Berlin School (filmmaking)

Berlin School is a term used for a new movement in German films that has emerged in the early 21st century. The German term 'Berliner Schule' (German New Wave) has been applied to a number of intimate German films that received critical acknowledgement first in France.

A circle of directors of penetrating, realistic studies of relationships and characters informally constitute the "Berlin School" of filmmaking. Among those directors are Christian Petzold, Christoph Hochhäusler and Angela Schanelec.

Definition

The older directors of Berliner Schule Christian Petzold, Thomas Arslan and Angela Schanelec started filmmaking in the beginning 1990s. In that time they started to develop the aesthetics of what is now called Berliner Schule.[1] In 1998 the directors Benjamin Heisenberg, Christoph Hochhäusler and Sebastian Kutzli found the film magazine Revolver in Munich. They published Interviews with certain directors and opened a new discourse about filmmaking aesthetics.

In 2003 the film Milchwald (engl. This Very Moment) by Christoph Hochhäusler was shown at the Berlinale. In 2004 the film Marseille by Angela Schanelec was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Both films gained critical success by French film reviewers in Cahiers du cinéma and Le Monde. The French press called the phenomenon Nouvelle Vague Allemande while the German press and the German audience ignored it for the next years.[2] Later they called it Berliner Schule. This term works as a marketing label. But the films subsumed under that label are very diverse and versatile.[1]

The majority of the Berliner Schule-directors studied at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) and got to know there each other. But the Berliner Schule is not a specific Berlin phenomenon. The directors Christoph Hochhäusler studied at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film in Munich. Henner Winckler and Ulrich Köhler studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, Valeska Grisebach studied at the Filmacademy Vienna. Some of the directors work together (Revolver), some of them don't know each other personally or reject any Berlin School collectivism.[1]

Discourse

The now Berlin based Revolver is the biannual organ of the Berliner Schule-directors. It is published by Jens Börner, Benjamin Heisenberg, Christoph Hochhäusler, Franz Müller, Nicolas Wackerbarth and Saskia Walker. This periodical develops and represents the filmmakers discourse of Berliner Schule.[3]
The Revolver group organizes film related events like panels, screenings and discussions. Young German directors and experienced international directors are presented and involved in the discourse. For instance American Mumblecore director Andrew Bujalski was invited for a workshop discussion in January 2012. A new generation of prospective Berlin School-directors was presented by the Revolver-crew in May 2012: Jessica Krummacher (Totem), Hannes Lang (Peak), Maximilian Linz (Das Oberhausener Gefühl)[4] und Timo Müller (Morscholz).[5]

The Revolver group published an anthology which is important in the cinema discourse: Kino muss gefährlich sein. (engl. Cinema must be dangerous)[6] The anthology contains interviews with role models, transliterated discussions, manifestos as well as texts by Berliner Schule directors and their colleagues.
Contributors are: Maren Ade, Barbara Albert, Jens Börner, Jean-Claude Carrière, Katrin Cartlidge, Patrice Chéreau, Jacques Doillon, Jean Douchet, Christopher Doyle, Bruno Dumont, Harun Farocki, Helmut Färber, Dominik Graf, Michael Haneke, Jessica Hausner, Benjamin Heisenberg, Werner Herzog, Christoph Hochhäusler, Romuald Karmakar, Wong Kar-Wai, Abbas Kiarostami, Roland Klick, Alexander Kluge, Harmony Korine, Peter Kubelka, Noémie Lvovsky, Jonas Mekas, Christian Petzold, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Ulrich Seidl, Angela Schanelec, Lars von Trier, Jeff Wall and others.[7]

The films of the Berlin School have sometimes been criticized on the grounds that they are "brittle", "slow", or "lacking narrative impetus", criticisms echoed by German director Oskar Roehler, who has said of Berlin School films, "they are always slow, always depressing, nothing is ever really said in them [...] they are always well thought of and have an audience of between five and ten thousand".[8] An implicit criticism is the lack of mainstream accessibility and commercial viability of the films, concerns which German director Dominik Graf has also shared about New German Cinema.[8]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 Cathy Rohnke: Die Schule, die keine ist – Reflektionen über die „Berliner Schule". Website des Goetheinstituts, abgerufen am 15. Januar 2012
  2. ↑ Marco Abel: Intensifying Life: The Cinema of 'Berlin School. In: Cineaste 33.4 (Fall 2008)
  3. ↑ Website der Zeitschrift Revolver, loaded at 14. January 2012
  4. ↑ website of Oberhausener Manifest, loaded at 8 July 2012
  5. ↑ E-Mail-Newsletter Revolver Live! (29) / Angriff der Gegenwart - Vier Debüts / 07.05.2012
  6. ↑ Marcus Seibert (Publisher): Kino muss gefährlich sein. Revolver Filmbuch. Das Beste aus 14 Ausgaben Revolver. 40 Texte und Interviews zum Film. Verlag der Autoren, Berlin 2011
  7. ↑ Marcus Seibert (Hrsg.): Kino muss gefährlich sein. Revolver Filmbuch. Das Beste aus 14 Ausgaben Revolver. 40 Texte und Interviews zum Film.; citated from the website of filmmagazine Revolver, loaded at 14 January 2012
  8. 1 2 Clarke, David (2012). "Capitalism has no more natural enemies: The Berlin School". In Ginsberg, Terri and Andrea Mensch. A Companion to German Cinema. John Wiley & Sons. p. 135. ISBN 9781405194365.
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