Betty
Falkenberg
THE NEW WAVE GERMAN STYLE
Gem1an film history is virtually unthinkable without the
theoretical writings of Walter Benjamin. In his essay, "Das Kunstwerk
im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit," Benjamin intuitively
hit on some of the first principles of contemporary film theory. His
ideas were taken up and systematized by Siegfried Kracauer, who saw
in movies the ideal medium for capturing the complex reality of a tech–
nological universe. His theory of "social reality," as opposed to the dada–
ist view of film as art, or Astruc's film as language, is at the core of the
new German cinema.
It was not until the cracks in the prosperity mask of the post–
Adenauer regime began to show through, however, that the new cinema
was given so much as a chance in the Federal Republic. Now com–
mercial movie houses are beginning to show new cinema films along with
the usual run-of-the-mill programs.
Der Junge Torless,
the movie made from a novella by Musil, is just
one example - and not the most representative - of the new wave in
Germany. The really experimental films are being made by young
writers and Llmmakers working together.
An example of such collaboration is
Tiitowierung,
a movie based on
an idea by Gunter Herburger, whose short-story collection,
A Monoton–
ous Landscape,
appeared recently in English translation. Benno, the
hero of
Tiitowierung,
is subjected to a ritual tatooing by the members
of a gang at his reform school. Shortly after this incident, he is removed
from the school and adopted by well-meaning, well-to-do parents who
try to "integrate" him into their Biedermeier lives. What they fail to grasp
is that Benno has been branded, tl1at hate and hostility have been
tatooed on his soul.
"We understand," is the insidious expression of their smug com–
placency and of their refusal to cope with the realities of a situation.
Repeated over and over, it becomes a kind of abracadabra, luning them
