Essay #4

New German Cinema is a term used to describe a loose grouping of films that were made in West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) during the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. Although usually grouped together, these films resist clear generic delineation and are in fact marked by their stylistic and thematic diversity. There are three common elements that unite them. First, all the directors were born in or around the time of WWII, growing up in a post-war divided Germany and therefore characterized as a generation. Second, the ‘new cinema’ was based on an artisanal mode of production, which facilitated close collaborations and a high degree of experimentation due to funding criteria and opportunities. Third and last, all the films shared the same concern with contemporary West Germany reality on the one hand and a search for audience and markets on the other.

Although the directors of the New German Cinema were undoubtedly highly talented, there were a number of historically specific factors, which set up some of the essential pre-conditions for the emergence of the new cinema. Something of quite particular importance is the way in which the Allies handled the fledging West German film industry in the years immediately after WWII.

At the end of WWII the western Allies felt it was extremely vital to “re-educate” the German people in order to both “denazify” German as well as a way to build up the western zones of Germany as a buffer to the Soviet influence in eastern Europe; and American films were quickly identified as an effective was of disseminating western notions of freedom, democracy and capitalist enterprise.

Nevertheless, as revision to the film subsidy system during the 70s began to substantially improve production op...

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...st exclusively in terms of their directors’ personal visions. Thus, New German Cinema became predominantly known as “cinéma des auteurs” along with the likes of America and Britain. But, as subsequent studies have shown, however, an auteurist approach only gives a partial understanding of how and why particular cinema movements come into being and flourish at particular times.

It was by the mid-80s that innumerable critics pronounced the demise of New German Cinema. This was mostly likely due to the fact that many of the directors most closely associated with it had moved abroad. The likes of Herzog, Schlöndorff, von Trotta, Wenders, Straub and Huillet had either spent periods working in other countries or emigrated. Fassbiner, who was by far the most prolific of the cinema’s directors died in 1982, which was added to the list of things that led to its demise.