"A Berlin Romance" by Wolfgang Kohlhaase was the film we screened this week. It was a nice East German take on the Hollywood romance genre. Even without the narration the socialist undertones to this movie appeared obvious to me. The Western Sector, as the narrator refers to it as, seemed completely run down and had an attitude that was completely uncaring and superficial. That seemed very overexaggerated.
That actually leads me to question how much action DEFA put forth to censor the way Kohlhaase originally envisioned it. It makes me wonder why he chose to produce movies for the East instead of West Germany. From the readings it says he was a pretty ardent socialist but I don't see why he didn't go with a Western film studio to express his ideas. Maybe their his work would have been more censored in the West than it was in the East. For "A Berlin Romance" it seems like the narration is the main force pushing the SED party line which makes me wonder if it was even supposed to be so pro-socialism in the first place.
In Thorsten's class he was kind enough to give a very detailed history of the reasons for the rise of the Nazi Party. He gave historical reasons for the basis of anti-semitism in Germany which made sense. I'm not sure his explanation of the events was complete, however. The popularity of the Nazis was not because of their anti-semitism. The Nazis offered Germany economic stability at a time when unemployment was ridiculously high and there were a series of banking crises. The communists offered similar things and were also got a decent amount of votes. The Nazis came to power by political maneuvering. The Nazi party then instituted a plan that capped wages which made the unemployment rate plummet. I think that had a lot to do with people allowing and in many cases agreeing with anti-semitism. The Nazi party got people back to work and so they were more open to their ideas. Plus you have the fact that Jews were largely affluent compared to other groups in the country. I did find it interesting that Jews were painted as both ultra capitalists and communists. I really wonder how the hell the Nazis sold that contradiction to the public.
One fact that Thorsten mentioned that kind of sickened me was the change in the orders given to troops on the front line. Initially they were told to shoot Jewish adult males because they might cause insurrection. I can almost see a valid reason for that. But what I can't see is how anybody followed the later orders. The troops were later ordered to shoot all Jews on the front line including women, children, and even babies. That's one thing I don't think I could ever understand. That actually reminded me of a story in the book Night by Elie Wiesel where he had heard a story of Nazis coming into one of the towns closest to his. When they got hold of a Jewish baby they would throw them up into the air and use them as target practice. The people in his town didn't believe it because it seemed so absurd. It does seem absurd but unfortunately it was probably true.
We went around to several parks for shooting this week. We got great shots of a couple playing ping pong in Volkspark. I'm not sure them playing ping pong in the park will fit with the premise of our film but it never hurts to have more footage. We even got a short interview from both of them because they seemed interested in just what the hell we were filming them for. They gave us a tip that there is a bar in Friedrichshain that is pretty big with ping pong so we'll have to check it out.
A few of us attempted to go to some of the parks near Karl-Mark Allee but our camera wasn't cooperating. On our trip there we thought it'd be a great idea to get sounds from the U-Bahn for our acoustic movie so we closed the lens and let the mic roll. While we were on the U-Bahn we got an error message from the camera and the LCD screen was only displaying white. We decided to stop filming for the day so there wouldn't be a possibility of us screwing it up more. Luckily later in the day it started working perfectly normal but by that time the Sun had started to go down.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Week 4
In Thorsten's class we talked about decentralized monuments and eventually talked about displaying something to figure out just how the Nazis came to power and why many in Germany were apathetic to what happened to the Jews. That latter part is where everything started falling to shit. Jesse brought up the idea of establishing something to remember that they democratically came to power and many were apathetic about their abuse of civil and human rights. Unfortunately he said memorial or monument (I forget which) and at that point it stopped being a discussion and everyone flew into attack mode.
Essentially he was trying to call for some sort of display of the fact that it happened and that people should watch out for the signs. Unfortunately some people were automatically shutting that idea down because of how he worded his original comment. One comment that I thought really stuck out was someone saying that the explanation of that is something that is for textbooks. To me that comment seemed out of place in this program where we're supposed to look at memory and meaning through monuments/memorials/exhibits. Reading about stumbling blocks and counter monuments is nice but you don't get a great feel for the meaning of them.
The discussion on the Schoneberg signs and stumbling blocks was luckily much more civil. This actually got me to think about who notices each type of monument (centralized and decentralized). Centralized monuments seem largely for tourists. Go there, take pictures and maybe do a little bit of reflecting on the meaning of it. To Berliners though, I would imagine it just becomes another object you pass by on your daily routine. Decentralized monuments, however, seem like they would have more of an impact on the people that live in the city. I definitely notice the stumbling blocks each time I walk by even though I see at least half a dozen each day. The Schoneberg signs are a lot less decentralized unfortunately. I would think they would have a larger impact on locals if they were a little more widespread. There would most likely be a more widespread misinterpretation of the signs but because they are all in German, I'm sure it wouldn't get too bad.
Speaking of the signs, there was one sign that really struck me. There is one sign that displays that Jews aren't allowed to own pets. There is another sign that has a story that sort of accompanies the other sign. A woman tells about how after that law, her husband couldn't bare to abandon their canary. She goes on to say that one of the neighbors must have told on them because her husband was picked up by the Gestappo several days later. A few days after that she got a letter in the mail saying that she needed to come to an office with 3 Reichsmarks to pick up the ashes of her husband. Fuck beans that is beyond messed up.
Anyway on to Germania: Anno Zero. This one was a real roller coaster of happiness. Edmund's life must have really sucked. He was relied upon by his parents to provide for the family but was unable to do so in a legal manner because adults saw him as competition for work and food rations. Before the discussion on this film I wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Somehow I missed that the film was about the guilt of the past being placed on the new generation.
The film made little effort to talk about the preceding decades. When the father does show remorse for the past saying he should have stood up to the Nazi party, it seemed like he was regretful because of the atrocities the Nazi party committed but more because they started a war that cause Germany hardship and one they eventually lost. It seems odd that a film about guilt would leave out something that the German people should possibly feel the most guilt for.
Rosselini painted his film as an undoctored truth. I really wonder though if a foreigner can actually portray Berlin as it actually is. That's one thing I worry about with the films we are making. We're trying to make movies that portrays Berlin. I am wondering if our films are just going to reek of foreign interpretations of Berlin. I guess all we can do is try though.
We scoped out Dr. Pong's this weekend. It's a really cool place. People form a big circle around the ping pong table and then one by one people take turns hitting the ball back and forth. If your miss, you're out. Usually it was the same people that ended up toward the end. We didn't film because we wanted to map out what to do before bringing in an $1800 camera. We could get some great shots by standing on top of the chairs. Shots of the players at the end will be great because they are pretty good players and do a few crazy moves.
Essentially he was trying to call for some sort of display of the fact that it happened and that people should watch out for the signs. Unfortunately some people were automatically shutting that idea down because of how he worded his original comment. One comment that I thought really stuck out was someone saying that the explanation of that is something that is for textbooks. To me that comment seemed out of place in this program where we're supposed to look at memory and meaning through monuments/memorials/exhibits. Reading about stumbling blocks and counter monuments is nice but you don't get a great feel for the meaning of them.
The discussion on the Schoneberg signs and stumbling blocks was luckily much more civil. This actually got me to think about who notices each type of monument (centralized and decentralized). Centralized monuments seem largely for tourists. Go there, take pictures and maybe do a little bit of reflecting on the meaning of it. To Berliners though, I would imagine it just becomes another object you pass by on your daily routine. Decentralized monuments, however, seem like they would have more of an impact on the people that live in the city. I definitely notice the stumbling blocks each time I walk by even though I see at least half a dozen each day. The Schoneberg signs are a lot less decentralized unfortunately. I would think they would have a larger impact on locals if they were a little more widespread. There would most likely be a more widespread misinterpretation of the signs but because they are all in German, I'm sure it wouldn't get too bad.
Speaking of the signs, there was one sign that really struck me. There is one sign that displays that Jews aren't allowed to own pets. There is another sign that has a story that sort of accompanies the other sign. A woman tells about how after that law, her husband couldn't bare to abandon their canary. She goes on to say that one of the neighbors must have told on them because her husband was picked up by the Gestappo several days later. A few days after that she got a letter in the mail saying that she needed to come to an office with 3 Reichsmarks to pick up the ashes of her husband. Fuck beans that is beyond messed up.
Anyway on to Germania: Anno Zero. This one was a real roller coaster of happiness. Edmund's life must have really sucked. He was relied upon by his parents to provide for the family but was unable to do so in a legal manner because adults saw him as competition for work and food rations. Before the discussion on this film I wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Somehow I missed that the film was about the guilt of the past being placed on the new generation.
The film made little effort to talk about the preceding decades. When the father does show remorse for the past saying he should have stood up to the Nazi party, it seemed like he was regretful because of the atrocities the Nazi party committed but more because they started a war that cause Germany hardship and one they eventually lost. It seems odd that a film about guilt would leave out something that the German people should possibly feel the most guilt for.
Rosselini painted his film as an undoctored truth. I really wonder though if a foreigner can actually portray Berlin as it actually is. That's one thing I worry about with the films we are making. We're trying to make movies that portrays Berlin. I am wondering if our films are just going to reek of foreign interpretations of Berlin. I guess all we can do is try though.
We scoped out Dr. Pong's this weekend. It's a really cool place. People form a big circle around the ping pong table and then one by one people take turns hitting the ball back and forth. If your miss, you're out. Usually it was the same people that ended up toward the end. We didn't film because we wanted to map out what to do before bringing in an $1800 camera. We could get some great shots by standing on top of the chairs. Shots of the players at the end will be great because they are pretty good players and do a few crazy moves.
Week 3
Thankfully over the past week we scrapped our original film idea. I think it was a great idea but we definitely bit off more than we could chew. I'm sure quite a few of the people that we planned on talking to would be wary in front of a camera and the language barrier would have been extremely difficult to overcome. Plus I'm not so sure how my parents would feel if that was what I had been filming for the past few months.
So instead we are doing a film about the phenomenon that is ping pong. I was quite surprised to hear that there are clubs with tons and tons of ping pong tables. I shouldn't have been that surprised seeing as there are two giant slab outdoor ping pong tables within a block of our apartment complex. This film should have a funner tone than our original idea which I think is good. Hopefully we can find the right mix of information and entertainment so we aren't bordering on boring but also not bordering on stupidity. We actually got some footage of some of us playing ping pong with a few kids in Koldenhof. We really need to start getting more footage of around the city and obviously more footage of ping pong.
Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt was the film for the week. Actually if I hadn't read the reading before watching this I wouldn't have known it was a communist propaganda film until the very end of the film. It clearly had a leftist lean which can easily be seen by the newspaper flashing the horribly rising unemployment. The scene with the bicycles racing to each job sight in search of work was pretty cool. The film was shot soon after the collapse of Creditanstalt which caused a series of banking crises across Germany so I'm sure that portayal is decently accurate. The poor in this film didn't seem like they were in actual poverty to me. It didn't seem like anyone was starving and the female lead is always fairly nicely dressed despite her living in a tent colony. That may be one reason why it didn't seem like propaganda to me until the end. It's like everyone in the film is showing mild amounts of struggle in their lives but not anywhere near what you would think would be in a propaganda film. I personally was expecting to see scenes that showed the horrible excesses or cold heartedness of capitalism but that only came out in the last scene on the train. Even that was pretty ridiculous when you think about it logically. Brazil burning coffee beans instead of putting them on the market would not hurt their profits. Them putting the beans on the market would cause the price to drop so much that they were maximizing their profits.
One thing that I really liked about the film is that several characters gave a wink to the audience to acknowledge they are there. I realize it's to send you a message but I've always liked when films/writings do that because it makes you feel as if you are part of the film.
For Thorsten's class our readings centered on Jewish exhibitions. It was really interesting to see the different ways that Jews portayed themselves. It seemed like in the early stages of the exhibitions Jews were eager to show off their best artwork to show others that they could be just as good. One monument at an exhibit late gave no clue to the fact that it was a Jewish sculpture but instead chose to focus on religious tolerance. This was in response to calls in America to proclaim that it was a Protestant nation. To me this seemed like a rallying call for all religious minorities to stick together. Later still Adler tied Judaism in with the beginnings of Christianity and with other Western cultures. That seemed to say that the Jewish people were one and the same as other Westerners.
So instead we are doing a film about the phenomenon that is ping pong. I was quite surprised to hear that there are clubs with tons and tons of ping pong tables. I shouldn't have been that surprised seeing as there are two giant slab outdoor ping pong tables within a block of our apartment complex. This film should have a funner tone than our original idea which I think is good. Hopefully we can find the right mix of information and entertainment so we aren't bordering on boring but also not bordering on stupidity. We actually got some footage of some of us playing ping pong with a few kids in Koldenhof. We really need to start getting more footage of around the city and obviously more footage of ping pong.
Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt was the film for the week. Actually if I hadn't read the reading before watching this I wouldn't have known it was a communist propaganda film until the very end of the film. It clearly had a leftist lean which can easily be seen by the newspaper flashing the horribly rising unemployment. The scene with the bicycles racing to each job sight in search of work was pretty cool. The film was shot soon after the collapse of Creditanstalt which caused a series of banking crises across Germany so I'm sure that portayal is decently accurate. The poor in this film didn't seem like they were in actual poverty to me. It didn't seem like anyone was starving and the female lead is always fairly nicely dressed despite her living in a tent colony. That may be one reason why it didn't seem like propaganda to me until the end. It's like everyone in the film is showing mild amounts of struggle in their lives but not anywhere near what you would think would be in a propaganda film. I personally was expecting to see scenes that showed the horrible excesses or cold heartedness of capitalism but that only came out in the last scene on the train. Even that was pretty ridiculous when you think about it logically. Brazil burning coffee beans instead of putting them on the market would not hurt their profits. Them putting the beans on the market would cause the price to drop so much that they were maximizing their profits.
One thing that I really liked about the film is that several characters gave a wink to the audience to acknowledge they are there. I realize it's to send you a message but I've always liked when films/writings do that because it makes you feel as if you are part of the film.
For Thorsten's class our readings centered on Jewish exhibitions. It was really interesting to see the different ways that Jews portayed themselves. It seemed like in the early stages of the exhibitions Jews were eager to show off their best artwork to show others that they could be just as good. One monument at an exhibit late gave no clue to the fact that it was a Jewish sculpture but instead chose to focus on religious tolerance. This was in response to calls in America to proclaim that it was a Protestant nation. To me this seemed like a rallying call for all religious minorities to stick together. Later still Adler tied Judaism in with the beginnings of Christianity and with other Western cultures. That seemed to say that the Jewish people were one and the same as other Westerners.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Starting Out
When everyone was being put into film groups, I was hoping to get placed into a group that had at least one person that knew a decent amount about either film or audio. After that names of my group members were called out, my immediate question was: which one of us has film experience? I already knew that Nathan had even less experience than I did and Jessica had already told everyone who went to Oktoberfest that she didn't really have any. It was immediately clear that none of us had any experience. There is a plus side to that though. Since none of us have experience, we'll all be learning as much as we can to make a decent production. Learning everything is going to be a slow process and in the end our production may not be top quality but at least I'll have learned more than I would in a group where I was the only one that knew nothing.
Jessica seemed to take a large interest in the editing aspect of production. I realize that may be an overwhelming amount of work so I'm definitely going to learn the software as soon as she gets it installed so that I can help her out. I'll obviously be helping out in setting up shots and sound recording/editing but I'm not sure if I have an eye for a great shot or the ears for great sound.
Earlier this week we decided to sit down and think up ideas for our final project. That actually went really smoothly because we all had a few ideas going into the meeting. The idea I had was unfortunately a little more than we could handle. I was thinking that we could recreate one of the stories from Stasiland. There is a very interesting story about the father of the man that drew the line for where the wall was going to be. That would have needed a script and actors which I don't think any of us are experienced enough to figure out.
One of the other ideas that we were seriously considering was Frodo's (me) Walk Through History. That would have entailed me dressing up as different German characters of the last century and explaining the history behind the characters and each period. I'm assuming that's what they were going for because I didn't completely understand the idea or have much of an idea of how it would be fleshed out.
The idea that we settled on was a documentary on non-conformity in Berlin. This would involve looking into the history of sexuality in Berlin and also research the history of the punk/anarchist movements in Berlin. We may also look into all the graffiti in Berlin. That might relate to the punk/anarchist movement though so it would be good to look into anyway.
One area of that that definitely would be interesting is interviewing people at the commune near our apartment. It may not actually be a commune but Jessica says it appears to be one. Hearing their views on things like the roles of the state would be a very interesting topic.
Sexuality is a pretty broad topic so hopefully we'll focus it enough so that it is entertaining and informative. It seems like we may be focusing on prostitution or possibly burlesque. If that's the case, I think it'd be worthwhile to look into the protections the state offers to them rather than them doing it on the black market. It may be a good idea to interview a prostitute and your average citizen to get their views on the industry.
One problem I could see setting us back is the language barrier. I've been told that most Germans speak English and while that is true it can still be very difficult communicating with people that don't have the best grasp on the English language. Even then we have the problem of actually finding someone that will be willing to speak with us. People that are largely rejecting the system may not feel completely comfortable conversing with a group of foreign students who are clearly much more conformist. A possible solution to this is to recruit a native German speaker to help us out. We would definitely want a few German speakers so we don't have to rely on just one person.
Nathan seems to be figuring out the camera so I'm hoping he has an eye for what makes a good shot. The film terms were very helpful in that regard, at least for me, because previously I hadn't really thought about most of those but now I can pick out instances of each type of shot and cut from various films. I'm hoping that Nathan can do the same and decide what will make a successful shot.
After reading the articles about the flaneurs, I've figured that's the best way to get an idea of the city. Sometime next week I'm going to grab a bus and get off at a random stop in the city and walk around. This will help me get a decent sense of direction in the city and also might give me new insight on where to find aspects of non-conformity.
One of the movies we watched in class that really struck me was Berlin: Symphony of a Big City. It's extremely rare that a film with no plot and no dialogue keeps my attention. I was actually reminded slightly of Metropolis when I saw this. I think it may have been all of the shots of machinery that made me think of it. I'd have to rewatch both to pin down everything that reminded me of it. I really wish the original score hadn't been lost for this movie. I realize that the score in the DVD version was written specifically for the movie but the score was almost directly related to the thoughts and emotions I had in each scene. Each shot of machinery seemed to be accompanied by harrowing music but I'm left wondering whether or not that was Ruttmann's original intention.
The one reading that really stuck out for me was for Thorsten's class. The article on counter monuments put forth an interesting point. It's extremely hard to remember the destruction of something by just rebuilding it or building an abstract memorial. By using negative space, you immediately ask why there is a negative space there whereas with a normal monument you might look at it and then put it in the back of your mind. With the negative space you look at it more closely and figure out what happened.
I'm excited for the coming weeks of more films, readings, and the actual start of the filming process.
Jessica seemed to take a large interest in the editing aspect of production. I realize that may be an overwhelming amount of work so I'm definitely going to learn the software as soon as she gets it installed so that I can help her out. I'll obviously be helping out in setting up shots and sound recording/editing but I'm not sure if I have an eye for a great shot or the ears for great sound.
Earlier this week we decided to sit down and think up ideas for our final project. That actually went really smoothly because we all had a few ideas going into the meeting. The idea I had was unfortunately a little more than we could handle. I was thinking that we could recreate one of the stories from Stasiland. There is a very interesting story about the father of the man that drew the line for where the wall was going to be. That would have needed a script and actors which I don't think any of us are experienced enough to figure out.
One of the other ideas that we were seriously considering was Frodo's (me) Walk Through History. That would have entailed me dressing up as different German characters of the last century and explaining the history behind the characters and each period. I'm assuming that's what they were going for because I didn't completely understand the idea or have much of an idea of how it would be fleshed out.
The idea that we settled on was a documentary on non-conformity in Berlin. This would involve looking into the history of sexuality in Berlin and also research the history of the punk/anarchist movements in Berlin. We may also look into all the graffiti in Berlin. That might relate to the punk/anarchist movement though so it would be good to look into anyway.
One area of that that definitely would be interesting is interviewing people at the commune near our apartment. It may not actually be a commune but Jessica says it appears to be one. Hearing their views on things like the roles of the state would be a very interesting topic.
Sexuality is a pretty broad topic so hopefully we'll focus it enough so that it is entertaining and informative. It seems like we may be focusing on prostitution or possibly burlesque. If that's the case, I think it'd be worthwhile to look into the protections the state offers to them rather than them doing it on the black market. It may be a good idea to interview a prostitute and your average citizen to get their views on the industry.
One problem I could see setting us back is the language barrier. I've been told that most Germans speak English and while that is true it can still be very difficult communicating with people that don't have the best grasp on the English language. Even then we have the problem of actually finding someone that will be willing to speak with us. People that are largely rejecting the system may not feel completely comfortable conversing with a group of foreign students who are clearly much more conformist. A possible solution to this is to recruit a native German speaker to help us out. We would definitely want a few German speakers so we don't have to rely on just one person.
Nathan seems to be figuring out the camera so I'm hoping he has an eye for what makes a good shot. The film terms were very helpful in that regard, at least for me, because previously I hadn't really thought about most of those but now I can pick out instances of each type of shot and cut from various films. I'm hoping that Nathan can do the same and decide what will make a successful shot.
After reading the articles about the flaneurs, I've figured that's the best way to get an idea of the city. Sometime next week I'm going to grab a bus and get off at a random stop in the city and walk around. This will help me get a decent sense of direction in the city and also might give me new insight on where to find aspects of non-conformity.
One of the movies we watched in class that really struck me was Berlin: Symphony of a Big City. It's extremely rare that a film with no plot and no dialogue keeps my attention. I was actually reminded slightly of Metropolis when I saw this. I think it may have been all of the shots of machinery that made me think of it. I'd have to rewatch both to pin down everything that reminded me of it. I really wish the original score hadn't been lost for this movie. I realize that the score in the DVD version was written specifically for the movie but the score was almost directly related to the thoughts and emotions I had in each scene. Each shot of machinery seemed to be accompanied by harrowing music but I'm left wondering whether or not that was Ruttmann's original intention.
The one reading that really stuck out for me was for Thorsten's class. The article on counter monuments put forth an interesting point. It's extremely hard to remember the destruction of something by just rebuilding it or building an abstract memorial. By using negative space, you immediately ask why there is a negative space there whereas with a normal monument you might look at it and then put it in the back of your mind. With the negative space you look at it more closely and figure out what happened.
I'm excited for the coming weeks of more films, readings, and the actual start of the filming process.
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