The Epics

Some of the most admired German screen works are not films in the usual sense. They run for many hours, were made for television, and treat German history on a scale a cinema release cannot. This chapter looks at three of them: Fassbinder's television version of Berlin Alexanderplatz, Edgar Reitz's Heimat, and Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, which exists as a film and as a series. It also looks at the American series that prompted Reitz to write, and at a later drama that caused a row. Dates and titles are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked.

Why Television?

The public broadcasters (Chapter 7) had two things that cinema often lacked: a stable income from the licence fee, and long time slots that did not have to be filled with the most commercial programmes. They also co-financed films (Chapter 6). A director with an ambitious project, like Fassbinder or Reitz, could therefore turn to television for the money and the room. These works are sometimes described as ancestors of the long, serious series now made for streaming services, though the comparison should be handled with care.

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Chapter 6) made Berlin Alexanderplatz for television, based on a novel of 1929 by Alfred Döblin. It follows Franz Biberkopf, a man released from prison who tries to live an honest life in Berlin in the late 1920s and is gradually broken by the people around him. The series runs for around fourteen hours in thirteen parts and an epilogue (check the length), and was shown on West German television in 1980, with the leading role played by Günter Lamprecht. It is generally regarded as one of Fassbinder's major works, and it is the longest and most ambitious piece of his career. Its tone is dark, its style is stylised, and its length is part of the effect.

Heimat (1984)

Edgar Reitz, a signatory of the Oberhausen Manifesto (Chapter 4), wrote and directed Heimat, an eleven-part series of about fifteen hours that was shown on the ARD network in 1984 (check). It follows families in a fictional village in a rural region of western Germany from 1919 to 1982, through the Weimar Republic, the Nazi years, the war, the postwar recovery and the arrival of modern life. The central character is Maria, who ages through the series.

• Everyday life as history. The series is built around ordinary life: weddings, work, emigration, a first radio. The great events of the century enter as things that happen to the village.
• A reclaimed word. Heimat means "home" or "homeland". The word had been damaged by its use under the Nazis and by the sentimental films of the 1950s (Chapter 4). The series asked what the word could mean again.
• The sequels. Reitz returned to the story in Die zweite Heimat (shown in 1992), set among young people in Munich in the 1960s, and in later instalments in the 2000s, and made a prequel about the 19th century in the 2010s (check).

Das Boot

Das Boot ("The Boat") was directed by Wolfgang Petersen from a novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, who had been a war reporter on a German submarine. It follows the crew of a U-boat on a patrol in the Atlantic during the Second World War, and is known for its claustrophobic, realistic view of life in a cramped steel tube. Jürgen Prochnow played the captain.

The film is generally seen as an anti-war film, because it shows men trapped and ill-served by their commanders. Some critics have questioned whether any film that makes its soldiers sympathetic can avoid some sympathy for the cause. The film-makers are generally reported to have intended an anti-war film (check), and the question is still debated. It is a good example of how a German war film needs to be read against the history in Chapter 3.

A Later Controversy: Generation War

The tradition continued. In 2013 a three-part ZDF drama, usually known in English as Generation War, followed five friends from the start of the war to its end. It was a success in Germany, and was also criticised, especially in Poland, for how it portrayed Poles and for what it was thought to leave out (check). It is a reminder that screen history of the period is still contested, and that its audiences include neighbouring countries.

What the Epics Share

• Length. They use time to build a world and to show change.
• History through individuals. The big events are seen through ordinary people.
• Public funding. All were made with public broadcasters or the public funding system.
• A debate about the past. Each touched on how Germans see their history, which is the subject of Chapter 10.

Exercises

Next chapter: Reunification, Contemporary Cinema & the Streaming Era, which follows German screens from 1990 to the present.