New German Cinema was a profoundly "national" cinema with reference to the administrative and financial structure of West Germany's film industry
New German Cinema is a group of films that were filmed in West Germany in the 1960s to the early 1980s. There are three common elements that critics have identified which unite the films. Firstly, the directors of the film were born during the period of the 2nd World War and they grew up in a divided Germany. Therefore, they can be referred to as directors from one generation. Secondly, the new cinema had a funding criteria and opportunity which was created using an artisanal style of production. This facilitated a high level of experimentation and close collaborations. Finally, the cinemas had a common concern with West German reality on one side, and markets and audiences on the other. This enabled the German companies to achieve economic dominance during the early 1950’s.
The film industry was devoted to protecting the profitable new market. Policies were implemented to avert the imposition of an import quota on American cinemas. The American companies were now free to sell their Hollywood movies in the German market. The associates dismantled the bits and pieces of the Nazi film industry which had earlier been controlled by the state and centralized through a giant corporation (Brockmann 65). Most of the small production companies were given licenses and the aim was to allow the local film industry to grow, while ensuring it still remained on a small scale to avoid dominance of America’s monopoly over the German market. Americans had economic and political interests which had major consequences for the new West German film industry. The German industry remained small scale and this led to a lack of substantial investment. Lack of investment by the German film industry made it impossible to compete with the American film industry which led to the latter producing relatively cheap movies. As a result, local production was directed to cater for German audiences which comprised of Homeland films. These depicted rural life in Germany which rendered the German films unsuitable for export. This meant that for the films to break even on box-office receipts, the management had to ensure that production had to remain on a low budget and this meant low quality films that were not appealing to the market.
In the 1950’s the German cinema was characterized towards escapist entertainment and was controlled by the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. It was headed by Joseph Goebbels who identified the propaganda potential of German Cinemas and he began to support the new regime. In 1942, all companies were registered under state control and the film industry became centralized.
New German Cinema was a profoundly "national" cinema with reference to the thematic focus of Rainer-Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun
Even though the New German Cinemas are grouped together, they resist clear common description and are marked by a stylistic and thematic diversity. The New German Cinema industry and melodrama stresses an ongoing impact on the present and the past, and a thematic obsession that characterizes melodramas by Von Trotta and Fassbinder. Political identities, lost lives and destroyed ideals took centre stage in various cinematic material ghosts. This brought about an irrecoverable past and partly explains the lure of hysteria with an emphasis on past events that describe people who suffer from memoirs. The Marriage of Maria Braun includes Veronica Voss (1982) and Lola (1981) (Flinn 33).
Maria Braun is a personal story of a woman’s life that is a female protagonist and represents a particular perspective of post-war Germany between 1945 and 1954. During the opening sequence, the detonating bombs open a sequence of reminders that the private life of Maria takes place in a turbulent world. She has little or no control over. The constant radio messages in the film specify historical dates of certain specific scenes that shows Maria’s life within the socio-political context of the postwar West Germany. German soldiers return home after the war and use the radio coverage between Germany and Hungary in 1954.
Various pictures of the famous German political leaders have been framed in the film. The opening scene shows Hitler's portrait which falls down from where it is hanging on the wall, and this is a satirical meaning that the films begin after the Nazi regime is completed. Some portraits of the West German chancellors such as Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard, and Helmut Schmidt are shown during the post war. This shows that there is continuity between the federal republic and the Third Reich. This is the reason why Brandt's portrait was not put during the post war because he tried to bring change in the German politics. The Marriage of Maria Braun cinema discloses a negative picture of the German economy in the 1950’s. Maria who is a high-class prostitute achieves an economic advantage by using legal and illegal means to obtain monetary gains. The film shows a personal fate in a national context in an award winning soccer world championship which signifies the end of international isolation and the beginning of a new future. The New German Cinema which is a product of the 1960’s and 1970’s, has idealized a post-war global capitalism both in a political and socioeconomic vision.
Works cited
Brockmann, Stephen. A critical history of German film. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House,
2010. Print.
Cooke, Paul. New directions in German cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Print.
Flinn, Caryl. The new German cinema music, history, and the matter of style. Berkeley:
Knight, Julia. New German cinema: images of a generation. London: Wallflower, 2004.
Print.
