Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
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FILM ARCHIVES AND FILM MUSEUMS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC<br />
Erich Kettelhut (Metropolis), Robert Herlth and<br />
Herbert Kirchhoff. The designs by the DEFA set architect<br />
Alfred Hirschmeier are stored at the Film Museum<br />
Potsdam, drawings by Walter Reimann (Das Cabinet<br />
des Dr. Caligari) and Otto Hunte (Die Nibelungen)<br />
in Frankfurt. The archive material is available for viewing in the<br />
museums by previous arrangement, and the museums lend<br />
out originals for exhibitions by acknowledged institutions at<br />
home and abroad; for all other users (for example for book<br />
reproductions), slides or photos may be made in exchange<br />
for a certain fee.<br />
The museums have not limited their acquisition activity to the<br />
Federal Republic. The estates of directors and actors in particular<br />
are often kept with their heirs in other countries. In 1993,<br />
the SDK acquired a superlative collection for five million<br />
marks: the estate of the actress Marlene Dietrich, which<br />
had been kept in various storage houses in Europe and the<br />
United States. The “Marlene Dietrich Collection<br />
Berlin” now administrates this unique collection illustrating a<br />
life whose highlights are shown by the Film Museum<br />
Berlin. The Collection first presented parts of the estate in<br />
the exhibition “<strong>Kino</strong>*Movie*Cinema” in Berlin during 1995,<br />
after this as an individual exhibition in Bonn and Rome, and<br />
from 1997 onwards, a small section went on its travels as a<br />
touring exhibition to the Goethe Institutes. In 1997, the<br />
<strong>German</strong> Film Museum Frankfurt was able to take<br />
over the estate of Curd Jürgens, which had been housed<br />
in the south of France, where the star lived until his death.<br />
In Frankfurt, a focus on (west) <strong>German</strong> post-war film has<br />
emerged together with the Artur Brauner Archive –<br />
the film documentation of the Berlin producer.<br />
Restoration<br />
and reconstruction<br />
Metropolis Theater (photo © Kinemathek Hamburg)<br />
During this year’s Berlinale, film historians from all over the world<br />
waited excitedly for one screening: the “premiere” of Fritz<br />
Lang’s silent film classic Metropolis (1927). Several archives<br />
had worked together on the reconstruction of this under the<br />
overall control of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau<br />
Foundation. Within the <strong>German</strong> archive scene, the name<br />
Enno Patalas, the former director of the Film Museum<br />
Munich, is connected with Metropolis, since he has often<br />
worked on this film. His reconstruction of classic silent films like<br />
Murnau’s Der brennende Acker or Paul Wegener’s<br />
Golem and his lecturing activities have meant that in recent<br />
years those members of the public interested in film have<br />
developed a greater awareness for silent movies.<br />
Important reconstructions by the archives in recent years include<br />
Robert Wiene’s Orlacs Hände, G.W. Pabst’s Die<br />
freudlose Gasse and Tagebuch einer Verlorenen,<br />
Lubitsch’s Anna Boleyn, Paul Wegener’s Der Golem,<br />
wie er in die Welt kam or Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette<br />
film Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed.<br />
The reconstruction of films can only succeed if several archives<br />
work together. This is not only true of the preparation of film<br />
copies, but also of research work. Traces of a film – such as its<br />
screenplay, censorship certificate or musical score, which are all<br />
important for a reconstruction – are often scattered in various<br />
places. Contact to the international association of archives FIAF,<br />
founded in 1938, is also of eminent importance, for an export<br />
version stored abroad has often proven to be more complete<br />
than the one preserved in <strong>German</strong>y.<br />
Emigration and Holocaust<br />
The absorption of film into the propaganda apparatus of the<br />
Nazis and the exodus of Jewish film artists after the so-called<br />
”take-over of power“ is the heaviest burden of guilt to be borne<br />
by <strong>German</strong> film. An investigation into the consequences of<br />
National Socialist film policy is one of the most important<br />
Editing Room (photo © Film Museum Munich)<br />
themes for the archives and the museums in <strong>German</strong>y – at least<br />
this has been the case during the last two decades. The SDK in<br />
Berlin has collected together the probably largest collection of<br />
materials on <strong>German</strong> film emigration, in particular to Hollywood.<br />
Its nucleus are the estate and business documents of the film<br />
agent Paul Kohner, who was the first person approached by<br />
many emigrants during the Nazi period.<br />
In 1987, the <strong>German</strong> Film Museum Frankfurt assembled<br />
the touring exhibition “From Babelsberg to Hollywood: Film<br />
Emigration from Nazi <strong>German</strong>y”, which was a great success in<br />
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