Klassenverhältnisse

Klassenverhältnisse, known in English as Class Relations, in French as Amerika, rapports de classe, is a 1984 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. It is based on Franz Kafka's unfinished first novel, Amerika.

The German filmmaker Harun Farocki appears as one of the leads, and the film also features a cameo from American experimental filmmaker Thom Andersen.

A documentary was made about the filming process, Jean-Marie Straub und Danièle Huillet bei der Arbeit an einem Film.

Cast

• Christian Heinisch as Karl Roßmann
• Nazzareno Bianconi as Giacomo
• Mario Adorf as Onkel
• Laura Betti as Brunelda
• Harun Farocki as Delamarche
• Manfred Blank as Robinson
• Reinald Schnell as Heizer
• Anna Schnell as Line
• Klaus Traube as Kapitän
• Georg Brintrup as Student
• Hermann Hartmann as Oberkassierer
• Gérard Semaan as Schubal
• Jean-François Quinque as Stewart
• Villi Vöbel as Pollunder

Style

As Franz Kafka never visited the United States, the film was intentionally shot in Europe, with the bulk of shooting occurring in Germany. The film features prominently architecture, flora and costuming (including a policeman in a bobby helmet) that is unlikely to be found in the United States. Only a handful of shots were shot on location in the United States, including the Statue of Liberty and the Missouri River.^[1] Though Huillet and Straub are both French, the film was shot in German, the language the original book was written in.

The film was shot on black and white 35mm Kodak film stock by French cinematographer William Lubtchansky. Like all other Straub-Huillet films, it only uses location sound recorded at the same time as the image, emphasizing cinema's documentary nature over the pictorial.

Awards

The film was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival where it won an Honourable Mention.^[2]

References

External links

• Klassenverhältnisse at the Internet Movie Database