Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films

FILM ARCHIVES AND FILM MUSEUMS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC
Erich Kettelhut (Metropolis), Robert Herlth and
Herbert Kirchhoff. The designs by the DEFA set architect
Alfred Hirschmeier are stored at the Film Museum
Potsdam, drawings by Walter Reimann (Das Cabinet
des Dr. Caligari) and Otto Hunte (Die Nibelungen)
in Frankfurt. The archive material is available for viewing in the
museums by previous arrangement, and the museums lend
out originals for exhibitions by acknowledged institutions at
home and abroad; for all other users (for example for book
reproductions), slides or photos may be made in exchange
for a certain fee.
The museums have not limited their acquisition activity to the
Federal Republic. The estates of directors and actors in particular
are often kept with their heirs in other countries. In 1993,
the SDK acquired a superlative collection for five million
marks: the estate of the actress Marlene Dietrich, which
had been kept in various storage houses in Europe and the
United States. The “Marlene Dietrich Collection
Berlin” now administrates this unique collection illustrating a
life whose highlights are shown by the Film Museum
Berlin. The Collection first presented parts of the estate in
the exhibition “Kino*Movie*Cinema” in Berlin during 1995,
after this as an individual exhibition in Bonn and Rome, and
from 1997 onwards, a small section went on its travels as a
touring exhibition to the Goethe Institutes. In 1997, the
German Film Museum Frankfurt was able to take
over the estate of Curd Jürgens, which had been housed
in the south of France, where the star lived until his death.
In Frankfurt, a focus on (west) German post-war film has
emerged together with the Artur Brauner Archive –
the film documentation of the Berlin producer.
Restoration
and reconstruction
Metropolis Theater (photo © Kinemathek Hamburg)
During this year’s Berlinale, film historians from all over the world
waited excitedly for one screening: the “premiere” of Fritz
Lang’s silent film classic Metropolis (1927). Several archives
had worked together on the reconstruction of this under the
overall control of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau
Foundation. Within the German archive scene, the name
Enno Patalas, the former director of the Film Museum
Munich, is connected with Metropolis, since he has often
worked on this film. His reconstruction of classic silent films like
Murnau’s Der brennende Acker or Paul Wegener’s
Golem and his lecturing activities have meant that in recent
years those members of the public interested in film have
developed a greater awareness for silent movies.
Important reconstructions by the archives in recent years include
Robert Wiene’s Orlacs Hände, G.W. Pabst’s Die
freudlose Gasse and Tagebuch einer Verlorenen,
Lubitsch’s Anna Boleyn, Paul Wegener’s Der Golem,
wie er in die Welt kam or Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette
film Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed.
The reconstruction of films can only succeed if several archives
work together. This is not only true of the preparation of film
copies, but also of research work. Traces of a film – such as its
screenplay, censorship certificate or musical score, which are all
important for a reconstruction – are often scattered in various
places. Contact to the international association of archives FIAF,
founded in 1938, is also of eminent importance, for an export
version stored abroad has often proven to be more complete
than the one preserved in Germany.
Emigration and Holocaust
The absorption of film into the propaganda apparatus of the
Nazis and the exodus of Jewish film artists after the so-called
”take-over of power“ is the heaviest burden of guilt to be borne
by German film. An investigation into the consequences of
National Socialist film policy is one of the most important
Editing Room (photo © Film Museum Munich)
themes for the archives and the museums in Germany – at least
this has been the case during the last two decades. The SDK in
Berlin has collected together the probably largest collection of
materials on German film emigration, in particular to Hollywood.
Its nucleus are the estate and business documents of the film
agent Paul Kohner, who was the first person approached by
many emigrants during the Nazi period.
In 1987, the German Film Museum Frankfurt assembled
the touring exhibition “From Babelsberg to Hollywood: Film
Emigration from Nazi Germany”, which was a great success in
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