New German Cinema

New German Cinema (German: Neuer Deutscher Film) is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982.[3] It saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave, such directors as Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders made names for themselves and produced a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences, and enabled these directors (particularly Wenders, Petersen, and Schlöndorff) to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of the films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies.[4] By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.[5]

"German New Wave" redirects here. For the music movement, see Neue Deutsche Welle.

New German Cinema

Years active	1962–1982
Country	West Germany
Major figures	Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Edgar Reitz, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Peter Schamoni, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Schroeter, Straub-Huillet, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta, Wim Wenders [1]
Influences	French New Wave Classical Hollywood Cinema[2]

Most of the directors of the New German Cinema movement were members of their self-owned Filmverlag der Autoren association founded in 1971, which funded and distributed most of their films, and the history of New German Cinema from the 1970s onwards was largely identical with it.

Origins of New German Cinema

As a reaction to the artistic and economic stagnation of German cinema, a group of young filmmakers issued the Oberhausen Manifesto on 28 February 1962. This call to arms, which included Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz, Peter Schamoni, Haro Senft and Franz-Josef Spieker among its signatories, provocatively declared "Der alte Film ist tot. Wir glauben an den neuen" ("The old cinema is dead. We believe in the new cinema"). Other younger filmmakers allied themselves to this Oberhausen group, among them Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Jean-Marie Straub, Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in their rejection of the existing German film industry and their determination to build a new industry founded on artistic excellence rather than commercial dictates.

Despite the foundation of the Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film (Young German Film Committee) in 1965, set up under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to support new German films financially, the directors of this New German Cinema, who rejected co-operation with the existing film industry, were consequently often dependent on money from television. Young filmmakers had the opportunity to test their mettle in such programmes as the stand-alone drama and documentary series Das kleine Fernsehspiel|de (The Little TV Play) or the television films of the crime series Tatort. However, the broadcasters sought TV premieres for the films which they had supported financially, with theatrical showings only occurring later. As a consequence, such films tended to be unsuccessful at the cinema box-office.

This situation changed after 1974 when the Film-Fernseh-Abkommen (Film and Television Accord) was agreed between the Federal Republic's main broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, and the German Federal Film Board (a government body created in 1968 to support film-making in Germany).[6] This accord, which has been repeatedly extended up to the present day, provides for the television companies to make available an annual sum to support the production of films which are suitable for both theatrical distribution and television presentation. (The amount of money provided by the public broadcasters has varied between €4.5 and 12.94 million per year). Under the terms of the accord, films produced using these funds can only be screened on television 24 months after their theatrical release. They may appear on video or DVD no sooner than six months after cinema release. As a result of the funds provided by the Film-Fernseh-Abkommen, German films, particularly those of the New German Cinema, gained a much greater opportunity to enjoy box-office success before they played on television.[7]

The artistically ambitious and socially critical films of the New German Cinema strove to delineate themselves from what had gone before and the works of auteur filmmakers such as Kluge and Fassbinder are examples of this, although Fassbinder in his use of stars from German cinema history also sought a reconciliation between the new cinema and the old. In addition, a distinction is sometimes drawn between the avantgarde "Young German Cinema" of the 1960s and the more accessible "New German Cinema" of the 1970s. For their influences the new generation of filmmakers looked to Italian Neorealism, the French Nouvelle Vague and the British New Wave but combined this eclectically with references to the well-established genres of Hollywood cinema. The new movement saw German cinema return to international critical significance for the first time since the end of the Weimar Republic. Films such as Kluge's Abschied von gestern (Yesterday Girl, 1966), Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), and Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984) found international acclaim and critical approval. Often the work of these auteurs was first recognised abroad rather than in Germany itself. The work of post-war Germany's leading novelists Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass provided source material for the adaptations The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) (by Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta) and The Tin Drum (1979) (by Schlöndorff alone) respectively, the latter becoming the first German film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[8] Although overlooked in early scholarship on New German Cinema, female directors were an important part of it, which encompassed the works of directors such as Danièle Huillet, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Helke Sander, and von Trotta.

List of New German movies

• Machorka-Muff (1963)[9]
• Yesterday Girl (1966)[10]
• Young Törless (1966)[9]
• Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)[11]
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)[9]
• World on a Wire (1973)[9]
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)[9]
• Alice in the Cities (1974)[12]
• Fox and His Friends (1975)[13]
• The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975)[9]
• Under the Pavement Lies the Strand (1975)[9]
• Kings of the Road (1976)[14]
• The American Friend (1977)[9]
• Germany in Autumn (1977)[9]
• Die Konsequenz (1977)[15]
• The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978)[9]
• The Tin Drum (1979)[9]
• Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)[16]
• The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)[9]
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)[17]
• Lola (1981)[18]
• Marianne and Juliane (1981)[9]
• Veronika Voss (1982)[19]
• Fitzcarraldo (1982)[9]
• Paris, Texas (1984)[9]

References

1. "New German Cinema: The Displaced Image - Movie List". MUBI.
3. "Movie movements that defined cinema: New German Cinema". Empire. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
4. Julia Knight, Women and the New German Cinema, Verso, 1992
5. Holloway, Ronald (11 December 1977). "German Films Are Subsidized" – via NYTimes.com.
6. "FFA Filmförderungsanstalt - deutsch". www.ffa.de.
7. (Blaney 1992:204)
8. "The Tin Drum" Wins Foreign Language Film: 1980 Oscars-YouTube
9. "15 Essential Films For An Introduction To New German Cinema". Taste of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists.
11. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time|Page 3-Flickchart
12. "Movie movements that defined cinema: New German Cinema". Empire. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
13. "Movie movements that defined cinema: New German Cinema". Empire. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
14. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time|Page 2-Flickchart
15. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time|Page 4-Flickchart
16. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time-Flickchart
17. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time-Flickchart
18. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time-Flickchart
19. The Best New German Cinema Movies of All Time-Flickchart

Further reading

• Flinn, Caryl (2004). The New German Cinema: Music, History, and the Matter of Style. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Fussell, Michael. "New German Cinema". Section of a larger work by Fussell.

External links

• Criterion Collection