Week 6

Well I didn't expect Columbo to be an angel that's for sure. I kind of wonder why Wenders picked Peter Falk as one of the main characters for Der Himmel über Berlin. I realize that Berlin was supposed to be seen as an international city but Peter Falk, to me at least, does not seem like the perfect portrayal of an American. Dung's point about there being no clear Berliners that are main characters was interesting. It seems like there would be at least one character that was from Berlin. I kind of wonder though, what personified a Berliner at that time? Was it Homer that was constantly searching for Potsdamer Platz? I could see him personifying Berlin (with regards to it searching for its past) but not necessarily a 1987 Berliner. Even today it's hard to pin down the exact stereotype of a Berliner due to there being so many different social groups.

Bell Hooks, despite being near certifiably insane, I think made a decent point about the lack of feminism in this film. She was pretty far off base when it came to the racial (or lack thereof) aspect of them film. It did not seem like that was a topic for the movie at all. While it did show some elements of race such as the car with a Turkish man, it did't seem to focus on that at all. It seemed like most people in the class agreed but it might just be because there weren't really that many minorities in the group. She does make a good point that Berlin is not a 'white city' like her friend said but it certainly isn't as diverse as your average American metropolis of several million people. Bell Hooks may be looking at it from the wrong perspective as well.

It did seem kind of odd that the female character wasn't complete until Damiel came into her life. There's also the fact that Marion did seem like a fairly sexualized character that was seen as an object of desire for Damiel. But that may be an incomplete view of the subject. The male angels in Der Himmel über Berlin were very gentle characters. Gentleness is usually seen as a more feminine trait. Couple that with the idea that angels are usually supposed to be more perfect than humans and you might be able to make the argument that Wenders was trying to say that men need to take on more character traits from women.

This week we didn't get too much done in the way of filming for tischtennis. Jessica went out and took some shots of the Reichstag which were pretty good. We actually do need to get some more shots of icons in Berlin so it was good that we at least got some footage of that.