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Contemporary History of German Cinema Since the end of World War II, the German cinema has reinvented itself many times to keep abreast of the ever-changing world. German filmmakers continue to be recognized for their technical expertise and adept artifice, and the German cinema has developed a formidable reputation among cinephiles worldwide. Many German language films from the last ten years, such as Lola rennt, and Der Untergang have been entertaining audiences around the globe, as well as racking up awards and accolades on the festival circuit. After the Second World War, the Allies disassembled much of Germany’s industrial complex, including its film industry. Ufa’s resources were divided among many smaller production companies, and the MPAA lobbied the US government to include a provision in the Occupation Statute that forbade Germans from levying import duties, taxes, or fees on foreign films. This severely hampered Germany’s domestic film industry, but gave Germans access to cinema from around the world for the first time in history. German cinema experienced a new wave of realistic films, similar to Italian Neorealism, which tried to depict life in Europe after the war. These movies were called Trümmerfilm, or “rubble films,” and dealt with people surviving in postwar Europe. Through these films, German filmmakers reacted to the devastation following the war, as well as Nazi atrocities that had only just recently come to light. The first film produced in Germany after the war was Die Mörder sind unter uns, which translates to, The murderers are among us (dir. Wolfgang Staudte). Many films of this period were made with the intent that they would engage the audience with the social issues of the day, the polar opposite of the escapist Nazi entertainments. The German cinema continued to adapt to the needs of its audiences. In the early 1950s, despite the proliferation of the television set, cinema attendance was reaching its all-time apex in Germany. Many new genres of film emerged in the 1950s, including the Heimatfilm, or Homeland films, which were pastoral morality tales about the virtues of love and family, a watered-down version of the nationalistic Nazi films of the 1930s and ‘40s. Melodramas and operettas were also popular during this period. The German cinema of this era had only a limited worldwide appeal; it was considered a regional cinema, and German films were rarely distributed abroad. This led into a slump in revenue for German studios that lasted most of the way through the 1960s. Meanwhile, East Germany enjoyed a boom in its movie business, largely because most of the prewar film production apparatus—including Ufa’s old site—was located in the former Russian zone. The Soviet government seized control of these facilities and resources, creating Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, or DEFA, which, although technically a privately held company, was run through the Socialist Union Party of Germany. The state took steps to carefully regulate the material that was featured in the films, and made sure that it had an unbreakable monopoly in the East German cinema. In the 1970s, many German filmmakers began to rebel against the current studio system, accepting money from television networks to finance feature films. This New German cinema focused much more on getting films seen on television, so productions were rarely screened in the theaters and were often box office failures. This German New Wave has produced many interesting unseen works that showcased the talents of new German filmmakers. |