James Phillips: “Distance, Absence, and Nostalgia”. In: Descriptions. Ed. by Don Ihde and Hugh J. Silverman. Albany: Suny P 1985. Pp. 55–70.

253 pop culture extinct. What seems to be taking the place of the real spaces and real objects that might have offered at least some comfort in the face of a lost place and time is, to use Baudrillard’s term, simulation, that is filmic and literary reproductions of those places and objects.5 The attribution of national cultural significance to quotidian objects of the former GDR in contemporary German cultural production, as in a recently opened museum in Eisenhüttenstadt which displays East German artifacts, offers East Germans a sense that their lives, their ways, their artifacts were not irrelevant, uninteresting, and unimportant. They acknowledge publicly that something was indeed lost and that that something includes aspects of a broader German identity. To this extent, these cultural installations and products offer at least some form of remedy for the emotional and physical upheaval in Germany in the past ten to fifteen years. Thomas Brussig’s two novels, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee (The shorter end of Sunshine Alley), Helden wie wir and the films of the same names participate in the contemporary German cultural validation of Ostalgie.6 They offer a temporary salve for the wounds opened up through unification. But they are all far more than trivial recreations of the GDR that summon unreflected nostalgic reactions in their audiences. Close readings of the films and the novels reveal a critical commentary, a self-parodying reflection on the very Ostalgie that they rely upon and engender. Like the Ostalgie museum, Thomas Brussig’s novels and films have a healing effect, inducing visceral reactions in East and West Germans alike, thus allowing for shared experience. Unlike the Ostalgie museum, however, these works also fundamentally question Ostalgie and refuse to allow the viewers to unquestioningly reimmerse themselves in and idealize the past. In this essay, I trace Brussig’s evolving attitude toward former East Germany, toward German unification, German identity after unification, toward the current shaping of national memory and identity in post-unification Germany and toward the role nostalgia, or more specifically, Ostalgie, plays in the shaping of national identity and national memory. As the GDR recedes further and further and as it becomes more and more evident that few are interested in a Germany that is not simply an expanded West Germany, Brussig has evolved from an author whose criticism of the East and of those who remembered it nostalgically took center stage into one whose criticism of the East and of Ostalgie 5

See Simulacra and Simulation in which Baudrillard discusses the relationship between image and reality, especially “The Precession of Simulacra”. Jean Baudrillard: Simulacrum and Simulation. Trans. by Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1994. 6 Thomas Brussig: Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 2001. The film versions are: Sebastian Petersen: Helden wie wir. With Daniel Borgwardt and Zenia Snagowski. DVD, regional Code: 2 2000. Distributed by Universum Film GmbH & Co. KG, Munich; Leander Haußmann: Sonnenallee. With Alexander Scheer and Teresa Weißbach. DVD, regional Code: 2 1999. Distributed by Highlight Communications AG.

254 has softened and become combined with an increasing and legitimate skepticism toward the West. Helden wie wir, first published in 1995, is Klaus Uhltzscht’s retrospective narration of his life in the GDR. Though born at the very moment in which it should have become clear to East Germans that the socialist dream could only be upheld at the cost of human rights violations, namely on the eve of the Soviet attack on Prague in 1968, Klaus, like many of his compatriots in the seventies, nonetheless embraces the GDR’s ideological teachings and patriotic invectives. Obsessed with his miniature penis, he is generally naïve, unaware, and repeatedly disappointed when his megalomaniac dreams fail. Klaus’ shortcomings, resulting he implies throughout, from an exaggerated attention to parents and teachers directives, from a desire to do the right thing, lead him to join the Stasi (East German Secret Police): I had the most objectionable name, I was the most poorly informed person, I plugged up toilets, lost things, was the result of a fuck on a Sunday commemorating the dead, was the last kid to still doggy-paddle. I couldn’t even jerk off properly…Yes, that’s how it was. That’s how I ended up joining the Stasi.7

Once in the Stasi, Klaus attempts to rape a woman, kidnaps a young girl and cheats at games with her so that she never wins. He arrests protestors on the Alexanderplatz in the fall of 1989, and donates the blood that saves Erich Honecker’s life. He is, in other words, an unlikable, even despicable hero whose life and identity have been based on a series of compensations for his various lacks. Brussig’s critical intentions with such a hero become clear toward the end of the novel when Klaus is responsible for the final step in the opening of the gates onto the Bornholmer Brücke in 1989. He mutates into the East German hero so reviled once the initial euphoria over the fall of the wall began to settle, the tendentious citizen whose very tendentiousness contributed at once to the maintenance and to the fall of the wall, the citizen who willingly worked for the Stasi and yet seemed to unconditionally welcome the demise of the East German state. Brussig does, however, allow Klaus a self-defense that depends on the leveling of practically all East Germans: A hundred thousand respectable citizens were walking behind a banner that stretched the whole width of the street and said PROTEST DEMONSTRATION. What had gotten into them? With the exception of a group of people that you could fit into one of those short trains in the metro, everybody had gone along with the 7 All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. In the German original this reads: “Ich hatte den widerwärtigsten Namen, ich war der schlechtinformierteste Mensch, ich war Toilettenverstopfer, Sachenverlierer, Totensonntagsfick und letzter Flachschwimmer. Ich konnte mir nicht mal einen runterholen[…]. Ja, so war das. So kam ich zur Stasi” (93).

255 state. Had they forgotten that? How am I supposed to feel any real guilt? Why should I reproach myself? Admittedly, I am the worst, the most loathsome, I am the risen undead, Honecker’s little trumpeter, the perverse Stasi member supreme, the kidnapper and, and, and, – but I’m still a child from their midst.8

Klaus Uhltzscht represents a specific crisis of East German identity after the fall of the wall. He is one of many, “a child from their midst”, who demonstrates a mixture of self-aggrandizement and self-hatred, a mixture represented metaphorically in the metamorphosis of his penis. Once a small, laughable appendage, it is made large in a procedure designed to save Honecker’s life, made large, that is, through co-option by or participation in the system. And yet Klaus feels no compunction at using it to bring about the demise of the GDR. Thanks to an initial co-option and a subsequent series of coincidences that have little to do with who he really was in, or how he felt about the GDR, he becomes a post-wall hero whose words are quoted, who is celebrated in print and on film but who nonetheless carries with him psychically the marks of the inferior penis, the marks of that which made him become a Stasi officer. If Klaus Uhltzscht is representative, as his narrative implies he is, then Brussig suggests that the “heroes” who brought about the fall of the Berlin wall have many ghosts in their closets. He criticizes East Germans relatively harshly and his criticism extends beyond that of co-option in the old regime to co-option in the new. Klaus’ delayed reaction to developments after the 9th of November 1989 indicate as much: Germany was the word I used to quell the fear about that which I had instigated, the fear about the consequences of it and the fear about the fact that the era of clear rules and duties was now over. That the state of freedom would follow the act of freeing was not absolutely clear to me. I was the first person to attack Christa Wolf’s books with tendentious intent, I was the first to shout Germany out of fear – my God, do you know anyone other than Leonardo da Vinci, who was so penetratingly ahead of his time?9 8

“Hinter einem Tuch mit der Aufschrift PROTESTDEMONSTRATION, das über die gesamte Straßenbreite getragen wurde, liefen Hunderttausende unbescholtene Bürger! Was ist bloß in sie gefahren? Abgesehen von einer Menschengruppe, die in einem U-Bahn-Kurzzug Platz findet, haben doch alle mitgemacht! Haben die das vergessen? Wie soll ich mich da richtig schuldig fühlen können, was habe ich mir vor denen vorzuwerfen? Zugegeben, ich bin der Schlimmste und Abscheulichste, ich bin der zurückgekehrte Untote, Honeckers Kleiner Trompeter, der perverse Stasi, der Kindesentführer und, und, und, – aber ich bin doch ein Kind aus ihrer Mitte!” (281–282). 9 “Deutschland war mein Wort gegen die Angst vor dem, was ich angerichtet hatte, gegen die Angst vor den Folgen und davor, daß es aus war mit den geregelten Rechten und Pflichten. Daß nach der Befreiung die Freiheit kommt, war mir nicht in dieser Deutlichkeit bewußt. Ich war der erste, der mit tendenziöser Absicht Christa Wolfs Bücher fledderte, ich war der erste, der aus Angst nur noch Deutschland hervorbrachte – mein Gott, kennen Sie außer Leonardo da Vinci noch jemanden, der seine Zeit mit solcher Penetranz voraus ist?” (322–323).

256 Reverting to a long ingrained fear and to compliance in the immediate aftermath of the Wende, Klaus, like everyone else, only ahead of his time, accepted what the new system had to offer because he did not know how else to move forward. His anti-heroism lies in the fact that he did the wrong thing long before it became popular, long before everyone else gave in to that fear too. Fear of what had just and what had not yet happened is responsible for German unity, Uhltzscht continues, tendering his story as representative: “Whoever doesn’t believe my story, will not understand what’s going on in Germany. Without me, there’s no explanation for it all. For I am the missing link in recent German history”.10 If we take Uhltzscht’s final remark here seriously, namely that understanding his story explains the situation in Germany today, then we have to assume that Brussig gives us, in the magical realism of his hero Klaus Uhltzscht, a metaphor for his generation’s failed relationship to former East Germany and schizophrenic relationship to contemporary Germany. Unlike his parents who were there from the beginning, Klaus’ generation, born after or at the time of the Prague Spring, cannot claim to have supported a socialist ideal in which they had utmost faith. They are now also, however, not particularly enamored of what their protests finally brought about, namely a Germany that is merely a bigger West Germany. Brussig’s hero undoubtedly represents a criticism of certain East Germans for pretending after the fact to have been more oppositional than they in fact were, for rewriting their personal histories as Klaus Uhltzscht refuses, at least in part, to do. In response to his mother’s “Heroes like us have nothing to regret”, Klaus explains resignedly: How can you contradict that? Soon they’ll all be relating stories of their heroism. And me? What heroic anecdotes should I relate? I stand here as Honecker’s little trumpeter. I saved his life […]. But I never participated completely innocently, with the naïve enthusiasm of the founding years. I cannot claim that I sacrificed myself for the people. I also cannot dream of socialism […].11

But Brussig does not simply criticize those who turn participation into a kind of clueless drifting along and presence at the Bornholmer Brücke on the 9th of November into an heroic act of personal resistance. He also sympathizes with 10 “Wer meine Geschichte nicht glaubt, wird nicht verstehen, was mit Deutschland los ist! Ohne mich ergibt alles keinen Sinn! Denn ich bin das Missing Link der jüngsten deutschen Geschichte” (323). 11 “Helden wie wir haben nichts zu bereuen” (299) and “Wie kann man da widersprechen? Bald werden sie sich von ihren Heldentaten erzählen. Und ich? Von welchen Heldentaten soll ich erzählen? Ich stehe da als Honeckers kleiner Trompeter. Ich habe ihm das Leben gerettet! […] Aber ich habe nie in aller Unschuld mitgemacht, mit ihrer naiven Begeisterung der Aufbaujahre. Ich kann nicht für mich reklamieren, mich für die Menschen aufgeopfert zu haben! Ich kann auch nicht vom Sozialismus träumen […]” (299).

257 their dilemma and criticizes the West German assumption that the cry for Germany on the part of East Germans meant West Germany. Uhltzscht describes the West German reception of his own words in the closing pages: I wanted to get away, I was afraid, and when I saw yet another camera in front of my face, I blurted out a word that came from the deepest swamps of my soul: “Germany!”, half groaned, half whispered. Germany out of fear. The West Germans took it literally, though they distorted it somewhat: they behaved as if everyone who said Germany meant the Federal Republic of Germany. How unimaginative! […] Not that I think the Federal Republic is horrible or anything, but it isn’t so perfect that you couldn’t imagine anything better.12

Brussig’s hero constitutes then an accusation that East Germans of his generation failed in two ways, failed at first to more adequately resist the old system and failed secondly to more adequately resist the imposition of the new, conceded too easily to the abandonment of the “third path”, the path that intellectuals thought might lead to a realization of the ideal of democratic socialism.13 But West Germans do not escape unscathed from Brussig’s critical rendering of contemporary Germany either and Uhltzscht’s final words add, in fact, a further twist that implies that those in the West now seek to, and are perhaps in a position to, dictate how the GDR is to be remembered. After three hundred and twenty three pages, seven tapes full of oral testimony, of confession presented to an American, New York Times reporter as it were, Klaus’ final concern it turns out is whether or not he has given the American journalist what he wanted: “Is that what you wanted to hear?” (323). Brussig implies that Klaus’ self-representation as someone whose life and psyche were ruined by years of an ideology that corrupted his humanity is exactly the kind of sensationalist stuff that the West is looking for and that it will use to avoid real unification and justify a kind of colonization. The tongue-in-cheek title of the final chapter equally points to a mockery of the notion that the new Germany has brought about healing as Wolf’s divided Germany, Der geteilte Himmel (Divided Heaven) becomes Brussig’s reunited Germany, “der geheilte Pimmel” (the healed penis). Not until these last few

12

“Ich wollte weg, ich hatte Angst, und als ich wieder eine Kamera vorm Gesicht hatte, stieß ich ein Wort aus, das aus den tiefsten Sümpfen meiner Seele kam: “Deutschland!”, halb geröchelt, halb geflüstert. Deutschland aus Angst. Die Westdeutschen nahmen es natürlich wörtlich, allerdings indem sie es um eine entscheidende Nuance entstellten: Sie taten so, als ob alle, die Deutschland sagten, Bundesrepublik meinten. Wie phantasielos! […] Nicht daß ich die Bundesrepublik für etwas Entsetzliches halte, aber so perfekt, daß einem dazu nichts Besseres einfallen könnte, ist sie auch nicht” (322). 13 See Stephen Brockmann’s “Introduction: The Reunification Debate” for an excellent overview of the discussion in Germany in the early nineties about the form the new Germany might take. Stephen Brockmann: “Introduction: The Reunification Debate”. In: New German Critique 52 (1991). Pp. 3–30.

258 pages of the novel do we get any sense that Brussig foresees problems with the new order, a result perhaps of the novel’s genesis, a novel he began in February of 1992 only two years after the Wende but did not finish until 1995 by which time Germany’s future had become much clearer. In the 1995 Helden wie wir, Klaus Uhltzscht and Brussig himself have to work hard at reclaiming any good at all in the former East Germany. Brussig, at first very outspokenly critical of East Germans’ nostalgia for their homeland, mocks the clichéd attempt to recall the positive in the mixture of heroic and resigned registers he places in Klaus’ mouth early on in the novel: “Surely it can’t all have been bad, to use a phrase that heroes like us draw like a gun when we don’t know what else to do”.14 Heroes such as Uhltzscht, that is in this case, almost everyone, do not draw guns in an aggressive and rebellious forward looking gesture but draw clichéd statements that are backward looking because they do not know how to move forward and are petrified by the changes occurring. But four years or more separate this novel from both its film adaptation and the two versions of Sonnenallee (Sunshine Alley), and Brussig’s treatment of Ostalgie is noticeably different in the three works of 1999. A softening has occurred and, in the cases of the film Sonnenallee and the novel Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, Brussig presents a more complex and nuanced perspective on the nostalgia/Ostalgie at work in current German memories of the former East. The film Helden wie wir, which premiered on November 9th 1999, the tenth anniversary of the fall of the wall, is a failed adaptation, not because it is a bad film in and of itself but because it fails to capture the critical ideological spirit of the novel on which it is based. Though offering a sensitive, interesting, and humorous visual interpretation of the setting, changes to Klaus’ character and the absence of all but a weakly implicit comment on the negative role West Germany and West Germans played in unification render the film conservative in thrust, that is supportive of the contemporary status quo that paints capitalism as successful and socialism as inhumane. As it stands the film provides former East Germans and all of us a means of fondly remembering aspects of a lost time and place, allows us to descend into nostalgia, something that has become more important and understandable to Brussig since 1995. But some of the changes that came about in the adaptation from novel to screenplay allow former West Germans to bask too much in political, social, and material superiority. The screenplay writers, one of whom was Brussig himself, turn Klaus Uhltzscht into a bumbling, likeable figure, into a victim of an overly authoritarian father and state and thus, oddly, into the kind of hero that Brussig seems at pains to avoid creating in the novel, namely one whose questionable 14

“Es kann doch nicht alles schlecht gewesen sein, um mal einen Ausspruch zu bemühen, den Helden wie wir blankziehen, wenn wir nicht mehr weiterwissen” (26).

259 actions can all be traced back to a harmless lack of political awareness. Brussig’s novel does not let Klaus off the hook so easily, implicating him constantly in his own fate. In the figure of Yvonne, a complete aberration from the Yvonne of the novel, the film again presents us with the kind of heroine that Brussig’s novel suggests scarcely existed. Yvonne becomes a demonstrator who has been against the regime all her life, who, as a child, drew red tulips on the blank world maps that they were expected to fill in in red to symbolize the spread of socialism. She becomes someone who has always actively sought to bring about the demise of the GDR. In his own commentary on the film, Sebastian Peterson, the director, claims he wanted “the GDR to tell its own story” and the film therefore incorporates a significant amount of real footage from 1970s GDR including clips from GDR television advertisements, children’s television shows such as Das Sandmännchen (The Sandman) and promotional materials for youth programs, government initiatives, among other things.15 But Peterson’s notion that the twenty minutes or so of real footage combined with his and Brussig’s comedic images would present an objective picture of the GDR is, of course, naïve. The surrounding seventy minutes of filmed material – not least the amusing animation of Plattenbau construction that is constantly underway outside the window of the Uhltzscht’s apartment – provides ironic commentary on the spliced in real footage. The ideological problems of the film have to do, however, not with the tongue-in-cheek critique of the East that it merely borrows from the book, rather with the concomitant lack of critique of the West, the implication that the West is a paradise, a clearly superior place that allows for the fulfillment of dreams. The geography teacher of the novel and film breaks the world into blue, red, and green countries. Blue countries are capitalist and bad, red countries are socialist and good, and green countries, like tomatoes, are only green until they become red. She then offers the students the opportunity to paint the map of the world as they personally believe it will look in the year 2000, offering them almost exclusively red pencils. Though the film criticizes this feigned tolerance through humor, it offers a similar feigned tolerance itself, giving us access to blue instead of red pencils to represent the world. The first image of the West presented by the film is that of the Bornholmer Brücke on the night of the ninth of November and the East and West German euphoria at the fall of the wall. The only other image comes at the very end with more real footage of the first East Germans streaming into West Germany. Though it could be argued that the film at least nods critically toward the new Germany, by practically eliding it, locating Yvonne’s and Klaus’ paradise beyond Germany, in the Netherlands, there exists still a privileging of western

15

“[…] daß die DDR sich selbst erzählt […]”.

260 European social and political systems. The Netherlands are not West Germany but they are still a country in which red is just the color of tulips, and when the country appears completely red, as in the closing scene in which Klaus and Yvonne skip though a filed of tulips, it is so only because of a natural phenomenon or natural order. In this film, access to the West accounts for the fulfillment of Klaus’ dreams. The desire for Yvonne, constantly deferred in the years of the GDR, can finally be realized in the West. To this extent, the film fails seriously, ideologically speaking, because in its depiction of former East Germans as adjusting unproblematically to the West, as the integrated and content human beings that the East never allowed them to be, it provides fodder for the ongoing fallacy that the failure of the Eastern block is proof that capitalism is ‘the only way’. The film Helden wie wir makes not even scant reference to the “third path”, the abandonment of which the novel laments. In the transformation from novel to film, Brussig appears to have made, or at least conceded to, ideologically problematic compromises that may well have had commercial grounds. While this film evokes nostalgic reaction with its home-video style filming, its use of old GDR kids’ shows, and its repeated use of different versions of the song “what a wonderful world”, among other things, it also suggests that the here and now is superior. What results is an odd kind of nostalgia that romanticizes the past while simultaneously idealizing, or at least privileging, the present. The film affirms a German identity that excludes all aspects of the GDR but fond personal memories of shared oppression and love. The Sonnenallees, both film and novel, though deceptively simple, do not show signs of similar compromise. Both film and novel reveal nuanced and complex explorations of a whole series of issues related to contemporary German society and thus a more nuanced and complex understanding of these issues on Thomas Brussig’s part. The film invokes different methods than the novel to achieve its goal, to be sure, but both the novel’s and the film’s relationship to Ostalgie and the contemporary shaping of memory and identity in Germany are similarly critical ones that do not let West Germany and its inhabitants off the hook for their negative roles in the unification process as the film Helden wie wir does. In both Sonnenallees, the most important element is a Berlin that was not, a remembered Berlin, a Berlin invented in the vacillation between what and how the main character, Micha, and others remember and what they forget or choose to ignore. It is precisely this implausible Berlin and the series of implausible events that are depicted in it that present the reader with a critical perspective on the contemporary shaping of national identity and of memory in post-wall Germany and on the role Ostalgie plays in the same. Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee opens with Micha’s recollections of how the street Sonnenallee came to be divided into two parts. In Micha’s version, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman meet at the 1945 Potsdam Conference to discuss the division of Berlin. Stalin and Truman practically come to blows because

261 both want Sonnenallee, a street whose very name seduces. Everyone expects it to be given to Truman but Stalin attends to Churchill’s expired cigar at just the right time, forcing Churchill to consider “how he could adequately reward Stalin’s gesture […] he gave […] Stalin a little sixty meter strip of Sunshine Alley and changed the subject”.16 Brussig’s exaggerated lack of adherence to fact while dealing with history’s narrative underscores the narrator’s tendency to romanticize, to rewrite for aesthetic effect and personal satisfaction rather than accuracy. Fantastic events such as this populate the novel. The funniest of them closes the novel and acts as a harbinger of the miraculous changes that will eventually come in 1989. As Mario and his girlfriend who is in labor are rushing toward the hospital, they are forced to break the law and drive down a street closed off for the procession of limos carrying state visitors from Russia. The Trabbi gives up the ghost in the middle of the street. Desperate, Mario gets out of the car and starts waving down the passing limos. Amazingly one stops: Believe it or not, one of the car doors opened and a Russian got out. He had a large birthmark on his forehead, which made him look frightening at first sight […]. The Russian gestured once toward the sky and within seconds it stopped raining. Then he bent down into the car where the existentialist was in labor. She moaned and screamed. The Russian fiddled about inside the car and, a couple of minutes later, he reemerged holding a neatly wrapped newborn that he placed in Mario’s arms. After the Russian had both hands free again, he touched the hood of the Trabbi. The car started immediately.17

These opening and closing scenes set the tone for the novel as a whole and become a directive for reading the other elements of Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee which are not quite as fantastic but are primarily the product of the same memory, namely Micha’s. Brussig’s commentary on Germany and German identity depends then on a humor that arises out of the incongruity between what was and what the narrator reports as having been. In the end, what matters is not the historically and realistically accurate representation of a time and place but the communication, through exaggerated and absurd images, of a position or perspective on the time and on the retrospective reception of that time.

16

“[…] wie sich Stalins Geste adäquat erwidern ließe […] er gab […] Stalin einen Zipfel von sechzig Metern Sonnenalle und wechselte das Thema” (8). 17 “Tatsächlich öffnete sich eine Wagentür, und einer der Russen stieg aus. Er hatte ein großes Muttermal auf der Stirn, was ihn im ersten Moment furchterregend aussehen ließ […]. Der Russe machte nur eine Handbewegung zum Himmel – und augenblicklich hörte es auf zu regnen. Dann beugte er sich ins Auto, wo die Exitentialistin in den Wehen lag. Sie stöhnte und schrie. Der Russe hantierte im Wageninnern herum und ein paar Augenblicke später kam er wieder aus dem Auto und hielt ein fertig gewickeltes Neugeborenes, das er Mario in den Arm legte. Nachdem der Russe beide Hände frei hatte, berührte er die Motorhaube des Trabbis. Der Wagen sprang sofort wieder an” (156).

262 Brussig’s invented Berlin is a complicated and multifaceted thing. There exists in the novel and in the film not simply one invented Berlin but a whole series of them. The Berlin that Onkel Heinz imagined had an eastern part into which one had to smuggle women’s hosiery, Smarties, underwear, a suit, an eastern part in which the risks of lung cancer were far greater because he imagined asbestos to be everywhere. East Berlin provided Onkel Heinz with three things important for his sense of self and his sense of identity as a West German: a sense of material superiority over the East, a sense of heroic conduct in his imagined resistance to a problematic regime, and a sense of contributing something important and otherwise unattainable to his family members in the East. The Berlin that Micha’s mother imagined had a western part that would solve all her problems, ease her paranoia and her frustrations with confinement. Yet it was the presence of that Berlin and her desire for it that caused her paranoia in the first place, forcing her into a constant public affirmation of the GDR and “the party”. The West Berlin that Mario’s existentialist girlfriend, imagined was one that would solve the big existential questions and provide her with inspiration for wonderful works of art that her current environment made impossible. In the case of each character, whether he or she resides in West or East Berlin, a series of projections coalesce into an unknown, different city that offers the basis for a more satisfactory selfimage. Brussig suggests that if East Germans, after the fall of the wall, have lost an important geographical factor, a spatial relation that contributed to their sense of identity, if they have been displaced, so too have West Germans. As East and West Berlin become simply Berlin, as East and West Germany become simply Germany, repositories of identity are lost to those on both sides of the wall. Although not eliding the differences between life in East and West Germany in the wall years, Brussig seeks in his examination of how the wall and the fall of the wall impacts questions of identity, as well as in his depiction of the quotidian, to emphasize a commonality of experience for all Germans. In the everyday life that East Germans in Sonnenallee lived, though surrounded by a wall, limited in movement and expression, things were not so bad according to Brussig’s representations here. Micha says so directly in one of the opening scenes of Sonnenallee when taunted by West Germans observing him from a tower: “Hey, Zonie, how’s it going?”. He responds, “Things aren’t going so badly”.18 A series of adventurous episodes that form part of many teenagers lives no matter where they are born and live follows: music becomes a medium that allows for resistance to authority, experimentation with sex, alcohol, and drugs a daily fixation, and friendships and conflicts at school and with parents the fabric of life. Hutcheon discusses nostalgia as memorialization, that is the crystallization “into precious moments by memory, but also by forgetting, and by desire’s distortions and reorganizations”(3). The episodic nature of the novel suggests 18

“Na, Zoni, wie geht’s?” Response: “Mir geht’s nicht so schlecht”.

263 such a crystallization of moments, just as certain scenes seem to underscore how memory and forgetting merge in the creation of those moments. When Wuschel, for example, is shot at by a border guard toward the end of both the novel and the film, the shock at the infringement on human rights is only temporary. From the second it becomes clear that Wuschel is okay but that his long sought after L.P. Exile on Main Street has been shattered by the bullet, the greater infraction becomes the loss of the object of desire. The predominant memory that emerges from this scene is one of Wuschel’s recurring resistance to “everything that’s banned” through music.19 The good lives on, the bad is brushed under the carpet. Sabine Dultz in the Münchner Merkur, perhaps focusing excessively on scenes such as this, argues that Brussig “gets bogged down in nostalgia”.20 She accuses him of producing harmless humor and a novel that is much too nice for an intelligent author. There is little question but that nostalgia is at work in Brussig’s novel. Defined by Hutcheon as the structural doubling of an inadequate present and an idealized past, nostalgia suggests generally, to be sure, a naiveté or a lack of awareness of how representation works. But Brussig’s nostalgia is not a naïve, unconsidered nostalgia/Ostalgie and does not stem from a personal idealization of an irrecoverable place and time. Like nostalgia, irony involves a structural doubling, a doubling-up of what is said and left unsaid. Unlike nostalgia, however, irony suggests a sophisticated awareness of the process of representation and Brussig’s nostalgia is an ironic nostalgia. Both Sonnenallees begin and end with explicit references to or invocations of nostalgia. The novel begins with a reference to Micha’s sentimentality about his home, his Sonnenallee, because he “experienced again and again how Sunshine Alley triggered peaceful, even sentimental reactions”.21 This tonguein-cheek over simplification of nomenclature and its effects constitute a cautionary commentary on Micha’s memories. The final words of the book, “Happy people have a bad memory and many, rich memories”, offer again a cautionary remark.22 Such self-referential comments point to the text’s own representational process. While Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee moves the reader to respond with a certain fondness and sense of loss for elements of life in the former GDR, it also comments critically on the very Ostalgie that it evokes. Similarly metatextual gestures are made in the film. It begins with a focus on the lost material culture of the GDR, the wall paper, typical apartment doors, the more utilitarian furniture and the all important cassette recorder 19

“Alles, was verboten ist”. Dultz, Sabine: Münchner Merkur. 29. September 1999. German original: “[…] verzettelt sich […] in Nostalgie”. 21 “Er erlebte immer wieder, daß die Sonnenallee friedfertige, ja sogar sentimentale Regungen auszulösen vermochte” (7). 22 “Glückliche Menschen haben ein schlechtes Gedächtnis und reiche Erinnerungen” (156). 20

264 used to tape music available only through West German radio. It ends with Micha’s voiceover: “Once upon a time there was a country and I lived there. And when someone asks me what it was like, I say it was the best time in my life because I was young and I was in love”, and with the Nina Hagen song whose refrain goes “You forgot the color film, Michael dear, now nobody will believe how lovely it was here, you forgot the color film […] everything that’s blue and white and green will later not seem real”.23 Remembering the past involves two tendencies, the quotes in combination remind us, a tendency to make the irrecoverable more positive than it perhaps was and a counter tendency, often on the part of those who were not there, to question the truth of any positive memory. An important aspect of the films evocation of nostalgia is music. The songs chosen, Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien”, posters of the Beatles, references to the stones cannot but generate a kind of Proustian series of recollections for most viewers, whether from the East or the West, whether German or not. But music is also an important aspect of the film’s self-parody. Though not a musical in the traditional sense whereby the characters break into song, there are several scenes that are accompanied by a musical interlude to which the characters, despite the extradiegetic nature of the music, react. There are also a number of scenes in which the boys perform group dance numbers to diegetic music, group activities that involve an affirmation of group identity. When Micha plucks up the courage to ask Miriam to dance but is rejected, the boys line up on the dance floor and dance the exact same steps in unison. In reaction to a problem of identity, a disappointment, the dance represents an enactment of group identity and thus a kind of mending of the problems of individual identity. Thematically and formally then the film makes reference to an East German musical tradition, to films of the fifties, sixties, and seventies in which an East German identity as workers, communists, comrades, happy people was reaffirmed through song and dance.24 Sonnenallee makes an even more explicit reference to DEFA films in general. As Micha is about to enter Miriam’s apartment to lose his virginity and fulfill his dream of love and 23

“Es war einmal ein Land und ich habe dort gelebt. Und wenn man mich fragt wie es war, es war die schönste Zeit meines Lebens, denn ich war jung und ich war verliebt”. And Nena Hagen: “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen, mein Michael, nun glaubt uns kein Mensch wie schön’s hier war, du hast den Farbfilm vergessen […] alles blau und weiß und grün und später nicht mehr wahr”. 24 Such films include Ernst Thälman, 1955; Meine Frau macht Musik (My wife makes music), 1958; Midnight Revue, 1962; Die geliebte weiße Maus (The beloved White Mouse), 1964; Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer), 1968. See the documentary film East Side Story for an excellent overview of the relationship of the former Eastern block countries to musicals: Dana Ranga (Dir.): East Side Story. DVD, Regional Code: 1, 2000. Distributed by Kino International Corp., New York.

265 companionship, Miriam’s neighbor speaks to him briefly, enters his own apartment and closes the door. On the door in small print is written “Paul and Paula”, the title of a 1972 film dedicated to young love and its pitfalls. In the films that Sonnenallee conjure, positive images were presented as truth and constituted an endorsement of a country and its ideology, but this film’s intertextual move invites its viewers to question its nostalgic representations of the GDR. The 1970s GDR of Brussig’s two versions of Sonnenallee has been shaped as much by the collapse of the communist world as by its actual existence, as much by that which no longer is and never was as by that which was and is. But it is necessary, finally, to discuss a still further complication in Brussig’s examination of Ostalgie. The film Sonnenallee and the novel Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee at once celebrate and criticize nostalgia. They also, however, implicitly question certain criticisms of Ostalgie. By conflating a nostalgia for youth with Ostalgie, Brussig succeeds in giving rise to a number of legitimate questions about Ostalgie. Is Ostalgie all that different from a West German’s nostalgia for his/her youth? Is it not simply the case that the majority of Germans who idealize their youth, the freedom, fun, the pains of first love, do not have to recall another country and another material culture that no longer exist? Is a unified German national identity going to emerge only at the cost of individual memories that depend on a measured response to the former East? Does a unified German national identity have to be built on a rejection of the former East, an expulsion of the past that allows for an embrace of the present? In the figure of Heinz who demonized the East out of all proportion, forcing himself to eat nothing for five weeks so he could lose thirty pounds and smuggle in a suit that did not need smuggling in the first place because it was perfectly legal, Brussig, despite his own relatively harsh attack on the GDR only four years earlier in Helden wie wir, lampoons the West German exaggerated condemnation of a social and political system they failed to fully comprehend. And in the figures of the West Germans who climb the towers to stare at the “Zonis” as at animals in a zoo and who shout abuse at the inhabitants of the shorter end of Sunshine alley, he undercuts western superiority and the all too prevalent tendency to see the problems of integration after unification as the problem of East Germans who are backward looking and thus incapable of adapting to the superior political, material, and social configuration. If East Germans sometimes remember too fondly, Brussig’s Sonnenallees contend, then West Germans often reject East German remembrances too callously. Brussig’s examination of the workings of memory in the works of 1999 is as much a commentary on the working of his own memory as it is on anyone else’s. Increased distance from the former GDR and the still pervasive treatment of former East Germans as second class citizens, as potentially suspect for their lives before 1989, have lead Brussig to revise some of his earlier convictions about the GDR and about the nostalgia that some feel for it.

266 An increased self-critical awareness of the fact that remembering and forgetting are two sides of the one coin prevent him from bogging down in the somewhat one-sided bitterness prevalent in Helden wie wir and, at the same time, from descending into naïvely positive representations of what has been lost. Despite their varying ideological perspectives, these four works of Brussig’s share one very important and topical theme. They all investigate identity formation in times of radically changing political and social systems, the persistence of identifying marks beyond their validity, nostalgia, and how nostalgia functions in compensatory modes of identity construction. Helden wie wir, the novel, is primarily critical of an identity tied to the past and suggests that it impacts the present and future in negative ways as one constantly endeavors to make up for, compensate for the errors of the past. It is anti-nostalgic. But Sonnenallee offers a less petulant and more sophisticated notion of identity. The changes to the vegetable store of the novel Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee and the reactions of the characters to those changes offer an example of this and an effective parallel to the changes that came about in Germany after the fall of the wall and to people’s ongoing response to them. The party decides that the vegetable store with its long lines of customers should not be the first thing to greet Westerners who enter East Germany and therefore turn the shop into a display case and sales site for East German paraphernalia. Although the shop has been completely altered, the inhabitants of the Sonnenallee cannot so quickly alter their relationship to something that existed for them for such a long time nor can they seem to shift their understanding of someone whose identity for both herself and her customers and neighbors was determined by that vegetable store: “Although the store was full of flags, emblems, and pioneer scarves, it was still the vegetable shop for the inhabitants of the shorter end of Sunshine Alley and she was still the vegetable lady”.25 Even much later in the novel when this woman resurfaces briefly, she and the place where she works are described as “the vegetable shop that was no longer a vegetable shop and the vegetable lady who was no longer a vegetable lady”.26 Identity as shaped by the existence of, and daily existence in, a particular spatial dimension with a particular role, cannot be changed by the simple renaming of that space and the people who move in it. East Germany is, for all intents and purposes gone, but it is still former East Germany. The official renaming, the political unification, has not yet managed to erase the marks of an East German identity that are often celebrated, and legitimately so, by Ostalgie. 25 “Obwohl der Laden voll war mit Fahnen, Emblemen und Pioniertüchern, hieß er für die Leute am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee trotzdem Gemüseladen, und sie blieb die Gemüsefrau” (89). 26 “[…] der Gemüseladen, der kein Gemüseladen mehr war” and “die Gemüsefrau, die auch keine Gemüsefrau mehr war” (125).

267 Brussig’s use of an ironic nostalgia in both Sonnenallees, a nostalgia that produces visceral reactions in East and West Germans alike, achieves two goals. It allows for an archaeological notion of identity that is at times backward looking without threatening the present and future rewriting of Germany and German identity and it allows for an enactment of group identity, a collective disregarding, at least temporarily, of some of the divisions in contemporary Germany.

Claudia Gremler

“But Somehow it Was Only Television”: West German Narratives of the Fall of the Wall in Recent Novels and their Screen Adaptations East Germans have long been criticised for harbouring a feeling of Ostalgie, a nostalgia for their old, Socialist state, but only recently has it become apparent that many West Germans obviously experience a similar sense of loss and longing for a seemingly simpler time before reunification. The texts that express these feelings tend to focus on the fall of the Wall as the pivotal point of change in German post-war history. Typically the characters in these books deny the significance and impact of this major political event and strive to reduce its importance, at best to a minor television moment. This attitude can be observed in the novels liegen lernen and Herr Lehmann and in their film adaptations. Despite having been accused of indulging a feeling of Westalgie, a closer analysis reveals that they are in fact deliberately provocative and challenge Eastern and Western stereotypes. In addition the films find ways to transport the books’ ironic narrative to the screen, and they also reinforce the authors’ implicitly critical attitude towards their characters’ political apathy by portraying the fall of the Wall in ways different to the books. The films react to the provocation voiced in the novels and function like an intertextual commentary as they integrate the opening of the border into a meaningful context for the protagonists and restore it to its historic importance.

The last few years have seen the publication of a number of novels, autobiographical narratives and non-fiction accounts that look back on Germany in the 1980s. Critics already speak of a “nostalgia boom of the eighties”.1 This trend, which seems to have been started by Florian Illies’ Generation Golf 2 – an ironic portrait of his contemporaries linking the allegedly consumerist attitude of this generation to Volkswagen’s launch of their Golf model in 1974 – can also be observed in recent film releases, such as Benjamin Quabeck’s Verschwende deine Jugend (Waste Your Youth)3 and Hendrik Handloegten’s Paul Is Dead,4 both set in West Germany in the early eighties. As Reinhard Mohr, himself the author of Generation Z,5 recently remarked in Der Spiegel, 1

“Ein Achtziger-Jahre-Nostalgie-Boom”. Gerda Wurzenberger: Wann wird ein Mann zum Mann? Liegen lernen – eine ernst gemeinte deutsche Komödie. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (17 October 2003). P. 45. Unless otherwise indicated all translations are my own. 2 Florian Illies: Generation Golf. Eine Inspektion. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 2001. 3 Sebastian Quabeck (director), Ralf Hertwig / Katrin Richter (script): Verschwende deine Jugend, Claussen ⫹ Wöbke (production) 2003. Dvd: Constantin film 2004. 4 Hendrik Handloegten (director / script): Paul Is Dead, X-Filme (production) 2000 [not released on dvd or video]. 5 Reinhard Mohr: Generation Z oder von der Zumutung, älter zu werden. Berlin: Argon 2003.

270 there generally seems to be “a wave of sentimental memories” passing through Germany, indicating a need for “collective recollection”.6 It can be assumed that this development has in some ways been triggered by the political and social changes that Germany has undergone in recent years, in particular by the process of unification and its repercussions. The generation which experienced the fall of the Wall as young adults is now looking back on its childhood and youth. This is happening on both sides of the former border, and Generation Golf was swiftly followed by similar publications dedicated to the experience of growing up in the GDR – soon dubbed “Generation Trabant” by critics.7 Jakob Hein’s Mein erstes T-Shirt (My First T-Shirt),8 Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (After the Wall)9 and Claudia Rusch’s Meine freie deutsche Jugend (My Free German Youth)10 all present themselves as largely autobiographical accounts of East German adolescence. This process of looking back and reviewing one’s youth, which currently seems ubiquitous in both the German literary scene and the cinema, is necessarily different for East Germans than for their West German counterparts. In the rapid process of unification East Germans were subjected to drastic changes in their way of life and experienced a “profound displacement”.11 In addition to having to cope with the introduction of a different socio-political system and the inherent “strain of transformation”12 they witnessed the “systematic devaluing”13 of their GDR past as part of a condemnatory discourse, dominated by the West. Accordingly, the integration of the five new Länder into the existing Federal Republic has been perceived by many in the East as a

6

“Eine Welle sentimentaler Erinnerungen geht durchs Land […]. [Es] werden vor allem die siebziger und achtziger Jahre in kollektiver Rückbesinnung beschworen”. Reinhard Mohr: Soundtrack eines Soziotops. Herr Lehmann, Leander Haußmanns Romanverfilmung, ist Milieustudie und Männerfilm. In: Der Spiegel (29 September 2003). P. 152. 7 Claus-Ulrich Bielefeld: Generation Trabant. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (13 November 2001). P. 18. 8 Jakob Hein: Mein erstes T-Shirt. München / Zürich: Piper 2001. 9 Jana Hensel: Zonenkinder. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 2002. English edition: Jana Hensel: After the Wall. Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next. Translated by Jefferson Chase. New York: PublicAffairs 2004. 10 Claudia Rusch: Meine freie deutsche Jugend. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 2003. 11 Daphne Berdahl: “(N)Ostalgie” for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things. In: Ethnos 64 (1999). Pp. 192–211, here: P. 202. 12 “Transformationsbelastungen”. Thomas Ahbe: Ostalgie und die Lücke in der gesellschaftlichen Produktion von Erinnerungen. In: Hochschule Ost 10 (2001). Pp. 143–157, here: P. 147. 13 Berdahl: P. 195. See Claudia Sadowski-Smith: Post-Cold War Narratives of Nostalgia. In: The Comparatist 23 (1999). Pp. 117–127, here P. 122.

271 form of “colonisation”.14 The people in the East feel “governed by foreign lords”15 and treated as “second class Germans”.16 Confronted by a Western verdict, which dismisses the GDR as “criminal, inefficient, ugly and a failure”,17 and subjected to “a government-enforced memory politics that has reduced the socialist past to a totalitarian interval which is best forgotten”,18 East Germans contend with this “demonisation of the GDR”19 and try to bridge the “gulf that has opened between the experience of everyday life in the GDR and the characterisation of the GDR in the official discourse of the postWende republic”.20 They reject this discourse, which is to some degree dominated by the debate surrounding the East German secret service Stasi and the involvement of many ordinary citizens in its extensive spy network,21 as defamatory and try to compensate for this new “absence of a past”22 that has been created by the “politics of amnesia about the socialist past”.23 The much quoted and often criticised24 phenomenon of Ostalgie, a “nostalgia for the East”,25 for “its emblems and products”,26 is as much a defiant answer to this process of devaluation as it is a reaction to the fundamental changes East Germans have had to deal with. It represents “a productive self-empowerment of East Germans after the transformation crisis”27 and has inspired a number of literary and cinematic works. Particularly for the younger East German generation, who witnessed the Wende as children or adolescents, and for whom the debate surrounding the 14

“Kolonialisierung”. Thomas Ahbe: Ostalgie als Selbstermächtigung. Zur produktiven Stabilisierung ostdeutscher Identität. In: Deutschland Archiv 30 (1997). Pp. 614–619, here: P. 614. 15 “Von fremden Herren regiert”. Ahbe: Ostalgie und die Lücke. P. 148. 16 “Deutsche zweiter Klasse”. Ahbe: Ostalgie und die Lücke. P. 147. 17 “Der Befund der verbrecherischen, ineffizienten, häßlichen und gescheiterten DDR”. Thomas Ahbe: Zwiespältige Bilanz. Über Ostalgie und ihre Gründe. In: Universitas 54 (1999). Pp. 339–351, here: P. 350. 18 Claudia Sadowski-Smith: Post-Cold War Narratives of Nostalgia. P. 122. 19 “Dämonisierung der DDR”. Ahbe: Zwiespältige Bilanz. P. 339. 20 “Riß, der sich zwischen der Alltagserfahrung in der DDR und der Beschreibung der DDR im Offizialdiskurs der Nachwende-Republik auftut”. Ibid. P. 350. 21 See Claudia Sadowski-Smith: Post-Cold War Narratives of Nostalgia. P. 122. 22 “Vergangenheitslosigkeit”. Ahbe: Ostalgie als Selbstermächtigung. P. 618. 23 Claudia Sadowski-Smith: Ostalgie: Revaluing the Past, Regressing into the Future. In: GDR Bulletin 25 (1998). Pp. 1–6, here: P. 3. 24 See Leander Haußmann: Es kam dicke genug. In: Der Spiegel (8 September 2003). P. 220. 25 Berdahl. P. 192. 26 “Eine irgendwie sentimentale Rückwendung zur DDR, ihren Emblemen und Produkten”. Ahbe: Zwiespältige Bilanz. P. 339. 27 “Eine produktive Selbstermächtigung der Ostdeutschen nach der Transformationskrise”. Ahbe: Ostalgie als Selbstermächtigung. P. 619.

272 Stasi is of less relevance than for their parents, the re-evaluation of their youth is shaped by the “melancholic memory of what had been lost as the GDR went under”.28 The review of the recent past is for them an attempt to regain their lost childhood, which presents itself in the shape of a country that suddenly vanished,29 as Jana Hensel explains: Yesterday’s […] heroes are gone and since our childhood has been locked up in that nameless museum, there are no words left to describe them. And because the museum also has no address, I don’t even know where to go find them.30

Hensel, born in 1976, relates with some bitterness that whilst the East Germans of her generation “have been forced to assimilate into a foreign culture that’s grown up on their native soil”,31 their West German counterparts can return to their parents’ house and find “everything just as they remember it”.32 Polemically she adds that the West Germans of her generation who did not have to deal with the many deep changes she experienced “took a long time getting used to the fact that [the chocolate bar] Raider had changed its name to Twix”.33 Thomas Brussig, himself the author of two East German coming-of-age novels, Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us)34 and Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee (At the Shorter End of Sun Alley),35 confirms Hensel’s view when he comments on the memoirs by West German authors of his generation: I believe that these authors have a different point of departure when they take stock in their works. For them, what is today, represents only an extension of what used to be, and what is largely still valid now. There was never any rupture, only a change in fashions and trends, and for 16 years the country even had the same federal chancellor.36 28

Rudy Koshar: The Shock of “It Was”: Memory and German Unification. In: German Unification: Problems and Prospects. Ed. by Gaines Post. Cambridge: Claremont 1992. Pp. 5–25, here: P. 15. 29 See Hensel: After the Wall. P. 27. Zonenkinder. P. 33. 30 Hensel: After the Wall. P. 16. “Unsere Helden von damals leben schon lange nicht mehr, und weil unsere Kindheit ein Museum ohne Namen ist, fehlen mir die Worte dafür; weil das Haus keine Adresse hat, weiß ich nicht, welchen Weg ich einschlagen soll, und komme ich in keiner Kindheit mehr an”. Zonenkinder. P. 25. 31 Hensel: After the Wall. P. 42. “Wie ich waren auch sie bemüht, sich dauerhaft in einer Fremdheit einzurichten, die sich auf dem Boden des Heimatlandes ausbreitete”. Zonenkinder. P. 45. 32 Hensel: After the Wall. P. 15. “Alles noch […] an seinem Platz”. Zonenkinder. P. 23. 33 “Sie hätten lange gebraucht, sich daran zu gewöhnen, dass Raider nicht mehr Raider, sondern irgendwann Twix hieß]. Zonenkinder. P. 23 This reference is missing in Chase’s translation. 34 Thomas Brussig: Helden wie wir. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1996. 35 Thomas Brussig: Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1999. 36 “Sicher haben diese Autoren andere Voraussetzungen beim Herstellen ihrer Bilanzliteratur: Für sie ist das Heutige nur eine Verlängerung des Damaligen, das mehr

273 These statements suggest that the Kohl government was successful with its “ ‘business-as-usual’ approach to unity”37 and that the West did not experience the Wende as a transformation. However, this verdict is brought into question by the evidence of a strong Western “need to assure themselves of their own personal history”.38 Since nostalgia occurs primarily in times of crisis39 or in the aftermath of revolutions40 and can be understood as “a longing for continuity in a fragmented world”,41 this Western ‘memory boom’ seems to indicate that West Germans ultimately recognised the “illusion that unification meant business as usual”42 for what it was. Reunification marked the end of both the GDR and the old federal republic. As Rudy Koshar rightly remarks: “There is a sense of a break, of a coming to an end of West Germany as well as of East Germany”.43 Taking into account Svetlana Boym’s observation, that the phenomenon of nostalgia represents a “rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress”,44 it seems hardly surprising that West Germans should now begin to cultivate a counter movement or a complementary phenomenon to Ostalgie, and indulge in a sentimental remembrance of the old federal republic. Life in West Germany before the Wende was significantly shaped by the political immobility of the Cold War and, as Susanne Leinemann points out, the “feeling of stagnation” which “enveloped the country when Helmut Kohl was re-elected”45 in 1986. West Germany in the 1980s offered the “clear borders and values” nostalgics long for.46

oder weniger ungebrochen gültig ist. Eine Zäsur gab es nie; nur einen Wechsel der Moden und Trends, und 16 Jahre lang wechselte nicht einmal der Bundeskanzler”. Thomas Brussig: Liebe zu Zeiten der Kohl-Ära. In: Der Spiegel (29 January 2001). Pp. 169–170, here: P. 169. 37 Koshar: The Shock of “It Was”. P. 23. 38 “Verstärkten Bedürfnis, sich der eigenen gelebten Geschichte zu versichern”. Michael Althen: Verwinde deine Jugend. Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgespannter: Hendrik Handloegten verfilmt Frank Goosens Roman Liegen lernen. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (4 September 2003). P. 35. 39 Michael Rutschky: Wie erst jetzt die DDR entsteht. Vermischte Erzählungen. In: Merkur 49 (1995). Pp. 851–864, here: P. 851. 40 See Svetlana Boym: The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books 2001. P. XVI. 41 Boym: The Future of Nostalgia. P. XIV. 42 Koshar: The Shock of “It Was”. P. 11. 43 Ibid. P. 22. 44 Boym: The Future of Nostalgia. P. XV. 45 “Denn mit der Wiederwahl Helmut Kohls überzog ein Gefühl der Stagnation das Land”. Susanne Leinemann: Aufgewacht. Mauer weg. Stuttgart / München: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt 2002. P. 51. 46 Boym: The Future of Nostalgia. P. 8.

274 Florian Illies has referred to the 1980s as a “gigantic continuous loop”47 and believes them to be “definitely the most boring decade of the 20th century”:48 “Everybody was relatively well off, you were hardly afraid any more and when you turned on the television you would always see Helmut Kohl”,49 he remarks. He also notes his generation’s “strange affinity to the retrospective”,50 combined with “the longing to preserve the status quo”51 and the need “to know what belongs where”.52 According to Illies the young people of the 1980s, his so-called “generation Golf ”, did not wish to escape the “stagnation” lamented by Leinemann. Instead they now long for a return to the “life in the continuous loop”53 and compensate this unattainable goal by “celebrating their own childhood”54 and its memory in books and films. “It seems that after the wave of Ostalgie we can now expect a wave of Westalgie”,55 commented Christiane Hoffmans in Welt am Sonntag. These allegedly ‘Westalgic’ books and films enjoy a significant success on the current market clearly because they meet the expectations of an audience that “is fixated on everything retro”.56 Created against the background of Germany’s current social and economic problems – i.e. written “from a crumbling plateau, from a time of crisis” – they fulfil the “need to reassure oneself ”57 felt so strongly in West German society. Significantly most of these works deal in some shape or form with the fall of the Wall, the event that put an end to the old federal republic, and can therefore be called “Wende novel[s] from a Western perspective”.58

47

“Gigantische Endlosschleife”. Illies. P. 16. “Mit Sicherheit das langweiligste Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts”. Illies. P. 15–16. 49 “Es ging allen gut, man hatte kaum noch Angst, und wenn man den Fernseher anmachte, sah man immer Helmut Kohl”. Illies. P. 16. 50 “Merkwürdigen Hang zur Retrospektive”. Ibid. P. 197. 51 “Sehnsucht […] nach Konservierung des […] Status quo”. Ibid. P. 91. 52 “Daß klar ist, was wohin gehört”. Ibid. P. 61. 53 “Leben in der Endlosschleife”. Illies. P. 133. 54 “Zelebriert […] die eigene Kindheit”. Ibid. P. 194. 55 “Nach der Ostalgie-Welle steht uns jetzt also eine Westalgie-Welle ins Haus”. Christiane Hoffmans: Kultur-Highlights. In: Welt am Sonntag (7 September 2003). P. 80. 56 “Gepusht vom Interesse eines auf Retro abonnierten Publikums”. Daniel Haas: Viel Bier, wenig Dramatik. In: Spiegel Online (1 October 2003). ⬍http://www.spiegel.de⬎ 57 “Von einem bröckelnden Plateau, aus einer Krisenzeit; Bedarf nach Selbstvergewisserung”. Peter Körte: Verwende deine Jugend. In liegen lernen und Herr Lehmann geht das deutsche Kino auf Spurensuche in den achtziger Jahren. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (31 August 2003). P. 23. 58 “Wenderoman aus westlicher Sicht”. Verwirrt, träge und verliebt. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (11 August 2001). P. V. 48

275 Two recent popular novels, Sven Regener’s Herr Lehmann (Berlin Blues)59 und Frank Goosen’s liegen lernen (learning to lie),60 which have both been successfully adapted for the big screen,61 belong to this group. They both seem to confirm Illies’ verdict that the generation which was growing up in the 1980s share a “love of the superficial”,62 and an attitude towards politics and history which is “devoid of emotion”.63 Both the films and the novels they are based on, have been criticised for what Peter Körte calls “turning one’s own unspectacular youth into material for fiction”.64 Whilst critics have accused liegen lernen’s director Hendrik Handloegten of “having wasted his talent” in making Frank Goosen’s unpalatable “Storyquark” into a film,65 the actress Heike Makatsch, born in 1971 and herself a member of ‘generation Golf’, published an enthusiastic review of the film in Der Spiegel, claiming she felt “caught out” by it and recognised herself in it.66 This statement again emphasises the extent to which these works fulfil a primarily self-assuring function – almost regardless of their literary quality. In Herr Lehmann the reader follows the protagonist in the weeks immediately preceding the opening of the border. Like many of the books that focus on the 1980s Herr Lehmann is a “coming-of-age story”.67 However, the main

59

Sven Regener: Herr Lehmann. Frankfurt/Main: Goldmann 2003. English edition: Sven Regener: Berlin Blues. Translated by John Brownjohn. London: Secker & Warburg 2003. 60 The title of Goosen’s book is taken from the first stanza of Robert Gernhard’s Katzengedichte (Cat Poems), itself a parody of the East German propaganda slogan: “Von der Sowjetunion lernen heißt siegen lernen” (To learn from the Sowjet Union is to learn how to be victorious]). In his poem Gernhardt expresses the view that learning how to win from a cat means learning how to lie down and be as passive as possible – a strategy which Helmut seems to follow to the letter. See Robert Gernhardt: Gedichte 1954–1994. Zurich: Haffmans 1996. P. 283. 61 Hendrik Handloegten (director / script): liegen lernen, X-Filme 2003, dvd: Warner Home Video 2004. Leander Haußmann (director), Sven Regener (script): Herr Lehmann, Boje/Buck (production) 2003, dvd: Universal Pictures 2004. I am grateful to the production company Boje/Buck for supplying me with a VHS-copy of the film before the dvd was released. 62 “Liebe zum Oberflächlichen”. Illies. P. 27–28. 63 “Emotionslos”. Ibid. P. 121. 64 “Wie man die unspektakuläre eigene Jugend als Material der Fiktionen verwendet”. Körte. 65 “Sein Talent […] verschwendet”. Ob er’s will oder nicht: Jeder Mann hat eine Britta im Kopf. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung (4 September 2003). P. 34. 66 “Ertappt und wiedererkannt”. Heike Makatsch: Hör den Regen fallen. In: Der Spiegel (1 September 2003). P. 150. 67 “Coming-of-age-Geschichte”. Leander Haußmann in an interview with Fritz Göttler: Der Zirkus ist wieder da. Leander Haußmann, der “Lehmann” und die Freiheit im Kino. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (1 October 2003). P. 14.

276 character Frank Lehmann, a bohemian vagabond,68 is in fact long past his teenage years and demonstrates the phenomenon of an “extended adolescence”69 typical of these books – and characteristic of the modern nostalgic in general.70 Helmut Hermes, the protagonist in liegen lernen, similarly strikes the pose of the “permanent teenager”.71 In Regener’s book the original German title of the novel already hints at this issue. Recently Frank’s friends and colleagues have started addressing him as “Mr. Lehmann” – “because word had got around that he would soon be thirty”.72 His imminent birthday on 9 November 1989 forms the hidden “gravitational centre” of the novel: “The day of the fall of the Wall is also the day when Herr Lehmann’s idle existence must come to an end”.73 Regener begins his novel with a symbolic episode to express the fact that the protagonist lives at the end of an era. Early in the morning, walking home from work in one of Kreuzerg’s many pubs Herr Lehmann’s path is crossed by a threatening dog that will not let him pass. This animal re-appears sporadically throughout the book and the film. The figure of the dog traditionally symbolises “transience” and “the coming to an end”74 in many cultures. Herr Lehmann may not know it yet, but his life as an “FRG avoider”75 is about to end. He “meanders through Berlin’s nightlife in the weeks just before the fall of the Wall”,76 leading an “insular existence”77 in the Kreuzberg scene which will die with – or at least be radically transformed by – the Wende. Herr Lehmann enjoys the fact that he escaped his old life as an office worker in the north of Germany and that his parents in Bremen are “two national frontiers and several hundred kilometres away”.78 Unlike them he is comfortable 68

“Vagabundierende[r] Szeneheld”. Mohr: Soundtrack eines Soziotops. “Ausgedehnten Adoleszenz”. Haas. 70 See Boym: The Future of Nostalgia. P. 53. 71 “Der Dauerjugendliche”. Haas. 72 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 1. “Weil sich herumgesprochen hatte, daß er bald dreißig Jahre alt werden würde”. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 5. 73 “Worauf der Film zustrebt, worin er sein Gravitationszentrum findet, das ist der 9. November 1989. Der Tag des Mauerfalls ist auch der Tag, an dem sich Herrn Lehmanns müßiggängerische Existenz überholt hat”. Christina Nord: Experimentexistenzen, verpisst euch! Wenn Kreuzberg ausschaut wie in Babelsberg entworfen: Leander Haußmann hat Sven Regeners Roman Herr Lehmann verfilmt. Taz (2 October 2003). P. 29. 74 “Symboltier des Übergangs […] eines Zu-Ende-Gehens”. Manfred Lurker: Der Hund als Symboltier für den Übergang vom Diesseits in das Jenseits. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 35 (1983). P. 132–144, here: P. 139. 75 “BRD-Vermeider”. Markus Schneider: Die Wehmut der BRD-Vermeider. The man who was there: Mit seinem Roman Herr Lehmann hat Sven Regener unbeabsichtigt die Kreuzberg-Nostalgie befeuert. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (10 November 2001). P. 11. 76 “Ein Mäandern durch das Berliner Nachtleben kurz vor dem Mauerfall”. Haas. 77 “Inseldasein”. Körte. 78 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 13. “Einen Abstand von zwei Staatsgrenzen und einigen hundert Kilometern”. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 19. 69

277 with the political ‘state of emergency’ that has become normality in 1980s West Berlin. On the other hand he has never really left home. He regularly keeps in touch with his mother by phone, and his substantial consumption of Beck’s Bier from the Bremen brewery also forms a tie with his home town. When he falls in love with Katrin, “the beautiful chef ”,79 who works in one of his favourite pubs, it is characteristic that the object of his affection also comes from near Bremen. Katrin’s voluptuous, maternal figure is equally significant. When “the woman he loved and the woman who was his mother”80 meet, they get on brilliantly and immediately start exchanging recipes for roast pork. At one stage Herr Lehmann even directly compares Katrin to his mother81 and inadvertently emphasises Katrin’s role as a mother substitute. His unhappy love affair with Katrin aside, throughout the novel the reader witnesses Herr Lehmann “gliding undramatically through his own existence”.82 His life is essentially an extended interim state. He is a “barman without ambitions”,83 who rejects discussions about his alleged lack of a purpose in life by making mockingly philosophical and linguistic remarks about the word Lebensinhalt.84 In contrast to the unsuccessful artists and eternal students who frequent the pubs of Kreuzberg, biding time and waiting for their big break, Herr Lehmann does not even pretend to have any goals in life. When asked if he is a student, he decisively answers “certainly not”.85 He “likes everything to stay the same”86 and always hopes that “tomorrow will be roughly like today”87 – but then history intervenes. Helmut Hermes in liegen lernen shares Herr Lehmann’s need for “some things to stay the way they’ve always been”.88 Helmut also rejects life as a responsible adult. Unlike Herr Lehmann, which ends with the fall of the Wall, Helmut’s story stretches over the entire period his namesake Helmut Kohl was in office,89 but in a similar way to Herr Lehmann, who emotionally never really 79

Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 41. “Die schöne Köchin”. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 50. Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 149. “Die Frau, die er liebte, und die Frau, die seine Mutter war”. Ibid. P. 174. 81 See Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 110. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 127. 82 “Dieses letztlich höchst undramatische Gleiten durch die eigene Existenz”. Haas. 83 “Der Zapfer ohne Ehrgeiz”. Thomas Steinfeld: Aber dann, aber dann: Kreuzberger Hosenträger sind lang. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (17 August 2001). P. 15. 84 See Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 45. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 55. 85 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 55. “Keinesfalls”. Herr Lehmann. P. 66. 86 “Lehmann hat es gern, wenn alles so bleibt, wie es ist”. Michael Althen: Kreuzberg kann sehr alt sein. Der MTV-Moderator Christian Ulmen glänzt in Leander Haußmanns Verfilmung von Sven Regeners Roman Herr Lehmann. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (1 October 2003). P. 39. 87 “Die Hoffnung, der morgige Tag möge ungefähr so sein wie der gerade vergangene”. Mohr: Soundtrack eines Soziotops. 88 “Daß manche Dinge so blieben, wie sie immer gewesen waren”. Frank Goosen: Liegen lernen. München: Heyne 2002. P. 263. 89 See Brussig: Liebe zu Zeiten der Kohl-Ära. P. 169. 80

278 left Bremen, Helmut is stuck in his experiences of the early 1980s. This attitude is exemplified by his relationship to his first love. He can never forget his first girlfriend Britta, the daughter of artistic parents who raised her in the spirit of the 1968 student rebellion and whose liberal sexual behaviour and alternative lifestyle deeply impressed Helmut with his bourgeois Ruhrgebiet upbringing. As a man who does not like change and at the same time tries to avoid commitment, Helmut reluctantly drifts from one girlfriend to the next and never manages to rid himself off his fixation for Britta, who dumped him when he was 16. Throughout his life he stays in his hometown, turning from school pupil into university student, from postgraduate student into lecturer, without showing much evidence of inner development. Goosen’s novel comments on Helmut’s life journey through the eighties and nineties mainly through the means of atmospheric name dropping. Lists of brand names, fashion accessories, contemporary television personalities and references to pop music replace descriptions and account for a “strangely lifeless”90 quality in the writing. The adaptation by Handloegten, who had already proven his aptness for a meticulously faithful reconstruction of the early 1980s in his screen debut Paul is dead visualises in the film what is only quoted and hinted at in the book. This lends a strong nostalgic quality to the film but it also emphasises the extent to which Handloegten is more interested in form than in content. Consequently he has been criticised for “reducing his reappraisal of the eighties to a faithfully reconstructed film set, lovingly chosen decor and the right choice of pop records”.91 However, Handloegten’s superficial treatment of life in the 1980s only corresponds to the shallow way it is described in Goosen’s novel which flippantly compares the making of life changing decisions to the process of choosing a chocolate bar at the supermarket till – also mentioning “Raider” as the now elusive chocolate treat of the 1980s.92 This superficial attitude and somewhat cynical approach to life is similar to Herr Lehmann’s habit of “constantly engaging in discussions with himself or linguistic debates with others”,93 with 90

“Merkwürdig leblos”. Gerrit Bartels: Wie die Westalgie das Laufen lernt. In: taz (4 September 2003). 91 “Die Aufarbeitung der 80er beschränkt sich bei ihm letztendlich auf einen stimmigen Set, liebevolles Dekor und die richtige Auswahl der Musikplatten”. Norbert Raffelsiefen: Blond, belesen und wunderschön. In: General-Anzeiger (4 September 2003). It is worth noting in this context that – judging by the audio commentary on the dvd – Handloegten obviously knows where to find original drinks cans from the 1980’s but mistakenly believes Die Physiker (The Physicists) to be a play by Max Frisch. 92 See Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 27. See also Illies. P. 16. Rusch even dedicates a small chapter to “A room full of Raider” (“Ein Zimmer voller Raider”). See Rusch: Meine freie deutsche Jugend. Pp. 86–89. 93 “Pausenlos in Selbstgespräche oder sprachkritische Debatten verstrickt”. Steinfeld.

279 the effect of deflecting from the subject in question, for instance when he ponders on his relationship with his ex-girlfriend: Her name was Birgit, and she’d ‘gone with him’, or however one chose to describe it, for about two weeks. At least, that was what Herr Lehmann had thought, whereas she had announced, when the two weeks were up, that they’d never really ‘gone with’ each other […]. ‘Going with’ – that was what she used to call it, Herr Lehmann remembered, and a pretty questionable turn of phrase it was, when you came down to it.94

These “endless monologues and attempts to clarify his thoughts” must be regarded as a strategy to avoid intellectual debates and seem to provide evidence of Herr Lehmann’s shallow personality, but they also have to be recognised as “the hero’s verbal quest for orientation”.95 Like Helmut in liegen lernen Herr Lehmann is trying to make sense of the world and “get a grip of the chaos”.96 His ‘emigration’ from Bremen to Kreuzberg is more than just an escape strategy “to avoid a society centred on performance and achievement”,97 his conscious decision to limit his life to only one district of West Berlin – bohemian Kreuzberg, which he hates to leave even if it is only to go shopping in adjacent Neukölln98 – is taken in an attempt to make his world comprehensible and manageable. As the destiny of Herr Lehmann’s “best friend Karl”99 illustrates, who suffers a nervous breakdown half way through the novel, even in the Kreuzberg of the late 1980s life is not as simple as it may seem. Not surprisingly Herr Lehmann makes a point of not getting involved in potentially confusing political issues. Ironically, Herr Lehmann, who is living “in the shadow of the Wall”,100 and Helmut Hermes, a student of history, politics and German literature, both show 94

Berlin Blues. P. 55. “Ihr Name war Birgit gewesen, und sie war ungefähr zwei Wochen lang mit ihm gegangen, oder wie immer man das nennen sollte, dachte Herr Lehmann, jedenfalls hatte er das geglaubt, wohingegen sie nach diesen zwei Wochen behauptet hatte, sie wären überhaupt nie richtig zusammengewesen, […] so hatte sie das genannt, zusammensein, dachte Herr Lehmann, sie hatte immer zusammensein gesagt, auch eine zweifelhafte Wortwahl, wenn man mal so darüber nachdenkt, dachte Herr Lehmann”. Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 66. 95 “Verbale Orientierungssuche des Helden”. Verwirrt, träge und verliebt. 96 “Das Chaos in den Griff bekommen”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 218. 97 “Um der Leistungsgesellschaft zu entgehen”. Jens Jessen: Nichts wollen, können, brauchen. Leander Haußmanns tapsige Literaturverfilmung Herr Lehmann. In: Die Zeit (1 October 2003). P. 50. 98 See Regener: Herr Lehmann. P. 19. Berlin Blues. P. 13. Brownjohn’s English version misses the point when he translates “Karstadt am Hermannplatz, also im Grunde […] Neukölln” as “some suburban warehouse”. Herr Lehmann is in fact referring to a department store close to where he lives. 99 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 2. “Bester Freund”. Herr Lehmann. P. 6. 100 “Im Schatten der Mauer”. Schneider.

280 a marked indifference to political developments in general and the German question in particular. As a teenager Helmut travels to Berlin on one of the government funded school trips that were very common in the 1980s. In the divided city this boy from the far West of Germany is faced with the Wall as an actual, physical object for the first time. He ascertains once and for all that the Wall is definitely not a “temporary barrier”,101 and he is traumatised when threatened by a border guard with a gun. This episode irrevocably shapes his experience of the border between the two Germanies. In later years Helmut sees no need to question the permanence of the division between East and West. When the unexpected political changes in the East are beginning to take place – a process which even the disinterested TV junky Helmut cannot completely ignore – he treats history as a mildly boring form of reality TV and observes the unfolding events without any sign of emotion: A lot of people did not want to stay in the other Germany. With carrier bags in their hands they climbed the fences of some embassy or other and stayed there. I pushed crisps into my mouth and asked myself why these people did not at least have proper suitcases.102

Neither do Herr Lehmann’s friends and colleagues consider the situation in the East a topic worthy of discussion. When his parents talk to him about the protest demonstrations he says: “It doesn’t have any bearing on life in West Berlin. We aren’t affected in the least”.103 Characteristically and ironically only Karl, who is suffering from mental illness, states: “We need to devote more time to the East”.104 When the Wall actually comes down the main characters in both novels still react with equanimity and try to treat this important incident, whenever possible, as a non-event. Herr Lehmann reacts to the news and his colleague Sylvio’s half-hearted suggestion “We ought to take a look” by saying: “Let’s drink up first, though”.105 Helmut shows a similar composure, asking his girlfriend: “Another piece of melon?”,106 before turning off the news and putting 101

“Vorübergehende Absperrung”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 53. “Eine Menge Menschen wollten nicht mehr in dem anderen Deutschland bleiben. Mit Plastiktüten in der Hand kletterten sie über die Zäune irgendwelcher Botschaften und blieben da. Ich schob mir Chips in den Mund und fragte mich, warum die nicht wenigstens richtige Koffer hatten”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 212. 103 Berlin Blues. P. 151. “Das hat doch mit dem Leben in Westberlin nichts zu tun. Wir kriegen hier doch gar nichts davon mit”. Herr Lehmann. P. 176. 104 “Wir müssen uns mehr mit dem Osten beschäftigen”. Herr Lehmann. P. 254. This sentence is missing in Brownjohn’s translation. 105 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 246. “Das sollten wir uns angucken. – Aber erst austrinken”. Herr Lehmann. P. 281. 106 “Noch ein Stück Melone?” Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 222. 102

281 on a pre-recorded videotape. To Helmut – and many of his compatriots107 – the political developments only seem to be happening on television and are distinctly distant: I turned on the television. The Wall everywhere. People were sitting on the Wall. […] Nobody was getting shot. […] A man in a thick Saxon accent said that all this was amazing. And still there was no shooting. Well, that was all quite remarkable, but somehow it was only television. […] When I looked out of the window I saw the same cars and the same people. […] Maybe it was “amazing” for the man from Saxony. As far as I could tell most people in my street were at most scratching their balls.108

What Helmut sees on television does not conform to his concept of the Wall as an insurmountable barrier where people get shot if they rebel or misbehave. Interestingly however he does not attempt to correct his idea of the Wall in view of the events. Instead he reacts with a detached disbelief. He then goes on a second trip to Berlin but not to see the changes up close and to assure himself of the unfolding events. The reason for his journey is to see Britta, the unforgotten love of his teenage years whom he still idolises to an increasingly absurd degree, and who, as he has recently learned, now lives in the city: “Britta. Of course she was in Berlin. She had probably opened the Wall. Who else had so much power?”.109 His reunion with Britta, who has left her parents’ converted farmhouse for a mundane flat in the conservative middle class district of Wilmersdorf is disappointing. However, even after Helmut discovers that Britta was also having an affair with his best friend Mücke, when she was going out with him, and even though she openly shows that she is not interested in him anymore, Helmut is not prepared to change his idealised image of her. In the meantime the political events continue to unfold in the background. Even in Berlin itself the opening of the Wall does not become real for Helmut who firmly remains in his detached position: “People talked about what was 107

Christine Ivanovic: Wende im Film? Vorläufiger Rückblick auf ein Jahrzehnt deutscher Einheit im Film. In: Mentalitätswandel in der deutschen Literatur zur Einheit (1990–2000). Ed. by Volker Wehdeking. Berlin: Erich Schmidt 2000. Pp. 225–235, here: P. 225. 108 “Ich schaltete den Fernseher ein. Überall die Mauer. Auf der Mauer saßen Leute. […] Es wurde niemand erschossen. […] Ein Mann in breitestem Sächsisch [erzählte], daß das alles Wahnsinn sei. Und noch immer wurde nicht geschossen. Na gut, das war alles schon sehr bemerkenswert, aber irgendwie war es nur Fernsehen. […] Wenn ich aus dem Fenster blickte, sah ich die gleichen Autos und die gleichen Menschen. […] Für den Mann aus Sachsen mochte es “Wahnsinn” sein. Soweit ich es beurteilen konnte, kratzten sich die meisten in meiner Straße allenfalls am Sack”. Goosen: Liegen lernen, Pp. 222–226. 109 “Britta. Natürlich war sie in Berlin. Wahrscheinlich hatte sie die Mauer aufgemacht. Wer sonst hatte soviel Macht?” Ibid. P. 224.

282 happening. Everybody knew it from TV. I couldn’t join in the conversation”.110 Both the fall of the Wall, which he experiences “as a disinterested bystander”,111 and the reunion with Britta, which strangely fails to disillusion him about her callous personality, are missed opportunities for Helmut who in the end returns to the Ruhrgebiet and quietly continues his unspectacular life. After the Wende Helmut spends another eight uneventful years in deepest West Germany during which time he alarmingly starts to resemble and act like his bourgeois father.112 Only when his girlfriend Tina becomes pregnant does Helmut, after going through a deep personal crisis, finally reluctantly accept life as an adult. For Herr Lehmann, however, the fall of the Wall has more immediate consequences. He is in a pub drinking when the news spreads. Characteristically Haußmann’s adaptation here departs from the book and, despite the vicinity of the Wall, in the film the characters witness the event first on a tiny black and white television screen. A good while later Herr Lehmann listlessly walks to a nearby checkpoint. He is disappointed by what he sees: “People were crossing the border on foot, quite peacefully, one after another, and going on their way. There’s no real atmosphere, thought Herr Lehmann”.113 Despite this dispassionate reaction, the fall of the Wall is the (anticlimactic) turning point of the plot in Herr Lehmann. It puts an end to Herr Lehmann’s previous existence. He realises that Kreuzberg as he knows it will soon be “a lost country”114 and that the time has come “to make a completely fresh start”.115 The ostentatious equanimity with which the fall of the Wall is greeted in these two novels and their screen adaptations shows that this major political event clearly “means very little to the West German heroes”.116 Since both Herr Lehmann and Helmut are to a large extent meant to be typical representatives of their generation, the apathy they show when confronted with the most important historical occurrence of their time “raises the question as to whether this disinterest in the events that preceded the opening of the Wall may have been a common attitude in West Germany and particularly in West Berlin”.117 110 “Es wurde geredet über das, was passierte. Alle kannten es vom Fernsehen. Ich konnte nicht mitreden”. Ibid. P. 248. 111 “Als interesseloser Zaungast”. Körte. 112 Both keep their record collections in the basement where they can listen to their music and get away from their family, See Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 18. P. 286. 113 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 246. “Ganz friedlich und einer nach dem anderen kamen Leute zu Fuß herüber und gingen dann irgendwo hin. Richtige Stimmung ist das nicht, dachte Herr Lehmann”. Herr Lehmann. P. 282. 114 “Ein untergegangenes Reich”. Althen: Kreuzberg kann sehr alt sein. 115 Regener: Berlin Blues. P. 249. “Was ganz anderes anfangen”. Herr Lehmann. P. 285. 116 “Weil er den Westhelden so wenig bedeutet”. Körte. 117 “Die Frage aufwirft, ob dieses Desinteresse an den Ereignissen, die der Maueröffnung vorausgingen, nicht eine in Westdeutschland und vor allem in Westberlin durchaus verbreitete Haltung war”. Verwirrt, träge und verliebt.

283 Characteristically the Wende is hardly mentioned in Illies’ Generation Golf 118 – a fact which seems to support this theory. Similarly Jana Hensel talks about a West German friend who displays an attitude, which closely resembles that of Helmut and Herr Lehmann, when he tells her that “the whole Ostscheiß, or ‘East bullshit’, as he put it, really got on his nerves. […] Even on the night that the borders had first been opened, he’d have preferred to watch the spectacle on TV rather than live on the streets”.119 With regret Susanne Leinemann comments on her West German generation’s lukewarm reactions to the fall of the Wall in the West: But this event was so incredible. It should have shaped all of us who were there. At the very least. In fact it should have transformed us – in the West, too. […] 1989 was the hour of our generation. But we did not seize it. […] I was walking around, I was there, I saw, I heard – and yet the feeling kept creeping up on me that I was observing a strange happening from the outside. A distance remained, as if the igniting spark had not quite jumped across. […] I was happy to be there but a part of me remained quite cool and detached.120

These observations reflect a strong emotional disengagement from the events and even seem to indicate a desire to control them by confining them to the television screen. This suggests that western readers of novels like Herr Lehmann and liegen lernen are expected to recognise themselves in the apathy the characters display when confronted with the opening of the Wall and identify with the characters. At the same time this identification is made impossible by the dialogue which in parts is exaggerated to the extreme and borders on farce: “The Wall is open”. “Oh, shit”.121 This clearly indicates that – despite its seeming realism – the

118

See Illies. P. 25 and 176. Hensel: After the Wall. P. 38. “Dass ihm der ganze Ostscheiß, wie er sagte, ziemlich auf die Nerven gehe. Schon damals, in der Nacht des Mauerfalls, hatte er sich nur mit Mühe vom Fernseher lösen können, um zum nächstliegenden Grenzübergang zu laufen”. Zonenkinder. P. 43. 120 “Dabei war das Ereignis doch so unglaublich: Es müßte uns, die wir dabei waren, geprägt haben. Wenigstens. Eigentlich müßte es uns verwandelt haben – auch im Westen. […] 1989 war die Stunde unserer Generation. Aber wir machten sie uns nicht zu eigen. […] Ich spazierte herum, ich war dabei, ich sah, ich hörte – und trotzdem beschlich mich immer wieder das Gefühl, als Beobachterin von außerhalb ein befremdendes Geschehen zu verfolgen. Es blieb eine Distanz, als ob der zündende Funke doch nicht ganz übergesprungen wäre. […] Ich war glücklich, dabeizusein, aber ein Teil von mir blieb auch ziemlich cool und distanziert”. Leinemann. P. 8–9, 193–194. 121 “‘Die Mauer ist offen’. ‘Ach du Scheiße’.” Herr Lehmann. P. 280. Brownjohn translates this rather mildly and misleadingly as “ ‘The Wall’s open’. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ ”. Berlin Blues. P. 245. 119

284 casual way in which Herr Lehmann accepts the opening of the Wall at the end of the book is in fact “intended as a provocation”.122 The realisation that Herr Lehmann is obviously designed as an “anti Wende novel”123 should not distract from the author’s ironic, and therefore critical, treatment of the protagonist and his approach to life and to politics. Herr Lehmann’s relationship with Katrin ultimately breaks down because of his inflexible attitude and his scepticism about the future. Travelling to East Berlin to take care of some family business for his parents Herr Lehmann is caught trying to smuggle Western currency across the border and is sent straight back to West Berlin instead of meeting up with Katrin in the East as they had planned. Katrin consequently leaves him for “Kristall Rainer”, one of the punters in Herr Lehmann’s pub, who has been following her around for weeks. “At least he made it across the border”,124 she says, defending her decision and implicitly criticising Herr Lehmann for his insular West Berlin lifestyle. Significantly Rainer is a computer specialist while Herr Lehmann, as well as Helmut Hermes, with their backwards approach to life, fail to realise the future importance of computers. For Helmut, IT specialists have “the status of pitiable madmen”125 and Herr Lehmann emphatically stresses that he “could not conceive of anything more boring and perverse, dreary and unglamorous than being a computer technician”.126 The protagonists’ unawareness of current trends that will shape the future form one dimension of the novels’ ironic quality. The use of irony is central to the narration in both novels, and the comedy of the books largely stems from the distance between the narrator and the characters. Regener uses a third person narrator who tells Herr Lehmann’s story from a strictly personal perspective: The narrator remains invisible as a person, everything is related from the point of view of the protagonist, only situations in which Herr Lehmann is present are described, the reader gets to know the main character’s thoughts. Normally this narrative technique produces an “impression of immediacy”127 and minimises the distance between the character and the narrator as well as the distance between the character and the reader. Regener’s narrator, however, produces a different effect by continuously referring to his protagonist as “Herr 122

“Als Provokation geplant”. Schneider. “Anti-Wende-Roman”. Philipp Gut: “Der Popstar als Autor”. In: Tages-Anzeiger (19 November 2001). P. 51. 124 Berlin Blues. P. 206. “Der hat’s nämlich wenigstens bis über die Grenze geschafft”. Herr Lehmann. P. 237. 125 “Den Status von armen Irren”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 280. 126 Berlin Blues. P. 101. “Er konnte sich nichts Langweiligeres, Abseitigeres, Öderes, Unglamouröseres vorstellen, als Informatiker zu sein”. Herr Lehmann. P. 117. 127 “Der Eindruck der Unmittelbarkeit der Darstellung”. Franz K. Stanzel: Theorie des Erzählens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 41989. P. 16. 123

285 Lehmann”. By using this formal address, which the character vehemently rejects,128 the narrator assumes a stand-offish position. The novel also displays an interesting lack of narrated monologue. Throughout the book Regener gives his readers an insight into Frank Lehmann’s innermost thoughts and feelings but he always inserts a distancing “thought Herr Lehmann” when relating the many self-discussions and inner musings of his protagonist.129 In combination with the pervasive “laconic vein”130 of the narrative this achieves to some degree a mildly distanced attitude which at the same time still generates “sympathy for the protagonist”131 and has prompted critics to praise Regener for succeeding in creating a “sentimental laconism”.132 The narration in Goosen’s liegen lernen also has a strongly ironic quality. The many overt references to a typical 1980s childhood and youth invite readers of Goosen’s generation to a nostalgic identification with Helmut, the firstperson narrator. But at the same time he is characterised as a not very likeable person of dubious morals. Without a vision or convictions of any kind Helmut drifts through life. His antics are nonchalantly related in paratactic sentences and a strictly descriptive narrative style devoid of any reflections on Helmut’s behaviour or decisions. The first person narrator’s shallow attitude toward relationships is further characterised by his use of cheap jokes in pivotal situations. After Helmut’s girlfriend Gisela catches him in bed with their flatmate Barbara, she starts to question him: “ ‘Do you love her then?’ ‘No.’ ‘And what about me?’ ‘No idea. Do you love her?’ ”.133 Helmut does not seem too concerned about his moral misbehaviour. He rejects the responsibility for his actions and in one of the few comments on his behaviour says laconically: “I knew I was an arsehole but I did not know what I should do about it”.134 Confronted with this attitude the audience is implicitly expected to criticise Helmut and to distance themselves from him.

128

See Herr Lehmann. P. 6, 9, 42. Berlin Blues. P. 2, 4. The third reference, which mentions the protagonist’s dislike of being called “Herr Lehmann” and “du” is missing in Brownjohn’s translation. 129 See Berlin Blues, passim, Herr Lehmann, passim. Unfortunately – as can be seen in the passage quoted above (note 94) – Brownjohn drastically reduces this in his translation, taking away some of the deliberate repetitiveness of the novel. 130 “Lakonischen Ton”. Schneider. 131 “Sympathie für den Protagonisten”. Martin Krumbholz: Der Mensch als Nagetier. Sven Regeners Romandébut Herr Lehmann. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (14 August 2001). P. 55. 132 “Das Kunststück einer gefühlvollen Lakonik”. Gut. 133 “‘Liebst du sie denn?’ ‘Nein’. ‘Und wie ist es mit mir?’ ‘Keine Ahnung. Liebst du sie?’ ” liegen lernen. P. 153. 134 “Ich wußte, daß ich ein Arschloch war, aber ich wußte nicht, was ich dagegen tun sollte”. Ibid. P. 154.

286 This pervasive presence of irony in both books, which above all is used to implicitly criticise the protagonists’ apathetic reaction to the fall of the Wall, represents a challenge for the filmmakers who adapted the novels for the screen. The adaptations deal with this problem in different ways. Both films try to translate the authors’ ironic attitude towards their characters into the medium of film. Handloegten made a classic choice in deciding to retain Goosen’s first-person narrator and use traditional voice-overs by Helmut to comment on the action.135 Haußmann was confronted with the more difficult task of transferring Regener’s subtly ironic attitude towards his anti-hero to the screen. One of the director’s strategies was to create a contrast between form and content by choosing a wide screen format for a film which mainly takes place in crammed pubs. Haußmann tells the unspectacular story of a man who tries to live a quiet life and prefers to be left in peace in epic Cinemascope.136 In addition to turning what could be termed a ‘narrow’ story into a wide screen film Haußmann and Charlotte Goltermann, who was responsible for the musical concept of the film, carefully produced a non-diegetic soundtrack that often acts as an ironic commentary. Unlike Handloegten who reinforces the nostalgic quality of liegen lernen by actually playing the 1980s pop songs that are mentioned in the book, Haußmann anachronistically uses music from other decades and even includes a number of songs that were written post 1989. As Goltermann emphasises in an interview contained on the DVD, most of them relate to Herr Lehmann’s general state of mind and quite accurately mirror his feelings. However, the distance between Herr Lehmann’s strictly mid-1980s cultural tastes137 and the use of 1990s songs is noticeable, as is the irony when Herr Lehmann’s relationship break-up with Katrin is melodramatically accompanied by the song “Bella ciao”. When the end of the film has Herr Lehmann slowly coming to terms with the fall of the Wall and its effects on his life, “I will survive” is playing in the background and again provides an ironic commentary. It is this decidedly ironic approach to the 1980s in general and the protagonists’ struggles in particular that prevents these films from being purely nostalgic. As Peter Körte has rightly remarked “these films aren’t glossy enough to be nostalgic”.138 Both the novels and their adaptations do not merely 135 For a discussion of the problem of first person narrative in film see Jan Marie Peters: The Lady in the Lake und das Problem der Ich-Erzählung in der Filmkunst. In: Literaturverfilmungen. Ed. by Franz-Joseph Albersmeier and Volker Roloff. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1989. Pp. 245–258. 136 See Göttler: Der Zirkus ist wieder da. P. 14. 137 Herr Lehmann’s favourite film is Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish from 1983, See Berlin Blues. P. 107–108. Herr Lehmann. P. 124. 138 “Wären diese Filme nostalgisch, müßten sie intensiver glänzen”. Körte. Haußmann also insists: “These films are not nostalgic” (“Es sind keine nostalgischen Filme”). See Ewa Hess: “Nostalgie, Ostalgie. So ein Quatsch!”: Leander Haußmann über die Sonnenallee und seinen Film Herr Lehmann. In: SonntagsZeitung (26 October 2003). P. 55.

287 reconstruct an attitude from 15 years ago, they also criticise it. These works clearly want to achieve more than just to “evoke collective sighs of recognition”.139 At the same time Michael Althen’s accusation that liegen lernen and other films “never go where it hurts”140 is not unfounded. These stories are not as blindly nostalgic as some critics claim, but they prefer to reconcile rather than accuse. In fact, by implicitly criticising Herr Lehmann’s and Helmut’s indifference towards the political changes in the East the novels and their adaptations strive to bring the East and the West closer together. At first it seems surprising that East German authors such as Brussig should speak of “reliving their own memories”,141 when reading liegen lernen. Herr Lehmann’s East German director even claims that Herr Lehmann is all about things he knows well142 and Haußmann provocatively adds: “Suddenly people said to me: ‘But you’re from the East.’ So what?”.143 However, this appropriation of supposedly ‘Westalgic’ memories by an East German audience is already implicitly present in the novels which reveal the differences between East and West to be a psychological construct. Immediately after the fall of the Wall the old characteristics that used to be assigned to the East and the West become doubtful and almost interchangeable. Helmut’s former school friend Mücke whose Spätaussiedler parents moved to West Germany from Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and who now lives in West Berlin is “taken for an Ossi (East German)”144 and given money by benevolent Westerners. In Regener’s novel Herr Lehmann’s formerly East German colleague Sylvio joins in a discussion of Michael Anderson’s film Logan’s Run145 and makes the confusing and almost absurd comment: “I know that film. I saw it on West German TV when I was still in the East”.146 The confusion about what is Eastern and what is Western becomes an ironic issue in both novels. The films continue this blurring of boundaries on a different level by casting the West German singer Tim Fischer as Sylvio in Herr Lehmann and by having the East German actor Florian Lukas play the part of Mücke in liegen 139

“Viele kollektive ‘Ahas’ evozieren”. Bartels. “Daß sie nie dorthin gehen, wo es weh tut”. Althen: Verwinde deine Jugend. 141 ”Wer liegen lernen liest, dem steigen die eigenen Erinnerungen auf ”. Brussig: Liebe zu Zeiten der Kohl-A¨ra. P. 170. 142 See Hess: “Nostalgie, Ostalgie. So ein Quatsch!”. P. 55. 143 “Dann hieß es plötzlich, ich sei doch aus dem Osten. Na und?” Im Film bist du sehr nahe am Leben. Regisseur Leander Haußmann spricht über seinen neuen Film. General-Anzeiger (1 October 2003). 144 “Für einen Ossi gehalten”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 223. 145 This intertextual reference to a film in which citizens of a future society are routinely killed when they reach the age of 30 is of course another ironic sideswipe directed at Herr Lehmann who is himself about to turn 30. 146 Berlin Blues. P. 243. “Kenn ich, den Film. […] Hab ich früher mal im Westfernsehen gesehen, als ich noch im Osten war”. Herr Lehmann. P. 277. 140

288 lernen. Already in his first film Sonnenallee (Sun Alley)147 which can in many respects be regarded as a precursor and “counterpart”148 to Herr Lehmann, Haußmann achieved a subversive effect by deliberately casting well-known West German actors in the roles of socialist figures of authority: Margit Carstensen portrays the school’s head mistress and Detlev Buck stars as the ABV (district policeman). In Herr Lehmann Haußmann uses the same method to demonstrate the possibility of reversing authority and power structures by casting Brussig as an East German customs officer. This way he draws attention to the fact that the fixed ideas about East and West are losing their validity and reinforces their deconstruction. Another example of this technique is Haußmann’s use of Steffi Kühnert (who played an FDJ youth leader in Sonnenallee and is probably best known to audiences as one of the leads in Andreas Dresen’s Halbe Treppe, set in Frankfurt an der Oder) as a drunk who announces the opening of the border to Herr Lehmann, Sylvio and other punters in a West Berlin pub. This strategy of opening up categories is particularly powerful and used to great comic effect in the case of Karsten Speck whom Haußmann casts against the grain in more than one way. Speck, the East German TV entertainer and ladies man plays “LederUschi” (leather pansy)149 Detlev who throws Herr Lehmann and his friends out of his gay bar in West Berlin. In a similar way to Haußmann, Handloegten challenges the audience’s expectations and pursues a playful approach to the familiar East/West categories and characteristics throughout his film. This is reflected in the choice of his two leads, Fabian Busch as Helmut and Susanne Bormann as Britta, who were last seen as a couple playing East German high school students in Dresen’s TV movie Raus aus der Haut (1997). Both films use their casting as a tool to mirror and reinforce the way in which the novels question the validity of East-Western differences.150 In that respect they remain close to the novels and convey the same meaning using methods that only film offers. 147 Leander Haußmann (director), Thomas Brussig (script): Sonnenallee, Boje/Buck (production), 1999, dvd: highlight 2003. 148 “Gegenstück”. Althen: Kreuzberg kann sehr alt sein. Even though Haußmann himself claims: “Herr Lehmann has nothing to do with Sonnenallee” (“Herr Lehmann hat nichts mit Sonnenallee zu tun”), Im Film bist du sehr nahe am Leben, there are several obvious parallels between the two films. Haußmann used many of the same actors and created a very similar closing scene set at the Wall. 149 Herr Lehmann. P. 127. Translated by Brownjohn first as “bogus biker” (Berlin Blues. P. 111), then as “nancy boy” (Berlin Blues. P. 114), this highly derogatory term emphasises Detlev’s (a stereotypically gay first name) tough looking exterior as well as his alleged effeminacy. 150 Wolfgang Becker produces a similar effect in Good Bye Lenin when the East German protagonist Alexander Kerner (played by West German actor Daniel Brühl) is asked by his new Western employer to team up with a colleague from West Berlin (played by Florian Lukas), See Wolfgang Becker (director), Bernd Lichtenberg (script): Good Bye Lenin, X-Filme (production), 2003, dvd: Warner Home Video 2003.

289 This may explain why critics have felt that the film versions of Liegen lernen (script by Handloegten) and Herr Lehmann (script by Regener) do not take enough risks and are all too “faithful adaptations”151 of the novels. However, in one important point both films depart from the novels: they create endings that roughly follow the descriptions in the book but at the same time introduce some significant changes. The fall of the Wall and its treatment are central to these changes. In both the novel and the film of liegen lernen Helmut finally accepts his girlfriend Tina’s pregnancy and is forced to face up to the fact that Britta, the love of his life, has been reduced to a “phantom”152 – with the film providing a more convincing confrontational scene than the book.153 However, the question remains unanswered as to why Helmut should suddenly be ready to give up his existence as “an irresponsible, sex driven arsehole who is incapable of commitment”154 in favour of family life with Tina. It is largely unclear as to why Tina of all people should be the right woman for him. The film closes this gap with an additional scene. Its significance is emphasised by the fact that it occurs twice and almost functions as a frame to the film’s narrative. Handloegten uses it towards the beginning of the film and returns to it at the end. When Helmut first meets Tina she asks him: “Where were you on 9 November 1989?”.155 He answers: “I was there, in Berlin, on top of the Wall, at the Brandenburg Gate”.156 Helmut’s voice-over commentary then explains: “But that was not true. On that particular night I was lying in bed with a woman, watching a video”.157 It is only when the scene is used the second time that the audience hears Tina’s unimpressed answer: “Come on – don’t give me that shit”.158 At the end of liegen lernen Helmut has not given up his indifference to politics but at least he has found a woman who sees through him and will not be “impressed by transparent lies”.159 Helmut has finally stopped 151

“Getreu den Vorgaben”. Bartels. “Phantom”. Goosen: Liegen lernen. P. 333. 153 The novel has Helmut travelling to Berlin where he unsuccessfully tries to track down Britta. In the film version he manages to find her, only to realise: “You’re only human after all”. (“Irgendwie bist du ja auch nur’n Mensch”). liegen lernen 1:20:26–1:20:28. 154 “Ein verantwortungsloses, bindungsunfähiges, triebhaftes Arschloch”. Liegen lernen. P. 313. 155 “Wo warst du denn am 9. November 1989?” liegen lernen 0:01:44–0:01:49. 156 “Ich war da, in Berlin, auf der Mauer, am Brandenburger Tor”. liegen lernen 0:01:50–0:01:52. 157 “Aber das stimmte nicht. Denn an diesem Abend lag ich mit einer Frau im Bett und sah mir ein Video an”. liegen lernen 0:01:53–0:01:58. 158 “Ach – erzähl mir doch keinen Scheiß!” liegen lernen 1:08:41–1:08:43. 159 “Jemand, den man nicht mit dem durchsichtigsten Kram beeindrucken konnte”. liegen lernen 1:08:29–1:08:32. 152

290 chasing Britta who in his mind was connected to his adolescence and has found a woman with whom he can start a family because she can relate to his experiences as an adult, in particular to the fall of the Wall and his reaction to it. The opening of the border which has little bearing on Helmut’s life in the book is given a much more dominant position in the film when ironically Helmut’s disappointing nonchalance towards this major event in German history helps him to finally grow up and find a suitable partner. Similarly, the adaptation of Herr Lehmann reacts to the provocation of the novel, which portrays the opening of the border simultaneously as a historic rupture and a trivial event. In his interpretation of the story Haußmann provides the definitive filmic version of the fall of the Wall. Recent publications on the theory of literary adaptation have emphasised the intertextual nature of the complicated relationship between book and film and have analysed adaptation as a form of literary commentary.160 In Herr Lehmann the film reacts to the fact that in the novel “the event of the century, the East German revolution, is so conspicuously absent until the penultimate chapter of the book that this gap develops a strong dynamics in the consciousness of the reader”.161 The film juxtaposes the deliberately unspectacular and anti-climactic turning-point in Herr Lehmann’s life as described in the novel with a colourful happening. In a camp finale that seems like a follow-on from the collective dance and peaceful uproar next to the Wall in Sonnenallee, all the characters, surrounded by lots of people from the West and the East, with Trabant cars sounding their horns, gather at the Wall which – in a speeding up of events emphasising the stylisation of this iconic scene – is already being pulled down. Thus the film departs from the novel by replacing the conspicuous void which the fall of the Wall represents in the book with a big celebration. This significant change results in a much more open criticism of the protagonists’ complacent and disinterested attitude towards the Wende than the book provides and has to be understood as the director’s intertextual comment on the novel.162 It can be concluded that the current trend in German cinema and in popular novels to look back to the 1980s in a nostalgic manner reflects an attempt to

160 See Brian McFarlane: Novel to Film. An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996. Pp. 10–11. 161 “Da ist schließlich das Jahrhundertereignis der ostdeutschen Revolution, das bis zum vorletzten Kapitel so auffällig ausgespart ist, daß diese Leerstelle des Romans im Bewußtsein des Lesers […] eine ausgesprochene Dynamik entfaltet”. Verwirrt, träge und verliebt. 162 Not surprisingly the new ending was a bone of contention for Regener who wrote the novel and scripted the film and Haußmann whose ideas finally prevailed. The film’s audio commentary on the dvd is testimony to the differences between author and director concerning the border scene.

291 fight the feeling of “loss and unreality”163 that has been experienced since the end of the Cold War, and it has produced “pictures of a vanished country on both sides of the Wall”.164 In the East the people’s need to reassure themselves of their almost forgotten every day experiences in the GDR has produced the phenomenon of Ostalgie. But the West is nostalgic in its own way for the old federal republic and tries to play down the importance of the fall of the Wall as a “historic break […] which also shaped Western biographies”.165 Authors who are mourning the loss of the old FRG and have caught themselves and their generation with a politically incorrect indifference towards the Wende and its events, position the fall of the Wall as a blind spot at the centre of their works. This is the case of liegen lernen and Herr Lehmann. The screen adaptations of both books take on this provocation. These films provide an intertextual answer to the novels by integrating the fall of the Wall into a meaningful context in liegen lernen, and by replacing the seeming non-event of the opening of the Wall in the novel Herr Lehmann with a full-on celebration in the film. Therefore both films vehemently deny the lack of meaning appropriated to the fall of the Wall by the protagonists and restore it to its rightful place in German history. At the same time the films reinforce the way the perceived differences between East and West are treated as a construct in the books by mirroring this in their casting which challenges the audience’s expectations. In doing so they strive for a conciliatory smoothing of differences and – even more so than the books – defy a purely ‘Westalgic’ interpretation. In their own way these films attempt to bridge the gulf between East Germans who cling to a country they have lost and West Germans who feel less than enthusiastic about the effects of reunification by re-emphasising the importance of the fall of the Wall for Germany as a whole.

163

Kathleen Stewart: Nostalgia: A Polemic. In: Cultural Anthropology 3 (1988). Pp. 227–241, here: P. 228. 164 “Es sind Genrebilder eines verschwundenen Landes jenseits, aber auch diesseits der Mauer”. Körte. 165 “Die Zäsur, die auch westliche Biographien modelliert hat”. Ibid.

LA PIANISTE - Frankreich/Österreich 2001 Regie: Michael Haneke Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Juliet Wigmore

Sex, Violence and Schubert. Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste and Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Klavierspielerin The article examines Michael Haneke’s film adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek’s novel, Die Klavierspielerin. It considers the treatment of characters and plot, as well as the different narrative strategies used in the film and the novel. Particularly important in the film are piano music and the use of some shocking visual images. Both elements have greater impact in the film than does the description of similar content in the novel, producing some difference of emphasis. It is argued that the film provides a valid representation of the main ideas and ethical content of the novel, and that it does so using means that are especially successful in the film medium.

Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Die Klavierspielerin (‘The Piano Player’), published in 1983,1 provides the basis for Michael Haneke’s French-language film, La Pianiste (2001), entitled in its dubbed German version Die Klavierspielerin.2 The novel brought Jelinek acclaim and notoriety, with its attack on taboos: on the one hand, it presented a sexual content with a strongly sadomasochistic current, whilst on the other it attacked the values of the Viennese bourgeoisie and specifically its sacrosanct musical culture, which the author presents as competitive and beset by social hierarchies. The novel juxtaposed the high culture of musical activities with lower pursuits, particularly the protagonist’s penchant for pornography and sadomasochism. The piano teacher of the title, Erika Kohut, earns her living as a teacher at the Vienna conservatoire; in her private life, by contrast, she has a rigidly controlled and sometimes abusive relationship with her mother, seeks an outlet in furtive vicarious sexual activity in the form of voyeurism and finally attempts a sadomasochistic relationship with a pupil, which ends, predictably, in frustration and disaster. The novel rapidly became a bestseller and was well known by repute, if not in detail, by the time it reached the cinema. This essay examines the relationship between the novel and the film, focussing particularly on the means by which the cinematographic approach addresses the content and message of the novel. It also assesses the effects of alterations to the emphasis of Jelinek’s text.

* All translations are my own. 1 Elfriede Jelinek: Die Klavierspielerin. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 1983. The novel was translated into English by Joachim Neugroschel under the title The Piano Teacher. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1988. 2 To avoid confusion, in this article I shall refer to the film by its transparent French title, La Pianiste.

294 The novel appears at first sight to offer excellent opportunities for translation into the filmic medium, especially because events in the text are presented largely from the perspective of an external observer and are lent a highly visual quality. However, the narrative also comprises a wide-ranging and highly intertextualised commentary on Erika’s behaviour that is often ironic, together with trenchant social criticism. Indirect speech and thoughts of the characters frequently merge with the perspective of the narrator. In this way, the narrative position constantly shifts, something which cannot easily be conveyed in the cinema, for, as Georg Seesslen has expressed it: “In a single one of Jelinek’s sentences, one would have to change the position of the camera at least three times”.3 The film, by contrast, presents events entirely directly, without any intervening narrator: there are, for example, notably no voiceovers or explanatory flashbacks. As a result, information about Erika Kohut’s childhood and development in a household dominated by her mother and grandmother, for instance, is absent from the film. The protagonist, Erika, is seen entirely in the here and now and her exploits are presented unmediated with all the dramatic and confrontational means available to the cinema. Furthermore, in the novel the third person narrator imputes comments and thoughts to the characters, but there is no dialogue: the film’s dialogue is closely based on the reported speech and thoughts in the novel. The removal of the narrative commentary, which lends cohesion and places events in a social or psychological context, means that the filmic diegesis is concentrated on the dynamic action of the plot, especially the sexual and violent episodes in which Erika appears. In La Pianiste, these episodes make up most of the action; they demand that we, the spectators, construct explanations and psychological coherence from the events portrayed. Indeed, as in Haneke’s other films, notably Funny Games (1997), shock tactics are an important feature. As in the novel, the action of the film revolves around the central protagonist, Erika. Yet, in the novel, Erika’s behaviour is contextualised and is presented as being at least in part symptomatic of the society in which she lives, specifically Viennese bourgeois society. In the film, by contrast, the socially subversive messages have a less specific social target. Despite having been filmed on location in Vienna, with, for instance, German road signs occasionally visible in the background, the film presents a more general context. Nevertheless, Elfriede Jelinek herself did not feel that the less specific settings altered the message of the novel, and, interviewed about the film, she stated: “My writing is strongly directed

3

“In einem einzigen Jelinek-Satz müsste man, sozusagen, mindestens dreimal die Position der Kamera wechseln”. Georg Seesslen: Alltag und Katastrophe. Das Ding, der Körper, das Bild, die Sprache und das Grauen der Wirklichkeit. Anmerkungen zu den Filmen von Michael Haneke. In: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. Ed. by Stefan Grissemann. Vienna: Sonderzahl 2001. Pp. 193–212, here: p. 205.

295 towards the typical”.4 Whereas the novel alludes to specific Viennese landmarks and locations, such as Josefstadt, where Erika lives, and the Praterauen, where she conducts some of her ‘subversive’ activity, the action of the film takes place mainly in interior settings, with little local colour. These sets are mainly the practice rooms and concert hall at the music school where Erika teaches, public spaces such as an indoor shopping centre and a cinema, and private residences, including the flat where Erika lives with her mother and a much more opulent one where she first meets Walter Klemmer. In addition, allusions to the Viennese setting are reduced by the fact that the language of the film is French, creating a certain alienation effect. The foreign language causes displacement and reduces identification, so that the social taboos assailed in the film appear less culturespecific, despite the fact that some aspects of the society portrayed, especially the central role of music for the cultured bourgeoisie, are typical of Vienna. The film is essentially presented as culturally non-specific, or at least ‘European’. The screenplay largely follows the action and chronology of the novel. A confrontational atmosphere pervades the film and is associated with the person of Erika, who is rarely out of the frame. Low-key violence and a hint of transgression are suggested from the very first scene, when Erika arrives home at the flat that she shares with her mother, and is called to account for herself for arriving late. An argument occurs in which verbal abuse is followed by physical violence: in the ensuing quarrel, Erika tears out her elderly mother’s hair, only to repent later, whereupon they are reconciled. Erika’s behaviour, her attitude of resignation in particular, suggests that this is a familiar ritual. This scene introduces the theme of domestic violence and characterises the relationship between mother and daughter as volatile, a relationship in which Erika, though an adult and in a prestigious profession, as a piano teacher at the conservatoire, is hopelessly dependent on her mother. Nevertheless, the mother-daughter relationship has been played down by comparison with the novel. In the novel there is a direct reference by the narrator to the “generation conflict”,5 a reminder that Erika is in part a product of the 1960s. However, as the author has commented in an interview about the film, the mother-daughter confrontation would not be understood today as it was when the book was published in the early 1980s,6 a time when it was an important topic 4

Elfriede Jelinek attributes this effect particularly to the acting: “[M]eine Literatur ist ja stark typisierend, und Isabelle Huppert hat das eigentlich geschafft, durch diese extreme Starrheit eine Unverwechselbare und doch für viele zu stehen”. Stefan Grissemann and Christiane Zintzen: “daß dieser Film auch eine Rettung meiner Person ist”. Gespräch mit Elfriede Jelinek. See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. Pp. 119–136, here: p. 120. 5 The narrator refers explicitly to the “Generationskonflikt”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 262. 6 “Ich glaube, daß diese Mutter-Geschichte heute gar nicht mehr verstanden wird”. “[…] dass dieser Film auch eine Rettung meiner Person ist”. Gespräch mit Elfriede Jelinek. See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. P. 125.

296 in new feminist writing and theory, and was also reflected in films by directors such as Margarethe von Trotta, Helke Sander and Helma Sanders Brahms.7 In the film, as in the novel, Erika’s mother seeks to control her daughter’s life: in brief scenes where Erika does not appear, her mother is seen attempting to reach Erika by telephone, for instance, when she is visiting colleagues to play music in private houses. She also catches Erika out when she undertakes other, less salubrious activities. Nevertheless, despite her controlling effect upon Erika, the mother figure in the film, played by Annie Girardot, is more frail, both physically and mentally, than the seemingly robust figure in the novel. She is seen succumbing to the effects of an ever more frequent tipple, for instance, whereas in Jelinek’s novel she takes her first drink when matters come to a climax between Erika and Walter Klemmer. The reader of the novel is informed that she is unused to alcohol and hence its stronger effect.8 The mother figure’s increased weakness in the film makes Erika’s psychological dependence upon her appear more surprising and is a sign of Erika’s disturbed personality. Erika, the piano teacher of the title, played by Isabelle Huppert, is described by film critics as being in her 40s, somewhat older than in the novel, where she is 36. She is presented as a plain-looking middle-aged woman, dressed classically in a kilt and twin-set, or blouse and cardigan, and flat shoes, with a raincoat and headscarf for outdoors. Her everyday outfit is only varied when she performs in public, when she wears equally classic black and cream concert attire. Later, she makes minor modifications to her appearance, as she seeks the attentions of her pupil, Walter Klemmer. Yet even when she exchanges her white blouse for a pink one, or on one occasion replaces her usual headscarf with a jaunty red hat, the difference produced by these changes is toned down in relation to the description of her attire given in the novel, where the variation in her appearance receives more emphasis. The change she undergoes there, for instance, includes her dressing up for Klemmer in a tailored hiking outfit and wearing a cowboy hat.9 In the film, her clothing is a code for her monotonous life, including both her external circumstances and her internal repression. It suggests that there is no possibility of major change in Erika’s life. 7

Novels of that period which treat similar topics include, for instance: Anna Mitgutsch, Die Züchtigung (1984), Helga Novak, Die Eisheiligen (1979), and Elisabeth Reichart, Februarschatten (1984). For a discussion of relevant films of the 1970s and 1980s, see Jan Mouton: The Absent Mother makes an Appearance in the Films of West German Women Directors. Women in German Yearbook 4 (1988). Pp. 69–81. Examples of films portraying mother-daughter relationships include: Helke Sander, Die allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit (REDUPERS) (1977), Helma Sanders-Brahms, Deutschland bleiche Mutter (1979) and Margarethe von Trotta, Die bleierne Zeit (1981). 8 “[…] die Mutter schnarcht laut […] unter Einwirkung von ungewohntem Alkohol”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 290. 9 See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 257.

297 Indeed, the item of contention in the first scene between mother and daughter was a new dress, which Erika had bought without her mother’s permission, yet we never actually see her wearing anything as exotic as this new purchase is supposed to be. Instead, the film emphasises the monotony of her appearance. This aspect is reflected, too, in Erika’s normally impassive facial expression, against which the slightest flicker of change is conspicuous and meaningful. The consistency of Erika’s outer appearance, by comparison with the descriptions given in the novel, is an acknowledgement of the visual impact of the filmic medium. While the mother’s role is downplayed in the film, the presence of Erika’s student, Walter Klemmer, is stronger than it is in the novel. Indeed, he brings “the requisite cinematic dynamism” to the action, needed in order to appeal to a younger public.10 A gifted amateur pianist, Klemmer persuades the conservatoire to accept him as a pupil, despite Erika’s best efforts to exclude him by suggesting at the competitive audition that he is too old to become a professional pianist and that his talents are nothing exceptional. These scenes are developed in the film and are not present in the novel. They provide a concrete and specific exemplification of an idea that pervades the novel: that the music profession is exclusive, competitive and hierarchical. More obviously than in the novel, too, such episodes reflect the general social environment. These ‘exclusions’ are shown graphically, starting for instance in an early scene where Erika first meets Walter Klemmer. As she and her mother enter the lift in an apartment block on their way to an élite soirée, Erika deliberately shuts the door on Walter, who proceeds to leap up the stairs to arrive at the same venue. Such scenes evoke a destructive, exclusive and competitive milieu. At the level of the interaction between Erika and Klemmer, they also suggest that she wishes to present him with a challenge that reflects the difficulty for her of developing any personal relationship and, as becomes increasingly evident, that she subverts any possibility of achieving what she actually desires. The audition scene reveals Erika’s controlling personality, and in this respect she is not unlike her mother. Indeed, her evident intention to place as many obstacles in the way of her pupils as possible, for no obvious reason, is perhaps less a matter of maintaining musical standards and more a manifestation of the lesson her mother has taught her. For her mother’s attitude is that, since Erika has not succeeded in becoming a famous performer, she should discourage her pupils from outshining her: “No one is to surpass you”, she says in the film,11 a reflection of her thought process in the novel, “you didn’t succeed, so why 10

Stefan Grissemann refers to the character’s “kinotaugliche Dynamik”, to which Elfrede Jelinek adds, “sicher, das ist für ein junges Publikum wahrscheinlich die einzige Verständnismöglichkeit”. See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. P. 132. 11 “Personne ne doit te surpasser”. Michael Haneke: La Pianiste. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma 2001. P. 16.

298 should others do so instead of you, and of all things, students from your own pianistic stable?”.12 Despite the antagonism she displays at the audition, Erika’s facial expression suggests that she is responsive to the attractive Walter Klemmer, played by Benoît Magimel. He is good-looking and athletic, and his interests are not confined to music; he is also a sportsman and studies at the Technical University. By contrast with Erika, in other words, his interests appear to be ‘normal’ for a man of his age, a “counter to the old establishment”.13 He is indeed much younger than Erika, apparently in his early twenties. The age difference has been significantly increased in the film to about twenty years, compared with the ten year gap given in the novel. That in turn makes the relationship between the two characters more unusual, with a hint of deviancy. This polarisation of the protagonists is an element that contributes to making the film “a parody of a melodrama”, as Haneke has called it. It is reflected, too, in the antagonistic relationship between the weak mother and her obstreperous daughter, which is stronger in the film than in the novel. Among the allusions to classic melodrama are the domestic setting as the scene of violence and potential violence, the restricted interiors, which give rise to a sense of claustrophobia, and the fact that the film concentrates on a female protagonist. Thomas Elsaesser’s analysis of the genre is reflected in some features of this film, for instance, notably when he comments that melodrama seems capable of reproducing more directly than other genres the patterns of domination and exploitation existing in a given society, especially the relation between psychology, morality and class-consciousness, by emphasising so clearly an emotional dynamic whose social correlative is a network of external forces directed oppressingly inward, and with which the characters themselves unwittingly collude to become their agents.14

In calling La Pianiste “a parody of a melodrama”, however, the director expresses his belief that this is no conventional film, and especially not a traditional ‘women’s film’. In particular, he highlights the absence of psychological motivation, which also distinguishes it from the novel on which it is based: I regard my film as a parody of a melodrama, in the same way as the novel is a sort of parody of the classic psychological novel. […] The film does not give explanations, 12

“Du selbst hast es nicht geschafft, warum sollen es jetzt andere an deiner Stelle und auch noch aus deinem pianistischen Stall?”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 15. 13 Thomas Assheuer: Komm, bleib mir fern. Das Leben als Misshandlung. Michael Haneke verfilmt Elfriede Jelineks “Die Klavierspielerin”. Die Zeit Feuilleton 42 (2001). http://www.zeit.de/2001/42/kultur/print_200142_klavierspielerin.html (accessed 18 September 2003). 14 Thomas Elsaesser: Tales of Sound and Fury. Observations on the Family Melodrama (1972). In: Home is where the Heart is. Studies in Melodrama and Women’s Film. Ed. by Christine Gledhill. London: BFI Publishing 1987. Pp. 43–69, here: P. 64.

299 and that may make it provocative or unsettling, although the contexts presented are intended to allow the characters to appear more plausible and as figures with whom one can identify to a greater extent than in the novel.15

In the same interview, Haneke highlights the absence of information about Erika’s childhood and indications of how she has become the person she is. In classic cinematic melodrama, music frequently plays an important role in creating atmosphere, and indeed reflecting the mood of the protagonists.16 In La Pianiste, the parodic style can be perceived not least in the fact that the use of music is often ironic and highlights the social strains portrayed. As the title suggests, music plays a central role and contributes greatly to the impact of the film. The French title of the film, La Pianiste, is an ironic reminder of Erika’s failure, for she has not succeeded in becoming the professional pianist implied by the title. Whilst the title of the German novel and the dubbed version of the film, Die Klavierspielerin (‘The Piano Player’) is non-committal, arousing curiosity, the English title, The Piano Teacher, takes up the opposite position from that implied by the French original, yet still ironically understates the complexity of Erika’s position. The French title itself has, furthermore, an alienating effect, since the feminine article, though grammatically acceptable, is still felt by many French speakers to be a neologism or a little contrived. The distancing effect is further supported by the higher register of much of the French dialogue. Elfriede Jelinek herself trained as a musician and her novel contains many musical allusions, especially to pieces with a verbal component, notably Schubert’s Lieder. The music in the novel thereby often becomes the equivalent of a literary intertextual allusion and has implications for the way we interpret Erika’s psychological make-up in particular. In the film, the impact of music is more direct, as it accompanies the action. It affects the way the spectator interprets the film, as well as giving an external reflection of Erika’s own thought processes. Most of the music in the film is diegetic, synchronous with the action and motivated by it: it occurs particularly in the context of music lessons or recitals. Indeed, Isabelle Huppert herself actually plays the piano in the role of Erika.17 The pieces

15

“Ich halte meinen Film für die Parodie eines Melodrams, so wie der Roman eine Art Parodie des klassischen psychologischen Romans ist. […] Der Film verweigert Erklärungen, das mag ihn provokant oder beunruhigend machen, obwohl er versucht, seine Figuren aus den Situationen heraus nachvollziehbarer, identifizierbarer zu machen, als das im Roman geschieht”. Michael Haneke and Stefan Grissemann: “[…] einen Film zu drehen, der zugleich komisch und scheußlich ist”. Michael Haneke im Gespräch. See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. Pp. 175–190, here: p. 179. 16 See: Thomas Elsaesser. Pp. 50–51. 17 Isabelle Huppert: Interview with Christopher Cook. Regus London Film Festival interviews 11 November 2001. http://www.kino.com/pianoteacher/piano_huppint.html (accessed 14 January 2004).

300 heard are mostly mentioned in the novel. However, in the film, certain significant musical passages play a more important role, and music has a variety of functions. Initially, music is the hook which draws the spectator into the film; it consists mostly of well known pieces, it is attractive, and it represents the higher minded side of Erika’s public persona. It has a structuring function, creating a context which prepares for the shock effect of seeing the baser side of Erika’s character. As the film progresses, the music is heard less frequently as more brutal and subversive aspects come to predominate. Music characterises the public context within which Erika operates: the polite and cultured bourgeois environment, which is in fact beset by competition, where musical prowess is a means of self-advertisement and social climbing. Nevertheless, on a few notable occasions, the musical accompaniment to Erika’s actions occurs intra-diegetically, in the mind of Erika herself, when, for instance, it carries over from one scene to another. In such cases, it helps to set off two scenes against one another. In one of the most notorious episodes, Erika is first observed playing a trio in a private house, a highly respectable out-ofhours activity. As she leaves, the music continues, as if still in her thoughts, and characterising her mood, as she walks swiftly through a shopping centre and arrives at what appears to be one of her familiar haunts, a sex shop. The music continues, as she waits her turn in front of the girlie magazines, where there is an obvious clash between the aesthetic musical world of high culture and the lower life associated with the visual images in the background and, as will be seen, with Erika’s voyeurism. The music stops abruptly after she enters a video cabin and selects a porn film. The sex-shop episode tells us much about Erika, not least through her body language: on her way there, she dusts invisible contamination off her raincoat, when she brushes against a passer-by. In the video cabin, she keeps her gloves on, part of a recurrent code: throughout the film, the camera repeatedly focuses on the hands, a reminder of the physicality of the pianist. The video cabin intensifies the sense of enclosure and claustrophobia that pervades the film and reflects Erika’s life. Indeed, even episodes which in the novel take place out of doors have interior settings in the film, including the shopping centre where the sex shop is located. By contrast, in the book the episode involves a sortie by tram to a distant suburb. The critic Christoph Huber has commented on the film: In The Piano Teacher, the director sends his protagonist through a series of spaces, which are all prisons, almost uninhabitable spaces, in which it seems that people only spend time because they are compelled to for the sake of etiquette and through the force of habit. These are spaces where, however many people are present, the individual is alone.18 18

“In Die Klavierspielerin schickt Regisseur Michael Haneke seine Heldin durch eine Serie von Räumen, die alle Gefängnisse sind, unbewohnbar fast, Räume, in denen man sich, scheint es, nur aufhält, weil es Etikette und Gewohnheit gebieten, aber egal wie

301 Jelinek herself connects this use of space to Erika’s wasted life: “If one does not live, one is imprisoned, and one’s punishment is that one becomes one’s own prison”.19 In the novel, by contrast, most of the scenes set out of doors occur in passages about Erika’s youth which have been omitted from the film. In the sex shop scene, we, the spectators, become aware of our situation as voyeurs, watching Erika watching the video sex scenes, and we are thereby cast in a parallel role to Erika, who is always watching, though seldom a participant. Yet the viewer’s position is not identical to Erika’s. Whilst she delves into the world of consumable pornography as an attempt to arouse feelings that she otherwise lacks, the viewer derives vicarious pleasure of a different kind in visiting this locale which, especially for females, is usually out-of-bounds. The spectator observes and assesses Erika’s behaviour; the different positions of the spectator and of Erika become clear when Erika picks up a “still moist”20 tissue (which in the novel is explicitly stated to be encrusted with dried sperm21 ) from the waste-bin in the video cabin, holds it to her nose and breathes in deeply, as if savouring the moment. At this point, the viewer’s reaction is one of disgust, distance from Erika and a certain degree of shock. This scene reveals the clash of low and high culture, reflected in the incongruity of Erika’s behaviour, as the respectable, still well-dressed piano-teacher enters this low dive in search of what is lacking in her life. The classical musical accompaniment to the beginning and end of the scene draws attention to this polarisation. A later scene reveals further implications of Erika’s voyeurism. In the novel the setting is out of doors, in Vienna’s Praterauen at night, where Erika is presented as a hunter in search of prey. The corresponding episode in the film takes place in the crowded car park of a drive-in cinema. This time, it is the audience on screen who watch sex scenes on the open-air screen, whereas Erika appears to be in pursuit of something specific. Eventually she finds a young couple having sex in a car and her excitement is so great that she is obliged to squat down beside the car and relieve herself. Her dignity is undermined when she is, quite literally, viele Menschen darin sind, ist man immer doch nur bei sich selbst”. Christoph Huber: Ins Fleisch: Komödie der Grausamkeit. http://www.diepresse.com/default.asp? channel⫽k&ressort⫽kf&id⫽259430 (accessed 18 September 2003). 19 Elfriede Jelinek: Im Lauf der Zeit. (Introduction to the film). See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. Pp. 115–117, here: p. 115. In the original, Elfriede Jelinek plays on the word ‘vergehen’, meaning both to commit a crime and also to pass of time: “[…] jedes Leben, auch das eigene, vergeht, während man sich noch diesen oder jenen Film auf der Leinwand anschaut. Das eine Vergehen, das im Film, kann man berechnen, das des eigenen Lebens nicht. Wenn man selbst also ein Vergehen begeht und nicht lebt, kommt man ins Gefängnis, das man dann zur Strafe auch noch selber sein muss”. My italics, indicating the section quoted in the text. 20 “une mouchoir encore humide”. See: Michael Haneke: La Pianiste. P. 33. 21 “Erika hebt ein vom Sperma ganz zusammengebackenes Papiertuch vom Boden auf und hält es vor die Nase”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 68.

302 caught with her pants down and is noticed by the people she has been watching. The young man who emerges from the car is in turn hindered by his underpants which cling to ankles. In this scene it appears that Erika’s voyeuristic interests, sex on screen, are shared by others. Yet, as well as the parallel, there is a contrast between Erika and these young people, who practise what Erika is deprived of, sex. The details of this scene diverge from the novel, where the couple on whom she spies are a Turkish man and an Austrian prostitute. Erika pours scorn on the foreign worker, maintaining her distance to the object of her voyeurism. The change in the film not only enhances the parallel and contrast between Erika and the younger couple, but it also avoids any undue racist overtones, which would only distract from the focus of the film.22 In the film as in the novel, Erika is forced to make a hasty escape. As she walks quickly away, music by Schubert is heard, suggesting her attempt to regain some dignity. In this episode, as in the sex shop scene, the music to some extent fulfils a parallel role to the ironic prose of the novel. This clash also reflects remarks by Haneke about the obscene in relation to La Pianiste. He stated in an interview that he wanted to make an ‘obscene’film, by which, as he explains, he means one that shows socially unacceptable behaviour and ideas. He explicitly distinguishes the obscene from the pornographic: Obscene means everything that is not admissible in society. Pornography, by contrast, attempts to make the obscene into a consumer product. The film presents a psychological attitude that is not ‘allowed’ and for that reason alone it can be called obscene.23

In La Pianiste, Haneke uses pornographic conventions and occasionally pornographic materials, such as the videos and the magazines seen in the sex shop, as one means – but not the only one – of creating an ‘obscene’ effect, with the aim of jolting the spectator to think outside the usual framework. To this extent Haneke’s intention is consonant with the effects of the pornographic descriptions in the novel, which are filtered through the narrator’s distanced, often ironic perspective. The musical focus of the plot also provides a context in which we see how Erika behaves towards her pupils. She bullies them, exerting her power and asserting her status. We see her demanding that her pupils display self-discipline 22

It is also unlikely that Haneke, a left-wing sympathiser, would wish to show racism in such a context. His film Code Unknown (2000) deals with the problem of racism and the plight of illegal immigrants. 23 “Das Problem bei dem Film […] ist ja dieses: Wie drehe ich einen obszönen Film, ohne einen pornographischen zu machen? Wäre er pornographisch geworden, hätte sich ein Großteil der Zuschauer nur mit den expliziten Elementen befaßt. […] Obszön ist all das, was sozial nicht zugelassen ist. Pornographie dagegen versucht, das Obszöne konsumierbar zu machen. Der Film beschreibt eine psychische Haltung, die nicht “zugelassen”\ ist: Schon darum ist er auch obszön”. See: Haneke / Jelinek. Die Klavierspielerin. Drehbuch. Pp. 175–191, here: p. 191. My italics, indicating the section quoted in the text.

303 both in their playing and in their lives.24 Out of spite, she criticises a pupil mercilessly, not just because of his playing but mainly because she has seen him looking at a poster for a soft porn film, and she seizes the opportunity to humiliate him, suggesting the deep-rooted hypocrisy in Erika’s behaviour. Indeed, she understands the adolescent’s ‘real’ interests (in sex) because they correspond to her own infantile psychology. Erika’s brutality towards her pupils is seen at its most extreme in her malicious behaviour towards a pupil called Anna Schober. Although Anna is one of her best students and has been chosen to play in a school concert, she is very nervous and Walter Klemmer attempts to reassure her. For reasons that the spectators are left to surmise, Erika takes revenge on Anna in the form of physical injury to the young pianist’s hand. Whilst Anna is performing, Erika marches out of the hall to the cloakroom. She sits for a full minute, her back to the camera, contemplating the scene. Finally, she breaks a drinking glass and places the shards in Anna’s coat pocket. We, the spectators, follow her actions from a position behind her and see the action as if through Erika’s eyes and complicit with her, a position which makes the spectator uncomfortable. When Anna later returns to the cloakroom and puts her hand in her pocket, she is injured, shocked and scarred. Why does Erika do this? Perhaps she is jealous of Walter’s attentions, or perhaps she is angry because Anna shows such a lack of self-discipline. Perhaps it is because she wishes to destroy the emergent pianist and ensure that she fails, as Erika herself has failed. These open questions are prompted in the spectator by the incongruity and unacceptability of Erika’s actions. Although Erika’s behaviour is extreme, her situation is not unique. Indeed, like Erika, Anna has a pushy mother, who sees Anna’s musical talent as being the only way her rather ordinary looking daughter will ever get on in life. This parallel structure, a device typical of the melodrama, and one which is merely hinted at in the novel, helps to suggest that Erika is not completely individual, but is to some extent a representative product of society more widely. The parallel between the two musicians, Erika and Anna, is indeed highlighted by the fact that in the film both are pianists, whereas in the novel Anna is a flautist. Erika’s foiling of Anna’s opportunity to shine is a sign of how her psychotic side is getting the upper hand and makes her destroy the musician who seems to be a reflection of her own younger self. A piece of music which recurs throughout the film is Schubert’s song cycle, Die Winterreise (‘Winter’s Journey’). From the first music lesson, in scene 2, 24

It suggests to the viewer the strict rules imposed by her mother, even though the film is less explicit about this than the novel. There, the narrator comments, from a position close to Erika’s: “in dieses Notensystem ist Erika seit frühester Kindheit eingespannt. Dieses Raster hat sie, im Verein mit ihrer Mutter in ein unzerreißbares Netz von Vorschriften, Verordnungen, von präzisen Geboten geschürt […]”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 237.

304 where Erika is seen and heard drumming it into her pupil, we repeatedly hear snatches of the song “Im Dorf ” (‘The Village’). Despite its attractive quality, its constant repetition eventually perhaps reflects the attitude of the piano teacher, who is no doubt sick to death of hearing her students practise it in less than perfect renditions. Certain lines are heard repeatedly: “The dogs are barking, their chains are rattling / Villagers are asleep in their beds”.25 The simplicity of Müller’s lyrics begin to sound banal through repetition. Nevertheless, this song cycle, which is a favourite of Erika’s, is loaded with meaning. The words sung by the tenor whom the unfortunate Anna is supposed to accompany have previously been heard spoken by Erika at the end of the scene where she first meets Walter Klemmer: “they dream of many things they lack / indulge their longings for good and bad”.26 The final words of this piece, “I’ve abandoned all my dreaming”,27 first heard at the end of the scene in the sex shop, suggest Erika’s longing and lack of fulfilment. The song cycle itself concerns a journey undertaken in sorrow and expressing a sense of loss. In relation to the novel, a psychologist has interpreted the references to these musical passages as a reflection of Erika’s psychological inadequacy relating to the loss of her father and her subsequent dependence on her mother, with whom she is forced to act out the role of the absent father.28 In the film, however, this aspect is much less in evidence, and her father is only mentioned briefly. Nevertheless, the loss of this dimension, through the removal of information relating to Erika’s younger self, is compensated for by other, direct and more cinematic, material, especially music, which provides a similar function. The clash between the pretentiously aesthetic situations and Erika’s sleazy inclinations becomes stronger as the relationship between Erika and Walter Klemmer develops. Music, which originally brings the two together and expresses higher aspirations, gives way to increasingly intense scenes in which sex and violence come together, and music is heard less. Whilst Erika insists on subtle renderings of classical piano music from her pupils, her predilection for sadomasochism becomes increasingly evident. Erika’s voyeurism, something often associated, since Freud, with sadism,29 can be interpreted as resulting from 25

“Es bellen die Hunde, / es rasseln die Ketten, / Es schlafen die Menschen, / In ihren Betten”. 26 “träumen sich manches, was sie nicht haben, tun sich im Guten und Argen erlaben”. Quoted in the screenplay. See: Michael Haneke: La Pianiste. Scene 5. P. 28. 27 “ich bin zu Ende mit allen Träumen”. See: Michael Haneke: La Pianiste. P. 28. 28 Annegret Mahler-Bungers: Der Trauer auf der Spur. Zu Elfriede Jelineks ‘Die Klavierspielerin’. In: Freiburger Literaturpsychologische Gespräche. Bd. 7: Masochismus in der Literatur. Ed. by Johannes Cremerius, Wolfgang Mauser, Carl Pietzcker & Frederick Wyatt. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1988. Pp. 80–95. 29 See, for instance, Laura Mulvey’s classic article: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In: Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. by Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan.

305 Erika’s own strictly controlled life. Underlying it is a masochistic tendency, revealed first in her self-harm and suggested, too, by her willing submission to her mother. In this area there is, nevertheless, some difference between the novel and the film. For in the novel, where there is more explanatory background, Erika’s sadomasochistic behaviour is more evidently part of an identity problem. In particular, as several interpretations have shown, in the absence of a father figure, she has been compelled to take on the “phallic” role in relation to her mother, a role that she, as a woman, cannot properly fulfil. As Elfriede Jelinek herself commented, “It’s like a relay race – the phallus is handed on to the daughter, who then has to be the father”.30 In the film, on the other hand, Erika’s sadomasochistic personality is presented more directly and therefore contributes to the shock effect. Her disturbed personality is revealed, for instance, in a scene near the end when, frustrated by her inability to express her real desires to Walter Klemmer, she launches a sexual attack on her mother in the marriage bed that they share. This scene is more explicitly sexual in the film. It parallels the fight between mother and daughter at the beginning of the film, and it helps to convey the idea of Erika as fulfilling the role vacated by her father. The scene in the film thereby partially compensates for the omission of the background information presented in the novel. The first sexual encounter between Erika and Klemmer follows on immediately from the scene where Erika puts glass into Anna’s pocket. It is as if this cruel act has aroused a sense of excitement in her. As in the earlier scene in the drive-in cinema, where she spies on a couple having sex, her response once again is an urgent need to urinate. She goes to the students’ toilets, followed by Walter. There, Erika seeks to assert her power over him, by leading him on and then leaving him frustrated. As in the novel, Erika keeps him at a distance, refusing to allow him to kiss her or touch her. Afterwards, she writes him a letter setting out her masochistic fantasies, and she insists that he read it. At first he reacts with shock and disbelief at what she has written and refuses to countenance the acts she suggests. Yet later, as a result of this taunting, Klemmer, who feels humiliated, finally returns to do what she asks, hitting her and then raping her. This is the consequence and the culmination of the sex and violence which have hitherto been kept separate, not least because of Erika’s distance to Blackwell: Malden, Mass. and Oxford 1998. Pp. 585–595, esp. Pp. 591–592 (orig. Screen 1975). 30 “Das ist wie beim Stafettenlauf, der Phallus wird an die Tochter vergeben, die jetzt der Vater zu sein hat”. Elfriede Jelinek im Gespräch mit Adolf-Ernst Meyer. In: Elfriede Jelinek, Jutta Heinrich & Adolf-Ernst Meyer: Sturm und Zwang. Schreiben als Geschlechterkampf. Hamburg: Ingrid Klein Vlg. 1995. Pp. 7–74, here: p. 51. Jelinek’s remark on the film echoes the novel: “Nach vielen harten Ehejahren erst kam Erika damals auf die Welt. Sofort gab der Vater den Stab an seine Tochter weiter”. See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 7.

306 everything. Yet the violent act is an anticlimax. Although we see Klemmer hit Erika, the climax of the violence is off screen: as he kicks her, we see only the motions of his upper body and the outcome – her face covered in blood. When he then rapes her, the event is low-key, because Erika hardly responds, indicating that she still does not feel anything. The final scene of the film differs a little from the novel both in its actual representation and in its implications. In the novel, Erika sets off alone, wearing an unattractive old dress, armed with a kitchen knife, in search of Klemmer. It is made clear that she has not decided whether to murder Klemmer or to throw herself at his feet.31 When she does find him, he does not even notice her. She then turns the knife on herself and, bloodied and humiliated, limps home through the streets of Vienna to her mother. The reader may assume that she will revert to her old life with her mother and all will continue as before. In the film, the outcome is a little different. Erika, dressed formally, takes a kitchen knife and sets off with her mother to play in a concert at the music school, where she is standing in for Anna. Erika is alone when Klemmer arrives and gives her a cheery wave. As they enter the concert hall, Erika turns the knife on herself, stabbing herself in the shoulder, and blood oozes forth: it is a tangible representation of her self-loathing, expressed visually in the shedding of her own blood, a crypto-suicide. It can be interpreted as an intensified replay of an earlier scene in which she indulged in self-harm, mutilating her genitals with a razor blade. Having stabbed herself, Erika leaves the conservatoire building: it is uncertain where she will go, but her departure is clearly a dereliction of her duty and suggests that she may be harming herself more than just physically. By not playing at the concert, she is deliberately discarding the only social status she has. At this point she is temporarily separated from her mother, whose humiliation will presumably follow Erika’s. Her absence from the concert also highlights the parallel between Erika and Anna, neither of whom will now play in the concert, as a result of Erika’s destructiveness. In the final shots, Erika has left the frame, and only the constant drone of traffic is heard, as it passes in front of the conservatoire, suggesting that the monotonous life that is normality continues with or without Erika. The ending is an anti-climax and a further factor in the parody of a melodrama. Although it is more open than that of the novel, this ending is no less pessimistic and is dominated by a sense of pathos. Michael Haneke’s statement that he wanted to make an obscene film is reflected in the many cultural clashes which parallel the conflicting tendencies in Erika’s personality. Haneke has used the impact of visual and audial means available to the film to create and intensify the sense of cultural disturbances present in the novel. Although the emphasis and tenor of the film are different, the fundamental despair in Erika’s situation emerges with similar impact. 31

See: Die Klavierspielerin. P. 347.

Susan Tebbutt

Intermediality and the Intercultural Dimension in Karin Brandauer’s Film Sidonie based on Erich Hackl’s Abschied von Sidonie The study of intermediality and the intercultural dimension in Karin Brandauer’s film Sidonie (1990), based on Erich Hackl’s meticulously researched work Abschied von Sidonie (1989), yields insights into the cultural reverberations of anti-Gypsyism. Whilst it is difficult to convey all the book’s complex historical references to Austria’s least researched ethnic minority group, the Romanies, and specifically the real case of the eponymous young central figure, Gypsy Sidonie Adlersburg, who is deported to Auschwitz, where she perishes, the film appeals to both the intellect and the emotions of viewers. When it comes to presenting anti-Gypsyism, however, the polarization in the film of the victim and the persecutors results in a loss of differentiation compared to the sources. Similarly, the intercultural dimension of the film oversimplifies complex shades of racism and class issues in Austria in the 1930s. Nevertheless, the film has contributed substantially to increasing awareness of the genocide of Europe’s Romanies during the Nazi period, and specifically the post-war reactions of Austrian officials to the question of memorialisation. Brandauer’s Sidonie has thus widened the appeal of Hackl’s work, and spin-off effects include the erection of a sculpture to Sidonie and the naming of a Kindergarten after her.

Intermediality and Romany Studies Intermediality is a close relative of intertextuality.1 The former revolves round the intersection of any combination of different media, whereas in the strict sense the latter revolves round the interplay of two or more texts. Intermediality may be intentionally visible and explicit, as, say, in the case of a clip or sequence from one film being used in another, or a poem or story being quoted in a film. It may, however, be an underlying element of the construction of a work, where the author or director uses other sources to produce a work, or bases the form on another genre. Here the seamless fusion of one source into another may mean that it is almost impossible to perceive the intermedial traces, palimpsests or reverberations of another work. Studying intermediality involves the spaces between the media, the synergies generated by the intersection of two or more media. It is an under-researched field, whose significance is generally taken to be literary or cultural, but may also 1

See Thomas Eicher: Intermedialität: Vom Bild zum Text. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 1994, and Intermedialität: Theorie und Praxis eines interdisziplinären Forschungsgebiets. Ed. by Jörg Helbig. Berlin: Erich Schmidt 1998, for two of the few studies.

308 be linguistic and political. If, for example, Nazi reports are quoted verbatim in a novel or film, the twenty-first century reader or viewer would note that this language and style was not that of the present-day narrator or director. It would also be evident that the ideology was at loggerheads with present thinking. Any study of intermediality must focus not only on the two or more types of media that intersect, but on the sum of their parts and their cumulative impact. Rather than merely chart the similarities and divergences in two or more works, it is helpful to map these interconnections and examine their function and impact. In the last twenty years there have been a number of studies of images of Romanies, Europe’s single largest ethnic minority group, but they have tended to focus on literature or film,2 but seldom the intersection of the two. Yet for Romany studies intermediality has had a very significant function in the dissemination of misconceptions, preconceptions and stereotypical notions of the ‘Gypsy’. One inaccurate picture is carried forward by the ‘redeveloper’, changed, recoloured and often restructured, but seldom stripped of its anti-Gypsy message. The opposite is the norm. The act of reconfiguring the already misguided image of the Romany intensifies the impression that Romanies are part of a semi-mythical, threatening community. From Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame came Walt Disney’s highly popular animated film Esmeralda; from Prosper Mérimée’s Carmen came Bizet’s opera and the numerous other variations of the ‘Carmen’ story. In her study of the Carmen myth and the relationship between literary texts and the performing arts Gould (1996)3 devotes a chapter to four film readaptations of the story, but her intermediality-based interpretation merely reinforces images of Romanies as unpoliticised, romanticised or demonised figures. Such figures bear little relationship to the real lives of Romanies. The works under scrutiny here offer rare insights into real lives and the persecution of the Romanies under the Nazis, which culminated in the genocide of some half a million of Europe’s Romanies. Much interest has been generated by a limited number of works of fiction and films dealing with this period produced by writers from a number of countries – such as the following three novels, Moris Farhi’s Children of the Rainbow (1999),4 Polish author Jerzy Kosinski’s The 2

See Claudia Breger: Ortlosigkeit des Fremden: “Zigeunerinnen” und “Zigeuner” in der deutschsprachigen Literatur um 1800. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau 1998, for an overview of nineteenth century images, and Susan Tebbutt: Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-speaking Society and Literature. New York, Oxford: Berghahn 1998, and translated into German, Susan Tebbutt: Sinti und Roma in der deutschsprachigen Gesellschaft und Literatur. Frankfurt/Main: Lang 2001, for insights into twentieth century images. See Dina Iordanova: Guest editor: Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 44.2 (Fall 2003). Special Edition on “Cinematic Images of Romanies”, for the first major study of images of Romanies in cinema. 3 Evelyn Gould: The Fate of Carmen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1996. 4 Moris Farhi: Children of the Rainbow. London: Saqi 1999.

309 Painted Bird (1965),5 and Austrian author Ludwig Laher’s novel Herzfleischentartung (2001),6 and Karin Brandauer’s film (1999) about Austrian Romany Ceija Stojka,7 but the first instance of a book and a film dealing with the genocide of the Romanies is award-winning Austrian author Erich Hackl’s Erzählung entitled Abschied von Sidonie (1989), translated into English as Farewell Sidonia (1990) and made into a film in 1990 entitled Sidonie by the late Karin Brandauer, produced for ORF and the Bayerischer Rundfunk, with screenplay by Hackl himself.8 In the late 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century there is finally an awareness in Austria of the genocide of the Romanies, and there have been quite a substantial number of historical, political and social studies, but now research into literary and media representations is also accelerating, not least because of the resonance of works like Abschied von Sidonie and Sidonie. Together the book and film have helped to make the general Austrian public more conscious of the existence in their midst of Romanies, whether they form part of the autochthonous minority or are immigrants from other countries. Some critics have described the eponymous central character, the innocent young Romany Sidonie Adlersburg, as the ‘Anne Frank’ of the Romany world. Sidonie is abandoned by her natural parents who are unable to look after her, is then adopted by an Austrian family and later deported to Auschwitz.

Intermediality and Ideology Before looking at the intercultural dimension of the book and film, I would like to look first at the broader issue of intermediality and ideology.9 In the preliminary stage of the conception of Abschied von Sidonie, when the different sources are

5

Jerzy Kosinski: The Painted Bird. New York: Grove Press, 1st publ. 1965, 2nd ed. with introduction by the author, 1976. 6 Ludwig Laher: Herzfleischentartung. Innsbruck: Haymon 2001. See Susan Tebbutt: The Politicised Pastoral Idyll in Ludwig Laher’s “Heimatroman” Herzfleischentartung. In: Cityscapes and Countryside in Contemporary German Writing. Ed. by Julian Preece and Osman Durrani. Oxford: Lang 2004. Pp. 291–306, for an analysis of the importance of the landscape in the novel. 7 Karin Berger, Dir.: CEJKA STOJKA ⭈ Austria, 1999, Camera Jerzy Palacz, Navigator Films, 85 minutes. 8 Karin Brandauer, Dir.: Sidonie, ⭈ ORF/ZDF, Matthias Film, with Arghavan SadeghiSeragi, Kitty Speiser, Georg Marin, Micha Reisober, Manfred Breitner. Colour, part black and white, 87 minutes. See http://www.krapp-gutknecht.de/Produkte/Literatur/Sidonie/ BSP_Fabel.htm (accessed 11.11.2005), http://berg.heim.at/tibet/450508/Abschiedvon-Sidonie.htm (accessed 11.11.2005), and http://www.holocaust-education.de/news/ stories/storyReader$107 (accessed 11.11.2005). 9 See Robert Ferguson: Representing “Race”: Ideology, identity and the media. London: Arnold 1998.

310 being intertwined, the ideological position adopted by the narrator towards the material is crucial. It is difficult to separate out the genesis of the book and the screenplay. Hackl (1954–), who first encountered hostility towards Gypsies while teaching in Spain, became more aware of the similar levels of anti-Gypsyism when he returned to his native Austria, but did not immediately begin to research the history of Romanies. As is often the case in instances of intermediality, the intersections happened by chance – it was in researching the resistance movement in Austria that he first learnt of Hans Breirather in conversation with activist Franz Draber from Steyr. During interrogations by the Gestapo Franz had been asked to identify Hans. The conversation then turned to Hans’ fosterdaughter, Sidonie, and the Romanies, who, like the Jews, were also persecuted by the Nazi regime. Hackl was planning a radio collage of people talking about 1934 in Steyr. “I accumulated more and more relevant material, recordings, newspaper articles, reports by the Upper Austrian Headquarters of National Security”.10 From this developed his interest in the true story of one Sidonie Adlersburg, a Romany girl abandoned by her mother outside Steyr hospital, taken in by Austrian foster parents, but later rounded up and deported to Auschwitz, where she perished. Following in the tradition of Kleist and his emphasis on verifiable historical events, Hackl looked at many sources – material in the Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, archives in the Steyr Vereinsdruckerei, photographs, museum publications, Red Cross reports, newspapers and oral accounts. He first wrote an article entitled “Das Schweigen um Sidonie Adlersburg”, which was printed in the Wiener Tagebuch (October 1986), and then wrote Nachforschungen über Sidonie Adlersburg, which appeared in Hallo, a free Austrian Gewerkschaftsjugend periodical.11 His problem was precisely that he wanted to create a piece of universal literature and an authentic documentation of specific events, but did not want to mention all the original sources as though it were an academic document complete with footnotes and bibliography. “I wanted both – a narrative of universal relevance and an authentic story that is binding for the town, the region, the country”.12 When the work was finished he handed in the screenplay in the hope that Austrian Television would accept this politically-charged, powerful exposure of the dangers of narrow-minded, racist ideals. 10

“Immer mehr zeitgeschichtliches Material häufte sich bei mir an, Tonbandabschriften, Zeitungsartikel, Lageberichte der oberösterreichischen Sicherheitsdirektion”. Ursula Baumhauer: “Abschied von Sidonie” von Erich Hackl: Materialien zu einem Buch und seiner Geschichte. Zurich: Diogenes 2000. P. 9. 11 Hallo: Die Zeitschrift der Gewerkschaftsjugend 11 (November 1986). 12 “Ich wollte doch beides haben – eine Erzählung, die universelle Gültigkeit erlangt, eine authentische Geschichte, die verbindlich wird für den Ort, die Region, das Land”. Baumhauer: “Abschied von Sidonie”. P. 13.

311 The critic Reimer (2000) argues that because both book and film combine “the objective tone of fairy tale and historical chronicle with the outcry of a political polemic, they lead the audience to the unexpected”.13 I would take issue with this analysis. There is nothing of the fairy tale in either, and neither purport to present a ‘historical chronicle’. Nor do I feel that the audience is led towards the unexpected, although in the case of the film, the final scene deliberately recalls the opening shots where Hans is in a train and remembers seeing Sidonie. The death of Sidonie is expected, but what is unexpected is the narrator’s emphasis in the book on the postwar complicity of the Austrian government and its reluctance to create any memorial to those Romanies who did not return. In describing developments as the “inevitable outcome of (mythical) historical forces”14 Reimer is once again perpetuating the misconception that the history of the Romany people is not rooted in reality. The idea that fairy tales and historical chronicles “mix archetypal imagery, objective narration, ironic foreshadowing, and cautionary or moral intent”15 oversimplifies, and alters the nature of Abschied von Sidonie, where the emphasis is on the political and racial, rather than the mythical and fairytale elements. In fact Reimer himself later argues that the story has a “specificity that engages readers in a historical-political discourse about Austrian complicity in the horrors of the Third Reich”,16 but when he says that the “embedded historical references […] situate the story in Austria between 1933 and 1943”,17 he singularly fails to appreciate the importance of the postwar period to the novel. He argues that “Brandauer’s reduced references to historical events can be traced to the difficulty of capturing in visual imagery the book’s historical references, many told in flashback sentences of a line or two, without interrupting the linear structure she adapted for her tale”.18 Despite this perceived weakness, Karin Brandauer was awarded the Fernsehspiel-Sonderpreis der Deutschen Akademie der Darstellenden Künste for Sidonie in 1990.19 The film begins in 1970 with Manfred Breirather thinking he sees the young Sidonie. Right from the first scene in the train the young Gypsy girl is shown as being dark skinned. The scene when Josefa goes to collect Sidonie from the hospital simplifies the situation. 13

Robert C. Reimer: Abschied von Sidonie, A Farewell Twice-Visited: Erich Hackl’s Novella and Karin Brandauer’s Film. In: After Postmodernism: Austrian literature and film in transition. Ed. by Willy Riemer. Riverside/CA: Ariadne Press 2000. P. 143. 14 Reimer: Abschied von Sidonie, A Farewell Twice-Visited. P. 143. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. P. 145. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. P. 148–149. 19 See Arno Rußegger: “Original” contra “Machwerk”?: Bemerkungen zum Thema Literaturverfilmung am Beispiel von Erich Hackls “Abschied von Sidonie” bzw. Karin Brandauers “Sidonie”. Deutsch und Medienpädagogik (September 1996). Pp. 29–37.

312 Josefa: There is a child to be picked up. Porter: Yes, one was left there. (Pauses for effect). A black child. Josefa: So what? May I have a look?20

Scene 50 of the screenplay is one of the few additional scenes where Hans and Hilde are seen with a Russian couple (Irinka and Petrak), and Sidonie is playing hide and seek, and in scene 60 Sidonie and her parents are visiting the ghost train in Linz, a fairytale-like world in which a dwarf city has been constructed. A boy turns round and thinks Sidonie is part of the display: Boy: Mama, look, a nigger kid. The onlookers begin to take notice. Sidonie: Nigger yourself. Older man (type retired high-school teacher) approaches the boy. Man: There are no niggers here. Thanks to our Führer. Boy: But she really is black. Mother: Perhaps she’s a gypsy girl. The boy wants to take another look at Sidonie. But the spot where she was standing is now empty.21

The film ends where it began, at the station in Linz, where a voice off reports that Sidonie was murdered in Auschwitz just a few weeks after her deportation. Unlike the structure of the book, there is a centrifugal pull in the film, with everything emanating from Sidonie. Viewers are invited to identify with the fate of the ‘Anne Frank figure’ of the Romany world, the young innocent victim of National Socialist racist policies. The contemporary reception of the Nazi past is relegated to the background. In terms of ideology and racial thinking it is interesting that Brandauer selects not a Romany actress but a Persian girl, Arghavan Sadeghi Seragi, to play the role of Sidonie. The actress apparently bore a striking resemblance to the real Sidonie and succeeds impressively in conveying the idea that she has done nothing to deserve death, and that her only crime is to be born to Romany parents. 20 “Josefa: Da soll ein Kind zum Abholen sein. / Portier: Ja, da ist eins weggelegt worden. (Macht eine Kunstpause.) Ein Negerkind. / Josefa: Na und? Darf ich mirs anschauen?” Quoted in Baumhauer: “Abschied von Sidonie”. P. 60. 21 “Bub: Mama, schau, ein Negerkind.

Die Umstehenden werden aufmerksam. Sidonie: Bist selber ein Neger. Ein älterer Mann (Typ pensionierter Oberlehrer) tritt auf den Buben zu. Mann: Bei uns gibt’s keine Neger. Dank unserem Führer. Bub: Aber wo sie doch Schwarz ist. Mutter: Vielleicht ist sie ein Zigeunermädel. Der Bub will wieder Sidonie anschauen. Aber die Stelle, wo sie gestanden ist, ist leer”. Baumhauer: “Abschied von Sidonie”. P. 90.

313 The Intercultural Dimension Finding a correlation between memberhood of a nation and physical appearance is not a new concept. We Europeans: A Survey of “Racial” Problems (1939)22 is visionary in its exposure of pseudo-scientific racial theories. At the start of the book the reader is invited to look at sixteen portraits of persons of different nationality and guess which is which. Having tried the exercise, the chances are that the reader will not have been successful at all. Typically, the very ones about which readers feel certain are those, which are guessed incorrectly! The conclusion: it is impossible to match nationality and face-type, since almost all nations have characteristics which are not unique to that race, and over the centuries people have evolved from a range of different racial groups. As was already pointed out, the “racial” problems of which Huxley, Haddon and Carr-Saunders wrote are linked to preconceived ideas of nationality and ethnicity. And nowhere are the preconceived ideas more in evidence than with relation to Europe’s single largest minority group, the Romanies. The ultimate intercultural intersection is perhaps that Brandauer’s leading lady, Arghavan Sadeghi-Seragi, bears such a striking resemblance to the real Sidonie Adlersburg that a number of people have commented on the similarity. Hackl is committed to cosmopolitan, cross-cultural concerns and may be seen in his work as a whole as a builder of bridges between the nations. He creates: […] a post-cosmopolitan vision in which the concept of enjoyment of rejection of, admiration or contempt for foreign parts is rejected in favour of a broader-based view which encompasses the willingness to cast an equally critical eye on both home and abroad. He is thus far more able to judge and present objectively without jingoistic prejudice.23

In this study of intercultural elements in the film and the novel about Sidonie Adlersburg I would like to look at the extent to which the film actually polarises the debate and devotes all the attention to the girl and those who are persecuting her as a Romany. There are a number of occasions when the interaction of the Romany and non-Romany are portrayed in the book, but this is reduced in the film to a few emblematic instances. The opening scene in the novel is the discovery of the infant on the doorstep of the hospital in Steyr. The sympathy for a young child, no matter what its origin, is conveyed in both film and novel,

22

Julian S. Huxley, Haddon, A.C., and Carr-Saunders: A.M.: We Europeans: A Survey of “Racial” Problems. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1939. 23 Susan Tebbutt: Travel and the Trojan Horse: The Cross-Cultural Concerns of Erich Hackl. In: Cosmopolitans in the Modern World. Ed. by Suzanne Kirkbright. Munich: Iudicium 2000. Pp. 165–178, P. 177. The focus of the article is on Hackl’s role as cultural mediator, in his capacity as writer, translator, reviewer and activist.

314 and is a universal feeling, one strikingly expressed by Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins: SOME PEOPLE For Eoin Some people know what it is like […] to be second hand to be second class to be no class to be looked down on to be walked on to be pissed on to be shat on and other people don’t24

“Some people” are born Romanies, and experience Anti-Gypsyism first-hand, a phenomenon whose existence has only been formally noted in the last decades of the twentieth century and is much in evidence within the novel. When Sidonie is first taken in for adoption the reaction is not favourable. The potential adoptive mother returns the infant: Amalia Derflinger mumbled something under her breath about lack of space and that she had underestimated the task, but confessed then that her husband had thrown her out of the house together with the little black bastard. Why wouldn’t she take a white child, he had shouted at her, do you want them all to jeer at us, even our own apprentices. Everyone is glad to have nothing to do with gypsies, but as for you, you actually bring the plague into my own house! He showed her the door, if you don’t return her immediately, it’s over between us.25

Interestingly, Amalia is shown as being aware of the prejudice shown by her husband, and does at first try to cope with the situation on her own, but he argues that “There are more than enough gypsies around and they weasel their way through anything, bad weeds grow tall”.26 In the portrayal of the relationship 24

Rita Ann Higgins: Some people. In: Denkbilder …: Festschrift für Eoin Bourke. Ed. by Hermann Rasche and Christiane Schönfeld. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2004. P. 414. Higgins’ poem “Some people” is similar in tone to Hackl’s championing of the underdog, the marginalized, and those whose lives do not run smoothly, and who suffer at the margins of society. 25 “Amalia Derflinger murmelte etwas von Platzmangel und daß sie die Aufgabe unterschätzt habe, gestand dann aber, daß ihr Mann sie samt dem schwarzen Bankert aus dem Haus gejagt habe. Als ob’s weiße Kinder nicht auch täten, hatte er sie angeschrien, willst, daß uns alle auslachen, sogar die eigenen Lehrbuben. Jeder ist froh, wenn er mit Zigeunern nichts zu tun hat, und du bringst mir die Plag noch heim! Er wies ihr die Tür, wenn du sie nicht sofort zurückbringst, sind wir geschieden Leut’ ”. Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. Zurich: Diogenes 1989. P.14. 26 “Zigeuner gibt es mehr als genug und schlängeln sie sich auch überall durch, Unkraut verdirbt nicht”. Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 14–15.

315 between Sidonie and the other children Hackl again shows the dichotomy – on the one hand the children are joking, teasing and name-calling, but on the other hand they look out for her when there is a common enemy or danger. The children in the neighbourhood regarded Sidonie as just one more playmate, even if she stuck out with her dark complexion and glossy blueish-black hair. Only when they clashed playing cops and robbers, I caught you, no, you didn’t, I got you, or when kicking an old football, shot it, didn’t touch it, the others easily found a swearword: gypsy, gypsy child. You are only a gypsy anyway. Or when the boys wanted to get rid of her: Get packing, Blackie. But then again they took care of the girl when they heard or saw that gypsies were camping nearby, took her by the hand and ran into the house. Frau Breirather, quick, the Gypsies are here, lock the door.27

There is ambivalence here. Although the local children play quite happily with Sidonie, they still perceive the Gypsies (apart from Sidonie) as a dangerous group who might in fact steal children. Within the book anti-Gypsyism is shown as part of an international organised campaign to rid Europe of its Gypsies. The narrator quotes extracts from the Linzer Tages-Post,28 where hostility to the Romanies is seen within the wider context of Europe-wide anti-Gypsy laws, and hostility towards Poles and other foreigners. There are, however, also examples of positive experiences of people regardless of nationality, as in the case of Hans Breirather’s encounters during the First World War. Hans enlisted at the age of seventeen and spent time in Italian camps: In the Italian camps Hans learnt to understand what unites people and what separates them and that frontiers run differently to how they appear on maps. When he and other prisoners of war were driven from Rome to the fortress at Ostiense, in rags and emaciated, he was spat at and presented with oranges, was hit at and given bread. These experiences occupied his mind for a long time as did the nightly talks of the Italian prisoners, socialists and anarchists; their agitated voices often kept him from falling asleep.29

27

“Für die Kinder aus der Nachbarschaft war Sidonie, auch wenn sie mit ihrer dunklen Hautfarbe und den blauschwarz schimmernden Haaren hervorstach, eine Spielkameradin mehr. Nur wenn sie aneinandergerieten, als Räuber und Gendarm, ich hab dich, nein hast mich nicht, hab dich schon, oder beim Spiel mit einem Fetzenball, abgeschossen, nicht berührt, taten sich die anderen leicht, ein Schimpfwort zu finden: Zigeunerin. Zigeunerkind. Bist ja eh nur eine Zigeunerin. Oder wenn die Buben sie weghaben wollten: Putz dich, Schwarze. Dann aber sorgten sie sich wieder um das Mädchen, wenn sie sahen oder hörten, daß Zigeuner in der Nähe lagerten, nahmen sie an der Hand und liefen ins Haus. Frau Breirather, schnell, Zigeuner sind da, sperren Sie zu”. Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 50–51. 28 Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 53. 29 “In den italienischen Lagern lernte Hans begreifen, was die Menschen eint und was sie trennt, auch daß Grenzen anders verlaufen als auf den Landkarten gezogen. Als er im Troß der Kriegsgefangenen von Rom zur Festung Ostiense getrieben wurde, zerlumpt

316 Changes in the town of Letten and the increased numbers of forced labourers from countries that no longer existed (“Zwangsarbeiter aus Ländern, die es jetzt nicht mehr gab”)30 in the munitions factory are also noted in neutral terms. Outsiders and foreigners are not necessarily always portrayed in positions of inferiority to those already living in Austria. It is the new arrival in the house, Frau Krobath from the Sudetenland, who refers to Sidonie as “dieses schwarze Ding” (this black thing) and says to her husband “Heinz, ich glaub, wir sind unter die Neger gefallen” (I think we’ve fallen among negroes).31 Friendly acts towards foreigners are also mentioned. Josefa Breirather is caught taking half a loaf of bread, a pot of tea and some Rumersatz, and pushing it under the fence of the barracks, for which she receives a sharp reprimand and warning from the local Nazi leader. But fraternising with the enemy may be more severely punished. On 23 February 1942 a Polish worker Anton Wojtanowitsch is executed because he is caught with an Austrian girl in a barn. They saved the bullet. Two of his fellow countrymen had to put the rope around his neck and pull him up the tree. In the meantime they shaved the head of his lover, a young local woman, and then drove her through the village with a sign around her neck saying: “While German soldiers die at the front, I have illicit relations with a Pole”.32

The girl, Franziska Sieder, was sent to a concentration camp, and the rumour was that it was Ravensbrück, and when she came back two years later she was emaciated and people avoided her, and she did not speak of what she had experienced. This indifference to racism foreshadows the response of the majority of people to the fate of Sidonie. They are not interested in knowing about her, or making any kind of official acknowledgment of the cruelty of the treatment. The ending of the film with the girl heading off in the train is very different to that of the book, where anti-Gypsyism is more linked to skin-colour than it is in the film. Sidonie’s blackness is commented upon at various points in the novel: she is described as having a dark skin (“Das schwarze Luder muß weg”),33 being like a Moorish or even Negro child, and of Romany origin. And the antipathy is not und abgehärmt, wurde er angespuckt und mit Orangen beschenkt, bekam er Schläge und ein Stück Brot. Dieses Erlebnise beschäftigte ihn lange, ebenso die nächtlichen Gespräche der italienischen Häftlinge, Sozialisten und Anarchisten, ihre erregten Stimmen ließen ihn lange nicht schlafen.” Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 18. 30 Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 58. 31 Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 59. 32 “Man sparte sich die Kugel. Zwei seiner Landsleute mußten ihm den Strick um den Hals legen und ihn an einer Astgabel hochziehen. Inzwischen scherte man seine Geliebte, eine junge Frau aus der Gegend, kahl und trieb sie anschließend mit einer Tafel um den Hals durch den Ort. ‘Während deutsche Soldaten an der Front sterben, buhle ich um einen Polen’ ”. Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 66. 33 “The black bitch has to go”. Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie. P. 71.

317 only from the Austrians. In chapter 6 the narrator talks of how children sent to Austria from Berlin to avoid the air-raid attacks, as part of the “Kinderlandverschickung” campaign, spat at Sidonie when she went down into the yard to play.

The Cumulative Impact of Intermediality Erich Hackl’s Erzählung Abschied von Sidonie and Karin Brandauer’s film Sidonie have both contributed enormously to raising the profile of the Romanies in Austria. By focusing on the fate of an innocent young girl they have appealed to a wide public, the majority of whom would not be automatically favourably inclined towards the Romanies.34 This has been a factor in the increased interest in the Romanies as an ethnic group, and members of the various Sinti and Roma organisations in Austria are now regularly being invited into schools to give a more differentiated image of their ethnic group. Whereas the Erzählung carefully sets events within a historical, class and regional setting and shows relationships between Austrians and members of other ethnic groups, the film oversimplifies and focuses almost exclusively on interaction between Romanies and non-Romanies. This means that the multidimensional nature of the novel is lost. What is also lost is an awareness that the racist policies of the Nazi occupiers have consequences not just for Sidonie and her adoptive family, but also for others living in Austria. Intermediality need not only relate to the intersection of different types of media reporting an event. It can also interlink the past and present accounts. Whereas in the Erzählung attention is paid to the way the Austrian government in the post-war years did not recognise their complicity in the persecution of the Romanies and did not erect appropriate memorials to those who perished, this is not highlighted in the film. It is therefore interesting that intermediality, the cumulative effect of the interaction of the book and the film and the public, has meant that a part of the story which is not featured in the film, namely memorialisation, has been taken up at a pragmatic level. A Kindergarten has been named after Sidonie Adlersburg in Sierning-Letten and opened in September 2000, when a sculpture to the memory of Sidonie Adlersburg was officially unveiled by Manfred Breirather, Sidonie’s foster brother.

34

The 1995 Oberwart bombings in which four Romanies were murdered were symptomatic of the undercurrent of anti-Gypsyism within Austria, which has not diminished.

SCHLAFES BRUDER - Deutschland 1995 Regie: Joseph Vilsmaier Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Markus Oliver Spitz

Robert Schneider’s Novel Schlafes Bruder in the Light of its Screen Version by Joseph Vilsmaier The range of Austrian authors, who – reflecting the “backward orientation”1 of the aesthetic discourse of the post-war era in combination with “hypocritical harmony”2 – portray the “homeland as a distorted and destroyed marginal phenomenon”3 includes names such as Hermann Broch, Hans Lebert, and Thomas Bernhard as well as Elfriede Jelinek and Christoph Ransmayr. Robert Schneider’s Schlafes Bruder (1992) with its depiction of the cut-off mountain village Eschberg belongs to this category, as it is, again, not comfort and support that the homeland provides, but despair. Within this context of the “negative homeland” or “rural” novel, this essay offers a comparative analysis of Schlafes Bruder and its 1995 film adaptation by Joseph Vilsmaier with the latter focusing on the village life and its internal logic dominated by intrigues, envy, incest, and jealousy.4 All these characteristic features are subsequently contrasted with the genius and otherness of Johannes Elias Alder, whose downfall nevertheless seems inevitable.5 An evaluation of the aesthetic potential of both film and literary text concludes this analysis by way of exploring the “differences with other (con-)texts”.6

Robert Schneider, born in Bregenz in 1961, grew up in Vorarlberg. In Vienna, he studied music, art history, and the theatre. With the help of an American private scholarship, the Abraham Woursell Award, he was able to write Schlafes Bruder, his first novel, which came out in 1992 and forms the first part of the so-called Rheintalische Trilogie, completed with Die Luftgängerin and Die Unberührten. The number of publishers refusing the initial script had reached twenty-three when finally Reclam in Leipzig decided in favour of publication. 1

“Rückwärtsgewandtheit” (all translations mine, unless indicated otherwise). Jutta Landa: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder: Dorfchronik aus Kalkül? In: Modern Austrian Literature 29.3-4 (1996). Pp. 157–168, here P. 158. 2 “verlogene Idyllik”. Ibid. P. 160. 3 “Heimat als entstellte, zerstörte Randerscheinung”. Ibid. 4 Brother of Sleep was released in Germany on 5th October 1995. It won, for example, the 1996 “Bavarian Film Award” for “Best Production”, the 1996 “Film Strip in Gold” from the German Film Awards, and was nominated for the 1996 Golden Globe in the category of “Best Foreign Language Film”. 5 See the interview that Robert Schneider gave Arnold Kruse in: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 26–47, here P. 43. 6 Über die “Differenzen gegenüber den (Kon-)Texten (…) kann der Leser die Bedeutung des literarischen Werks bestimmen”. Gert Vonhoff: Texte, Kontexte und Leser: Intertextualität oder Funktionale Verweisungen. In: Editionsphilologie. Ed. by Herbert Kraft. Frankfurt/Main: Lang 22001. Pp. 164–184, here P. 174.

320 The book was an immediate success, with translations into two-dozen languages. The edition used here is the twenty-seventh dating 2003.7 Schlafes Bruder tells the story of the “failure” (201) called Johannes Elias Alder, his cursed love for his cousin Elsbeth, and his genial musical talent. The music theme features in the book title already when a reference to Bach is made, whose cantata “Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen” (BWV 56 [5]) is quoted in the actual novel (173): Come, O death, of sleep the brother, Come and lead me hence now forth; Loosen now my small bark’s rudder, Bring thou me secure to port! Others may desire to shun thee, Thou canst all the more delight me; For through thee I’ll come inside To the fairest Jesus-child.8

This, as well as the setting, hardly disguised as Schneider’s homeland, has triggered attempts to classify the book as an “artist’s and a rural novel”.9 Proof of this could indeed be the dialect used.10 At the same time, this linguistic variation in combination with dated (and dating) German and expressions rooted in vulgarised Latin fosters the illusion of a time warp back into the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century respectively.11 However, it remains an open question if and how such an attempt at classification clarifies in how far the novel simply repeats characteristics of that genre or whether it has something new on offer. In this respect, it is helpful to turn to a hint that Schneider has given when speaking of Schlafes Bruder as a “negative genius novel”12 the reason being that the artist is rendered incapable

7

Further down in the body of the text, references to the novel will be given in brackets. The translation was carried out by Z. P. Ambrose (see http://www.uvm.edu/ ~classics/faculty/bach/BWV56. html). 9 “Künstler- und Dorfroman”. Beatrice von Matt: Föhnstürme und Klangwetter. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 53–55, here P. 54. Similarly Osman Durrani: Non-verbal Communication in Robert Schneider’s Novel Schlafes Bruder. In: Contemporary German Writers, their Aesthetics, and their Language. Ed. by Arthur Williams, Stuart Parkes, and Julian Preece. Frankfurt/Main: Lang 1996. Pp. 223–236, here P. 232. 10 See, for example, expressions like “sekkant” (16), “Alfanzerei” (18), “schrenzen” (23 and passim), “Speuz” (23 and passim), “stüpfen” (25), “Gob” (42) and “angewurzt” (49). 11 “Widum” (24), “itzo” and “item” (26), “schuhen” for: to roam (34). One “hebt sich davon” (40), “wiegt” the door (14 and passim) and “steht von einem Vorhaben ab” (193). 12 “Anti-Genieroman”. Arnold Kruse: Interview mit Robert Schneider. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 26–46, here P. 27. 8

321 of fully revealing his talent to posterity. Hand in hand with this label goes the term “negative homeland novel” as – once more according to Schneider – the book portrays a homeland “that does not exist anymore or that is dying”.13 Thomas E. Schmidt had already spoken of the novel as a piece of “dark homeland literature”,14 and Hellmuth Karasek likewise labelled the novel an “evil rural novel” only slightly later.15 Jutta Landa established as primary characteristics of the homeland novel genre, to which Schlafes Bruder forms a negative counterpart, “compression” through geographical limitation, idealisation of the homeland as such, and integration into the “Christian circle of the year”.16 Since the sixties, a literary strand has emerged, whose most prominent representatives have already been cited and who saw their task in exposing the “intolerance and brutality towards the otherness located in the very midst [of such social structures]” as well as depicting the “mingling of sentimentality with violence”.17 With regard to what Landa pointed out in terms of being different in the face of adversity, it is noteworthy that the musical genius Johannes Elias Alder comes with a “glass voice” (31), with an extraordinary talent for imitating voices, and with highly selective cognitive skills. In the face of intolerant surroundings he suffers from hostility, even physical attacks. Johannes is never going to overcome that “shock of his childhood” (95). Schlafes Bruder is, consequently, primarily a negative homeland novel in the sense that it places a special individual in a suffocating environment. In its focus on the backwardness of the village as well as on the time-defying genius, the novel aims to direct notions of sympathy on behalf of the reader towards Johannes and against the reactionary and regressive forces opposing him. From a cosmopolitan and polyglot point of view, a community like Eschberg must seem anachronistic, lacking in solidarity and doomed to downfall.18 In the drastic depiction of its inhabitants, the village Eschberg exceeds what Landa called the “already established negative exoticism”.19 13

“die es nicht mehr gibt, die stirbt”. Ibid. P. 26. “schwarze Heimatliteratur”. Thomas E. Schmidt: Das Genie, das keines wurde. Ibid. 51–53, here P. 52. 15 “böser Heimatroman”. Hellmuth Karasek in the “Literarische Quartett” on November 20, 1992. Ibid. Pp. 64–70, here P. 66. 16 “Kompression”, “christlicher Jahreskreis”. Jutta Landa: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder: Dorfchronik aus Kalkül? In: Modern Austrian Literature 29.3-4 (1996). Pp. 157–168, here Pp. 158, 160. 17 “Intoleranz und Brutalität gegenüber der Alterität in der eigenen Mitte”, “Verquickung von Sentimentalität und Gewalt”. Ibid. P. 165f. 18 Parallels with Hans Lebert’s village “Schweigen” in Die Wolfshaut or Christoph Ransmayr’s “Moor” in Morbus Kitahara come to mind. 19 “bereits tradierte Negativexotik”. Jutta Landa: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder: Dorfchronik aus Kalkül? In: Modern Austrian Literature 29 (1996). Pp. 157–168, here P. 161. 14

322 Landa goes on to say that what is “unscrupulously imitated” in the novel is “the tone of voice of an antiquated village chronicle”.20 On reconstructing the most significant issues of this chronicle-to-be, one finds that these seem fairly trivial and could well be regarded as stereotypical of a village community if it was not for the single but highly significant exception of Johannes’ metamorphosis: 1777 Seff Alder born 1785 Attempt to burn Zilli Lamparter at the stake ca. 1786 Agathe Alder born 1800 “Sulphur Sunday”: detonation of a barrel of gunpowder 1803 Johannes Elias Alder born as the illegitimate son of the curate Elias Benzer and Agathe Alder. Peter Elias Alder born. Death of Elias Benzer three days after the double baptism 1808 The metamorphosis of Johannes Elias. Elsbeth Alder, his cousin, born 1815 Religious hysteria. Johannes manages the bellows in the village church. Christmas: The fire started by Peter (“First Fire”) destroys the northern part of the village and leaves five dead. St Stephen’s day: Roman Lamparter lynched 1820 Easter. After the suicide of his uncle Oskar Johannes becomes village organist and school headmaster. 1825 Seff Alder suffers a stroke. Musicologist Goller visits Eschberg and invites Johannes to participate in the organ competition in Feldberg. 9 September: Johannes dies on the eighth day without sleep. Before 1841 The “Second Fire”. Seff Alder dies. 1841 Death of Peter Elias 1892 The “Third Fire” kills twelve villagers. The survivors decide to abandon Eschberg. 1912 Death of Cosmas Alder, the oldest of Elsbeth’s sons and the only villager that has stayed in the ruins

It appears that this village chronicle is presented through the medium of the narrator who bases his report on unspecified “papers” (198). Historical events, particularly the Napoleonic wars, do not feature. It is only in the form of an anecdote that we learn about French soldiers imprisoned in the so-called “cat tower” in Feldberg (166). Landa concludes that the narrator’s “pose of a village chronicler” allows for an aestheticization of historical issues in a parodist and post-modern manner.21 It is evident that the novel toys with history as well as with literary genres. In addition, it refuses the notion of rationality when it introduces the reader to the metamorphosis of Johannes and renders emotion, or, to be more precise: “Gemüt”, its key category. In German Romanticism, Gemüt was seen as the capacity of the reception of religion and sentiment. According to Jean Paul it was even related to love. In Schlafes Bruder, the

20 21

“Der Tonfall einer altertümlichen Dorfchronik wird ungeniert imitiert”. Ibid. P. 163. “Dorfchronistenpose”. Ibid. P. 166f.

323 catalogue of romantic imagery appears practically in full: there are references to the gothic novel (32, 57f, and passim); obsession with and longing for death (97, 120, and passim); adventure (158); the death of the (unrecognised) genius (95); the frozen and foggy landscape (33) and animated nature (109, 126); dreams (100), and the search for solitude in the mountains (103 and passim). Metaphors of love also feature prominently (38, 78, and passim). What thus emerges from the text is a “message of emotion, of anti-intellectualism”.22 It is not for the first time that the reader is confronted with a concept of irony, which is rooted in Romanticism in order to take a post-modern stance. At the same time, Schneider opted for playing the “game of randomness of connotations” when turning to another basic component of post-modern literature, intertextuality.23 Schlafes Bruder mentions, next to Bach, metaphysical terms such as hope, truth, and the dialectics of good and evil. However, the fact that all this is part of a game becomes apparent, for example, when the narrator (contradicting Erich Fromm and Ernst Bloch in one go) postulates categorically but only semi-logically (135): Any hope is pointless. No one shall resort to hope for the fulfilment of ones dreams. On the contrary, one shall comprehend the madness in hoping. This done, one may hope. If, then, one is still capable of dreaming, ones life makes sense.

Such insertions counteract the alleged aim of drafting a chronicle and of making sense in general. In the novel, the dialectical relation between good and evil serves only as an ironic declaration in favour of the Enlightenment in the sense that Johannes’ fate must have purified Peter – a hypothesis which the narrator clings to “with naïve seriousness” (201) as the forces of good and evil, he says, struggle with each other until finally the latter will be absorbed and thereby cleansed by the former. This concept is easily identifiable as Zoroastrian; at the same time, it alludes to Immanuel Kant’s moral principle, which (despite its anti-idealistic and anthropologically pessimistic undercurrent) postulated that good will finally triumph over evil, if necessary even against the conscious intention of the human race: The world will by no means perish by a diminution in the number of evil men. Moral evil has the indiscerptible property of being opposed to and destructive of its

22

“Botschaft der Emotion, des Anti-Intellekts”. Rainer Moritz: Nichts Halbherziges. Schlafes Bruder: das (Un-)Erklärliche eines Erfolges. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 80–82, here P. 80. 23 “Spiel konnotativer Beliebigkeiten”. Jochen Vogt: Aspekte erzählender Prosa: Eine Einführung in Erzähltechnik und Romantheorie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1998. P. 10.

324 own purposes (especially in the relationships between evil men); thus it gives place to the moral principle of the good, though only through a slow progress.24

With regard to the evolution of morals, Kant thus favoured a systematic, rational and teleological understanding of history. The principle quoted above remains an ideal, which, however, can be approached gradually. The novel only parodies this concept when telling us that Johannes’ organ play is capable of temporarily enchanting the audience. In this respect, it was Herder that supported the opposite view to Kant. In his 1799 essay Verstand und Erfahrung, Herder postulated a “meta criticism” of Kant’s 1781 Critique of Pure Reason. What was challenged was in particular Kant’s teleological understanding of history and the artificiality of the axiom of reason. Without reading into the novel a coherent philosophical argument, which it simply does not put forward, it remains true that Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791) are explicitly mentioned. Herder argued that reason could be deduced from nature and that it developed in an organic and pluralistic fashion, like language. In Schneider’s novel, however, the “Ideas” represent nothing more than a mere commercial product that the charcoal-burner is talked into purchasing (see 156). It only leads to his opting out and his becoming guilty of manslaughter – another ironic attack, this time launched against (German) idealism. To conclude, the novel denies Kant’s rationality as well as Herder’s idealism and by doing so categorically defies as such the attempt at trying to make sense. Instead, it tells “a great and sad fairy-tale” (160) from a contemporary view point, whose answer to (or escape from) life’s complexities is a mix of irony, cynicism, and paradox: when there is the Föhn in the village, that sudden, stormy, warm wind in the Alps, then the day is still “so delightful” (71) – an allusion to another Bach chorale, composed on the basis of the fourteenth century song “Dies est laetitiae”. Moved Peter does not hesitate to break the second leg of a cat already in agony. And who in that part of the world loves “people and life” is predestined to become the “village whore” (54). What is a striking example of paradox is that the appearance of the charlatan and itinerant preacher Corvinius is capable of changing Johannes’ “heart and soul” (103). In the end, these apocalyptic visions depicted with a strong sexual verbal imagery and gestures plus the motto “Who sleeps does not love” 24

“Die Welt wird keineswegs dadurch untergehen, dass der bösen Menschen weniger wird. Das moralisch Böse hat die Eigenschaft, dass es in seinen Absichten sich selbst zuwider und zerstörend ist und so dem moralischen Prinzip des Guten, wenngleich durch langsame Fortschritte, Platz macht”. Immanuel Kant: Zum Ewigen Frieden. In: Hans Mayer: Ein Deutscher auf Widerruf. Vol I. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1981. P. 342. The translation has been taken from Anon: On the opposition between morality and politics with respect to perpetual peace. In: http://www.constitution.org/kant/append1.htm.

325 are responsible for Johannes’ suicide as he labours under the delusion that he has not fully loved Elsbeth. Another paradox consists of Sepp’s statement according to which a man has to be strong when subsequently he only uses this strength to commit a murder and finally has to spend the rest of his life paralysed. Johannes knows better as he carefully listens to his father’s irregular heart beat. What seems paradoxical, too, is the fact that the action takes place in Vorarlberg, the stereotypical centre of the Austrian homeland. The final paradox consists of the fact that it is throughout the accidents of others which provide to Johannes the rare moments of glory in an otherwise miserable existence: the mother suffers from temporary mental insanity – Johannes can escape from the “Gaden”, in which hitherto he has been kept like an animal. This is indeed the “beginning of his life” (51). The notorious alcoholic Warmund Lamparter falls from the church gallery – Johannes manages the bellows on his behalf. Uncle Oskar turns melancholic in the face of Johannes’ musical talent and commits suicide – the nephew “sniffs his great hour” (114) and subsequently becomes the village organist and school headmaster. Various attempts at classification, which ignore the parodist quotations as well as the said paradoxes, consequently fail to take into account the playful transgression of traditional motifs in homeland literature. If, for example, Peter J. Brenner subsumes Schlafes Bruder under the so-called “new historical novels”25 and Iris Radisch ridicules the “mannerist realism of the village poet”,26 one wonders how and why both these critics could overlook the evident “gentle, ironic undercurrent”, the “ironic function”,27 especially when right at the beginning the narrator urges the recipients to try to obtain a “profound knowledge” (12) of their forefathers suffering from incest. This irony, in turn, is not of a romantic nature but it is rooted in the fact that the allegedly well-structured, holistic worldview of the community is an out-of-date model. When the reader is confronted with atheist phrases it becomes obvious that the narrator’s supposedly neutral point of view is nothing than a pose. In Eschberg, senile priests clash with stubborn and superstitious peasants. Jesus’ second coming is an unsafe bet so people much prefer to be reimbursed here and now, for example after the “First Fire”, instead of waiting for judgement day. The depiction of Johannes’ life is an “accusation against God” (13) and his “satanic plan” (ibid.) to deny the musician both the music and his love. All this, the narrator puts forward by means of “subjective 25

“neuen historischen Romane”. Peter J. Brenner, Neue deutsche Literaturgeschichte. Vom Ackermann zu Günter Grass. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 82–84, here P. 84. 26 “manirierte [sic] Realismus des Dorfpoeten”. Iris Radisch: Schlafes Brüder. Pamphlet wider die Natürlichkeit oder Warum die junge deutsche Literatur so brav ist. Ibid. Pp. 59–64, here P. 63. 27 “leise[r], ironische[r] Grundton”, “ironische Funktion”. Arnold Kruse: Interview mit Robert Schneider. Ibid. Pp. 26–46, here Pp. 28, 32.

326 interpretations”,28 which can be seen as manifestations of “negative religiousness”,29 like, for example, the assertion that God, “an evil child without a navel” (174), who loves “all the injustice under the sun” (95), never wanted anybody to settle in the region in the first place. In addition, a whole list of nouns, adverbs and adjectives points to the improbability, indeed rational impossibility of the story. It is sufficient to name only the most common ones: “wonder” and most of the figura etymologica coming with it (34 and passim); “mysterious” (68 and passim), “sinister” (32 and passim), “unbelievable” (38 and passim) as well as “strange” (31 and passim). The musical genius of the autodidact might still be explained through genetics, especially as technically the music is not that outstanding after all.30 What is undoubtedly strange, though, is that as a result of his metamorphosis Johannes is capable of talking to the animals and of communicating with the whole universe. Investigating further the function of the narrator, one wonders in what chronicle he might have learned about Johannes’ extramarital birth. The announced “report” (97) is a pseudo-factual “testimony” (81), which is given decades after events took place. Still, the narrator pretends that certain happenings are “on record” (19) or are to be found in the “baptismal register” (103). He follows Johannes’ “traces” (76) and undertakes the “description” (9) of what has “come to his ears” (14), however does not tell the reader where from. Instead, what is passed on consists of flash-forwards, comments, judgements, and speculation. The reader, as a result, is referred back to the ironic discourse of the medium, which sometimes bears clear cynical traits. If the schoolteacher beats up a pupil because he feels offended, what remains “true” is that Oskar is not an “austere teacher” (57). When the village lads are after Johannes as his “English voice” turns the village women’s heads, one simply has to be understanding (see 61). To what degree does the movie reflect the said characteristics of Schlafes Bruder (negative homeland novel, intertextuality, parody, irony, paradox, and cynicism)? First of all, it might be useful to summarise briefly how the project was conceived: Vilsmaier’s musician, Norbert Schneider, read the novel and passed it on to the director who is of Autumn Milk (1988), Rama Dama (1990), Stalingrad (1992), Charlie & Louise (1993), and Comedian Harmonists (1996/97) fame. Vilsmaier was immediately determined to turn the novel into a movie and to produce it, too. With a budget of 15m Deutschmark, the movie was immensely costly for German standards, which is why in the process of drafting the script Robert Schneider had to cut out certain characters (Cosmas, 28 “subjektive Deutung[en]”. Ulrich Klingmann: Sprache und Sprachlosigkeit: Zur Deutung von Welt, Schicksal und Liebe in Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ibid. Pp. 76–78, here P. 77. 29 “negative Religiosität”. Arnold Kruse: Interview mit Robert Schneider. Ibid. Pp. 26–46, here P. 36. 30 See Ibid. P. 34.

327 Meistenteils, Corvinius, Seelenzilli, and others). Also, sub-plots were either eliminated or merged, in particular the Burga episode (see 123–130). The parish of Gaschurn in Montafon (Vorarlberg) was selected as the set after an extensive approval procedure, which had proven tricky due to the prospect of interfering with nature. There, in Garnera valley, shooting started in August 1994.31 Robert Schneider was himself on the set; he even had a small part as a coachman. According to Rolf Busch, the following basic problem is inherent in any attempt to use literature for film scenarios: The material difference between literature and film prevents a transposition from one into the other. [...] Literature cannot be turned into movies. However, it can be used as material, foil, and stimulus for the production of movies.32

Busch alludes to the fact that the material aspect of a movie is directly accessible when, at the same time, it shows something and imitates. Evidently, there are strong links with literature in that respect, especially with the (realistic) novel and the drama. However, contrary to both these literary genres, the movie is capable of providing the “impression of real synchronicity” between various sub-plots.33 This simultaneity, this – according to Jochen Vogt – “illusion of presence”34 recently has become total: movies such as The Terminator, Matrix or I, Robot turn to special effects which intend to present even the most futuristic story in a way that the spectator is supposed to access and follow. In addition, what is constitutive of the film medium is the camera guiding the spectator’s look, thereby rendering possible an “identification with the actors of the work of art” as Béla Balázs stated as early as 1938.35 It is this the kind of total identification that the theatre cannot (and with Brecht: does not want to) provide.36 It becomes possible due to the fact that film has – so Käte 31

See Joseph Vilsmaier: Schlafes Bruder. Der Film. With an Introduction by Robert Schneider. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer 1995. Pp. 128–132. 32 “Die materiale Verschiedenheit von Literatur und Film lässt eine Umwandlung des einen in das andere nicht zu. [...] Literatur lässt sich nicht verfilmen. Sie lässt sich allerdings verwenden als Material, Vorlage, Anreiz zur Herstellung von Filmen”. Rolf Busch: Über Verfilmung von Literatur. In: Texte zur Poetik des Films. Ed. by Rudolf Denk. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1992. Pp. 164–167, here Pp. 164, 167. 33 “Eindruck einer wirklichen Gleichzeitigkeit”. Béla Balázs: Zur Kunstphilosophie des Films. In: Ibid. Pp. 82–108, here P. 102. 34 “Illusion von Gegenwärtigkeit”. Jochen Vogt: Aspekte erzählender Prosa: Eine Einführung in Erzähltechnik und Romantheorie. P. 29. 35 “Identifikation des Menschen mit den handelnden Personen des Kunstwerks”. Béla Balázs: Zur Kunstphilosophie des Films. In: Texte zur Poetik des Films. Ed. by Rudolf Denk. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1992. Pp. 82–108, here P. 97. 36 This principle, which Jean Baudrillard has labelled “hyper-reality”, is well-known from television series such as “Eastenders”: The “Queen Victoria” seems almost the epitome of a certain type of East End pubs, which it synthesises and therefore makes look “more real” than reality.

328 Hamburger – taken hold of “the secret of life itself, movement, even if it only imitates it”.37 Where Walter Benjamin saw the “liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage”38 and the loss of the “aura” of a work of art as a result of the technical possibility to reproduce it infinitely is exactly where Hamburger located the profoundest threat to the artiness of film: if art is separated from reality through “the rule of ‘omissions’ ”,39 through referential fields that according to Wolfgang Iser the recipient has to establish in the reception process, then there is no more room for interpretation and imagination once all the references are already given. This, in turn, is often the case when the calculations of box office sales form a double bind between the aesthetic conception of a movie and its marketability. It is self-evident that two further issues aggravate this problem: first, a movie as a “mixed form of art”40 comprising photography, language, light, music, etc. exposes the viewer synchronically to a multitude of stimuli; second, its (usual) reception mode is fundamentally different from the (normally) solitary reading of a novel. When watching Vilsmaier’s movie what is significant is that – contrary to the cyclic storytelling in the novel – the movie has a linear structure, one reason being that reception is facilitated, the other that – again in contrast to the novel – the end seems less negative. In addition, the narrator has been cut out and with him the irony of his discourse.41 Guided by Zehetbauer, the team set up a décor that was highly artificial in the sense that no effort was spared to model the village as realistically as possible. In this context, the mud the villagers are wading in becomes symbolic. In the beginning as well as at the end, Eschberg is seen from a bird’s eye perspective and with a zoom lens. During the action, however, we only perceive it in all its narrowness, its “excessive reality”.42 What is noteworthy, however, is the fact that this realism is more than just a idyll shot with a soft focus lens as it clashes with the language, which is standard High German almost throughout. In addition, the mystery of Johannes’ talent, his metamorphosis, and his yellow eyes remain. The transformation is 37

“sich des Geheimnisses des Lebens, der Bewegung, bemächtigt hat, wenn er sie auch nur imitiert”. Käte Hamburger: Zur Phänomenologie des Films. In: Texte zur Poetik des Films. Ed. by Rudolf Denk. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1992. Pp. 121–133, here P. 125. 38 “Liquidierung des Traditionswertes am Kulturerbe”. Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 2003. P. 13f. 39 “durch das Gesetz der ‘Auslassungen’”. Käte Hamburger: Zur Phänomenologie des Films. In: Texte zur Poetik des Films. Ed. by Rudolf Denk. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1992. Pp. 121–133, here P. 122f. 40 “Mischkunst”. Erwin Piscator: Tonfilm Freund und Feind. Ibid. Pp. 79–82, here P. 79. 41 See Joseph Vilsmair: Schlafes Bruder. Der Film. With an Introduction by Robert Schneider. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer 1995. P. 13. 42 “äbersteigerte Realität”. Ibid. P. 35.

329 emphasised by an accumulation of technical devices such as fades, slow motion, quick cuts, and circling camera as is only one other sequence, the organ competition in Feldberg. There, a series of quick cuts is instrumental in demonstrating the extraordinariness of the event. Johannes’ mother is shown in ecstasy; other members of the audience see the sky opening up. A soundpattern that resembles buzzing bees hints at Johannes’ delusion. After the noise ceases, the coachman’s crack of a whip breaks the spell. Generally, the music composed by Hubert von Goisern and recorded with the Munich Symphonic Orchestra does not dominate over dialogue and action. It consists of flutes, violins, ethereal female voices, and chorales and does not establish a counterpoint but mostly comes as background music. This is partly achieved with the help of sounds “that the human ear cannot hear”.43 In addition, scenes without music bring about an intensification of the soundtrack. Finally, what contributes to the de-realisation of the action is time-lapse photography, for example when Elsbeth grows up to adult age within seconds and Johannes’ life including the painfully slow death is also presented in an accelerated manner. With regard to the characters it is true that in the movie the circumstances of Johannes’ birth are already mysterious to a high degree whilst in the novel the reflections of the mid-wife well as the narrator’s digressions concerning her future fate dominate over the issue of Johannes being nearly born dead and thereby immediately relativise that “double miracle [...] of the anthropogenesis and [...] the genesis of the genius” (19). The subsequent baptising ceremony reveals Johannes’ extremely sensitive hearing, as he is capable of “causing everything to sound”. When with Michel and others, Johannes confesses his love for Elsbeth but remains silent in her presence. Both are adults as the romance sets in. Elsbeth appears much less innocent and passive than in the novel and repeatedly takes initiative to win Johannes over to her side. She says: “I want you to love me”. Elsbeth’s affection is no more hidden and passive but represents the impulse that drives further the action as a whole. Elsbeth has recourse to language as a means of expression in an environment that is mostly portrayed as speechless and dumb.44 Initially, she appears almost as a rebel, a “new woman” from the mountain village when she downright refuses to prepare her hair in the traditional manner before attending church service. The fact that Johannes seems to be much more interested in the organ than in her leads to a confrontation between the two, and it is Elsbeth who plays the active part in it. Her pragmatic view of the necessities and hardships of such 43

“die das menschliche Ohr nicht hören kann”. Jens Häntzschel: Robert Schneider liebt diesen Film. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 92–95, here P. 95. 44 As Osman Durrani has shown in “Non-verbal Communication in Robert Schneider’s Novel Schlafes Bruder”, this is even more valid in the case of the novel.

330 a life is contrasted with Johannes’ rapture to a degree that in comparison with the novel is definitely enhanced. Elsbeth, who in the novel reflects carefully about whom to associate herself with and has a certain nobleness of heart, is, at the same time, portrayed as femme enfant with reference to her outward appearance. In the end, she remains the object of decisions taken in a male-dominated structure when she gives in to Peter’s choice of a husband for her. Such passiveness is certainly not to be found in Dana Vávrová’s interpretation of the character: her Elsbeth acts towards a certain purpose and, in her high degree of independence, is unorthodox for the homeland movie genre. Elsbeth also prostitutes herself after the “Second Fire” in order to pay for medication for her husband, who is portrayed at the same time as a sensitive and a brutal character and therefore has more depth than in the novel. He loves Elsbeth but also does not hesitate to set fire on Michel the charcoal-burner. The latter is a Christian and a pacifist to the degree that he refuses fighting off his assassins. However, he equally refuses to attend the service in a church in whose “rotten walls” God does not exist any more. Michel finally downright refuses to enter into the circle of efficiency of village life and can in this respect be compared to the “zebra”, the fugitive prisoner in Hans Lebert’s Wolfshaut. As a confidant of Johannes, Michel also embodies the function of the itinerant preacher Corvinius, whose motto “Who sleeps does not love” he passes on to Johannes. Elsbeth’s brother Peter comes, on the one hand, without the demonic nature (see 110) and cruelty of the novel character as he even intends to stop the Eschbergers from lynching the charcoal-burner. However, on the other hand, he is not without notions of chauvinism when, for example, he mentions in the face of Lukas’ doubts at Elsbeth’s love for him: “Since when do womenfolk have a word in this?”. The drive behind this pattern is Peter’s love for Johannes, which he maintains and defends against his father’s brutality. When Elsbeth finally decides to reveal her feelings to Johannes, Peter locks her in and accepts her potential death as he sets fire to the village. Renowned actor Ben Becker introduces a certain homoeroticism to his interpretation of Peter, which is already discretely laid out in the novel and, when implemented into the movie, renders it even less of a conventional genre product. At the same time, however, the development from a heartless and unmoved character (see 44) via the already mentioned mingling of sentiment, brutality and self-pity (see 73) towards final purification and change into someone at ease with himself and life (see 201) has been almost totally cut out. In the novel, such potential referential fields are overshadowed by the ironic discourse of the narrative medium. Therefore, neither the said development of Peter nor Johannes’ metamorphosis into somebody who bears simultaneous resemblances with the saviour and the devil,45 all of this in a society, which 45

See Ibid. P. 229.

331 reveals openly its “hostility against God and the Holy Church” (93), gives the impression to bear any significance. The movie, then, cuts out these facets completely, or, in other words, it replaces the notion of the referential field with the suggestive image, for example when Johannes who is playing the organ can hear from afar that finally Lukas and Elsbeth have ended up in bed together. Rushing towards them, he (and with him the spectator) perceives the action from an observer’s point of view. Quick cuts serve here to visualise his trauma: Johannes, with his acute sense of hearing, has to put his hands over his ears and finds himself incapable of interfering. The dramaturgic function of Lukas, who is a character of secondary importance in the novel, is strengthened in the movie: primarily, he is instrumental in disrupting the potentially kitschy romance between Elsbeth and Johannes. It is he who, out of jealousy, reproaches Elsbeth verbally and even threatens her. She, in turn, keeps her cool replying she would never take him as husband in case he proved to be violent. Next to certain referential fields, the movie also does away with the prominent paradoxes and the cynicism of the novel. It is only Oskar the teacher who – together with Benzer the curate – remains the vehicle of the theme of religion and metaphysics and the brutality, intolerance, and senility that accompany these in the novel. Oskar does not hesitate to beat his pupils with a rod and to illustrate the disastrous consequences of the “primal sin” by exposing Phillip, who suffers from Down’s syndrome, to his fellow classmates: “Could it be that God loves injustice under the sun?”. Correspondingly, Benzer enters into an accusatory dialogue with the figure of Mary (“What do you know? Nothing you know”.), and finally falls victim to mental deficiency, which at Oskar’s funeral clearly comes to light and which culminates in a grotesque like Dürrenmatt could have drafted it. In the face of these findings it is difficult to argue that Vilsmaier – as a complement to the negative homeland novel – created a homeland movie, even if the director spoke of his work as such, however minus the clichés of the fifties and sixties.46 As a direct result of this classification, however, Vilsmaier was confronted with the reproach he had created the “Neuschwanstein” of the homeland movie.47 What is typical of kitsch, however, is triviality, commerciality and (usually bad) reproduction whilst Vilsmaier’s Schlafes Bruder can neither be labelled “commercial” nor does it simply reproduce trivial characters and traditional behavioural patterns. Instead, the movie transgresses those particularly through the condensed character of Michel the charcoal-burner, unorthodox Elsbeth, and the involvement of young actors with Down’s syndrome. 46

See the interview with Jens Häntzschel: Robert Schneider liebt diesen Film. In: Robert Schneiders Schlafes Bruder. Ed. by Rainer Moritz. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1999. Pp. 92–95, here P. 95. 47 Urs Jenny: Verlorene Liebesmüh. Ibid. Pp. 96–97, here P. 97.

332 What results from the principle of the de-realisation of the story within the frame of a décor taken to the utmost degree in its artificiality is a deliberate change in style atypical of the traditional homeland movie. This is where the strong points of the movie lie, which, however, reveal at the same time the most striking weakness of the novel where apparently the narrator does not intend to be taken serious when he tries to give us the clichés of the swelling “lily-blue bodice” (99), the heartbeat that can be felt right down to the “finger balls” (see 137) as well as the unworldly scholar (see 138). Vilsmaier’s cinemascope metaphor therefore proves more appropriate and capable of transmitting Robert Schneider’s initial idea of presenting a notion of homeland, which today is if not totally defunct than at least devoid of its initial meaning.

Paul M. Malone

Transposition or Translation? Fiction to Film in Doris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me and Am I Beautiful? Director Doris Dörrie bases her screenplays on her own short stories; however, she plays remarkably fast and loose with the original texts. Dörrie’s 1994 film Nobody Loves Me (Keiner liebt mich), for example, is based on several stories in her collection Für immer und ewig (Forever and always; 1991). Although the main characters appear in Dörrie’s book, Dörrie rings far-reaching changes on them and their relationship to each other and to the world. The same collection inspires Dörrie’s 1998 film Am I Beautiful? (Bin ich schön?); thus stories dealing with the same cast of intertwined characters have been adapted into two completely unrelated films. Dörrie’s free adaptations of her own prose introduce wider social and political dimensions, particularly questions of post-reunification German identity, into her raw material. The relationship between Dörrie’s texts and her films is examined here in the light of Lawrence Venuti’s ideas of “foreignizing translation”.

Director Doris Dörrie first came to fame with her low-budget 1985 film Männer (Men), a “sleeper” comedy hit internationally as well as in Germany, where it attracted six million viewers in its first six months.1 With its critical but humorous view of (West) German society, sexual relationships and materialist ambitions, Männer, in Mathis Heybrock’s words, “seemed to rescue Germany from an auteur film that was being dismissed wholesale as boring, maudlin and brooding – as a matter of course, the long-awaited comedy provoked comparisons with Lubitsch and Wilder”.2 The film’s unexpected success catapulted Dörrie to the forefront of the German film industry, earning her the rare tribute – for a filmmaker – of a cover story in the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which fêted her as “Germany’s most successful [woman] director”.3 Attention is frequently drawn to Dörrie’s fondness for basing her screenplays on her own published short stories; although it has become a successful career

1

Marcia Pally: Open Dorrie [sic]. In: Film Comment 22.5 (1996). P. 42. “[…] schien Deutschland von einem Autorenfilm zu erlösen, der, recht pauschal, als langweilig, larmoyant und selbstgrüblerisch abgetan wurde – die langersehnte Komödie provozierte wie selbstverständlich den Vergleich mit Lubitsch und Wilder”. Mathis Heybrock: Love in Germany: Die (Kino-) Geschichten der Doris Dörrie. In: EDP Film 14.9 (1997). P. 24. All translations from the German are my own. 3 “Deutschlands erfolgreichste Regisseurin”. Klaus Phillips: Interview with Doris Dörrie: Filmmaker, Writer, Teacher. In: Triangulated Visions: Women in Recent German Cinema. Ed. by Ingeborg Majer O’Sickey and Ingeborg von Zadow. Albany: State University of New York Press 1998. P. 173. 2

334 in its own right, Dörrie’s prose writing originally served a utilitarian purpose, as part of her creative process: Certain characters interest me. Usually it starts with the characters. And these characters, when I get to know them just enough in my head, then something happens to them that can happen only to them. Years ago already I got accustomed to always writing short stories about these figures first, in order to get to know them.4

Yet Dörrie’s stories often seem to have only a tenuous connection to the films they inspire. In fact, her claim, “[…] then something happens to them that can happen only to them”, turns out to be somewhat ingenuous: when the formal or generic demands of film (or of a particular film) so necessitate, she simply changes the characters. Thus far, however, there has been relatively little published critical discussion of Dörrie as an adaptor of her own texts; Mathis Heybrock is one of the few early critics who has explicitly drawn attention to the relationship between Dörrie’s fiction and her films, and that only within a small section of a three-page article.5 As a means of writing about exactly this process of adaptation, this study appropriates some ideas from the translator and theorist Lawrence Venuti, who describes the translator as the perpetrator of “the forcible replacement of the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text with a text that will be intelligible to the target-language reader. […] Whatever difference the translation conveys is now imprinted by the target-language culture, assimilated to its positions of intelligibility, its canons and taboos, its codes and ideologies”.6 In place of “foreign text” and “target language”, I substitute “prose fiction” and “film”, with the latter seen here specifically as the mise en scène of a screenplay. A key term in Venuti’s analysis is his concept, adapted from Jean-Jacques Lecercle, of the remainder: the repressed functions of language, and the choices not made in any particular utterance, which simultaneously permit linguistic

4

“Es interessieren mich bestimmte Personen. Meist fängt es mit den Personen an. Und diese Personen, wenn ich die genau genug kennenlerne in meinem Kopf, dann passiert denen etwas, was nur ihnen passieren kann. Ich habe mir schon vor Jahren angewöhnt, immer erst Kurzgeschichten zu schreiben über diese Figuren, um sie kennenzulernen”. Renate Fischetti: Gespräch mit Doris Dörrie. In: Das neue Kino: Acht Porträts von deutschen Regisseurinnen. Ed. by Renate Fischetti. Dülmen-Hiddingsel: tende 1992. Pp. 249–250. 5 This lack has begun to be addressed to some degree in: Straight Through the Heart: Doris Dörrie, German Filmmaker and Author. Ed. by Franz A. Birgel and Klaus Phillips. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press 2004. See also Peter M. McIsaac: NorthSouth, East-West: Mapping German Identities in Cinematic and Literary Versions of Doris Dörrie’s Bin ich schön? In: German Quarterly 77.3 (2004). Pp. 340–362. 6 Lawrence Venuti: The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge 1998. P. 18.

335 creativity and defy (or are ignored by) empirical linguistic study.7 Lecercle derives this concept in turn from earlier French sociological and linguistic thought, particularly the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure (via Jacques Lacan). Both Lecercle’s and Venuti’s use of the concept of the remainder echoes the usage of the French theatre director Daniel Mesguich, who in 1977 wrote: When the actor of a text enters the scene, we have the monstrous division of a text by a body as well as that of a body by a text. This division doesn’t quite fit. There is a remainder, infinite, in movement. All the operations which might have produced it, all the texts and all the bodies, invent themselves from this remainder.8

Mesguich’s work at the time was devoted to demonstrating, in Sirkku Aaltonen’s words, that “the mise en scène was itself a translation”;9 and in that spirit, I intend to treat Dörrie’s films as translations or transpositions of her short stories. Dörrie herself anticipates this treatment when she makes clear that, for her at least, the syntax of film is necessarily different from that of prose: About the process of writing itself: the truth is that screenplays have to follow very, very clear laws in order to work as a film. As an author you’re very constrained writing a screenplay. I enjoy the fact that in prose the characters’ movement, even their inner movement, is very much greater and very much freer.10

To return to Venuti: “Reading for the remainder means focussing on the linguistic and cultural differences that English inscribes in the German text” – or that cinema inscribes in the prose text – “and then considering their reconstitution of [the author’s] ideas”.11 I propose that Dörrie’s short stories, in Venuti’s terms, serve to “release the remainder”, to show other facets of her characters, aspects that are suppressed in the transposition from prose to film. We can thus say that whenever the prose text and the cinematic text do not overlap, there is 7 Jean-Jacques Lecercle: The Violence of Language. London: Routledge 1990. Pp. 51–52; Lawrence Venuti: The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge 1995. P. 216. 8 Daniel Mesguich, with Gervais Robin: “The Book to Come is a Theater”, trans. Carl R. Lovitt, Sub/Stance 18/19 (1977). P. 113. 9 Sirkku Aaltonen: Time-Sharing on Stage: Drama Translation in Theatre and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2000. Pp. 37–38. 10 “Zum Schreibprozeß selber: es ist so, daß Drehbücher sehr, sehr klaren Gesetzen folgen müssen, um als Film zu funktionieren. Als Autor ist man sehr eingeschränkt beim Drehbuchschreiben. Ich genieße es, daß die Bewegung, die innere Bewegung auch der Figuren in der Prosa sehr viel größer ist und sehr viel freier”. Renate Fischetti: Gespräch mit Doris Dörrie. In: Renate Fischetti: Das neue Kino: Acht Porträts von deutschen Regisseurinnen. Dülmen-Hiddingsel: tende 1992. P. 250. 11 Lawrence Venuti. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge 1998. P. 112. Venuti is here speaking of Wittgenstein in particular as the translated author.

336 a remainder at either end: a literary remainder that does not make it into the film and a cinematic remainder that does not (yet) exist in the prose text. Dörrie’s 1995 film Nobody Loves Me (Keiner liebt mich), for example, is loosely based on several of her short stories from the 1991 collection Forever and Always: A Kind of Round Dance (Für immer und ewig: eine Art Reigen).12 The book’s subtitle is apt, given the fact that the stories are interrelated by a common cast of characters, while the role of protagonist shifts in each story – often to a supporting character in an earlier story. The episodic structure of Dörrie’s book is not echoed in Dörrie’s screenplay for Nobody Loves Me, although it is taken up in her subsequent film, Am I Beautiful? (Bin ich schön?; 1998). In fact, Am I Beautiful?, with a screenplay co-written by Dörrie, Rolf Basedow and Ruth Stadler, actually contains elements from both Forever and Always and Dörrie’s 1994 book entitled Am I Beautiful?,13 whose stories are only partly intertwined. The linchpin of the interconnected short stories in Forever and Always is Fanny Finck. She narrates several of the stories herself, and appears in stories recounted by others or by an omniscient narrator; but her “voice” is the first we hear in the book: “In spring 1968 I began to pray to God that he might finally let me grow a bosom”.14 The adolescent Fanny is continually unsure of herself and jealous of her statuesque schoolmate Antonia. In the course of this first story, Fanny is spitefully pleased to learn that Antonia’s family, indifferent to her beauty, calls her Tönnchen, “dumpling”; four years later, as the story ends with Fanny’s moving away from home, Fanny has lost touch with Antonia, achieved a bosom of her own, and now prays “for a man, a real man, to make happy with it”.15 Dörrie’s short stories cover a passage of fifteen years in the lives of Fanny and Antonia; their lovers and ex-lovers; Fanny’s unfaithful father Herbert and his mistress; Fanny’s mother Eva; Fanny’s sister Charlotte; and even, in two cases, Americans casually encountered by the German characters on holiday – or on the run – in the United States. Antonia becomes a model and fashion reporter, while Fanny moves from high school through a job in fast food to work for a German radio network. As a teenager and young adult, Fanny leaps from one young man’s bed into the next: “Fanny was simply incapable of affairs; she fell in love, even if it was only for one night”.16 With age, her relationships last longer but become no more satisfying.

12

Doris Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen Zurich: Diogenes 1991. Doris Dörrie: Bin ich schön? Zurich: Diogenes 1994. 14 “Im Frühjahr 1968 begann ich zu Gott zu beten, er möge mir endlich einen Busen wachsen lassen”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 7. 15 “[…] um einen Mann, einen richtigen Mann, um ihn damit zu erfreuen”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 23. 16 “Fanny war einfach unfähig zu Affären, sie verliebte sich, und wenn es nur für eine Nacht war”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 170. 13

337 In the final story, Fanny is at last seemingly settled in a comfortable country home with Xaver, her most recent partner; but a reunion with the recently jilted Antonia prompts a quarrel between the two women and Xaver, who storms out. Though this story is recounted in the third person, the last line of the book is again Fanny’s voice: when Antonia takes some drops from a vial in her purse, describing them as “homeopathic stuff for lovesickness, but it helps”, Fanny replies enviously, “Really? Where do you get something like that?”.17 Thus Fanny and Antonia’s reunion closes the circle, leaving them essentially where they started. Heybrock describes Forever and Always as “a cycle of texts that makes no attempt at strictly logical development, but rather evokes a kaleidoscope-like picture – a chorus of textual voices that are also not regimented by an authorial viewpoint”.18 Although many of the events in the stories are painful, even traumatic, the constant shifts of perspective keep the reader from identifying too closely with any one character, softening the book’s tone so that the final effect is almost wistful. The film drawn from the characters who appear in the book, however, is completely different in form and in tone. Not only is the episodic structure exchanged for a straightforward linear plot, but Nobody Loves Me is also funnier; and though its humour is often surprisingly dark, it nonetheless ends on an optimistic note foreign to the book. While Antonia does not appear in Dörrie’s film to act as role model and object of envy, Fanny Fink (now minus the ‘c’ in her surname) is quickly and economically established as having the same low self-esteem and desperate need to be loved as her literary counterpart: our first glimpse of Fanny (Maria Schrader), and the opening shot of the film, is her self-deprecating monologue as she makes a video for a singles service: I don’t believe a woman necessarily needs a man to be happy. But I’m turning thirty this year and I guess you probably know that stupid saying: For a woman over thirty it’s easier to be hit by an A-bomb than to find a man. […] Doesn’t sound too exciting, eh? I wouldn’t fall in love with me either, if I were you guys.19 17

“ ‘so ein homöopathisches Zeug gegen Liebeskummer, aber es hilft mir’. ‘Wirklich? […] wo bekommt man das?’” Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 303. 18 “[…] eine Abfolge von Texten, die nicht den stringenten Aufbau sucht, sondern ein kaleidoskopartiges Bild evoziert – einen Chor von textuellen Stimmen, die auch durch eine auktoriale Perspektive nicht reglementiert werden”. Mathis Heybrock: Love in Germany: Die (Kino-) Geschichten der Doris Dörrie. EDP Film 14.9 (1997). P. 26. 19 “Ich glaube, keine Frau braucht unbedingt einen Mann, um glücklich zu sein. Aber dieses Jahre werde ich dreißig und Sie kennen ja wahrscheinlich den blöden Spruch: Für eine Frau über dreißig ist es leichter, von einer A-Bombe getroffen zu werden als einen Mann zu finden. […] Klingt gar nicht aufregend, was? Ich würde mich auch nie in mich verlieben, wenn ich ihr wäre”. Doris Dörrie: Keiner liebt mich. Cobra Film GmbH/ZDF 1995.

338 Only then do the film’s credits run; immediately afterwards we again see Fanny, this time praying, like her younger self in the book, for a man: “He doesn’t have to be good-looking, or tall, or young. Not a smoker or a drinker. With good health insurance. Is that too much to ask?”.20 Fanny’s desperate sense that her “biological clock” is ticking, to use her mother’s term, is visually represented by the symbols of death she surrounds herself with: black clothes, skeleton earrings, skull t-shirts. She even sleeps in a coffin, which is part of her homework for a quasi-Buddhist course on “conscious dying” she has enrolled in. Because the kind of stasis depicted in Dörrie’s complex of short stories is hardly suitable for the plot of a comic film, however, and because the film focusses far more exclusively on a single protagonist, Nobody Loves Me shows Fanny working beyond her low self-esteem, only briefly distracted by falling for the shallow and selfish building manager Lothar Sticker (a character with no counterpart in the book; played by Michael von Au), who sleeps both with Fanny and then with her best friend – not, in the film, her sister – Charlotte. Getting over Lothar, Fanny eventually makes a fresh start, by the film’s final scene, with a likeable young man from her death course. Thus we can observe here that the film adaptation inscribes change, rather than stasis, as a cinematic remainder. The agent of Fanny’s emotional transformation is another character from Forever and Always, but one who originally appears in different form, and in connection not with Fanny at all, but rather with Antonia. In the story “Orfeo”, Antonia visits a clairvoyant because she feels deserted: her live-in boyfriend, Johnny, is completely consumed by the televised World Cup. The clairvoyant’s name, Orfeo de Altamar, appears on the nameplate above hers at her apartment block; and she has often wondered, in the elevator, whether the name belonged to one or another of the men riding with her. When she first visits him, however, she realizes that she has never seen […] this tall, thread-thin man who opened the door for her. He gave the impression of being dragged out, his limbs seemed unusually long. His head was so narrow that Antonia marvelled that there was any room at all for his face there. He had dark, almond-shaped eyes, a large, full mouth, and a nose with a ridge as sharp as a knife. His skin was olive-coloured, dark. On his elegantly formed head there remained only sparse black hair. Wound tight round his thin body he wore a night-blue silk dressing-gown, and his waist was so slender that Antonia could have spanned it with both hands. A prince, she thought spontaneously, he’s a prince. With an oddly croaking voice and in a very soft accent that sounded as if he had a bon-bon in his mouth, he said reproachfully: “But you have no appointment?”.21 20 “Er braucht nicht schön sein, nicht groß, nicht jung. Kein Raucher, kein Trinker. Mit guter Krankenversicherung. Ist das denn zuviel verlangt?” Dörrie: Keiner liebt mich. Cobra Film 1995. 21 “[…] diesen großen, fadendünnen Mann, der ihr jetzt die Tür öffnete […]. Er wirkte wie in die Länge gezogen, seine Glieder schienen überlänge zu haben. Sein Kopf war

339 In the film, on the other hand, Fanny’s first glimpse of Orfeo (Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss) is very different, although the connection to the elevator remains: after the early scene in the church, Fanny is riding in her apartment block elevator, alone except for a black man in dark glasses and a fur-collared coat, his shaven head and face covered with white quasi-tribal markings. His hands and arms are painted like a skeleton, linking him already to Fanny’s obsession with death. Fanny keeps a more than polite distance from this apparition, whose cigarette makes her cough. Without warning, the elevator lights dim and it comes to a halt. Fanny nervously presses the buttons, complaining that they are stuck. Suddenly, the black man bursts into what sounds like a voodoo chant, leaping back and forth in the elevator and striking the walls. After a few of his gyrations, the lights come back on and the elevator continues on its way. With an exaggerated refinement of gesture, the dancer, now silent again, draws a business card from his pocket and gracefully extends it to Fanny, who takes it and reads: Orfeo de Altamar. Clairvoyant and Gyromancer. Even though Dörrie has taken care to populate Fanny’s apartment building with so many eccentric and multicultural characters that even Fanny’s Goth wardrobe hardly seems particularly outré, Orfeo’s body paint, noisy rooftop rituals, and apparent supernatual powers set him apart even more than his skin color (the apartment block is also home to other blacks, veiled Muslims, and turbaned Sikhs, for example).22 In the short story, Orfeo is given a comparatively realistic family background: born on Cape Verde of a white mother and a black father, he arrived in Munich in 1969 to study business, but quickly dropped out to join a commune and sew up African-style clothes that caught on and made him rich. Married in 1973 to a so schmal, daß es Antonia wunderte, daß sein Gesicht überhaupt Platz darin hatte. Er hatte dunkle, mandelförmige Augen, einen großen, vollen Mund und eine Nase mit einem Nasenrücken so scharf wie ein Messer. Seine Haut war olivfarben, dunkel. Auf seinem elegant geformten Kopf waren nur noch spärliche, schwarze Haare vorhanden. Eng um seinen dünnen Körper geschlungen trug er einen nachtblauen seidenen Morgenmantel, und seine Taille war so schmal, daß Antonia sie mit beiden Händen hätte umfassen können. Ein Prinz, dachte sie spontan, er ist ein Prinz. Mit einer seltsam krächzenden Stimme und in einem sehr weichen Akzent, der so klang, als hätte er in Bonbon im Mund, sagt er vorwurfsvoll: ‘Sie sind aber nicht angemeldet?’ ” Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. Pp. 51–52. 22 Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley, in their critique of the film, deny the presence of other non-German and specifically non-white characters, though admittedly they are at best peripheral, and disappear altogether in the course of the film. Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley: The Vanishing Healer in Doris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me. In: Women Filmmakers: Refocusing. Ed. by Jacqueline Levitan, Judith Plessis, and Valerie Raoul. Vancouver: UBC Press 2003. Pp. 119–126. This same multicultural presence is acknowledged in Margaret McCarthy: Teutonic Water: Effervescent Otherness in Döris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me. In: Camera Obscura 44, vol. 15.2 (2000). Pp. 177–178.

340 Swabian blonde, father of two children, founder of own boutique, “Orphé”, in 1975. Shortly thereafter, his wife discovered his bisexuality in a particularly compromising manner, gave him twenty-four hours to vacate, and liquidated his assets. At this point, Orfeo moved into Antonia’s building, going through all his money and then turning to prostitution to avoid eviction, yet remaining lonely; at least, he claims, until the night he was abducted by beings of pure light from the planet Arcturus, who took his pain away, claimed him as a brother due to the huge emerald ring he wore, and returned him to earth to “save” others by selling them gemstones by which the Arcturans will recognize them: “Precious stones are God’s thoughts. […] They’re the gateway to another dimension. They’re like candles in the darkness. The stones will strengthen your consciousness, they’ll illuminate you with knowledge, they’ll help you see things as they really are”, as Orfeo says.23 Antonia, by now emotionally dependent on Orfeo, is quickly recruited to help him sell gems, bought with her life savings, to her more successful colleagues in modelling. She is unsure whether she believes his stories or not, but when he seems to be dying of AIDS, she makes great efforts to find his ex-wife, Evi, and convince her to allow him to see his children. The attempt fails, but Orfeo recovers, the gem business flourishes even more, and Antonia finds herself pushed more and more to the periphery of his life, until finally she breaks free: she herself buys an emerald from him, sees things “as they really are”,24 and flies to New York, leaving both Orfeo and Johnny without a farewell. The film’s Orfeo is still black, still addicted to precious gems, and still claims to be awaiting rescue by aliens from Arcturus (his long speech about his abduction is the only nearly verbatim holdover from the short story); however, rather than bisexual, he is exclusively homosexual, and seems to have no living family attachments. Moreover, where the literary Orfeo (apparently his real name) seems to be genuinely of African provenance, his filmic counterpart is at one point unmasked by Lothar as Walter Rattinger, born in East Germany and by training a short-order cook (this change seems to have been inspired by the casting of Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss, himself an East German black actor and former aspiring cook, in the role25). Exotically “other” and bisexual, the book’s 23

“Edelsteine sind Gottes Gedanken. […] Sie sind das Tor zu einer anderen Dimension. Sie sind wie Kerzen im Dunkeln. Sie schützen dich davor, getäuscht zu werden. Die Steine werden dein Bewußtsein stärken, sie werden dich mit Wissen erleuchten, sie werden dir helfen, die Dinge so zu sehen, wie sie sind”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 53. 24 “[…] wie sie wirklich sind”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 83. 25 Klaus Phillips: Interview with Doris Dörrie: Filmmaker, Writer, Teacher. In: Triangulated Visions: Women in Recent German Cinema. Ed. by Ingeborg Majer O’Sickey and Ingeborg von Zadow. Albany: State University of New York Press 1998. P. 178.

341 stylish Orfeo may be a con artist, but twice in his life – both in his past and again at the end of the story – he is well off and lionized by the haut monde. Orfeo in the film, black, gay, and East German, is ostracized and rejected by all levels of society, representing three “other” subcultures whose existence the reunifed Germany has difficulty acknowledging (his illness, of course, represents another, more general, suppressed “other”). Thus Dörrie inscribes into the constellation of her original story a remainder of “black as other” and “Ossi as other” which is lacking in the book Forever and Always, but which do appear in the first two stories in the later volume, Am I Beautiful?, here in the context of two different au pair girls – a former Ossi and a black American – hired by Charlotte Finck, Fanny’s sister.26 Instead of making his fortune as a couturier or jeweller, the film’s Orfeo ekes out a marginal existence by equally marginal means – as a drag queen whose act in the film consists of lip-synched impressions of Billie Holliday and Nana Mouskouri. His failed relationship with a white television newsreader, who clearly represents a socially acceptable German identity, only throws Orfeo’s unacceptibility into starker relief.27 Thus it is hardly surprising that the film’s Orfeo might resort to fraud and deception in order to get by. Perhaps most notably, whereas the Orfeo of the short story becomes the acquaintance of Fanny’s friend and rival Antonia, in the film Fanny herself encounters Orfeo. Although she too becomes emotionally dependent on him, as Antonia does in the story, he does not involve her in shady dealings with precious stones (Fanny, after all, has no connections to the wealthy modelling scene), nor does he ultimately cause the end of an existing love relationship, as between Antonia and Johnny. Instead, the film focusses on Fanny’s attempts to use Orfeo’s powers to help her find love – leading to a fiasco with Lothar, who prefers Fanny’s friend Charlotte (Anya Hoffmann) – and then to Fanny’s helping him with his preparations for his own death; not, he expressly points out, of AIDS, but of some mysterious consumptive ailment. Alice Kuzniar has commented on the film’s disavowal of the AIDS problem as an abdication of responsibility, given that no other major German director, except for Rosa von Praunheim, has dealt with the disease.28 However, even in the short story doubts are raised about the reality of Orfeo’s illness: Antonia’s boyfriend Johnny provokes Orfeo to anger in order to rekindle his will to live, but then

26

“Gutes Karma aus Zschopau” (“Good Karma from Zschopau”), and “Trinidad”, in: Dörrie: Bin ich schön? 1994. Pp. 7–23 and 24–54 respectively. 27 Margaret McCarthy: Teutonic Water. Pp. 186, 188; Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley: The Vanishing Healer in Doris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me. P. 123. 28 Alice Kuzniar: Queer German Cinema. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. P. 280. See also McCarthy: Teutonic Water. P. 200.

342 tells Antonia, “He’s not at all as sick as you think”.29 Although Antonia has seen Orfeo’s body covered with purple flecks, she too finds his later apparent recovery suspicious. Thus, while the reality of Orfeo’s illness is also left ambiguous in Nobody Loves Me – it is true that he coughs from the beginning of the film, for example, even when there are no witnesses – the possibility that he is faking the extent of his illness is already clearly signalled in the literary remainder released in the short story. In any case, to be sure, Orfeo’s treatment of Fanny in the film is often as exploitative as his treatment of Antonia in the book: he charges exorbitant sums for his advice, goes through Fanny’s purse, mooches champagne from her, and moves in with her when he is evicted. Far from showing talent as a fashion designer, the film’s Orfeo even inveigles Fanny into stealing one of Lothar’s expensive suits for him and using her savings to purchase gold as a present for his Arcturan aliens; since it seems that with his body weakening, they are coming to take him home. At the end of the film, Orfeo lies in Fanny’s homemade coffin, garbed in tribal stripes and Armani and clutching a bar of solid gold; where, once left alone, he apparently simply vanishes to the sound of pre-taped jet engines, his seeming physical transformation echoing her emotional transformation.30 However, the strong possibility of his “return” from the next world is not only encoded in his name, Orfeo31 – in the film, a deliberately chosen false name, as opposed to the story, where it is his real name, and he does not disappear but rather apparently returns from the brink of death – but also foreshadowed by the fact that the very coffin in which he is lying has already been used for one “Orphic” journey, since Fanny herself had to be buried alive in it as part of her course. Thus it is possible, perhaps even likely, that Orfeo’s transformation in the coffin is also temporary, a sham: he has simply faked or exaggerated his illness and absconded with a fancy suit and a bar of gold. Even the emerald ring he leaves behind turns out to be mere glass. 29

“Der ist gar nicht so krank, wie du denkst”. Dörrie: Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen. P. 80. 30 It is remarkable that many critics have simply taken Orfeo’s disappearance at face value, apparently as an exercise in “magic realism”, as do Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley: The Vanishing Healer in Doris Dörrie’s Nobody Loves Me. Pp. 121, 124. Margaret McCarthy also does so, although she then problematizes this reading; McCarthy: Teutonic Water. Pp. 194–195. 31 Margaret McCarthy: Teutonic Water. P. 198. Barnwell and Stanley also see echoes of Marcel Camus’ 1959 film Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), set in Rio during carnival season, though they criticize Nobody Loves Me as a reversal of the Orpheus myth and the earlier film: because in Dörrie’s version the Orpheus and Eurydice figures are not of the same race, “Orfeo saves Fanny but is unable to save himself ”. Again, the assumption is that Orfeo’s sacrifice, whether at his own hands or at Fanny’s, is real. Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley: The Vanishing Healer. Pp. 123–124.

343 The obvious nature of Orfeo’s scam is doubly undercut, however. On the one hand, we are never sure that Fanny is really deceived, since she clearly acts out of affection for him; and on the other, he not only seems genuinely to care about her, but he also eventually brings her real luck. The number 23, which Orfeo tells Fanny will bring love, and which she first sees on the number plate of Lothar’s Jaguar, also finally appears on the shirt of the nice young artist from her class, who moves into Orfeo’s old apartment and reveals that he has been trying to work up the courage to speak to her, heralding a fresh and promising start. This process of renewal is also foreshadowed earlier by Fanny’s mock burial. Because the coffin lid is made of plexiglass, we see her startled expression when the flowers and the first clod of earth lands over her face; the film then cuts to her weeping and being comforted by Orfeo, who then reveals that he himself is dying. This is already the beginning of the end of her infatuation with death; and her helping Orfeo is a sign of her increasingly active and positive participation in life, as well as of an altruism that would likely be beyond the capabilities of her self-absorbed textual counterpart. The Fanny of the film thus ends up apparently on the verge of a hopeful new life, completely unlike the Fanny of the book – or the Antonia who, after meeting Orfeo, finds herself newly single and alone in a New York hotel room, surrounded by alien noise that may only be in her head. In the literary remainder, Antonia is “alienated”, while in the cinematic remainder it is Orfeo who is alienated – to all appearances, quite literally – in order for Fanny to become better integrated. The fact that this is a trope of mainstream cinema – the black/gay/ill character who teaches a white/straight/healthy protagonist how to live and then is removed, usually by death – has been pointed out.32 However, because this trope (which does not occur in the literary text) is made conspicuous by the absurdity and possible fraudulence of the alien abduction, both characters seem to be acting out the pattern almost consciously and ironically, rescuing the ultimately comic effect of the film. The relationship of Dörrie’s films to her fiction is made yet more complex by the production of Am I Beautiful?, which deserves the subtitle “A Kind of Round Dance” just as fully as Dörrie’s book Forever and Always, and far more than the book with the same title as the film.33 In the film Am I Beautiful?, six 32

Kathryn Barnwell and Marni Stanley: The Vanishing Healer. Pp. 124–125. Margaret McCarthy, again, does so only to argue against such a straightforward interpretation; Margaret McCarthy: Teutonic Water. Pp. 195–196. 33 Margaret McCarthy points out that German critics noticed the similarities between the film Am I Beautiful? and Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen (The Round Dance, or La Ronde), which in fact furnishes the subtitle for Dörrie’s earlier book. Margaret McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday in Doris Dörrie’s Am I Beautiful? In: Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective. Ed. by Randall Halle and Margaret McCarthy. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 2003. P. 381.

344 of the stories from that book are linked together with three stories from Forever and Always by some connection to the Finck family (though the surname is never used in the film): Charlotte and her husband Robert, who appear in both books, are also present in the film, as is Fanny and Charlotte’s father Herbert, with his young mistress Jessica, both reappearing in a version of “Tuba-TeppichKur” (“Tuba Carpet Shampoo”), a story of a disastrous tryst from Forever and Always. The mother of the family, Eva in Forever and Always, is here renamed Unna and combined with a character of that name from two stories in the book Am I Beautiful? Finally, two unnamed characters from unrelated stories in Am I Beautiful? – “Kaschmir” and “Die Braut” (“Cashmere” and “The Bride”) – are conflated into Franziska, who replaces Fanny as Charlotte’s sister and whose marriage motivates much of the film’s action. Fanny is a nickname for Franziska, of course, so that the two characters are in a sense equivalent, though not identical. A third sister, Vera, is also created from an unnamed character in “Wer sind Sie?” (“Who Are You?”), a story from Am I Beautiful? The newly minted character Franziska also links the two main locations for the film’s action: Germany, where her wedding will take place, and Spain, where Franziska’s ex-lover Klaus (a version of Fanny’s ex-lover from Forever and Always) has run to and where he encounters Linda (another character from Forever and Always, here changed from an American to a German). Klaus and Franziska (Steffen Wink and Anica Dobra) are still in touch by cell phone, as Klaus spends much of the film trying to talk her out of marrying Holger, a man she barely knows; but in the course of the film Klaus falls in love with Linda (Franka Potente), whom he first meets only remotely, by finding the handbag she has thrown away beside a Spanish highway, and then encounters in person as she pretends to be a deaf-mute in a restaurant. She flees from Klaus for a brief tryst with Bodo (Uwe Ochsenknecht), a character created from an American, Bob, in Forever and Always, who then later meets up with the rest of his family to become a Bodo familiar from the book Am I Beautiful? Only at the end do Klaus and Linda meet and pair up happily as the end titles roll. As is clear from this synopsis, Am I Beautiful? is characterized throughout by a remarkably free and inventive intermingling and conflation of characters and elements from the stories in the two books. Here, too, as in Nobody Loves Me, the tone is very different from the fictional source(s): not only does Franziska’s wedding take place without any serious crisis, but Klaus also finds new love with Linda, while both characters are last seen still deeply hurt and lonely in separate stories in Forever and Always. At the same time, Robert and Charlotte (Nina Petri and Joachim Król) replay a bitter argument from the book Am I Beautiful?, but are reconciled at Franziska’s wedding in the film; and while Eva, in Forever and Always, responds to Herbert’s infidelity by getting

345 her own apartment and drowning her sorrows in pointless shopping,34 in the film Unna (Senta Berger) repays him more aggressively by secretly looking up David, an old lover (Otto Sander), in Seville. Although the dialogue in this latter scene is often taken verbatim from the corresponding short story “Montagspumpernickel” (“Monday Pumpernickle”), the transposition here again changes the tone. In the short story, Unna looks up Dave Goldman in Brighton Beach, New York. We have already seen their original rocky relationship in a previous story, “Die Schickse” (“The Shiksa”), and we are aware that there was tension due to her being a German gentile and his being an American Jew. Thus there is a literary remainder of alienation, further emphasized by Dörrie’s setting “Monday Pumpernickle” in the year 2020, years after their relationship in the present has ended. In the film as in the book, Dave/David has suffered a stroke in the time intervening, and as a result has lost many of his memories, including all recollection of Unna and their time together: “It’s as if a bunch of photos had been ripped out of the middle of a photo album, there’s nothing more there, nothing at all”, he observes in both book and film.35 However, while in the film David’s stroke still acts as a barrier between them, we nonetheless see two Germans meeting in a foreign country: their conversation is in German in both media, but in the book, we know that the German is recounting a conversation that occurred in English, Unna’s second language, while in the film we see and hear them speaking German that simply is German, not representing another language (the same, incidentally, is true of the Klaus/Linda pairing – in the book, she too is an American).36 The reunion with David in Spain in the film breaks off in the middle at a relatively upbeat moment – the memory of her pumpernickle bread strikes a chord in him, and they lie on his bed reciting the ingredients – while the meeting with Dave in New York in the short story plays out beyond this scene to a bittersweet conclusion, with Unna leaving a freshly baked loaf at Dave’s door before returning to her normal life.37 Meanwhile, in the film Unna’s husband Herbert (Gottfried John) awakens alone in the hotel and goes out in the street to face his conscience, to all appearances sincerely, in 34

“Kaufrausch” (“Shopping Frenzy”): Doris Dörrie: Für immer und ewig. Pp. 164–169. “Es ist, als wären manche Fotos mitten aus einem Fotoalbum herausgerissen worden, dort ist nichts mehr, gar nichts”. “Montagspumpernickel”, in: Doris Dörrie: Bin ich schön? P. 141. 36 For an interpretation of how this change in location and implied language affects the previous story about Unna and Dave, “The Shiksa”, and an analogous scene in the film concerning Vera rather than Unna, see Peter McIsaac: North-South, East-West: Mapping German Identities in Cinematic and Literary Versions of Doris Dörrie’s Bin ich schön? In: German Quarterly 77.3 (2004). Pp. 344–345. 37 “Montagspumpernickel”, in Doris Dörrie: Bin ich schön? Pp. 159–160; Doris Dörrie: Bin ich schön? Neue Constantin Film, 1998. 35

346 the form of a Catholic religious procession. Thus the film version releases a cinematic remainder of solidarity rather than alienation, and all of the stories which come to unhappy or open ends in Dörrie’s two books conclude with an apparent reconciliation or a new beginning in the film. One of the most interesting aspects of the adaptation of Dörrie’s stories into the film Am I Beautiful?, however, is her transposition of all the material set in the U.S. in both books (in Forever and Always, the far west; in Am I Beautiful?, New York and Florida) to Spanish locations in the film. Obviously, the economic factor plays a large role here: it is much cheaper for a German production to film in Spain than in America. However, the substitution of Spanish deserts for American deserts – a substitution underlined by the Spanish music on the film’s soundtrack – provides a similar sense of exoticism to that in the book, while increasing the sense of warmth and romance. Yet at the same time, the sense of being “on the road” and hence on the run, of staying in cheap motels and being driven by chance and loneliness, survives as a literary remainder in the stories; and its resonance in the film not only sets these relatively happy endings into starker relief, but also contrasts with the rainy stability – if not stagnation – depicted in the scenes set in Germany.38 Both films, then, can be said to depict integration and closure where the stories they are based on more often end in separation and frustration for the characters. The things “that can only happen to them”, in Dörrie’s words, may or may not still happen as they did in the stories – but if they do, they may yet have very different results. The “kaleidoscope-like picture” that Heybrock describes as already present in Dörrie’s fiction is further refracted by the additional, and sometimes contradictory, interpretation of the characters in cinematic terms, while the traces of the fiction that remain problematize any characterization of Dörrie’s filmic narrative as “slickly conventional”. The complexity of Dörrie’s work results in part from the existence of the literary remainder in the background of these two films. As Heybrock puts it, relative to her fiction, “Dörrie’s films [are] more linear and serve the spectator more fully, yet they never fade into the mainstream”.39 38

Again, for another interpretation of the cause and particularly the effect of this transposition, see Peter McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 347–348. Another perceptive analysis of the contrast between the German characters and their Spanish setting, although it does not deal with the literary source, is Margaret McCarthy, Angst Takes a Holiday in Doris Dörrie’s Am I Beautiful? Pp. 376–394. 39 “Dörries Filme [sind] linearer und bedienen den Zuschauer kompletter, doch gehen auch sie nicht im Mainstream auf ”. Mathis Heybrock: Love in Germany: Die (Kino-) Geschichten der Doris Dörrie. P. 26. * I would like to thank Christiane Schönfeld and Hermann Rasche of the National University of Ireland, Galway, for their hospitality and feedback; Peter M. McIsaac of Duke University, for allowing me to see his unpublished article on Dörrie’s Am I Beautiful?; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for their generous sponsorship of my research in this area.

Peter M. McIsaac

Taking Doris Dörrie Seriously: Literature, Film, Gender The essay aligns Doris Dörrie’s film and literature to complicate prevailing critical assumptions that the commercial orientation of Dörrie’s filmmaking means it accommodates, rather than challenges, viewers. The essay traces the transformation of short stories from Doris Dörrie’s Für immer und ewig: eine Art Reigen and Bin ich schön? into the film Bin ich schön?, focusing on its intermedial and intertextual aspects. This approach reveals that the film conveys its insights through a mode of inclusive referencing or transclusion, originally a term introduced to describe the dynamic interconnectedness of hypertext media. This approach shows, among other things, that Dörrie’s film presents critical theoretical and meta-filmic commentary on its reliance on the conventions of the road movie, travel narratives, and north-south identity discourses. In particular, the film critiques the gender constructs typical of travel narratives as well as the “work” of northerners’ imaginings of the south in producing its “happy ending”.

Productive insights into the contemporary relationship of film and literature can be gained with a focus on writer and filmmaker Doris Dörrie. More than an artist who can works capably in separate media, Dörrie begs to be recognized as a figure who consciously transforms characters, stories, and concepts from one medium into the other. This movement between media proves particularly fascinating in light of Sabine Hake’s observation that in the era after New German Cinema, German society increasingly seems to dismiss film’s ability to deal with troubling, complex, or vexing matters. Rather, topics of serious cultural import demand literary treatment.1 Aside from regarding culturally relevant film at best as an exception to the rule, such expectations would furthermore suggest that as they diverge, film and literature have little in common and little to reveal about each other. At first glance, such a strict division of cultural labor would appear to describe Dörrie’s cultural production. After all, Dörrie directed Männer, the highly successful 1984 film that for many initiated the wave of commercially successful Beziehungskomödien (for instance, Der bewegte Mann, Abgeschminkt!, Stadtgespräch). For many critics and film scholars, these films came to represent the (lamentable) state of post-Wende German cinema.2 With Dörrie representing the commercial turn in German film, her work is often read as preferring to 1

Sabine Hake: German National Cinema. New York: Routledge 2002. P. 174. Hake regards Dörrie’s films as general exceptions to this division. 2 David N. Coury: From Aesthetics to Commercialism: Narration and the New German Comedy. In: Seminar 33 (1997). P. 360.

348 “engross and accommodate” audiences rather than spur critical engagement.3 In contrast, critical acclaim for Dörrie’s creative fiction has drawn attention to her cultural and political insights, her economic use of the German language, and her command of the short story genre. Her short story collections in particular have led critics to describe Dörrie as “the best short story writer of her generation” and she is also an acclaimed writer of children’s fiction.4 Though for some time Dörrie’s projects have appeared in print before she converts them to film (most recently she has published a novel and a play that subsequently became films), Dörrie has always tended to use writing as a tool for developing her cinematic projects.5 Seen this way, the critical acclaim for her writing represents not so much a deep change in how Dörrie works as an opportunity to rethink the critical potential of Dörrie’s motion pictures. In this paper, I propose to do just this by tracing how she refigures the insights of the literary realm in order to work in the cinematic medium. Such a focus on intermedial and intertextual transformations in Dörrie’s cultural production, I maintain, can accomplish two things. First, it contributes to a growing body of scholarship that has sought to advance categories more nuanced than “commercial” – a generally pejorative label typically opposed to critically valorized terms such as “art” or “counter-cinema” – for thinking about Dörrie’s work within the nexus of post-Wende cinema.6 Second, it provides a nuanced model of the possible interdependencies of (post-Wende) literature and cinema. In pursuing these two points, this paper will align two of Dörrie’s acclaimed short story collections, Für immer und ewig: eine Art Reigen (1991) and Bin ich schön? (1994) with the 1998 film largely drawn from these texts, Bin ich 3

Eric Rentschler: From New German Cinema to the Post-Wall Cinema of Consensus. In: Cinema and Nation. Ed. by Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. New York: Routledge 2000. Pp. 267, 264. McCarthy discusses these tendencies as well. Margaret McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday in Doris Dörrie’s Am I Beautiful? (1998). In: Light Motives. German Popular Film in Perspective. Ed. by Randall Halle and Margaret McCarthy. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 2003. Pp. 378–379. 4 “Die beste Kurzgeschichtenerzählerin ihrer Generation”. Interview with Doris Dörrie: Die volle Katastrophe leben. In: Der Spiegel (3 January 1998). P. 206. 5 Doris Dörrie’s Was machen wir jetzt? (Zurich: Diogenes 2000), became the film Erleuchtung garantiert (2000). Happy. Ein Drama (Zurich: Diogenes 2001) became the film Nackt. Doja Hacker: “Erfolg ist eine Wolke”. Doris Dörrie und ihr neues Buch Bin ich schön? In: Der Spiegel of 14 March 1994. P. 2. Dörrie admits that a filmmaker’s perspective informs much of her writing. Interview with Doris Dörrie: In: Dirk Jasper Filmstarlexikon. Deutsches Entertainment Magazin of 24 Jan. 2001. ⬍http://www. filmstar.de/entertainment/stars/d/doris_doerrie_i_01.html⬎. 6 McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. Pp. 376–394, particularly 390. Peter M. McIsaac: North-South, East-West: Mapping German Identities in Cinematic and Literary Versions of Doris Dörrie’s Bin ich schön? In: The German Quarterly 77 (2004). Pp. 339–361. See also the essay by Paul M. Malone in this volume.

349 schön?.7 The argument will proceed in three stages. The first introduces the parameters of the “Bin ich schön? project”, focusing on the aesthetic, generic, and financial factors that bear on the portrayal of characters and stories in each medium. The second stage analyzes the film’s opening sequences, elucidating their key features and figures against the backdrop of their literary contexts, the stories “Die Handtasche” and “Geheimnisse”. The stories and film alike attach deep significance to the character Linda and the contents of her handbag, though both change in subtle but crucial ways in the movement from print to screen. As the analysis shows, these changes reveal Linda to be a privileged character whose advance through the film provides not only structural integrity but also a mode of theoretical and meta-filmic commentary on the kinds of narratives the film constructs. Some of these narratives arise through a mode of inclusive referencing or transclusion, originally a term introduced to describe the dynamic interconnectedness of non-sequential documents. As defined by Ted Nelson, the theorist who coined the related term hypertext,8 “transclusion means that part of a document may be in several places – in other documents besides the original – without actually being copied there”.9 Examining two different uses of transclusive structures in Dörrie’s film (Linda’s handbag and the children’s story it contains in the film, Oh, wie schön ist Panama10), the essay argues that transclusive texts permit meaning to be reinscribed dynamically as new information is encountered, making the film a “magic place of literary memory”.11 Following some of these structures, the essay’s third stage links the opening sequences to the film’s concluding images, developing the insights of stage two to read the film as engaging with the tradition

7 Doris Dörrie: Für immer und ewig. Eine Art Reigen. Zürich: Diogenes 1991. Doris Dörrie: Bin ich schön? Zurich: Diogenes 1994. Doris Dörrie, dir: Bin ich schön? Perf. Franka Potente, Steffen Wink, Joachim Król, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Dieter Schönherr, Iris Berben, Anica Dobra, Gottfried John, Nina Petri, Otto Sander, Senta Berger. Videocassette: Constantin Film 1998. 8 I owe the suggestion of thinking of Dörrie’s work in terms of hypertext to the moderator of my panel at the Film to Literature – Literature to Film Conference. I will use Theodor Holm Nelson’s definition of hypertext: “hypertext [means] a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper”. See also WordNet ® 2.0, A lexical Database of the English Language. Princeton: Princeton University 2003. ⬍http://www.cogsci.princeton. edu/~wn/⬎ 9 Theodor Holm Nelson: Literary Machines. The Report on, and of, Project Xanadu, Concerning Word Processing, Electronic Publishing, Hypertext, Thinkertoys, Tomorrow’s Intellectual Revolution, and Certain Other Topics Including Knowledge, Education and Freedom. Sausalito, CA: Mindful Press 1992. Preface. 10 Janosch: Oh, wie schön ist Panama. Weinheim: Beltz und Gelberg 1978. 11 Nelson: Literary Machines. P. 1/30.

350 of the travel narrative in order to critique its traditional gender configurations on the one hand and prevailing notions of German identity on the other.

I The short story collections Für immer und ewig: Eine Art Reigen and Bin ich schön? share a number of structural and topical emphases. Structurally, characters in both collections pass from one otherwise unrelated story to the next, recalling the organization of Arthur Schnitzler’s circular drama Reigen. Beginning and ending with Fanny Finck’s relationship with her friend Antonia and their respective searches for love – Finck would eventually become the main protagonist of Dörrie’s film Keiner liebt mich – Für immer und ewig consciously emulates the circularity its fin-de-siècle predecessor. Bin ich schön?, in contrast, fails to circle back on the characters in the opening story. In both collections, however, the unexpected links and shifting contexts encountered by the characters produce loose, overarching story lines in which the characters realize their deepest longings and fears, though seldom for very long and seldom in the ways they anticipate. Dörrie’s conception of life leads her to focus on those fleeting moments in which great highs and great lows are experienced in almost the same breath. As she put it in an interview, she seeks to depict how “we can be utterly elated one moment and morbidly depressed the next and not know how that can happen”.12 As recent work on Dörrie’s writing and film has shown, this aesthetic of capturing the highs and lows of human existence is achieved through medium-specific modes of dramatic irony that seek less to explain than to present behavior and motivation for reflection.13 In both story collections, characters gain experiences as they move back and forth primarily between Germany and the United States and/or the Caribbean, making travel and geography – as well as what they signify in the cultural imagination – an idiom in which they work out their problems. Of the large number of human foibles, quirks, and desires that come into Dörrie’s purview, she most often and insightfully explores quixotic linkages between the thing that impart beauty and happiness, love, sexuality, and identity. Events in Dörrie’s life and the constraints of the medium profoundly shaped how many of these same concerns are taken up in the 1998 film Bin ich schön?. Though Dörrie had gotten the project underway, it was broken off indefinitely when Dörrie’s husband and cinematographer, Helga Wendler, died while shooting. With producer Bernd Eichinger helping to resuscitate it, a 12

“Dass wir in einem Moment himmelhochjauchzend und im nächsten zu Tode betrübt sein können und nicht wissen, wie das passieren kann”. Interview with Doris Dörrie: In: Jasper Filmstarlexikon. Deutsches Entertainment Magazin. P. 1. 13 McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 341–342.

351 reconceptualized venture got off the ground with new locations and the addition of Zen-infused story lines ruminating on the place of death and loss in life and our love attractions. With respect to the medium, Dörrie transferred her discrete sequential stories into a large array of concurrent episodes in which characters converge in short, chance encounters, much as in Robert Altman’s Nashville or Short Cuts. But if Altman’s episodic films used a single location (Nashville, Los Angeles) as a means of unifying disparate narratives, Dörrie’s original plot lines proved logistically daunting in that they moved between Germany and California, New York, the Las Vegas desert, Texas, Florida and the Caribbean with an occasional jaunt to China and Italy. Shifting the foreign action to the area around Seville, Spain managed to simplify the logistics and greatly lower production costs. But as recent scholarship has shown, a focus on commercial considerations alone can cause the intellectual contributions of Dörrie’s filmmaking to be overlooked.14 For though the Spanish location caused some of the edgier topics in Dörrie’s written plots to be eliminated or toned down,15 Dörrie shrewdly realized that aligning Germany and Spain opened up different cultural terrain for thinking about German identity. As Dörrie once explained to Der Spiegel, she focused instead on north-south identity discourses: “[F]or centuries, we Germans have longed to become a different person, in a warm, southern land, in Italy or Spain. When we desire to become a different person, we immediately travel south”.16 Representing far more than just a popular tourist destination, Spain has long had a privileged place in German north-south identity discourses, meaning that Dörrie’s film needs to be understood as a critical contribution to a cultural tradition that includes the likes of Rilke, Thomas Mann, and Goethe.17 The film also needs to be read as an intervention in a quintessentially masculine genre, the travel

14

McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. Pp. 379–382. McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 345–347. 15 McIsaac: North-South, East-West. P. 343. 16 “Wir Deutschen haben seit Jahrhunderten die Sehnsucht, jemand anders zu werden, und das in einem südlichen, warmen Land, in Italien oder Spanien. Wenn wir jemand anders werden wollen, fahren wir erst einmal in den Süden”. Interview with Dörrie: Die volle Katastrophe leben. P. 204. 17 Lisa Gates: Rilke and Orientalism: Another Kind of Zoo Story. In: New German Critique 68 (1996). Pp. 61–77. Roberto Dainotto: Goethe’s Backpack. In: SubStance 33 (2004). Pp. 6–22. Georges van den Abbeele: Travel as Metaphor. From Montaigne to Rousseau. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1992. Dörrie’s film is, to be sure, not the only one in the post-Wende era to use north-south oppositions in order to comment on dimensions of today’s German culture. Aside from the caricatures of German tourists in Man spricht Deutsh [sic] (1988) and Ballermann 6 (1997), films such as Go Trabi, Go (1991) and Bella Martha (2001) use the south and southerners to throw opposing features of Germanness into relief.

352 narrative. These two points will be demonstrated in the next sections of this essay by analyzing the transformation of a key character from Dörrie’s stories and the development of transclusive references.

II A key to appreciating the film’s contribution to north-south identity discourses and the tradition of the travel narrative is the filmic transformation of the character Linda from Für immer und ewig’s short stories “Die Handtasche” and “Geheimnisse”. In these stories, Linda appears as a drifter through the American southwest. She appears as a woman who, in a quest to transform her life and herself, abandons her purse along a desert highway where it is discovered by Fanny Finck’s heartbroken lover, Klaus. Primed by the items he finds in her bag – including “More” cigarettes, the children’s book “Mike and the Bear”, a poem dedicated to Linda, and an instruction sheet for using sign language – Klaus manages to fleetingly recognize Linda later in a Las Vegas bar.18 Though, in the book, Klaus never actually gets to know Linda, in the subsequent story “Geheimnisse”, Linda reveals herself to be a woman on the run from herself, the law, and the trappings of conventional relationships, despite (and on some level because of) her longing for the man who would fulfill her life and relieve her fear of death and the void (212). Driven by her fear and unable to spend time alone, Linda seduces an attractive stranger (Bob) by feigning terminal illness. Despite gaining Bob’s sympathies long enough to get her through the night, her suntanned body quickly betrays her claim that she only recently escaped a long stay in the hospital (229). Foreclosing the fantasy that she might lastingly leave her loneliness and emotional paralysis behind, Linda is left alone with nothing but the sound of her beating heart (231). Transposed into the Spanish context of Dörrie’s film, Linda becomes a central figure whose quest for happiness structures the overall progression of the film. Linda’s story weaves in and out of many of the other figures’ stories, so that she reappears again and again throughout the course of the film. In the cinematic version, moreover, Linda and Klaus eventually establish a hopeful relationship after their frustrated wanderings through the Spanish countryside. As the film closes, Klaus and Linda return to the isolated spot where Linda had once abandoned her handbag, allowing her to symbolically recover her past identity and begin a relationship predicated upon her accepting her past. At first glance, this kind of optimistic resolution confirms Dörrie’s stated intention of sending viewers out of the cinema happier than when they came in.19 18 Dörrie: Für immer und ewig. Pp. 202–206. Subsequent references will be parenthetical to this edition. 19 Interview with Doris Dörrie: Über Zen, den deutschen Film und eine schlaue Tochter. In: Eurogay of 5 February 2001. ⬍http://www.eurogay.de/lifestyle/0100/06_doris.html⬎ and ⬍http://www.eurogay.de/lifestyle/0100/06_doris2.html⬎

353 Yet, as will become clear in turning to the film’s closing sequences, this “happy ending” openly comments on the preconditions of both stable identity on the one hand and the role of fiction in creating happy endings on the other. As the film is itself a fictional vehicle, its commentary on Linda’s attainment of a stable identity and happiness makes it metafilmic. Though the film defers the full implications of its metafilmic nature until the final scenes, its self-referential mode stands out in the opening sequences leading up to Linda’s appearance. At first glance, Dörrie’s film opens with what appears to be sonic and visual escapism. As the long overhead shot passes over an intriguing brown landscape dotted with trees and various abstract patterns, a sound montage builds from mysterious chimes to lamenting cries that give way to a Flamenco song. Together with the orthography of the opening title, ¿Bin ich schön?, the Flamenco song signals that the viewer is on the way to a warm, Spanish-speaking clime, if not Spain itself. For viewers who have traveled in Spain, the eventual surfacing of the Spanish bull, one-time advertising for the sherry company Osborne, also confirms this conclusion. In leaving Germany behind, the film seems to immerse the viewer in an exotic, pleasantly un-German environment. Yet certain features of the establishing shots run counter to the conventions of pure entertainment film. In situating the viewer, the film employs not a comfortable long shot as its establishing shot, but rather a tightly cropped overhead perspective. Adding to the lack of conventionality, the shot consists of one exceedingly long continuous take lasting a full two and a half minutes before the first cut. It takes nearly an entire minute for the film to reach what is a recognizably patterned human structure, a paved road, which the viewer follows for another minute and a half before coming upon vehicles and the three German children riding in the back seat of a station wagon. Suspended for a long time at a crucial point in the film, sensing only movement without a frame of reference, the viewer confronts unusual visual patterns such as clusters of trees and paths with undefined functions and meanings. Whatever lies just beyond the frame is cropped out until the overhead perspective opens into a wide shot of the landscape and the highway. This movement from the visually unintelligible to the much more recognizable lonely desert road is highly conspicuous in film language, particularly in light of some critics’ identification of the film as a (critical twist on the) road movie.20 In this critical establishing sequence, which represents the film’s best opportunity to play with the codes it 20

Hake: German National Cinema. P. 174. Eva-Maria Lenz: Glücksucher unter sich. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 8 September 1998. P. 43. Guillermo Ravaschino. ¿Soy Linda? In: Primer Plano of 24 Jan. 2001. P. 1. ⬍http://www.primeroplano.com/criticas/soy-linda.htm⬎. See also McCarthy, who reads the film as departing from the road movies of the 1970s. McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. P. 386.

354 will use to tell its story, the film signals that the viewer needs to pay attention to the effects of established genres on the unfamiliar, foreign, and new. Unusual patterns eventually become intelligible using the proper genre conventions, but perhaps at the cost of really encountering something “other”. As if to underscore that genre conventions domesticate the foreign, the opening sequence also shows a parallel movement in the sound montage as it goes from eerie and exotic to a German-language children’s story. One first hears sounds that seem almost otherworldly, listens to human sounds that communicate only raw emotion, which finally blend into the stylized, patterned sound of the song, “green, how I love you green”. As becomes clear later in this film, these voices form the sonic leitmotif of the film, a pleasant but at this point still untranslated expression of longing for that which seems absent, boiled down to an opposition of colors. In the brown, axeric Spanish landscape, it is green – later to be encoded as longing for Germany, out of place but still present in this nonGerman countryside – that occupies the imagination. At the same time, however, and using the same pacing as the visuals, it takes over two minutes before one hears a German voice in this film, which comes in the form of a voice-over of the Janosch children’s story, Oh, wie schön ist Panama!. As if to calm any disquiet the unfamiliar sounds and images might have produced, the soothing, male German voice proclaims, “We are doing fine, for we have everything that the heart desires and we have nothing to be afraid of, because we are strong too”.21 A crucial moment in the film, the first cut, follows this carefully selected line. Transferring the extradiagetic voice-over to an intradiagetic source – the children’s cassette recorder – the sound bridge situates us with an unmistakably domestic (and domesticated) image: a German tourist family, complete with squabbling children and a car packed full of toys and luggage. Metafilmically, the film has organized its abstract and unfamiliar patterns into readily consumable sound and story, signaling sonically and visually how conventions from road movies and children’s stories render strange patterns intelligible and familiar. Building on these metafilmic cues, the subsequent sequences prepare Linda’s special role in the film, particularly for a viewer familiar with the film’s textual bases. In Für immer und ewig, Linda’s story revolved around her abandoned handbag, tossed into the desert from the window of a speeding car. When Linda finally gets a ride from the fertilizer salesman at the beginning of the film, her defining gesture in fact remains the handbag she jettisons in slow motion against a blue sky that, in a shot just moments before, formed the backdrop of a magical image of Linda seeming to shape a cloud with her hand. The importance of this gesture derives not merely from the centrality of the handbag for the plot, which returns at least three more times to the bag, most crucially 21 “Uns geht es gut, denn wir haben alles, was das Herz begehrt, und wir brauchen uns vor nichts zu fürchten, weil wir nämlich auch noch stark sind”.

355 at the end of the film. Rather, the handbag serves as a dynamic locus for ascribing meaning in the film – a kind of inclusion by reference, or transclusion – connecting various points within and outside the film in a way that permits meaning to be reinscribed and revised when new information is revealed. When Klaus stumbles upon her bag shortly after she tosses it out the window, he finds a copy of the Janosch story, first heard as a voice-over and then in the family car. When that car passed her, the viewer now realizes, the film transferred this narrative element to Linda. At this same moment, Klaus utters her name, filling in one of the gaps that surround this important figure and again revealing the film’s privileging of Linda through her name. For in contrast to the story Für immer und ewig, in the Spanish-speaking context of the film, Linda’s name has special significance with respect to the film’s title. Tellingly, for its Argentinian release, South American distributors rendered the title as ¿Soy Linda?, which translates both as “Am I Linda?” as well as “Am I Beautiful?”.22 It turns out that from the outset, the self-questioning Linda has embodied the interrogative title, bringing its project into self-referential view every time she surfaces. Two crucial insights flow from these realizations. For one thing, the transclusive role of the handbag as a dynamic locus for ascribing meaning can be regarded as a special case of a more general tendency of how the film constructs meaning. Most of the on-going episodes introduce a significant object or action that later resurfaces. Prime examples are the song refrain “green, how I love you green”, the cashmere sweater, the cell phone, the ritualistic, meticulous folding of casual pants. In each case, the reappearing objects, sounds, and gestures prompt the viewer to refer backwards and forwards to their other appearances within the film and other media, revising meaning in the process. Nelson, the originator of the notion of hyptertext, writes that “in a world viewed through the lens of transclusion, there will be constant revisability of all documents […], [a] growing-together of a great jungle of interconnections among symbiotic documents, under separate ownership, becoming inseparable from the greater whole”.23 Because of its transclusive references, the film becomes a literary and visual palympsest as the viewer notionally overlays its seemingly simple images and symbols with ever increasing significance. Just as importantly, however, the details of the Panama story in Linda’s bag comment on the conditions under which the film’s narrative can advance. In the opening sequence, the children’s story functions on one level as a cue, asking the viewer to recognize the domesticating effect that results from the application of conventional genres and story lines to the unfamiliar. Linda’s development in the film, one might now realize, begins with her casting aside the security and familiarity that this German childhood tale would seem to represent. By the 22 23

Ravaschino: ¿Soy Linda? P. 1. Nelson: Literary Machines. Preface.

356 same token, the film attains a sense of closure by having Linda return to the childhood tale. In between beginning and end, she pursues experiences not entirely scripted by cultural narratives or her past. And to anticipate my reading of the closing sequences later in this essay, that closure only results from the embrace of one or more familiar fictions. For now, however, I wish to show how the film comments on its own operation by further considering the transformation of Linda’s story in going from literature to film. Significantly, the children’s story in Linda’s purse in “Die Handtasche” was Mike and the Bear, not Oh, wie schön ist Panama (202). The shift from an invented English-language title24 to one of the best-known, awardwinning German-language children’s stories is crucial. Keeping in mind that, as an acclaimed author of several children’s books, Dörrie will know this form of literature, the shift emphasizes that a conscious decision went into constructing this intertext. Indeed, its meaning resides openly even on the level of plot, insofar as in the Janosch story, the little bear and the little tiger, while believing that they are traveling to exotic Panama, in reality never leave their home area.25 By thematizing a deep fascination for the far away and exotic while simultaneously affirming the home, the Janosch text registers the (imaginary) poles between which the characters move in the film. The transformation of Mike and the Bear into Oh, wie schön ist Panama has much more to reveal than plot resonances. Recognizing the importance of Oh, wie schön ist Panama focuses attention on the way the screenwriters insert into the film and its operation as a transclusive text, creating an intertext whose meaning expands when the original is remembered or consulted. Significantly, the film introduces the Janosch text in montaged form. Following the line the film first presents as a voice-over, the narrative jumps to a section several pages later in the text: “We are doing fine, for we have everything that the heart desires and we have nothing to be afraid of, because we are strong too”. […] One day a crate floated by in the river, which the little bear pulled from the water, sniffed and said, “Oh, bananas”. The crate smelled like bananas. And what was written on the crate? The little bear 24 No trace of such a title can be found in Books in Print or in comprehensive databases of the world’s libraries such as Worldcat. 25 After discovering a banana crate with the suggestive word “Panama” on it, the characters depart on a journey for the land capable of producing such wonderful smells as bananas. Only able to imagine what and where Panama is, they wander in a large circle close to home, meeting new animals and making discoveries until they return again to their former home. Seeing it from outside, they fail to recognize it as their home and they renovate it, believing they have arrived in the land of their dreams. Beyond this powerful parallel, the story resonates with the film’s view of interpersonal relationships in that it suggests that because they have a strong partnership, the little bear and little tiger have “nothing to fear” (“nichts zu fürchten”). Janosch: Oh, wie schön ist Panama. Pp. 4, 14, 23, 26, 39.

357 read, “Pa-na-ma. The crate comes from Panama and Panama smells like bananas. Oh, Panama is the land of my dreams”.26

It is important to note that the sound montage establishes the transclusive relationship between the two passages. On one level, the film’s “reading” of the text explicitly foregrounds two issues that have a looser association in the original than they become due to the sound montage. This prompts reflection on the film’s concerns, which center on developing meaningful human relationships in order to diminish existential anxieties on the one hand and deal with Germans’ yearning to live in a land of dreams on the other.27 At the same time, the film’s composite “reading” implies that the two issues bear on each other in a complex way that the film’s transclusive textual strategy aptly captures. Importantly, this strategy leaves out an intervening passage that depicts Janosch’s little bear and little tiger in their home environment. There, their division of labor and collaborative lifestyle allow them to live quite contently both before and after their quest to find Panama, the land of their dreams.28 Though these ideas of home and dreamland resonate powerfully with the film’s “message” in many ways, the film illuminates in particular contemporary Germans’ desire to render their relationship to being German invisible through any number of means of escape, from commodity fetishism to preoccupations with real and imaginary travel.29 Dörrie herself once answered the question, “What is typically German about you?” with the answer, “My yearning not to be German”.30 Through her transclusive use of the Panama story, Dörrie makes her film, to borrow Ted Nelson’s phrase, into a “magic place of literary memory”.31 That transclusive “literary memory” provides a mechanism for the viewer to discover, through mechanisms of literary recall, a kind of exercise designed to bring to mind precisely that term that might otherwise get left behind: the relationship of rooted identity (“Germanness”) to the desire to flee and transform oneself.

III Bringing Oh, wie schön ist Panama to mind again after a process of personal transformation in some sense also represents the overall project of this film. After she throws her handbag into the empty field at the start of the film, Linda 26

“Uns geht es gut, denn wir haben alles, was das Herz begehrt, und wir brauchen uns vor nichts zu fürchten, weil wir nämlich auch noch stark sind”. 27 McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. Pp. 376–7. McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 341–342, 349–355. 28 Janosch: Oh, wie schön ist Panama. Pp. 4–9. 29 McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 341–342, 349–355. McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. Pp. 383, 387–389. 30 Stern: “Was ist an Ihnen typisch deutsch?”. Dörrie: “Meine Sehnsucht, undeutsch zu sein”. Interview with Doris Dörrie: Was ist an Ihnen typisch deutsch? In: Stern 17 (September 1998). P. 268. 31 Nelson: Literary Machines. P. 1/30.

358 embarks on a journey through Spain in which she employs any number of tricks and invented personalities to satisfy her desires. At the end, she regains her handbag and re-reads portions of Oh, wie schön ist Panama. As in the stories “Die Handtasche” and “Geheimnisse”, the film’s Linda dreams of establishing a deep, heterosexual relationship, as in one scene when she cries watching elderly couples dancing the Sevilliana in a hotel lobby. Yet she learns in the course of the film that she cannot invent just any narrative about who she was and is and have this lead to a stable, caring partnership, let alone a happy existence. When Linda has no handbag, the film keeps track of any number of disavowed identity markers, capturing the moments when they catch up to her and ground her fantasies. As the fertilizer salesman prophetically remarks when he picks Linda up at the start of the film, “Are you German? I can see that you are by your shoes. I was once a shoe salesman”.32 Tellingly, the viewer later sees a shot of Linda’s shoes, precisely as she waits outside Bodo’s hotel room before their affair, reminding the viewer that Linda cannot ultimately mask the core elements of her being (similarly, the little angel who sits opposite Linda in the hotel room after her body has betrayed her represents a childhood past that cannot be suppressed for very long). Through experiences such as this, Linda develops both strategies for dealing with her fear of death and the pain of denying certain elements of herself. By giving Linda the courage to admit her fear and stop running from Klaus, the man whose knowledge of her handbag enabled him to identify her and, appropriately enough, made him want to pursue a relationship with her, the film portrays Linda as ready to suspend her flight from herself. Only with Klaus – who has endured his own trials in getting ready for his relationship – can Linda return to the site where she left her bag. Moreover, they quite literally find her bag by rolling around on top of each other. Under the sign of their budding relationship, Linda recovers her bag and reads from Oh, wie schön ist Panama while Klaus blows soap bubbles. Significantly, Linda’s reading from Oh, wie schön ist Panama repeats the first spoken lines of the film, closing the film in some sense right where it began. On one level, this sense of circularity and tying up of loose ends, together with the soap bubbles that escape the frame and conclude both the sequence and the film as a whole, makes for what could be called a “happy ending”. Yet for all the circularity and the neatness of this gesture, there are reasons to suspect that “happy endings” such as this are the product of structures and narratives capable of sustaining an imaginary, if not illusory, harmony. In this regard, it is worth noting that as Linda and Klaus sit in a Spanish field under a billboard depicting a Spanish bull, Linda mentions the word “Panama” no less than ten times. Recalling that the Janosch text defines Panama as “the land of our dreams”, the 32 “Sind Sie Deutsche? Das sehe ich an Ihren Schuhen, ich war nämlich mal Schuhvertreter”.

359 viewer should recognize the centrality of the imagination in constructing this happy and harmonious vision. At this point in the film, Spain, and perhaps most everything else, has become beautiful because the very real differences between Spain and Panama – differences informed not least by a past colonial relationship – fail to signify in the “northern” imagination. In other words, the film’s deployment of the children’s book draws our attention to the possibility that misprision marks the German (northern) view of the exotic (south) throughout this film. Following the film’s transclusive structures, by the end the viewer might well question what motivates the repeated, passionate expressions of beauty made by both Lucy, the station wagon driver who passes Linda by, and Werner, the fertilizer salesman as they drive through the Spanish countryside. Seemingly meaningless utterances can also become more significant, as when Klaus tells Linda he found her purse, “out in the boonies [draussen in der Pampa]”, with the German usage of “Pampa” suddenly signifying not just an innocent turn of phrase, but instead the marker of a mindset that fails to detect the difference between an open space in Spain and what, in Spanish, is a proper place name referring only to the plains of Argentina. And it is perhaps another pointer to misprision that the double meaning of “¿Soy Linda?” – “Am I Beautiful?” and “Am I Linda?” is not common usage in Iberian Spanish.33 Though the misprision ultimately produces few ill effects for the film’s Spaniards, the film nonetheless reveals that the northern characters’ visions of the south come about by a misreading driven by the needs of northern agency and the conventions structuring northern narratives of the south. If in fact viewed as a critical form of travel narrative, the film says a great deal more about the value of travel for Germans yearning to shed their cultural and historical “baggage”. On one level, the film takes the desire to escape the burdens of German culture seriously at the same time as it valorizes travel as a means of providing important experiences. This notion resonates with the Panama text’s assessment of the journey made by the little bear and tiger: “How good it is that we have found Panama, no?” the little bear said every day. “Yes”, said the little tiger, “the land of our dreams we never, ever have to go away from again”. You think they could have just stayed at home in the first place? You think they would have then spared themselves the long trip? Oh no, then they would not have met the fox and the crow. And they would not have met the hare and the hedgehog and they would never have learned how comfortable a beautiful, soft plush sofa is.34

33

In Iberian Spanish, “¿Soy Linda?” would mean primarily “Am I Linda?”. Because Iberian Spanish expresses “Am I beautiful?” with other phrases, an association with beauty is neither immediate nor commonplace. Only if the context is identifiably Central or South American, for instance through the speaker’s pronunciation, would the phrase generally refer to beauty in Spain. 34 Janosch: Oh, wie schön ist Panama. Pp. 46–48.

360 Like the trajectory of growth followed by the tiger and bear while away from home, Linda’s path to personal development occurs between the gesture of throwing away and recovering her handbag. Indeed, with Linda’s reading from Oh, wie schön ist Panama, the impersonal, extradiagetic lines from the opening of the film in fact modulate into Linda’s voice, leaving her “mark” or signature on the story as the film closes. As Georges van den Abbeele has argued in his study of travel narrative, it is by such a “signature that […] the writer’s particular mode of travel would seem to convert the banal trope of the voyage into something he can call his own”.35 Considering that Dörrie’s film brings about a modulation from a male to a female voice, however, it is worth bearing in mind that Abbeele’s use of the gendered pronoun “he” is not accidental and bears further deliberation. Indeed, as Abbeele argues, traditional travel narratives have tended to function, to use Teresa de Lauretis’ term, as a “technology of gender”.36 Seen this way, travel narratives organize gender determinations in a way that has tended to inculcate and reinforce patriarchal values and ideology. In classical male travel literature, which often exhibits anxieties about containment and masterability, the figure of “woman” has occupied a kind of disruptive liminality that ultimately must be conquered or excluded for masculine identity to stabilize.37 In light of this traditional gender configuration, the heterosexual model Dörrie uses to end her travel narrative is intriguing. For Linda to read from the Panama text, for instance, she must interrupt Klaus’ sexual advances, setting aside – at least for the remainder of the film – the notion of sexual conquest with respect to her “signature”. Her “mark” instead lays claim to a non-exclusionary model of (marital) relations in which the respect of difference allows both partners to function as full-fledged subjects, free to change positions in a way that prevents hierarchies from taking root.38 Appropriately, such a mutually respectful relationship defines how the tiger and bear relate to one another in Oh, wie schön ist Panama. The film likewise presents a vision of a similarly configured, albeit less desexualized, relationship in the marriage of Juan and his German wife, which it transfers to Linda and Klaus in the penultimate scene using cross-cutting and directionals.39 The heirs of the tiger and bear on the one hand and the older couple on the other, Klaus and Linda close the film as emblems of heterosexual bliss. However important travel and the exercise of fantasy are, one should not overlook that it is difficult to escape what Abbeele calls “displacement into 35

Van den Abbeele: Travel as Metaphor. From Montaigne to Rousseau. P. 130. Ibid. Pp. xxv–xxvi. 37 Ibid. 38 The language of this sentence is indebted to McCarthy’s formulations. McCarthy: Angst Takes a Holiday. P. 386. 39 McIsaac: North-South, East-West. Pp. 354–355. 36

361 discourse”. This term describes the tendency for personal experiences to be accessible only through the mediation of culturally shared concepts, images, and narratives.40 Linda’s expression of her “experience” by leaving her vocal “mark” on Oh, wie schön ist Panama thus signals the film’s awareness that it must avoid appearing as if it could possibly offer something like authentic experience. Its only option is instead to present itself as a self-referential, metafilmic fiction. By setting up Linda as a recognizable stand-in for the film, Dörrie seems to hope that the indulgence in the exotic images and bubbly happy ending will be realized for what it is: a fiction of travel and escape whose cheerful effects can be bought only by momentarily suspending the messiness of life, loss, and love. Whether or not such a suspension could actually last forever, the film’s use of intertexts and transclusive references supports the notion that such a suspension can nonetheless produce powerful, and potentially positive, effects.

40

Van den Abbeele: Travel as Metaphor. P. xxi. See also Dainotto: Goethe’s Backpack. Pp. 6–22.

BIN ICH SCHÖN? - Deutschland 1997 Regie: Doris Dörrie Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Patrice Djoufack

Adaptation as a Process of Interpretation: Nowhere in Africa – From Stefanie Zweig to Caroline Link Taking the background of literary theory as my starting point, I shall attempt to show that adaptation for the screen can be approached and analyzed as the result of an act of reading. In this sense, adaptation is interpretation, in the sense of a creative transformation of the original that resembles the original closely. This also entails the destruction of the aura of the original. I shall illustrate this with Caroline Link’s adaptation of Stefanie Zweig’s novel Nowhere in Africa. As adaptation occurs in a mediadriven society, it is also influenced by constraints that are alien to literary theory, namely those imposed by the media and the market economy. Der Lesende ist jederzeit bereit, ein Schreibender zu werden. Als Sachverständiger, der er wohl oder übel […] werden mußte […], gewinnt er einen Zugang zur Autorschaft. Walter Benjamin1 Ecrire dans le plaisir m’assure-t-il – moi, écrivain – du plaisir de mon lecteur? Nullement. Ce lecteur, it faut que je le cherche (que je le «drague») sans savoir où il est. Un espace de jouissance est alors créé. Roland Barthes2

1. Impetus. Literary Theory and Adaptation Julia Kristeva and in the same order of idea Roland Barthes conceive the process of text production as the logical consequence and the result of an act of reading, in which the writer, who is at the same time a reader, inscribes foreign (past and/or contemporary) texts and discourses into his own text. Kristeva adopts Philippe Sollers’ standpoint3 when she writes: “Reading denotes an aggressive participation, an active appropriation of the other”. She therefore perceives writing as reading that has become “production, industry”.4 While 1

Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. In: Gesammelte Schriften I.2. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1980 [1936]. P. 493. 2 Roland Barthes : Le plaisir du texte. In: Œuvres complètes II. Paris: Seuil 1994. P. 1495f. 3 Kristeva refers to Philippe Sollers in footnote 11 of her essay: “Pour une sémiologie des paragrammes” [1966]. In: Julia Kristeva: Sémeiôtikè – Recherches pour une sémanalyse. Paris: Seuil 1969. Pp. 113–146, here p. 121. 4 My translation. Original: “ ‘lire’ dénote, donc, une participation agressive, une active appropriation de l’autre. ‘Ecrire’ serait le ‘lire’ devenu production, industrie. L’écriturelecture, l’écriture paragrammatique serait l’aspiration vers une agressivité et une participation totale”. Julia Kristeva: Pour une sémiologie des paragrammes. Ibid., p. 120

364 splicing different texts and discourses into his own, the writer refers to them and transforms them, creating an ambivalent texture, which resembles5 the original. In fact, Roland Barthes defines the text as a texture, comparing it with the web woven by a spider. In such a work, Barthes says, several texts, codes, signifiers etc. are woven together, crossing over in a new text.6 Taking this background of literary theory as starting point, my purpose is to analyze the way the Munich director and scriptwriter Caroline Link has adapted Stefanie Zweig’s novel Nowhere in Africa for the screen. My primary concern is to investigate in what respects adaptation can be regarded as a process of interpretation; in other words, as a process which can be considered to be the result of Link’s reading of Zweig’s novel. Adaptation has to be seen as a process of interpretation and of transformation. This corresponds to Alfred Estermann’s understanding of adaptation as a process during which the original is taken apart and transformed. Some aspects and figures are eliminated or reinterpreted and others are added to the plot. This must be done with respect to what Estermann calls “Umstand des Filmens”, i.e. with respects to the demands and possibilities of the film medium. Fidelity to the original can only be of secondary importance. The process of adaptation, as presented by Estermann, can therefore be grasped as the result of an act of reading, during which the original is interpreted and transformed. As far as the act of reading corresponds with a process of writing, as Kristeva says, similarly, a correspondence between adaptation and an act of reading should be legitimate. It is important to stress the fact that Caroline Link was commissioned to write the screenplay for her film by MTM (Medien & Television, München). This implies that the process of adaptation necessarily occurs within two different frameworks: As has been stressed above, adaptation can to be regarded as the result of an act of reading, and can therefore be analyzed with categories derived from literary theory, but as this process occurs in a media-driven society, it is also subject to other factors that are alien to literary theory, namely the demands of the media and the market economy. Consequently, an exploration of the aesthetic aspects of adaptation can only be carried out if those two conditions are taken into consideration.

5

See Julia Kristeva: La productivité dite texte [1967]. In: Séméiôtikè. Ibid. Pp. 146–184. “‘Texte’: c’est un tissu, […] la théorie actuelle du texte se détourne du texte-voile et cherche à percevoir le tissu dans sa texture, dans l’entrelacs des codes, des formules, des signifiants, au sein duquel le sujet se place et se défait […]. L’amateur de néologismes pourrait donc définir la théorie du texte comme une ‘hyphologie’ (hyphos, c’est le tissu, le voile et la toile d’araignée)”. Roland Barthes: Théorie du texte [1973]. In: Œuvres complètes II. Ed. by Éric Marty. Paris: Seuil 1994. Pp. 1683–4. 6

365 2. Intertextuality in the Process of Adaptation In adapting Stefanie Zweig’s successful novel Nowhere in Africa, Caroline Link pursues three main objectives: a) To make a film set in Africa b) To show today’s Germans that refugees from National Socialism did not flee only to countries such as England or the USA, but also to more exotic destinations such as Africa, Shanghai or even Peru c) To identify an aspect of the novel important to her personally that could be isolated, appropriated and worked into her film.7 These were undoubtedly the aesthetic goals of the Munich director during the adaptation process. My objective is to find out how she manages to fulfill these goals. In quoting the title of Zweig’s 1995 bestseller literally, Caroline Link suggests that her Oscar-winning film is an exact adaptation of Zweig’s novel. Link picks up a thread of Zweig’s story, namely the memories of the author, who fled to the British colony Kenya as a child with her family in 1938 as a result of National Socialist persecution. She then returns to depicting the exile of a German Jewish family directly, showing us something of the zeitgeist of those years. In the original novel, these memories are explored through the depiction of how the young heroine and central figure Regina experiences Kenya. At the same time, the difficulties experienced by the refugee family in adapting to a foreign country are thematized, as is the segregation of the refugees by the British. Link does not limit herself to the events depicted in that novel, but also integrates references to other novels by Zweig, to other Western representations of Africa, and to previous films of her own. In doing so, Link is aware of the fact that important details from Zweig’s autobiography can be found in other novels by the same author such as Vivian and ein Mund voll Erde (Vivian and a mouth full of earth). In this novel, the author tells the story of the friendship between Vivian – Vivian and Regina are interchangeable – and the young native boy Jogona. In her film, Link integrates elements from this novel in order to paint a coherent and consistent picture of Regina’s quick integration as well as her strong relationships with the landscape and the people. In scenes showing Regina (L. Kurka / K. Eckertz) playing with native children or attending a traditional ceremony, Link shows Regina’s knowledge of German fairy tales. This depiction of the process of intercultural learning on screen shows us the hybrid culture Regina is immersed in. Even part of the title of Zweig’s novel Karibu heißt Willkommen is quoted in the film. The word Karibu is put into Owuor’s 7

See Matthew Ross: The Perils of Escape. Caroline Link Discusses “Nowhere in Africa”. See http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_030307link.html.

366 mouth as a word of welcome when Jettel (J. Kohler) and Regina arrive at Rongai, and thus adapted from print form to the performative situation. As we have just seen, elements from other novels by the same author are selected and integrated into the film, although the title refers to the original of the same name. The elements that have been added to the original help to create a greater, more coherent whole. At the same time, Link’s project of making a film set in Africa prompts her to relate her film to the framework within which Africa is generally seen in Western culture and to individual well-known Western representations of Africa. As she is aware of representations of the African continent in the Western media in general, and in European literature in particular, of the fascination that Africa holds for Germans, she aims to delineate her film from these forms of representation. In this connection, she mentions the novel Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Karin Blixen), which was successfully adapted for the screen by Sydney Pollak. In both the novel and the film, Africa is represented as a “dark tempting world”8 or as a place Westerners yearn for. But Link is not prepared to make a film that emphasizes the characters’ thirst for adventure, the kind of film that would show Africa only as “a giant safari park” or as a place inhabited by ‘savages’ who, as Link puts it, “civilized people from the so-called First World study as if they were insects, because they still celebrate archaic rites the white man should be a bit afraid of ”.9 Similarly, she has no intention of depicting Africa as an idyll with “sunsets, acacia, herds of elephants, and Maasai with spears and red loincloths running through the savannah”.10 On the contrary, Link aims to show an authentic Africa that even Africans could identify as realistic, and not to show Africa from the perspective of a tourist. The African landscape never becomes the subject if her film, it remains a backdrop not intended to fascinate the viewer, and in this she follows the original novel closely. In the film as in the novel, the landscape appears to be “harsh and arid, not lush” at the beginning. It “gets somehow beautiful” only later.11 I will return to the concept of authenticity Link draws on in more detail below. 8

“Afrika, dunkel lockende Welt” – This is the subtitle of the German version of Blixen’s novel. See Tania Blixen: Jenseits von Afrika. Afrika, dunkel lockende Welt. Munich: Heyne 1997. 9 My translation. Here the original quotation in its entirety: “Die Darstellung ihres [of African] Kontinents als entweder großen Safaripark oder als Land von ‘Wilden’, die von den zivilisierten Menschen aus der sogenannten Ersten Welt wie Insekten studiert werden, weil sie noch archaische Riten zelebrieren, vor denen sich der weiße Mann ein wenig fürchten darf ”. Link, Caroline: Der Geruch Afrikas. In: Abenteuer Afrika. Erlebnisse, Geschichten und Bilder. Ed. by Caroline Link and Peter Hermann. München: Langen/ Müller 2002. Pp. 26–44, p. 29. 10 “Sonnenuntergängen, Schirmakazien, Elefantenherden, Massai mit Speeren, die in ihren roten Tüchern durch die Savanne laufen”. Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. Ibid. P. 29. 11 Ross: The Perils of Escape. http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_030307link.html.

367 In addition to these aspects, it can be noted that Link refrains from making a film like those she had made before. In the films Pünktchen and Anton and Jenseits der Stille, she told stories that had children as their protagonists. In her adaptation of Nowhere in Africa, she is determined not to tell another story where children show their parents their path in life. In an interview with Matthew Ross, she says: I’ve made two movies before, and in both there was a girl in the center of the story who explains to the adults how life is. I didn’t want to make a third movie like that. In the book, Stefanie Zweig is the center of the story. She fell in love with Africa right away. I wasn’t sure how interesting that would be. I decided to look at it from a different perspective, because the other characters are more conflicted about the space.12

However, the protagonist in Zweig’s novel is clearly the child Regina. The fact that Link gives the film the same title as the original novel should not, therefore, lead us to believe that the film can be seen as what Siegfried Kracauer calls a “realistic adaptation”,13 and the film corresponds even less to Fuzellier’s definition of a “passive adaptation”.14 On the contrary, Link’s decision to distance herself from her earlier films leads her to transform the plot and the focus of the original and, following on from this, to rearrange the characters and their roles. Moreover, Link also aims to pick up a thread from her own emotional life and weave it into her film.15 This very idea of weaving not only personal experiences, but also other texts and discourses into the structure of her film, of matching several experiences in her film during adaptation, places her approach quite close to Barthes’ understanding of the text as a texture, as I have already indicated. For the French word tissu means a texture and is the product of the act of weaving, tisser. Adaptation of literature for the screen can thus be considered as a process of weaving which results in the creative transformation of the original.16 I would like to show how this creative transformation occurs during adaptation by analyzing selected examples taken from Link’s film. In this essay, it is impossible to consider all of the elements which make up the film, such as the 12

Ross: Ibid. “realistische Übertragung”. Siegfried Kracauer: Theorie des Films: Die Errettung der äußeren Wirklichkeit. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1979. 14 “une adaptation passive”. Etienne Fuzellier: Cinéma et littérature. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 1964. Pp. 132–3. Such an adaptation is, Fuzellier says, very difficult and rarely achieved. It is an adaptation that attempts to reproduce the equilibrium and the focus of the original. 15 Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. Ibid. P. 28. 16 In his theory of text, Barthes stresses the categories that constitute that work of weaving. He calls them “pratique signifiante”, “productivité”, “signifiance”, “phéno-texte et géno-texte”, “intertexte”. Roland Barthes: Théorie du texte. Pp. 1683–4. 13

368 music or the photography. These are important elements and can also be seen as types of discourse that are ‘woven’ into the film and influence both its texture and its reception. But in the following, I shall confine myself to showing how Link has rearranged the figures and reshaped the plot. Link’s film does, of course, draw considerably on the original in dealing with the experience of exile and the difficulties facing the family of refugees in Kenya. Regina’s memories of her childhood in Kenya can are still clearly present: At the end of the film we hear her voice, commenting the events and linking the scenes on screen with her recollections. But her memories are no longer the main focus of the interest, as in the original. In the film, Jettel plays the main role. Her view of things interests the director, and in focusing on her, Link removes Regina from the center of interest and gives her a more peripheral role. This shift of the roles goes hand in hand with the displacement of the main topic of the story and the imaginative creation of a new plot. For Link’s purposes, the love story between Regina’s parents, Jettel and her husband Walter (M. Ninidze), is more interesting than Regina’s memories. In the Interview with Matthew Ross mentioned above, Link justifies this shift as follows: “I want to see how they could still love each other when things get so difficult, when the circumstances change. This personal aspect is what interests me the most”.17 In her view, this relationship is close to collapse as a result of the pressures caused by the unfamiliar environment, the couple’s low political status as refugees in a British colony, and their struggle to survive as emigrants.18 Their relationship is saved only because both manage to distance themselves from their former positions, to find each other as they now are and to define the basis for a new relationship. Accordingly, while drawing on the original, Link experiments in her film with the stability of relationships under new conditions. Furthermore, in the novel, the crisis in the relationship results directly from the diametrically opposed plans of the couple. Jettel, reluctant to make changes in her life, has not yet realized the gravity of their situation in exile. Her stubborn attitude, plain in the novel, is also evident at the beginning of the film. Her racist diction, her reluctance to make a fresh start and her hopes of returning home after World War II are all elements that are still close to the original. But Link transforms Jettel into a woman who is capable of development. She makes this change plausible by depicting her character as a strong woman who shows competence in fending for herself despite – or perhaps even because of – her difficult living conditions. While her husband continues to dream of home, joins the British forces (despite the segregation of the refugees by the British) and plans to return home after World War II, Jettel overcomes 17

See Matthew Ross: The Perils of Escape. http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_ 030307link.html. 18 Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. P. 28.

369 her initial indecision, takes the initiative and works hard to secure an existence for herself and her family. She attempts to transform Kenya into a place that feels like home. Moreover, Link lets Jettel speak the language of the natives, and so creates an important prerequisite for her adaptation to life in Kenya. The film therefore stresses the conflict between Jettel and her husband. This is reflected in a crisis, which finds its clear expression in Jettel’s behaviour towards her husband. She engages in an affair with a British officer with the aim of improving the family’s living conditions. This affair, which is entirely a product of Link’s imagination, helps trigger Walter’s release from the British internment camp and his employment as manager on a maize farm. These scenes, like the scenes in which Jettel gives her sexuality free rein and makes advances to Walter’s friend Süßkind (M. Habich) are constructed by Link in order to show Jettel’s emancipation from her husband and to give credit to Jettel for recognizing the prospects of a new start for the family in Kenya. Thus, she reshapes the conception present in the original, where Walter becomes farm administrator thanks to the intervention of a friend of his. How does Jettel’s transformation into a woman who gives free-rein to her sexual drive – whatever her motives may be – reflect Link’s own priorities for the adaptation? Jettel’s romantic walk along the lakeside with Süßkind, her readiness to throw herself at Süßkind, her quarrels with Walter that result from this constellation – Link uses these scenes, to some extent, to present the crisis the couple find themselves in. Without a shadow of a doubt they are imagined, and their purpose is to imitate the crisis contained in the original. But at the same time, they enlarge and dramatize it, and thus contribute to a successful screen adaptation. In Link’s film, the turning point of this crisis begins in the scene where Walter visits the family farm and informs his wife of his intention to return home after World War II. At this point, it is obvious that the intentions of the partners differ so widely from one another that there is no solution in sight, all the more so since Jettel wants to decide on her own future. The exact turning point in the crises arrives in the form of a plague of locusts – in scenes detached from their place in the novel and inserted at this point of the film. The threat to the couple’s relationship now coincides with a threat to the harvest and with that the basis of the family’s existence. This occurs in the film at the moment Walter is about to head back to the army barracks after yet another quarrel with his wife. Walter resolves to help his wife bring the locusts under control. These scenes, close to the end of the film, prefigure the end of the crisis in their relationship and make it possible for Jettel to change. It is thus conceiveable that they will find one another again and go on idyllic excursions that prompt Jettel to move away from her former attitude and allow the couple to think through their future together. In her adaptation, Link draws on the original and mixes it with feminist discourses. In redesigning Jettel, she aims to create a female character that moves

370 beyond a phallocentric division of roles on stage. In this regard, she diverges considerably from the relationship between Jettel and Walter depicted in the novel. She also constructs scenes showing how Jettel expects the proud and masculine Owuor to perform women’s work, fetching water from the well. This incident would have been unthinkable in the socio-historical context and the constellation of the novel. In the film, this new behavior of Owuor’s is met with sneers and laughter by the native women. Owuor undoubtedly appears noble in the eyes of Western viewers. But it is questionable whether African viewers will find this behavior authentic.19 At any rate, it is clear that Link has woven contemporary discourses into the film, and that this becomes visible in such attempts to change learned behavior. In the process, whether intentionally or unconsciously, Link projects a euro-centric view of things on to a Kenyan way of life. This is legitimate from the perspective of literary theory, given that adaptation entails transformation and renewal. But Owuor is already a victim of colonization, living under British rule, and the change in his behavior wrought by Jettel can be seen as the result of a second process of colonization, this time by a refugee woman! Such incidents inevitably give Link’s film gains an ideological coloring that serves to undermine the authenticity Link lays claim to.

3. Authenticity and Aura For Link, the project of adapting a novel for the screen represents an aesthetic challenge, which she approaches with the concept of authenticity. Asked why authenticity is so important to her, she gives the following answer: “I don’t know why, I can’t explain it”. She then relates her concept of authenticity to her depiction of Africa and her decision to cast Kenyan actors. Link felt that to cast an actor from Paris, London, or South Africa as the native man Owuor would be “to cheat”. She wanted her film “to be authentic” and justifies that as follows: I always think that even if the audience doesn’t know the difference, they would somehow feel it. Also, it’s my insurance that I don’t make too many mistakes because the actors can tell me what the real situation will be like. An actor from Paris couldn’t tell me about culture in Kenya. It’s those little details that make a film authentic.20 19

Indeed, Jettel, a refugee, has nothing in common with the “starke Frauen” (power women), who travelled to Africa during colonization to bring the modern project of civilization there. But paradoxically, she forces Owuor to diverge from his masculine role. In this regard, she acts somewhat similarly to those “starke Frauen” – analyzed by Ingrid Laurien in her essay. See Ingrid Laurien: Starke Frauen im Paradies: Afrika als weiblicher Mythos. In: Weltengarten. Deutschafrikanisches Jahrbuch für Interkulturelles Denken. Ed. by Leo Kreutzer and David Simo. Hannover: Revonnah 2004. Pp. 31–44. 20 Matthew Ross: The Perils of Escape. http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_ 030307link.html.

371 Actors are therefore involved in a dialog with the director and help her produce an authentic Africa. I have already pointed out that Link is determined not to show a tourist view of Africa, again because of her concept of authenticity. She does not fulfill her ambition by using Zweig’s novel only as a database or a set of stage directions. Of course, she could draw on many elements from the novel, including “many African quotations, atmospheric descriptions and situations taken from Zweig’s detailed memories”.21 Link felt that she had to experience Africa for herself and feel it “with her own senses” – as otherwise she would find herself “cribbing from guidebooks or copying the novel”, in other words: “cheating”.22 As she says, she is aware of the fact that the great superstructure of the original is in itself not enough to make a film, although it does provide descriptions and pointers from which stage directions can be derived. This means that the reference to the original already implies the necessity to enrich its material with experiences ‘on the spot’, with mental snapshots of important details and tiny episodes and observations perceived there: “For me, she says, those little observations enliven films and make them authentic”.23 In Link’s view, only by proceeding in this way can the film appear probable. Given the temporal and historical distance between the situations depicted in the novel in Kenya around World War II, and their adaptation for the screen some fifty years later, we should not underestimate the challenge such a film presents to the director. The Kenya described by Zweig, which is also depicted in her novels Irgendwo in Deutschland and Doch die Träume blieben in Afrika no longer exists. It was destroyed in the Mau Mau revolt and the struggle for independence. Places no longer exist. People have moved elsewhere. But after she had looked at a number of possible locations for her film in South Africa, Link decided to shoot the film in Kenya, although not directly at the original locations. Link searched for places in Kenya that evoked the atmosphere of the bygone era she was dealing with, and found her location in Mukutani, a Pokot village. By shooting her film here, she tries to show an authentic Kenya on screen, to imitate the place described in the original. The same logic lay behind her decision to cast the Kenyan actor Sidede Onyolo as Owuor, rather than give the role to a South African actor. For, as she puts it very well, “Zulus are not

21

My translation. Original: “viele afrikanische Zitate, Stimmungsbeschreibungen und Situationen aus Zweigs detaillierter Erinnerung”. Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. P. 32. 22 Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. Ibid. P. 32. There, she writes: “Aber mir fehlte das selbst erlebte Wissen über Kenia. Ich hatte das Gefühl, mich von einer Szene zur nächsten zu mogeln, aus Reiseführern abzuschreiben oder den Roman zu kopieren. Ich begriff, dass ich Afrika am eigenen Leib erfahren, mit eigenen Sinnen erspüren musste”. 23 Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. P. 32. “Diese kleine Beobachtungen machen Filme für mich lebendig und vor allem authentisch”.

372 Maasai”.24 Even the casting should reflect the original. But imitation always implies, as I have already illustrated, a transformation of the original, a process of actualization. In fact, the concept of authenticity used by Link applies to the entire process of the screen adaptation of the novel. Moreover, Link is also faced with challenges in presenting Zweig’s often metaphorical and/or vivid language on screen. As I have demonstrated in another context, this is a language Stefanie Zweig at times translates during the process of literary production from Swahili into German, so that we can see in the process of literary production an act of translation. This process occurs in the writer’s head of the writer, who thus also becomes a translator. In this case, literary production can be seen as a process of cultural transfer. Language becomes hybrid.25 This very hybridity of language in the novel leaves Link in a difficult predicament. She wants to have Ouwor speak his native language on screen, both in order to preserve authenticity and to help restore the pride and dignity Ouwor has lost as a result of colonial oppression.26 It is questionable whether this objective has been successfully realized; in the film Owuor remains a colonized, subaltern subject. For him, colonizers and refugees are all, without exception bwanas – white masters. Link can fulfill her aim only by having some of the dialogue translated into Kiswahili and learned by rote by the actors, so that they can speak with Owuor. In view of the demands of the market economy, this implies the necessity to accept subtitles in the film in order to preserve the rhetoricity of the original. In this way, Link is necessarily two levels removed from the language of the original: The level of a spoken African language and that of its translation into German in subtitles. The metaphoric quality of the original gets lost in order to allow Link to recall its rhetoricity on the screen. Since the decision to accept subtitles can influence the aesthetic experience of the viewers, it can only be taken, as Link did, with the approval of the producer (Peter Hermann). At this stage of film production, one can state that during adaptation, the director must also look at how the film is likely to be received and attempt to predict the responses of the audience. In the context of a film commissioned by a media company, she has to find a compromise between her aesthetic objectives and her striving for authenticity on the one hand, and the need to create a commercially viable product on the other. These examples show that Link goes beyond the original work in her adaptation. In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”,27 24 See Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. P. 37. There, she writes: “Südafrika ist nicht Kenia. Aber unsere Geschichte spielt in Kenia. Punkt. […] Zulus sind keine Massai”. 25 See Patrice Djoufack: “Ich habe aus meiner alten Heimatsprache übersetzt. Suaheli”. Interkulturalität und Übersetzung bei Stefanie Zweig. In: Weltengarten. Pp. 45–64. 26 See Caroline Link: Der Geruch Afrikas. P. 29. 27 Translation by: http://pixels.filmtv.ucla.edu/dallery/web/julian_scaff/benjamin. Original: Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. In: Gesammelte Schriften I.2. Pp. 471–508.

373 the German philosopher Walter Benjamin casts doubt on the chances of film to become a force for emancipation.28 For Benjamin, mechanical reproduction of a work of art, a process, which is not linked to time and place, enables not only the production of multiple copies of a work of art for commercial purposes, but also, as a result: [I]t substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind.29

A reproduced work of art loses its presence in time and place, its “Hier and Jetzt” (Here and Now), which constitutes what Benjamin calls “the notion of its authenticity”.30 It loses not only its uniqueness and authority, but also its rootedness in magic, religious or even secular cult contexts.31 Mechanical reproduction enables a plurality of copies, and so the work is no longer unique. The viewer’s new mode of perception, technically guaranteed by the fact that a swift succession of images and their repeatability on the screen provoke a shock effect rather than empathy, is taken for granted. Mechanical reproduction thus enables the loss of the aura of the original. The “authenticity” the Munich director lays claim to should not be confused with the authenticity that Benjamin ascribes to the auratic work of art and defines as the “essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to history”.32 It is obvious that during adaptation, the degree of authenticity achieved is determined less by fidelity to the original than by its likely imitation. Seen from the perspective of literary theory, the mechanical reproduction Benjamin talks of implies a free treatment of the original, its transformation, and thus also its actualization. Links adaptation shows this very well. The analogy between Benjamin’s film 28

See Dieter Prokop: Soziologie des Films. Neuwied and Berlin 1970; also Josef Fürnkäs: Aura. In: Benjamins Begriffe. Vol. 1. Ed. by M. Opitz and E. Wiszila. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 2000. Pp. 95–146. 29 Original: “Die Reproduktionstechnik […] läßt das Reproduzierte aus dem Bereich der Tradition ab. Indem sie die Reproduktion vervielfältigt, setzt sie an die Stelle seines einmaligen Vorkommens sein massenweises. Und indem sie der Reproduktion erlaubt, dem Aufnehmenden in seiner jeweiligen Situation entgegenzukommen, aktualisiert sie das Reproduzierte. Die beiden Prozesse führen zu einer gewaltigen Erschütterung des Tradierten – einer Erschütterung der Tradition, die die Kehrseite der gegenwärtigen Krise und Erneuerung der Menschheit ist”. Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Ibid. P. 477–8. 30 “den Begriff seiner Echtheit”. P. 476. 31 See Dieter Prokop: Soziologie des Films. P. 40. 32 “Inbegriff alles vom Ursprung her Tradierbare, von ihrer materiellen Dauer bis zu ihrer geschichtlichen Zeugenschaft”. Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. P. 477.

374 theory and the post-structural literary theory presented at the beginning of this paper is obvious. Of course, texts and works of art are not only rooted in magic, religious or secularized cult contexts – they also have roots in socio-political and economic contexts such as the refugees’ exile and the colonization of Africa. It can be asked whether the treatment of these contexts in the film adaptation destroys the aura of the novel, its ‘Here and Now’, its authority. I have already indicated that Zweig’s novel, the original, is interpreted, transformed and actualized during adaptation. The original loses its authority. It is invested with a new meaning as it changes from one medium to another. In this connection, it is important to examine the attitudes Link expects viewers to adopt. She says that they should identify with the film. What does she mean by this? Is this identification a form of empathy, which comes close to psychoanalysis?33 Does Link expect Western viewers to find something they miss in their own lives through the film? Does she expect the film to trigger some kind of regression to earlier stages of psychological development in her audiences? And how does she expect non-Western viewers to react to the film? How should they react to Link’s reshaping of Owuor’s character? Link does not give us any answer to these questions. Films are box-office hits or flops in the measure in which they involve their audiences. But in the context of this investigation, I think that identification can only be expected of viewers if this identification has nothing to do with the attitude provoked by an auratic work of art, unless the commercial interests of the media society Link is working for are of great importance to her. In my opinion, identification should, on the contrary, result from a playful reception of the film. Rather than the inward contemplation which one experiences face to face with an auratic work of art, the viewer should feel invited to form an expert opinion;34 the film should entertain him. This guarantees his pleasure.

33

See Susan Hayward: Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. London and New York: Routledge 2nd ed. 2000. Such participation is also called a “regression narcissique”. See Jacques Aumont et al.: Esthétique du film. Paris: Nathan. 1983; also Jeanne-Marie Clerc: Littérature et Cinéma. Paris: Nathan 1993. 34 Benjamin qualifies the opinion of the viewer as a “begutachtendes”. Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. P. 505.

Rod Stoneman

Alexander Kluge: Utopian Cinema Alexander Kluge’s films, television programmes and his other diverse activities contribute to a developed understanding of contemporary politics and culture. He took a version of creative critical theory into spheres of production normally dominated by industrial fabrication. Opportunistic and inventive (and entrepreneurial in the best sense) he made a number of exemplary incisions in the body politic. His radical intertexuality and polysemy reveals the both possibilities and limitations of contemporary cultural spaces.

Hiatus valde deflendus / A gap greatly to be lamented Alexander Kluge’s activities as film-maker, lawyer, lobbyist, writer, teacher and theorist played an important role in shaping the development of German cinema since the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962. Kluge may be well enough known in Germany, but his international profile tends to rely on the films he made in the Seventies as the section of his work that is most distributed outside Germany1. For example it is not widely known that when private television expanded in Germany in the Eighties he set up a new initiative to make high quality programming for commercial satellite television. The context and the form of this programming is almost invisible; the few fragments of programmes like 10 to 11 and Primetime that have been shown in television and video festivals and specialist seminars abroad allow viewers to glimpse a complex range of polysemic fragments. The context and the scope of this brave and experimental television production are scarcely public. At a weekend seminar held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in December 1993 Kluge suggested that his artistic practice might be best conceived as having a ‘homeopathic’ role – the smaller the dose the greater the effect on the body politic. It is an inspiring and poetic metaphor, but one that begs a sceptical question about the real effects of avant-garde film and television programmes in the public sphere.

Vox audita perit / The heard word is lost Roland Barthes suggested that thorough formal analysis makes us confront history rather than shielding the text (and the critic) from it. Although a textual approach is not that of historiography, it demonstrates that no area of film is untouched by history. Nearly all of Kluge’s films circulate around imaginative reconstructions and creative re-readings of those nodal moments of the German narrative that constitute the present. His texts offer an intensely subjective 1

This paper draws mainly upon English language sources.

376 approach to the experience of history, an aesthetic of digression, centring on the individual – “What else is the history of a country but the vastest narrative surface of all? Not one story but many stories”.2 In The Patriot / Die Patriotin,3 made in 1979, an overt intertextuality plays into a diverse, self-consciously heterogeneous structure. The patriot herself is Gabi Teichert, a history teacher who digs away at Germany’s cultural past; her excavations depart from conventional narrative structures as Kluge attempts to discover the appropriate form through which to approach German history and contemporary reality. Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk represents a premonition of intertextuality, aiming at developing collage and montage as constructive principles for a progressive form of writing; Benjamin intended that the project “must develop to the highest point the art of citing without citation marks. Its theory connects most closely with that of montage”.4 The Patriot also takes the combination of diverse texts and materials to a heightened level, as there are new forms of overt cross-reference and implicit connection through juxtaposition in the 122 minutes of a feature film. The film moves through a tissue of textual shards and quotations and a clash of very distinct filmic genres; the costume drama of the army officer’s love story, interviews with a doll salesman and a lawyer who is a fairy tale expert and the rough verité of a SPD conference. Kluge deploys a single voice over to work amongst a loose assembly of disparate, discordant elements. In his analysis of the film, Thomas Elsaesser suggests, “the chaos of disparate visual sources and artlessly shot footage that makes up the narrative give the spoken or written word in his films almost invariably the dominant role”.5 In The Last Modernist,6 Peter Lutze also argues that to an extent the voice over is a master code that offers the author’s preferred reading. These readings over-estimate the weight of the film’s softly spoken voice as a coherent, credible centre7 – it is not linear or directorial enough to take the dominant role in organising the film’s meanings. Roland Barthes makes a crucial distinction between “histoire” and “discours” in Image- Music-Text;8 outlining the differences between third party and first person, nominated speech. The voice over in The Patriot is in the third person, but 2

Alexander Kluge: On Film and the Public Sphere. In: New German Critique 24–25 (Fall-Winter 1981–82). P. 206. 3 Literally the female Patriot. 4 Susan Buck-Morss: The Dialectics of Seeing. Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1991. P. 572. 5 Thomas Elsaesser: New German Cinema, A History. London: BFI 1989. P. 98. 6 Peter C. Lutze: Alexander Kluge, The Last Modernist. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1998. Pp. 86–89, 177. 7 As does B. Ruby Rich: She Says, He Says: The Power of the Narrator in Modernist Film Politics. In: Discourse 6 (1981). P. 36. 8 Roland Barthes: Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives. In: ImageMusic-Text. Glasgow: Fontana 1977.

377 because of what it says, because it offers a fantastical point of view – the ‘d’ou je parle’ is indeed that of a knee of a dead soldier, it does not have the status or position normally accorded to this form of speech. This voice (actually recognisable to those familiar with his films as Kluge’s own) does not pretend to offer a quasiobjective perspective but rather that of a mere body part and a deceased one at that. The device of the dead soldier’s knee was invented by the film’s editor Beate Mainke-Jellinghaus – with reference to a poem by Morgenstern9 and the preposterous and ironic anatomical placement of the omniscient voice over from a place “where the dead criticise the living” ensures an ambiguous perspective and an unreliable voice which undercuts a dominant or coherent viewpoint. As the voice over in Artistes at the Top of the Big Top: Disoriented / Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos (1967) indicates, there is always room for internal disagreement and dialectics from a single narrator: “Leni Peickert says: I want to reform the circus because I love it. Answer: Because she loves it, she will not reform it. Why? Because love is a conservative impulse. Leni Peickert: That is not true”.10 The role of the voice in The Patriot is also fractured by subversive strategies of narration when the constant digression even lapses into Latin, garbled and unintelligible, at the end of the film – it may be less well known that Kluge was pseudonymously responsible for translating Winnie the Poo into a minor Latin classic Winnie ille Pu. Kluge’s soft spoken univocal discourse does not offer the reliable explanatory guide that an authorial voice over normally provides – the omniscient narrator desired by the subject searching for stable meaning in the text. Kluge has quoted Kleist in relation to the “gradual construction of [forms of] thought through speaking”11 and for him, as for other contemporary film-makers,12 his form of speech is part of a specific mode of thinking. Another phrase deployed by Kluge at the ICA seminar referred to his films utilising “a certain quantity of narrativity” and this phrase may be taken to indicate the precise and calculated attention to meaning production in all his work. Sharing Adorno’s concern13 with effect and the calculation of the spectator’s response down to the last nuance, Kluge constantly projects the reception of the signifying system he creates: “The film is composed in the head 9

Miriam Hansen: Alexander Kluge, Cinema and the public sphere: the Construction Site of Counter History. Discourse 6 (1981). P. 66. 10 Hans-Bernhard Moeller and Carl Springer: Directed Change in the Young German Film: Alexander Kluge and Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed. In: Wide Angle 2.1 (1977). P. 17. 11 Stuart Liebman: On New German Cinema, Art, Enlightenment, and the Public Sphere: An Interview with Alexander Kluge. In: October 46 (1988). P. 38. 12 Rod Stoneman: Among Godard’s Forms of Thought. In: Undercut 2 (1981); and The Undercut Reader. Ed. by Nina Danino and Michael Maziere. London: Wallflower Press 2003. P. 200–204. 13 Miriam B. Hansen: Introduction to Adorno. Transparencies on Film. In: New German Critique 24–25 (1982). P. 189.

378 of the spectator. It is not a work of art that exists on the screen by itself. Film must work with the associations, to the extent they can be estimated, to the extent they can be imagined, which the author can arouse in the spectator”.14 Often, the process of viewing a rough cut15 of a film is the first point at which this calculation is brought into focus. It is rare enough to encounter such a precise and rational focus on the positioning of the text in relation to the spectator and the process of meaning production on the part of the film-maker. Larger scale industrial film-making often deploys test screenings as a form of pre-emptive market research to monitor meanings. Film-makers who do not think of how their work will be understood by the audiences may encounter the dangers of solipsism – accurately satirized in Anthony Burgess’s fictional poet Enderby. Having been scalded by prunes at birth, he uses the significant phrase ‘death, terrible as prunes’ in his poetry, assuming that this fruit has the same dreadful resonance for everyone. Thinking social meanings and audience positioning through at an early stage is also the basis for a necessary clarity before the film-maker enters the field of contention arising from naked market pressures that intervene with, say, casting issues or script changes. A theory of reception is relevant here; Kluge remarked: “It is not only a question of art, but of its reception. The reception itself constitutes public life and experience”.16 Umberto Eco’s book The Role of The Reader reopened the theoretical debate about reception and the journal New German Critique took up elements of the investigation initiated by the Russian Formalists half a century earlier and continued to examine the bases for understanding reception. Kluge shares something of the same motives and the same critique as Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin in relation to the limitations of forms of ‘realism’; he reiterates the example they gave of a photograph of a factory: “What use if an exterior view of the AEG if I cannot see what is going on inside the building in terms of relationships, wage labour, capital, international investments – a photograph of AEG says nothing about the AEG itself ”.17 Filmed images reproduce 14

Stuart Liebman: Why Kluge. In: October 46 (1988). P.14. In a particular and peculiar 20 year trajectory working for Channel Four and Bord Scannán na hÉireann / The Irish Film Board I have viewed probably over 1000 rough cuts with film-makers; a process which precisely deploys a distant and less involved perspective to help calibrate meaning production. 16 Stuart Liebman: On New German Cinema, Art, Enlightenment, and the Public Sphere: An Interview with Alexander Kluge. In: October 46 (1988). P. 41. 17 Kluge: On Film and the Public Sphere. In: New German Critique 24–25 (1981–82). P. 218. The actual passage reads as follows: “The situation is complicated by the fact that less than ever does a simple ‘reproduction of reality’ tell us anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupps factory or of the AEG yields practically nothing about these institutions. The genuine reality has slipped into the functional. The reification of human relations; the factory say, no longer gives out these relations. Hence it is in fact ‘something to construct’, something ‘artificial’, ‘posited’. Hence in fact art is necessary”. Bertolt 15

379 the appearance of things and therefore to some extent reaffirm the existence of them; representations that show things as they are – not as they could be. In Kluge’s case the utopian impulse intervenes and leads to an exploration of forms of film which engender more active, more questioning spectator positions. The experimentation with an alternative practice of cinema paralleling the development of alternative practices of politics in that epoch; this a moment of modernism which assumes that film-making may engender radical change through radical forms of representation. The imperative for social change underlined in Marx’s 1848 manifesto ended with the phrase “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”.18 The cultural enactment of ‘the point’ is intercepted by modernist concerns with the form and, crucially, the power relations of the discourse that could lead to change. Kluge arrives at a very different solution to the question of a radical filmic discourse which might act as a catalyst for change than earlier Soviet versions of montage aesthetics, even if they share some of the same aims. He reacted against the manipulative dimensions of Eisensteinian meaning control; in his view, paradoxically Soviet film-making is too close to mainstream modes: “Hollywood films which try to persuade the audience to give up their own experience and follow the more organised experience of the film. In my opinion, the opposite is right”.19 Kluge endeavours to create a specifically loose space for images and sounds to play off one another, decentred narratives and digressions to circulate and the possibility of the interpellation of an active spectator to work between them. His films are construction sites where a variety of discourses intersect and clash, engendering what Barthes called “the very plural of meanings” his “fabric of quotations” becomes an enhanced, explicit intertextuality.20 Kluge’s films have maintained a separate, adjacent relation to his writing. The space of literature is very different and constrained in relation to the scale of intervention available in film and television – inevitably his work encounters a greater field of force in popular media. The social reach of literature is constrained – although western societies had achieved almost universal literacy by the end of the 19th century the proportion of the population open to literature once they have left an institutional context is minimal. Because popular cinema continues its pervasive social reach in theatres and on television, even peripheral forms of film, such as ‘art house’ genres, can connect with relatively Brecht: Der Dreigroschenprozess (The Three Penny Trial), translation Ben Brewster. From Shklovsky to Brecht: A Reply. In: Screen 15.7 (Summer 1974). P. 93. 18 Karl Marx: Theses on Feuerbach. See http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ 1845/theses/index.htm. 19 See Peter C. Lutze: Alexander Kluge, The Last Modernist. P. 237, note 49. 20 Another adjacent example might be Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema which is a project constructed from a complex lattice of intertextual quotation and reference.

380 wide audiences. I programmed The Patriot in a season called European Directions and it was transmitted by Channel 4 on 3 September 1984 at 11pm. It would have been watched by over 400,000 viewers. Kluge brings a playful, ironic spirit to bear – “making films is an anti-academic, insolent occupation, historically grounded but inconsistent […]”.21 Gabi as patriot and teacher marks history essays crossing out errors which are, the voice over asserts, “the best bits”; recalling Joyce’s remark that “error is the portal of discovery”. The serious concerns of The Patriot are clear from the start, however the gravity of the complex exploration is undermined when early on the voice over remarks “a puddle has a three day history”; intersection of ‘impertinent’ discourses22 contribute to the understanding of complex ideas.

Effects E re nata / As circumstances dictate One of the first significant encounters of Kluge’s work with Anglophone film culture was at the Brecht Event during the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1977; this was part of Screen magazine’s project to conjoin radical aesthetics and radical politics. Until that time attention had been almost exclusively focused on the work of JeanLuc Godard as the exemplar of politicised, modernist form; a film-maker determined “to show and show myself showing”.23 However the spectrum gradually broadened beyond Godard to include film-makers like Jean-Marie Straub / Daniele Huillet; eventually Nagisa Oshima and Dusan Makavejev. The interest in early film can also be seen as a parallel attempt to de-naturalise normative narrative forms, as a relationship can be discerned between the positions of early and experimental cinema.24 They both function to relativise and counter the naturalisation of a mode of representation, the avant-garde speaks a language of negation and thus of negotiation. It is only by undermining the transparency of the institutionalised modes of representation that they can be challenged. Kluge’s films played a role in broadening the range of reference in the discussion of the politics of form. Kluge’s montage style can also be seen to connect with the broad tradition of the Found Footage genre and the specific versions of this form which have 21

Kluge: On Film and the Public Sphere. P. 207. When asked about the relative influence of Marx or Freud on his work Michel Foucault apparently quipped, “They still have much harm to do one another […]”. 23 Colin MacCabe: Godard – A Portrait of the Artist at 70. London: Bloomsbury 2003. P. 176. 24 Thomas Elsaesser recently cited the author’s essay “Perspective Correction” (in: Afterimage 8–9 (Spring 1981)) and wrote “The rediscovery of the ‘primitives’ seemed like a vindication of the avant garde’s fifty year struggle to rethink the foundations of film language and dispel the idea that the cinema’s turn to fictional narrative or adoption of illusionist representational forms was its inevitable destiny”. Early Cinema Space Frame Narrative. P. 4. 22

381 proliferated in German and Austrian experimental film culture in recent years: Wilhelm and Birgit Hein, Peter Kubelka are leading exponents of this area. Based on the re-appropriation, transformation and reinterpretation of others’ images, it was celebrated at the VIPER International Film and Video Festival in Lucerne in 1991/2.25 A Cologne based television producer Thomas Schmitt made a series called Freestyle in the late 1980ies to early 1990ies for WDR, utilising diverse and lively conjunctions, thematic collages of material that breaks up the narrative continuities expected in this form of television programme. In a more recent manifestation Gustav Deutsch’s re-editing sequences of silent film in the ‘Material’ section of Film ist… (1999) specifically recalls the poignancy of mortality and decay in Kluge’s title – Love, Death and Compromise. The precarious project of radical form explored at the edges of early Channel 4 television has been set aside in the current confluence of ideologies that constitute contemporary culture.26 Maybe this is also the context to account for the relative lack of focus on Alexander Kluge in relation to the other film-makers of the new German cinema. Martin Blaney, German correspondent of the English language film trade magazine Screen International, recently discounted Kluge with the phrase “I don’t think he has any relevance for the current generation of German film-makers”.27 An anonymous reviewer writing on the International Movie Data Base described The Patriot as “deadly boring, belligerent and brow beating […]. This movie is one of the most slow moving and boring movies I’ve ever seen. It’s just a long-winded, repetitive, monotonous harangue”.28 In all its dismissive naivety this IMDB comment is a symptom of the comprehensive failure of the project of radical form to reach an appreciative audience. As meanings proliferate in his open polysemic texts Kluge’s signifying practice creates an overload and excess for many spectators, producing as much perplexity as illumination. The constraints of the basis for most of the distribution and exhibition available to avantgarde practice means that it is often protected from wider audience response. One cannot ignore the problems of difficulty, access and intelligibility experienced in relation to experimental or theoretical work – reactions described by Adorno with aggressive disdain: “They fall back on the shamelessly modest assertion that they do not understand – this eliminates even opposition, their last negative relationship to truth”.29 25

Found Footage Film, Ed. by Cecilia Hausheer and Christoph Settele. Luzern: Zyklop Verlag 1992. 26 Rod Stoneman: Sins of commission. In: Screen 33.2 (Summer 1992). P. 127–144. 27 Email to the author 25th March 2004. 28 IMDB, 19th November 2003. 29 Theodor Adorno: Addressee Unknown. In: Minima Moralia. London: NLB 1974. P. 216.

382 As it flows so strongly against the grain of mainstream culture Kluge’s work is best approached in a relaxed and receptive mode, discovering the pleasures of its ambiguity, the delights of its difficulty. “The cinema is an institution of pleasure. Above all the pleasure of ideas”.30 Unfortunately we live in societies where any possible pleasure in ideas is constructed as a minority sport, a perverse pleasure. And furthermore Kluge’s very loose arrangement of ideas moves within the play of that most dangerous game – the politics of polysemy. Kluge’s eventual expedition into the commercial territory of private satellite television followed the strategic vision and adept tactics first manifest in the collective Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962. The intervention in television, exploiting the “porosity of the institutional structures”,31 was actually achieved as a result of his influence within the SPD; a combination of strategic thinking and opportunism having a direct effect on legislation for RTL and SAT 1. However the slots in the schedule for which Kluge’s company made programming for soon began to slip to 11pm, then 11.50pm and12.30am. Apparently the RTL television executives referred to him as ‘Quotenkiller’ – a ratings killer.32 There is some parallel in Eckart Stein’s experience programming Arte and 3Sat – following his work for Das kleine Fernsehspiel33 on terrestrial television (ZDF) and satellite programming, but the viewing figures are also very small and the number of slots per year were drastically reduced in recent years. Overall it has to be recognised that Kluge’s homeopathic ministrations have, sad to say, had little social reach or long-term effect. Despite his intense activity as a media politician, beginning with the Manifesto, organising a collective feature like Deutschland im Herbst / Germany in Autumn in 1978 and the recent interventions in private television, his ‘medicinal’ impact has not spread outwards in terms of either cultural influence or institutional, political example, even within Germany.

Circulation Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis / Times change and we change with them Alongside the lack of long term international influence on the infrastructure of the media, Kluge has been set aside in the German context and is inadequately recognised at home as well as abroad,34 but the model of his radical polysemic 30

Peter C. Lutze: Alexander Kluge, The Last Modernist. P. 210. Stuart Liebman: On New German Cinema, Art, Enlightenment, and the Public Sphere. P. 38. 32 Lutze: Alexander Kluge, The Last Modernist. P. 196. 33 Created in 1962 by Hajo Schedlich and continued from 1975 with Eckart Stein. 34 One current reflection of this disregard is the unavailability of Kluge’s feature films on the new medium of DVD – a format and a distribution context which allows access to a much greater variety of films, formerly restricted, including esoteric minority films. 31

383 cinema and television can be argued to be as relevant as ever. In fact the deterioration of public service television over the last decade makes it more imperative. The increasingly spectacular patterns of media consumption and the mercantile uses of leisure time throw Kluge’s extraordinary combination of imaginative institutional and discursive strategies into stark relief. He has made small but significant contributions to an oppositional public sphere and combined creative practice and theoretical reflection in an exemplary way. His filmic strategies, together with his television work, continue to be pertinent to a wide range of film-makers in a period of dangerous remission for European cinema. Kluge’s institutional example is relevant to current debates on artists’ film35 and discussion of contemporary media legislation. It poses the question – how can any aspect of cultural cinema reinvent itself and enter the increasingly privatised domain of multichannel European broadcasting? As Oscar Wilde suggested: “A map of the world that does not include the territory of Utopia is not worth even glancing at”.36 We can only hope that Leni Peickert was correct when, in Artists at the Top of the Big Top: Disoriented, she asserts that “The longer you wait for Utopia, the better it gets…”.

35

For instance Kluge’s experiments were invoked at Getting It Made, an event held at the Tate Britain in London on 27th March 2004. 36 Perry Anderson envisages the renewal of utopian energies more historically in: The River of Time. In: New Left Review 26 (March-April 2004). Pp. 67–77.

DIE PATRIOTIN - BRD 1979 Regie: Alexander Kluge Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek