Germany in autumn

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Movie
Original title Germany in autumn
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1978
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Alf Brustellin , Hans Peter Cloos , Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Alexander Kluge , Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus , Maximiliane Mainka , Edgar Reitz , Katja Rupé , Volker Schlöndorff , Peter Schubert , Bernhard Sinkel
script Heinrich Böll , Alf Brustellin , Hans Peter Cloos , Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Alexander Kluge , Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus , Maximiliane Mainka , Edgar Reitz , Katja Rupé , Volker Schlöndorff , Peter Schubert , Bernhard Sinkel , Peter Steinbach
production Theo Hinz , Eberhard Junkersdorf
music Ennio Morricone
camera Michael Ballhaus , Günther Hörmann , Jürgen Jürges , Bodo Kessler , Dietrich Lohmann , Werner Lüring , Colin Mounier , Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
cut Heidi Genée , Mulle Goetz-Dickopp , Juliane Lorenz , Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus , Tanja Schmidbauer , Christine Warnck
occupation

Germany in Autumn is an episode film that deals with German society at the time of the RAF terrorism immediately after the " German Autumn " in 1977 . Work on the joint production of eleven different directors of the so-called New German Film - among them Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Volker Schlöndorff and Alexander Kluge - began at the end of 1977; In 1978 the collage of partly documentary and partly scenic narrative episodes was shown for the first time.

content

The main plot of the film takes place in the week after October 18, 1977, the " night of the death of Stammheim ", with the state funeral for Hanns Martin Schleyer , the minutes of silence on the assembly line of the Daimler-Benz plant in Stuttgart , talks with workers and the funeral of the dead terrorists from Stammheim are shown. Other episodes show a young history teacher who is confronted with the consequences of the radical decree, or describe the tense, almost hysterical atmosphere in the population in short sequences of scenes . Rainer Werner Fassbinder interviews his mother Liselotte Eder , whose political conformism he vehemently criticizes. An injured man (terrorist?) Rings the doorbell of a pianist and asks for help. You can see a lot of police uniforms, a scene with heavily armed customs officers at a German border crossing to France, excerpts from a documentary about an autumn maneuver of the Bundeswehr in 1977. Volker Schlöndorff plays himself in an episode designed by Heinrich Böll , among others , as a theater director whose performance of Antigone from Sophocles is censored because the depiction of the ancient material could be interpreted as a call to violence and terrorism .

The film begins with the text overlay:

“'At a certain point of the cruelty, it doesn't matter who committed it: it should just stop.' - April 8, 1945, Mrs. Wilde, 5 children "

The film ends with the text overlay:

"'At a certain point of the cruelty, it doesn't matter who committed it: it should just stop.'"

By omitting the “source information” from the quotation, it can be related to the situation in Germany at that time.

The last minutes of the film consist of images of the funeral and the funeral march for Andreas Baader , Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in October 1977, including the song Here's to You, Nicola and Bart by Joan Baez about the two in the USA in 1927 Controversial trial sentenced to death anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti can be heard.

Schlöndorff, who like Böll and the other directors had been criticized for the film, said about his work on Germany in the fall :

“After doing this kind of work with this film, after the experiences you had with it, you no longer ask yourself why there are so-called terrorists, but how is it that there isn't much more. How is it that not everyone lashes out? "

According to Schlöndorff, Mario Adorf , Heinz Bennent , Angela Winkler and Helmut Griem and others played in this film without a fee.

The entire team received a gold film tape at the German Film Prize in 1978 .

Subsequent films

There were two similar episode films by German-speaking filmmakers who succeeded Germany in the fall , first the film Neues Deutschland (1993), then Germany 09 , with Fatih Akın , Wolfgang Becker , Dominik Graf , Sylke Enders , Romuald Karmakar , Nicolette Krebitz , Isabelle Stever , Hans Steinbichler , Tom Tykwer and Hans Weingartner created an episode film on the situation in Germany in 2009, which premiered on February 13, 2009 at the Berlinale. The project consists of both feature and documentary episodes and is inspired by the idea of Germany in autumn .

literature

  • Petra Kraus (Ed.) Et al .: Germany in autumn. Terrorism in the movie. 1977, 1997. Accompanying publication to the film series “20 Years of Germany in Autumn” from September 10th to October 29th, 1997 in the Filmmuseum in the Munich City Museum . Series of publications Münchner Filmzentrum, Volume 1.MFZ, Munich 1997, 139 pp.
  • filmfaust - magazine for international film. No. 7, 2nd year, March 1978 (interviews with the authors on February 8, 1978 after the world premiere at the Berlinale and during the recut and shortening, and with Theo Hinz from the film publishing house of the authors)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Interview with Volker Schlöndorff about the film "Germany in Autumn", printed in Pflasterstrand No. 25, 1978.
  2. German Film Academy
  3. It won't be easy ( memento of February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at sueddeutsche.de, July 8, 2008
  4. cf. sto / AP / ddp / dpa: Tykwer and Akin shoot an episode film at spiegel.de, July 8, 2008
  5. cf. dpa: Prominence of directors makes film on the state of the nation . In: Berliner Morgenpost , July 9, 2008 (edition 186/2008), p. 16