'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

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„make a clean break‟ and to „build a new life.‟ A more literal translation of the film‟s ironic title, “Taking Leave of Yesterday,” refers to Anita‟s illusion that the past can be separated from the present. However, as Sandford explains, “past and present are inseparable, for the past is the precondition of the present, and its weight is by definition inescapable” (21). The film suggests that Anita‟s family was persecuted by the National Socialists because they were Jews and by the Communists because they were capitalists. Anita‟s past is that of an unwanted outsider, and that is what she remains in the present of the film. Kluge develops this theme of indivisibility of past and present at the individual level, through photographs of Anita‟s childhood and her memories of childhood holiday celebrations, images of children‟s books and stories, and nostalgic tango music which sentimentally echoes days past. However, the director also presents this theme at the national level, with the suggestion that individual history and national history are also inextricably connected. Hence Abschied von gestern is also a film about West Germany, a society that, in the 1960s, had not taken leave of its past as much as it would have liked. The film contains many sequences that comment ironically on West Germany‟s relationship to its past. Some are grotesque, such as the dreamlike sequence in which two men ask a mother which of her two children is to have its brain removed and then tell her, “Dieses System hier ist mit keinem der vorangegangenen totalitären Systeme zu vergleichen. Das ist das Neue daran” (Kluge and Patalas, Abschied von gestern. Protokoll 57). 11 Other sequences are more subtle, such as the one in which a trainer at a dog show explains to Anita the authoritarian philosophy of his profession: the dogs will 11 “This system here cannot be compared to any previous totalitarian system. That is what is new about it” (Kluge and Patalas, Abschied von gestern. Protokoll 57). All translations of quotations are my own unless otherwise indicated. 15
e beholden to him, for only through discipline and training will they find freedom. Such sequences suggest that although post-war West German society would like to take leave of its fascist history, it is unable to do so because the authoritarian legacy of this past still exercises an effect on modes of thinking and behaving in the present. While Abschied von gestern thematizes Germany‟s fascist past, the ambitious and challenging formal strategies of this film, such as lack of narrative unity, did not make it accessible to a broader public. While 1965-1966 was a successful year for West German films that took a more serious look at the troubled German past, the next decade saw relatively few films that addressed issues of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. As will be discussed in the following section, it was not until the later half of the 1970s that West German cinema began to challenge the „collective amnesia‟ about the recent German past 16
Page 1 and 2: Storytelling and Survival in the
Page 3 and 4: Supervisory Committee Dr. Helga Tho
Page 5 and 6: 3.1 Intergenerational Dialogue in D
Page 7 and 8: I would like to dedicate this thesi
Page 9 and 10: Sanders-Brahms describes a phenomen
Page 11 and 12: that Sanders-Brahms uses the fairy
Page 13 and 14: early 1980s by a wave of historical
Page 15 and 16: Deutschland, bleiche Mutter. Moreov
Page 17 and 18: audience. One of the most popular g
Page 19 and 20: 1.1 The Oberhausen Manifesto and Ne
Page 21: audiences. This film movement of th
Page 25 and 26: political events that took place in
Page 27 and 28: Verdrängten eigentlich gar nicht g
Page 29 and 30: (Deutschland im Herbst n. pag.). 14
Page 31 and 32: in drei Jahrzehnten Nachkriegsgesch
Page 33 and 34: impact West Germans in such a drama
Page 35 and 36: If German films are to make use of
Page 37 and 38: 1.4 Deutschland, bleiche Mutter as
Page 39 and 40: story must be hidden as much as pos
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 2: New Subjectivity and Wes
Page 43 and 44: Reich” opposes fascism, but who e
Page 45 and 46: direct and personal confrontation w
Page 47 and 48: context has only become part of the
Page 49 and 50: perpetrators are defined predominan
Page 51 and 52: Thus, Sanders-Brahms creates a coun
Page 53 and 54: In the birth sequence, Sanders-Brah
Page 55 and 56: ombs fall downward from the upper r
Page 57 and 58: narrator‟s sadness at the destruc
Page 59 and 60: essentialize men or women‟s exper
Page 61 and 62: image visually separates the runnin
Page 63 and 64: emotional connection between mother
Page 65 and 66: endurance and stoic acceptance of b
Page 67 and 68: texture which is both social and hi
Page 69 and 70: ombings terrorized civilian populat
Page 71 and 72: y war. A final interesting point of
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Maikäfer flieg. dein Vater ist im
Page 75 and 76:
Why does Lene sing the Maikäferlie
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Beginning with the so-called recons
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elationship. Through its subjective
Page 81 and 82:
a series of forty-one volumes publi
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3.1 Intergenerational Dialogue in D
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geworden” (Brecht, Werke 253). 55
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Eure Unarmung kann ich mir nicht de
Page 89 and 90:
3.2 Retelling a Grimm Tale: Voice a
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and springs into the lap of the hid
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apes were collectively perceived as
Page 95 and 96:
3.4 “Der Räuberbräutigam,” Po
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with its ironic “Arbeit macht fre
Page 99 and 100:
Further, the absence or presence at
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can imagine the chimney blowing out
Page 103 and 104:
Chapter 4: Three Images of Woman in
Page 105 and 106:
Moreover she demonstrates insight a
Page 107 and 108:
victimization of another through he
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in an effort to help, Lene quickly
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Liebe, Ehe, ein Kind” (Sanders-Br
Page 113 and 114:
knowingly or unknowingly, to make p
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passively complicit in the crimes o
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Contrastingly, in the middle and la
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traditional gender roles and emphas
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The old woman‟s constructive fema
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the severed finger at the tale‟s
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and calm camera movements. In contr
Page 127 and 128:
The dentist and Hans completely ove
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4.4 Summarizing Remarks Sanders-Bra
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Chapter 5: Conclusion Mother’s Vo
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forced back into the oppressive dep
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daughter in what becomes an interge
Page 137 and 138:
authentic documentary footage of th
Page 139 and 140:
evocation of the Holocaust through
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Brahms articulates represents an ac
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H.S.-B.: Well, one answer to this q
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H.S.-B.: There is a very small baby
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only when you forget about scientif
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R.R.: So an example of that would b
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political context of the fictional
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was a wonderful image, like the May
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H.S.-B.: Yes, you‟re right, it‟
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R.R.: Some critics say that she is
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They just appeared during shooting.
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film represent the woman who respon
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R.R.: So, by telling your story, yo
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H.S.-B.: This happened to my mother
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irritated the critics terribly. It
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opening up, but actually, the strug
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---. Brecht on Theater. Ed. and Tra
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Herbst, Philip. Wimmin, Wimps and W
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---. “Gender, Film, and German Hi
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Sander, Helke and Barbara Johr. Eds
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'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

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