References


Works of art but also places and things where Edgar Reitz refers to in Die Zweite Heimat. This section is still a bit of a mess with postings taken from the Heimat mailinglist. Please react through the mailinglist.


The time of the first songs - Two strange eyes - Jealousy and pride - Ansgar's death - The game with freedom - Kennedy's children - Christmas wolves - The wedding - The eternal daughter - The end of the future - Time of silence - A time of many words - Art or life


Barry Fogden: [My comments are bracketed]
Alan Andres: [[My comments are double bracketed.]]

All additions and corrections gratefully received.

1. The time of the first songs

[[Obviously the first shot is of Munich. I do think it makes sense to point out the twin spired Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) which is not only the symbol of Munich, but also a silent character throughout DZH. For folks like me who have never been there it is not a familiar sight. This might be the place for a one paragraph history about Munich and Bavaria. My guidebook says, "Munich has never been innovative, and has always been averse to new ideas--unless it was opportune to move with the times."]]

[[I think a little on the Hunsruck region of The Rhineland is also helpful, although it is well known from Heimat.]]

[[Should we also allude to Heimat #9, end of which is where DZH begins? A lot of people who come to DZH may not know that this film sets up DZH.]]

[[On the wall of Hermann's bedroom is a photo of his father, Otto. When his mother bangs on the door this picture nearly falls off the wall.]]

The high drama of the first scene where Hermann takes solemn vows (never to love again, to leave home and never return, and to devote himself solely to music) is to be found in countless pieces of German Expressionist cinema, such as [Duh... this will have to stay blank till I get to the University library, or someone comes up with suggestions!].

[[Actually I couldn't think of any. This sounds more like something from German Romantic literature.]]


[[The organ toccata that Herman is playing in the church is by Mamangakis, and was written for this same scene at the conclusion of Heimat #9.]]

***



In his viva voce Religion examination for the Abitur at his school in Simmern, Hermann quotes this verse (if only to criticise it):

"Freedom is compulsive purpose,
thus we train the vine:
instead of crawling in the dust,
it climbs to heaven divine."

He refers to the problem of free will and predestination, which has exercised philosophers through the ages. [How much do we want about this? I did absolutely *years* :-( ]

***

Hermann first refers to the piece of music he writes for his graduation concert at his school in Simmern as a piano concerto, though later he more properly calls it a "Canto Triumphale". The verses given to the choir come from a sonnet by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). This is to be found as No.26 in the group of 67 sonnets (composed at Berlin Schmargendorf between September 20 and October 14, 1899, and revised at Worpswede from April 24 to May 16, 1905) entitled "The Book of the Monastic Life". Here are the words, in the original German and in the English translation by J.B. Leishman (The Hogarth Press, London, 1960):

"Werkleute sind wir: Knappen, Juenger, Meister,
und bauen dich, di hohes Mittel schiff.
Und manchmal kommt ein ernster Hergereister, geht wie ein Glanz durch unsre hundert Geister und zeigt uns zitternd einen neuen Griff.
. . .
Dann ist ein Hallen von dem vielen Haemmern und durch die Berge geht es Stoss um Stoss. Erst wenn es dunkelt, lassen vir dich los: und deine kommenden Konturen daemmern.

Gott, du bist gross."

"We're workmen, all the millions of us, whether craftsman or prentice, huge Nave, building you. And sometimes some grave traveller comes hither, goes like a gleam through all our minds together, and shows us tremblingly a grip that's new.

Up to the rocking scaffold we are going, the hammer in our hands hangs heavily, until some hour upon our brows be blowing that radiantly, as though it were all-knowing, comes from you like the wind from sea. Then hammer upon hammer rings out gaily, and through the mountains blows reverberate. We do not let you go till it's grown late: and now your future contours glimmer greyly.

God, you are great."

***

Hermann leaves Schabbach for Munich on September 2, 1960. This is evidenced by the headline in the paper he sees at the Hauptbahnhof: "GOLD FOR HARY: The Fastest Man in the World". The paper is the Abendzeitung, the Munich evening paper, published by Süddeutscher Verlag, whose headquarters are in Sendlingstrasse. (Later that day we see Renate reading the Sueddeutschen Zeitung, the daily paper published by the same outfit since 1945. Dr Brettschneider has been reading it in the lavatory: let's hope he washed his hands.) The headline refers to the winner of the men's 100 metres in the Rome Olympics, Armin Hary of Germany. He won in 10.2 secs from dave Sime of USA in the same time, and Peter Radford of GBR in 10.3. Hary cut an arrogant and frivolous figure in track and field, and was described by an American opponent as "an asshole". This seems less like sour grapes now that we know Hary has since served time in jail for fraud! You can write to him at Hoertensteiner Strasse 1, 86911 Dettenschwang, Deutschland!

[[I'm still astounded!]]

***

The contributions by Herr Edel are interesting, and I'd like more information about them. Alfred Edel himself is interesting too, an actor with a wide repertoire. I have a poster of him in one of his latest roles, in a movie called Die Patriotin, with his head (itself considerable) wedged between the generous breasts of the renowned porn actress, Annie Sprinkle. It's a tough life in the acting profession. . .

He tells Hermann on the train: "It's not great personalities, not social movements or ideologies that make history, just men and their friends. [A good summation of the programme of Heimat and Die Zweite Heimat, by the way.] For example, Goethe, Schubert, Hegel and other Munich celebrities like Mann, Brecht, Feuchtwanger, and Steiner became classics later, because they acquired a profundity bonus". And he goes on, very tellingly -- this must surely be Reitz speaking -- "The first of you to free himself from ideology, the first of you to succeed in that, will make it."

[[Do we need small one sentence definitions for these composers, writers and philosphers? I keep thinking some very curious 14 year old in Hawaii may download these pages and find this his introduction to German culture. On the other hand we could drive ourselves crazy.]]

[[As Edel is spouting off the names of these writers on the train passing along the west bank of the Rhine, the camera pans out the window and we see Pfalz-Grafenstein Castle, which sits on a rock in the middle of the Rhine. This castle was built in the 13th century as a river toll house to collect customs taxes. The image of the castle is accurate for Hermann's trip. He got on a bus that said it was headed for Simmern. From Simmern he would get on a train that connected to the tracks than run north and south on the Rhine; probably to Dellhofen and then south. The Pfalz Grafenstein Castle would be seen within ten minutes or less as he left Dellhofen. In the final episode he reverses this same journey getting off the train in Simmern.]]

Later he sings:

"Under a red St. Pauli lamp
You'll wait to welcome me home."

[Anyone know where this comes from?]

[[Not a clue. It's probably a radio ad jingle from the 1950s....only kidding.]]

And : "Munich is a golden saddle on a scrawny nag".

***

Prostitutes on the street next to the station. As far as I can tell, this is the Arnulfstraße, but I haven't checked out the merchandise on offer.

***
[[What is that huge poster in Frau Moretti's shop? Any idea?]]


Frau Moretti's piano is made by FEURICH. This firm was founded by Julius Feurich in Leipzig-Leutzsch in 1851, but the factory was destroyed in the War and though production continued there it moved to Langlau in the West when Germany was partitioned. It is still a family firm.

The first piece of music Hermann plays on it: is this Schubert?

[[I afraid I am ignorant here too.]]

The two then perform a song from "Gipsy Love/Zigeunerliebe" by Franz Lehar (1870-1948). Lehar was apparently Hitler's favourite composer, but that was hardly his fault. Frau Moretti takes the part of the heroine Zorika, who is torn between two men -- the nobleman to whom she is betrothed, and a rather more alluring fiery gipsy fiddler:

"When I hear the guitar
My heart leaps for joy
at the voice of my native land, my homeland. I sigh for your shady bowers,
For your golden meadow flowers.
My heart aches for you, my sweet Hungary. Wherever you roam
Away from your home,
The world may be divine,
But it's for home you pine."

The devil take tomorrow,
Life's too short for sorrow,
If in love I am forsaken
Another love will awaken.
I can't live without a sweetheart,
I can't live a moment without love."


The bust that wobbles due to the vigour of their performance is that of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), born in Bonn.

***

Later, when Hermann meets Herr Edel again, Edel asks him "Have you read Thomas Mann's 'Gladius Dei'?". [I haven't checked the details of this yet.]

***

Juan tells Hermann he has learned his eleven languages with the help of Langenscheidt's Phonetical Lexicon. These books, yellow with a big blue 'L' on the cover, are famous the world over.

[[Langenscheidt is a family owned publishing business headquartered in Munich. They date back to the 19th century. They have nearly the entire dictionary market in Germany, very different from the United States. In addition they publish encyclopedias and travel guides (Polyglott and Apa Guides). In Germany they have a cultural importance somewhat like the OED: Langenscheidt is thought of as the protector of the German language as well. It might be correct to think of them as the German Larousse.]]



***

When the Professor is examining Hermann's identification of intervals on the piano, he plays one that he identifies as the "diabolus in musica". This is the tritone, a particular discord with a name of its own, so called because it embraces three whole tones. It's an augmented fourth (or its enharmonic equivalent a diminished fifth) and in the Middle Ages it was regarded as so unpleasant that it was called "the devil in music".

***

[[The percussion music played by Juan is actually "Preludio" by Daniel Smith. And a wonderful piece it is.
It is totally believable that very rigid academics would dismiss it as folklore at this time.]]

[[There are a number of places in Munich referred to in the program: Goetheplatz
Schwabing
Neu-Ulm
The Hofgarten
Marienplatz
Odeonplatz
Feldherrnhalle
Siegestor
Ludwigstrasse

Should these be defined somewhere? And what is the spot from which Herrmann looks out over the city with his map?]]



Herr Edel refers to the building where the film-makers are working as the Nazi Brown House. He talks about how all the Nazi leaders came down from Schwabing to the huge parade[s]. I think this must refer in particular to the huge Nazi pageant of 12-14 July 1939, captured on colour stock by an amateur cameraman (but one with privileged access) called Feierabend. It was supposed to represent 2000 years of German art and culture. Highly fanciful.

[[Here is an alternate reading of what this may allude to: In October 1933 in a ceremony accompanied by a parade of contingents of Hitler Youth, the SA and the SS, and playing the prelude to Die Meistersinger, Hitler endowed Munich with the title, "Capital City of German Art" and he laid the cornerstone for what was to become the House of German Art. The architect was Paul Troost who died during construction. The House of German Art was opened with a large ceremony on July 18, 1937, and coincident with its opening was the famous exhibition of "Entarete Kunst" held at the Municipal Archaeological Institute in Munich .
A photo in the book HITLER AND THE ARTISTS by Henry Grosshans makes it fairly clear that The House of German Art is the building outside of which Hermann, Juan and the filmmakers are talking about their future. My Munich guidebook says this is in the English Garden and is now known as just The House of Art.
There is a recent American documentary available on video, "Degenerate Art," which covers the "Entarete Kunst" show in some detail. Another good documentary about this period is "The Architecture of Doom." In the past few years the bookshelves have been filling with books on the history of both the Degenerate Art exhibition as well as Nazi art.]]

***

Rob asks Hermann if he has heard of the Nouvelle Vague in France. This "New Wave Cinema" refers to the loosely constituted group of French film makers who, after writing film criticism and coming up with the Auteur theory of directing, began to produce their first feature films in the years 1958-60. Many of the New Wave directors had been associated with the prestigious film journal "Cahiers du Cinéma". Claude Chabrol's "Le Beau Serge" (1959) was followed in quick succession by Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" (1959), Fran çois Truffaut's "400 Blows/Les QuatreCent Coups" (1959), Eric Rohmer's "The Sign of Leo" (1959), Alain Resnais's "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" (1960) and Louis Malle's "Zazie dans le Métro" (1960). These films were highly personal, spontaneous, and a marked departure from the carefully scripted studio films that had preceded them. They were often part-improvised, and the directors maintained complete control over every aspect of the production, so functioning as "auteurs". (There have been less polite terms.) The effect was widespread, as we see in DZH, but the directors developed in different directions and soon had only their origins in common.

[[Rob says, "Papa's kino ist tot" i.e. "Dad's Movies are Dead" which of course is the slogan they sticker all over the city later in the film. This was actually the slogan of the New German cinema and the signers of the Oberhausen Manifesto of 1962 of which Reitz was a leader. The following is from an essay by Ingrid Scheib-Rothbart and Ruth McCormick about Reitz: " In their manifesto, they demanded the right to create a new German cinema. Inspired by the French nouvelle vague, they took up the slogan 'Le cinema de papa est mort.' Within days, little green stickers saying 'Papas Kino ist tot' appeared everywhere--walls, trees, sidewalks, cafes, and even lavatory seats."]]


***

"Brutality in stone, that's what it's all about". So say the film-makers. It sounds like a quote. Anyone recognise it?

[[I assume it refers to the Nazi architecture.]]

***

The camera that the film-makers have borrowed is, like every other camera in the series, an Arriflex. This is the trade-name of Arnold &;Richter Cine Technik GmbH. Whether the fact that the Arriflex is so ubiquitous is entirely because of Reitz's affection for it, or whether this is what Hollywood calls a "placement" (advertise our stuff, and you can have it free), I don't know. Moreover, given the results, I don't really care...

[[Angsar has "Best Boy Angsar" on his clothing. A 'best boy' is an American film term for the assistant to the head electrician on a film crew.]]

***

[[Should we also mention that Clemens and the actor playing him, Michael Stephan, also appeared playing the same role in Heimat?]]

When Hermann starts investigating the practice-rooms at the Conservatoire, he opens three doors.

Behind the first, someone is practising the bassoon opening of "The Rite of Spring" (1913) by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). This is appropriate, because the piece, written for the Diaghilev ballet, caused enough uproar on its first performance, including fist-fights in the audience, for many commentators still to take the view now that this is where twentieth century music really started.

I need some help on the next two rooms, though! In No.2, a flute or piccolo is rehearsing a fairly modern-sounding piece. If I had to guess, I'd suggest Shostakovich, but I'm not sure.

[[It does sound a bit like Shostakovich, but it is such a brief snippet there is little to go on.]]

I *ought* to know the piece in the third room: there are two violins, and it sounds like J.S. Bach. Any offers?


***

The Professor Hermann goes to see is named Mamangakis. This is, of course, Nicos Mamangakis, the Cretan-born composer who has long been associated with Edgar Reitz. Hermann finds that the Professor is on tour in the U.S.A. It may be stretching it a bit to call this a cultural allusion, but Hey, gang, haven't we all found at one time or another that our professors tended to be somewhere else in the world when they were supposed (and paid) to be teaching us?!

***

Hermann takes an interest in Volker's "prepared piano". This innovation, which involves manipulation of the sound of the instrument by direct intervention in the strings, with paper clips, rubber erasers and other office and household equipment (!), seems to have originated with the American composer/poet/inventor John Cage (1912-1992). Indeed, it's probably Cage's major contribution to the music of this century. The invention was the result of practical necessity: unable to fit a percussion ensemble onstage to accompany a dance performance, he modified a piano to produce "a percussion ensemble controllable by one player". The potential of this clattering construction is best shown in his "Sonatas and Interludes" (1946-8), where he exploits a range of sonorities, some bright and bell-like, others more delicate and subdued. Rhythmic motifs and patterns recur, producing an incantatory and hypnotic quality close to that of the gamelan. Soon everyone was at it: in Germany Karl-Heinz Stockhausen (b.1928) made use of it (among many other things).

***

1:23:25
The wonderful ad-hoc percussion session in the refectory typefies the improvisatory energy and enthusiasm of students in the early sixties after an eternity of strict academicism. We also see experiments like the many metronomes, something the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti has brought to the concert platform.

[[The dining hall session also reminded me of Ernst Toch and the percussion experiments by Orff.]]

***

Hermann takes to Mamangakis a piece he has written for Voice, Flute and Cello. Mamangakis remarks that the piece is "dodecaphonic". That is, it is a serial composition, effectively atonal, i.e. not in any fixed key, but keeping all twelve notes of the chromatic scale available. It was orginated (reluctantly) by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and developed with his pupils Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (see below). It has been hugely influential in this century, and still divides music-lovers and practitioners.

The twelve notes are arranged in a fixed order, the series, which can be used to generate melodies and harmonies, and which remains binding for a whole work. The series is thus a sort of hidden theme, which can be manipulated in a variety of ways.

***

The cello teacher giving Clarissa her lesson is not any old jobbing actor. He is the great German cellist Siegfried Palm, born 1927. He became leading cellist of the Municipal Orchestra in Luebeck at the age of 18, and two years later took over the same slot in the Sinfonieorchester of the Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk. He was a member of the Hamann Quartet from 1951 to 1962, and has run the cello master class at the Musikhochschule in Koeln ever since. (Yet another wandering professor, he was -- I see from the internet -- guesting at a weekend school in New Zealand last weekend!) He has been a key figure in bringing the avant garde in cello music to the concert platform, giving early performances of pieces by composers such as Ligeti, Kagel, Zimmermann and Xenakis. There is a good mid-price CD of his work on the WERGO label, no. WER 6036-2.

The first piece Clarissa plays is the E minor Cello Sonata by Karl Brahms (I think, but I'm not big on Brahms).

The two then go on to the famous work "Three Small Pieces for Violoncello and Piano, Opus 11" by Anton Webern (1883-1945: he was shot by mistake by a twitchy American soldier when he lit a match outside his house in Graz in Austria. Moral: Don't Smoke). These pieces were written in 1914, and are an amazing demonstration of how vast effects can be achieved with only the tiniest of forces the whole work lasts only two minutes. Or, as my book puts it rather more accurately, the limitation of the articulation of the musical argument to just a few notes, the dense concentration of expression and the impartial use of all notes in the chromatic scale (see note on Dodecaphony above) point towards the specific principles of serial construction which Webern applied in his later works.

Webern has been pivotal in the development of at least two generations of composers since the War, and at the time Hermann goes to Munich, knowledge and appreciation of Webern would have been a shibboleth of the young musician wanting to be taken seriously.


***

Reinhard remarks that it was in the building now housing the Conservatoire that Hitler signed the Munich Agreement. This refers to the now notorious "agreement" between Hitler and the hopeless British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain (who has been described as "as effective as nipples on a tom- cat") that the countries would never go to war with each other again. Given that this was in 1938, bad call, Nev. You've probably seen the newsreel footage of Chamberlain getting out of the plane, waving a scrap of paper around, and proclaiming "Peace in Our Time!". Ye-e-e-e-e s-s-s-s. . .

***

The piece Clarissa and Volker play on stage is the Polonaise Brillante by the Polish-born composer Frédéric (or Fryderyk) Chopin (1810-1849).

***

Reinhard seems more interested in Chuck (Charles Edward) Berry, American rock 'n' roller, born 1927 (if you believe him). Berry is a showman (I saw him in Southampton, England, in 1964: I was *extremely* young) and rabble- rouser. Vastly influential (none of the bands of the Beatles and Rolling Stones generation could have survived without his songs), though his clever-cutesy lyrics are more interesting than his bland and repetitive tunes. He was responsible for such anthems as "Roll Over, Beethoven", "No Particular Place To Go" and "My Ding-A-Ling". Of the last, suffice it to mention only that Berry's interesting sex life has landed him in prison. He once knocked out Keith Richards in a dressing room after Keith had the temerity to say "Hello". Avoid.

***

The piece "Persona" performed by Clarissa and company, which is soundless and lasts just one minute, is a good example of the kind of experimentation that was going on at the time. Perhaps the most famous "work" of this kind is "4'33"" by John Cage (see above), which gives you just that -- the presence of the soloist at the piano for that duration, with no sound. The "work" dates from 1952, and in the same year he devised "Water Music", in which a score displayed to the audience requires a pianist to go a lot of things in and around a piano (pouring water, switching on radio, etc.) But not to play it. There are many other such experiments. Speaking personally, I feel it's probably enough to point out that in music the silences are as important as the notes, but I'm probably just a curmudgeon.

Incidentally, the blue swimming trunks worn by the musician on the left are made by Jantzen, the brand that was all the rage at the time.


***

Hermann in the woodshed with Josef suggests playing guitar pieces
by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945) and the Brazilian Heitor Villa- Lobos (1887-1959), but ends up playing neither. The Villa Lobos piece is probably the wonderful "Choros No.1" which he plays in a later episode when he buys the second-hand guitar.


[[A few more:

Clemens mentions that Louis Armstrong didn't know how to read
music. Is this true? Do we need to define who Louis Armstrong is?

Juan's story about the "Clockmaker and the Nightingale" is a
retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Nightingale"

In the closing scene we see some pictures on Herrmann's walls.
Among them are a 1940s film magazine cover showing Hans Albers and a woman. Someone who knows German film of the period should be able to identify it.

More interesting are three photos at the base of the bed. These
are images of either Romanesque art (perhaps from the Rouen Cathedral) or primative art. I am sure I have seen these photos before in an early book on the origins of Expressionist art. One appears to be either a South American mummy or a fetal sculpture. Munch's scream was partly derived from the artist having seen a South American mummy at an exhibition. Since Hermann's generation is rebelling against his father's it makes sense that we would be rediscovering the art that was banned in the 1930s and 1940s.
I'll try to locate the origin of these photos as they are very familar to me. ]]


Ok all for now.

On to part II?

Alan
********************************************************

2. Two Strange Eyes

All additions and corrections are welcome.

On his way to the acting school Juan passes a Volkswagen Bus. This and the Volkswagen sedan were very common sights in the 1960s. The VW bus was an economical family car and a major export product of the German economic miracle of the post war years. Later Juan finds out that he is expected to drive the VW, but, alas, driving is not one of his many skills. Juan, master of many arts is ignorant of the most fundamental of modern urban abilities. [Can anyone determine when the VW bus was introduced?]

Juan is seen practicing Tai Chi, a Chinese system of physical exercise designed for both self defense and meditation. Only gaining popularity in the West fairly recently, Juan's familiarity with Tai Chi is both a mark of his catholic learning and his separation from the people around him.

The evening concert takes place at an estate in Grünwald, a settled community south of Munich on the Isar river. [I assume this is a wealthy community. Can anyone confirm?]

On the tram Hermann talks with Juan about his family. This conversation is well underway when the scene opens. Hermann says that in his Aunt's house he couldn't walk on the floor or the carpets and when ever food was served it tasted burned. This raises a very interesting question:
which Aunt is he referring to? Could this have been Lucy's and Edward's house? As they also lived in a large estate during the war, perhaps this was a conversation about people who live in fancy houses and the dubious manner in which they landed in those houses....

Hermann also mentions that he won a prize playing "The Hungarian Rhapsodies" a series of 19 compositions by Franz Listz (1811-1886 ) composed from 1846-1885. [Anyone want to recommend a recording?]

At the concert they start by playing a piece by Antonio Vivaldi (1678 1741) which is never identified. In the film this is followed by an unidentified modern work. I assume this is by Mamangakis, however it may be by someone else.

The musicians are paid by the family with a bottle of Chateaux Lafite Rothschild 1937, a rare French red wine worth several hundreds of dollars today. The fact that the wine bears the name Rothschild, comes from France, dates from 1937 and is now owned by Germans can't help but raise the specter of the Second World War, the conquest of France, the seizure of foreign treasures and the Holocaust. The musicians, who only wanted to be paid in cash, unwillingly inherit a soiled legacy when they accept this payment. [Perhaps there is even more here: what was the history of the Rothschild family during the Second World War?]

I couldn't find out anything about Wasserburg, Clarissa's home town. She says it is in the heart of Bavaria.

In the film vault Ansgar compares the volatile nitrate film to the nitroglycerine trucks in Henri Georges Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear" (1952) the great thriller starring Yves Montand. The film's plot surrounds the efforts of four men in South America driving trucks loaded with nitro a long distance through winding mountain roads and dangerous jungles. This was later remade by William Friedkin in 1977 as "Sorcerer."

Hermann and Renate attend a performance of a work by Volker, "Wacht Auf!" with a text by Günter Eich (1907-1972). Eich was a poet noted for his lyric poetry and radio plays expressing verbal abstractions inaccessible to normal logical thought. His work was heavily influenced by Chinese poetry, and he adapted the work of his favorite poet, Li Tai Pe, as well as other oriental writers. The entire German text of "Wacht Auf!" is printed in the booklet with Bella Musica CD 1 to DZH. The music is by Mamangakis. [Shall we add the German text?]

The concert goers congregate at the club where Clemens plays drums with his jazz band. A black female vocalist is singing two songs made famous by Billie Holiday (1915-1959), "My Man" and "The Man I Love". [Anyone want to recommend a 'Best of Billie' CD that contains both songs?]

Ansgar tells Olga, "'The actor's art has no memorial.'-- Schiller" Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of Germany's great playwrights and poets, as well as author of many theoretical and critical writings. Author of Don Carlos (1787) and Maria Stuart (1800), he may be best known outside of Germany as the author of the words to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" (1824). [Any idea where this Schiller quote originated?]

Hermann quotes Cocteau, "In art there are no winners." Jean Cocteau (1889 -1963) was a French poet, artist, novelist, , dramatist, critic and film maker. Friend and collaborator to Picasso, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and many more, Cocteau is perhaps best known for his stunning film version of "The Beauty and the Beast" of 1945. [Where did this quote originate?]

At Foxholes Clarissa accompanies Volker while he plays the piano. She is singing a lyric by Kurt Tucholsky "Zwei Fremde Augen" set to music by Peter Fischer. Tucholsky, born in Berlin (1890-1935) was a journalist known for his satiric cabaret songs. A leftist, he lost his nationality in 1933 and his works were burned by the Nazis. Two years later he committed suicide. [I can't find anything on Peter Fischer which is a shame since this is one of my favorite moments in the entire film. I'll keep looking.] The German lyrics are in the Bella Musica CD booklet. [Shall we add the lyrics?]

A performance of "concrete poetry" also takes place at Foxholes that evening. (It's nice that everyone brought along some music.) This is "Lautgedicht" by Josef Anton Riedl, a modernist German poet/composer. "Lautgedicht" is an experimental work similar to pieces by Dadaist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), John Cage (1912-1992) and the Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) in which nonsense words and sounds form the musical score of a work. (I am also reminded of Ernst Toch's (1887-1964) "Geography Cantata" -- I think that's what it is called -- in which words like 'Titicaca' and 'Mississippi' are repeated at different speeds and emphasis to form a score.) [I can't find much on Riedl except that he is a published contemporary poet. He isn't in my Oxford Companion to German Literature.]

Stefan, Rob and Reinhard walk out of "Lautgedicht" and discuss their plans to make films. They are throwing out ideas for names of their film company, many of which allude to film history:
"Metropolis" (1926) widely consider the height of the golden age of German Cinema. This was the first major science fiction film directed by Fritz Lang and produced by Ufa. Believe it or not, when I was growing up I had difficulty locating a screening in America; now it is so well known it many not be worth footnoting here.
"Ecstasy" (1933) Gustav Machaty's film which made a Czech actress, Hedy Kiesler, well known around the world. When she landed in Hollywood she changed her name to Hedy Lamar. "Ecstasy" is story of an unhappy marriage and infidelity, and is known primarily for the nude swimming scenes of Hedy Lamar.
Reinhard suggests, "Rio Bravo Company" an allusion to Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" (1959) with John Wayne and Dean Martin, considered by many the best of all Hawks westerns.

Although the English subtitles delete this, Stefan dismisses "Rio Bravo" as something more suited for a film studio making adaptations of Karl May novels. Karl May (1842-1912) was Hitler's favorite writer, author of scores of adventure stories about American Indians, South America and the Near East. He is still very popular despite the inaccuracies of his stories. May was proud to say he had never traveled outside of Germany and had no desire to see the rest of the world; he could imagine whatever and wherever he wanted. Hitler, who also spent very little time outside of Germany--his only trip to Paris lasted less than a day--once cited Karl May as a sterling example how one could be educated about the world yet never leave home. May's novels about Winetou and Old Shatterhand spawned many films and are responsible for the German infatuation with the American West. Hans Jürgen Syberberg made a 187 minute film about Karl May, "Karl May--In Search of Paradise Lost" (1974).

After Stefan runs after Helga, Reinhard says, "Louis, I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship" Humphrey Bogart's last line in "Casablanca" (1942), considered by some the finest Hollywood studio picture ever produced.

[Herman and Renate drink wine at Renate's flat. The bottle from which they drink red wine is an icon of the early 1960s: a wide green bottle with the bottom half covered in woven straw. I'm embarrassed to say I can't recall the brand, but I remember seeing them everywhere as a kid. Used as candle holders they were in every proper bohemian home.
Help. This must be an easy one.]

On the wall of Renate's apartment is a movie poster for: "Und Ewig Ruft Die Heimat" the German title for a Swiss film of 1955, "Uli, Der Pächter" directed by Franz Schnyder. While this was a sequel to an earlier film, "Uli, Der Knecht" I have no other information about it. I assume Reitz may have put it there as both an in-joke and a reflection of Renate's taste.

Hermann and Juan meet in the English Garden, the main public park in Munich. In the background can be seen the Monopteros, Leo Von Klenze's Roman-style temple. During this 1960s this was a noted hang out for hippies, as is later shown in episode #12.
Also seen briefly is The Chinese Tower another famous site in the Garden. This was built in the early 19th century as an exotic way to familiarize Bavarians with foreign culture.

Juan explains his relationship with Clarissa as like Indo-Chinese Politics: you yield to the North to defend the South. This is obviously an allusion to both the stalemate in the divided Koreas and the current situation in Vietnam.

In Clemens's flat is seen a German film poster for "High Society" (1956) a remake of "The Philadelphia Story" directed by Charles Walters and starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. But the reason the poster is on the wall is the costarring role of Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), Clemens's hero. Clemens pointed out in DZH #1 that there is nothing wrong in being unable to read music because Louis Armstrong can't read music. Later in the film this same poster can be seen in more detail with a picture of Armstrong playing the trumpet.
Also on the wall is a poster for the American film "Paris Blues" (1961) directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and...surprise... Louis Armstrong. Music was by Duke Ellington.

Hermann tells Kohlenjosef that he is working on "sprechgesang" meaning spoken song or speech song. First used by Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) in Königskinder (1897) singers are instructed to approximate pitches played by accompanying instruments. Later examples are Arnold Schoenberg in Gurrelider (1900-11), Pierrot Lunaire (1912) and Moses and Aron (1930-2) and Alban Berg's (1885 1935) Wozzeck ( 1914-1922). The Oxford Dictionary of Music even goes so far as to say that the role of Prof. Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" is a well known example of Sprechgesang.
While Hermann is talking about his new composition it is evident that he is also "preparing" his guitar along the lines of Cage's "prepared piano". [Hyperlink to Barry's earlier note here?]

Kohlenjosef shows Herman the portrait of his mother by an artist labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis. It's not clear who the artist was, but it could have been by a follower of Max Beckmann (1884-1950), Karl Hofer (1878-1955), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) or Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) among others. For a good recent history of this period in German art history, see "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany by Stephanie Barron (Los Angeles Country Museum of Art/Abrams, 1991).

In Clemens's club there are five photographic jazz portraits on the wall above the band. The only one that I can clearly identify is Louis Armstrong (far left)

Mr. Edel asks Clemens about Theodor Adorno's (1903-1969) theory of modern music. Adorno was both a social philosopher and musicologist, one of the founding members of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy. He studied composition with Alban Berg and was ejected from his post at Frankfurt by the Nazis. He advised Thomas Mann on the musical references in Doctor Faustus. Adorno was a champion of Schoenberg and of left-wing ideologies applied to avant garde music. Edel is referring to Adorno's belief that contemporary music had to be challenging and unpleasant.

Edel also says, "Orff is a positivist, not the fabulist he seems." Carl Orff (1895-1982) was a Munich composer now best known for his scenic cantata "Carmina Burana". Orff was also a theorist, rejecting both conventional tonality and the 12 tone system of Schoenberg for a more rhythmical based system of music education.
His later works are sparse, employing chants and much percussion. While Orff did accept commissions during the Nazi period, it appears he was not a party member and there are even reports that some of his unconventional educational work was proscribed and burned. (This might sound odd, as some now describe "Carmina Burana" as fascist music, but Orff's work might just as easily be classified as primitive expressionist, tapping the same elemental roots as the "degenerate painters".) Among Orff's students was Nikos Mamangakis.

Mr. Edel also says, "The aim of farce is freedom." [Source anyone?]

When Hermann recovers his music from Frau Moretti she puts one of his songs on the piano and begins to sing. The song is the "Klärchenlied" first heard in Heimat #9. The music is by Mamangakis, however I assume the text is by Reitz. Here is how it is translated in the English subtitles to Heimat:

The stalks stand, right and left, like walls
Restricting us to narrow paths
In secret, to the nicest lanes
And our summer-brown hands
Wave gaily at the many landing-stages
That reach out over light-filled waves

They murmur under small stones there
In fields where we are scared and hide
Where, in the shadows, red snails glide
Beside our naked legs so bare.


In the final scene can see seen two film posters: a German poster for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) directed by David Lean and "Dr. Caligari" which is either a modern poster for a revival of Robert Weine's silent expressionist masterpiece of 1919 "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", or, possibly, a poster for "The Cabinet of Caligari" a terrible 1962 English language remake directed by Roger Kay starring Glynis Johns and Dan O'Herlihy. The original film is the first important German film, and a landmark in expressionist film making.


****************************

Now that I have done this I have even more respect for Barry's effort on DZH #1. I guess we only have 11 more to go.....


Alan

Since I did some research on the film Geschwindigkeit last summer I might as well pass along some of what I uncovered. (Sorry if this is old ground for veteran members of this list.):

"Kino I--Geschwindigkeit (Cinema I--Speed)" dates from 1962 and it is seen briefly in DZH #4. This was made when Reitz became head of experiment and development at Insel-Film. The film was the first in a proposed series of experiments which received major prizes in Germany, Portugal and the United States. "Reitz developed three new technical processes specifically for the film: a camera capable of taking shots at a changing but precisely determinable frequency, and two processing techniques by which single frames from a chronologically photographed sequence might be selected according to periodic or random patterns and then reassembled. The result is a fascinating study of movement that suggests how a fast-flying insect might see the world." [This information comes from a lengthy essay on Reitz in John Wakeman (ed.) World Film Directors, Vol 2; and Ingrid Scheib-Rothbart and Ruth McCormick's essay on Reitz in Klaus Phillips' New German Filmmakers.]

The score was written by Josef Anton Ried, with whom Reitz worked on some of his early films.

In DZH #2 there is a performance of "concrete poetry"that takes place at Foxholes This is "Lautgedicht" by Josef Anton Riedl. "Lautgedicht" is an experimental work with similarities to pieces by the Dadaist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), John Cage (1912-1992) and the Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) in which nonsense words and sounds form the musical score.

Riedl (1927- ) is a Munich born composerand poet. Like Nikos Mamangakis (composer of the score to both Heimat and Die Zweite Heimat), Riedl studied with Carl Orff, the noted Bavarian composer of cantatas and operas. Riedl was a founder-member of the Siemens experimental music studio in Munich (1960-1966). At Siemens, Mamangakis also studied with Riedl (1961-1962). In 1961 Riedl composed a soundtrack of an eleven minute film called "Communication" consisting of spoken language electronically processed into a kind of music. The director of this film was Edgar Reitz; this was his first film of note.The term "concrete poetry" -- which is how "Lautgedicht" is referred to in DZH -- is actually an allusion to "musique concrete" a school of modernist composition using random assemblages of sounds along with the manipulation of pitch and sound dynamics by recording tape . In the early 1950s Riedl joined the musical research group of French composer PierreSchaeffer (1910- ) the formulator of the theory of musique concrete.(Schaeffer eventually abandoned music entirely for literature.)

_________________________ Alan Andres

At the risk of boring Marco I am posting the following observations, which I just stumbled upon...

Last night I was lucky enough to take in a rather rare screening of a 35mm print of Antoinoni's LA NOTTE at the Harvard Film Archive. For some reason this has become a seldom seen film in America, and while Antonioni is out of fashion these days, his trilogy of the early 1960s (L'AVVENTURA, ECLIPSE and RED DESERT) is widely available on video.

This was my first encounter with LA NOTTE (1961). You may remember that I noted there was a woman dressed in Jeanne Moreau's black cocktail dress from LA NOTTE in "the film within a film" in "Kennedy's Children." I had recognized this allusion from published film stills from LA NOTTE in countless books about Italian cinema and Antonioni. I was surprised to discover that the allusions to LA NOTTE in "Kennedy's Children" hardly stop there.

The dance of the two scantily dressed black performers in the "film within a film" is a near direct quotation of a very similar scene in a nightclub in LA NOTTE. In Antonioni's film, Marcello Mastroianni, playing a literary novelist, and Jeanne Moreau, as his wife, attend a nightclub where bored upper middle class couples watch this acrobatic pair perform what appears to be part striptease, part circus balancing act. I assume this scene is Antonioni's version of LA DOLCE VITA, a voyeuristic, yet moralistic condemnation of the idle rich. A long scene which follows at a wealthy industrialist's estate continues this theme with the rich seen betting, playing games, engaging in adulterous flirtations and culminating with a mass entry into a swimming pool while still in black tie. The nightclub scene and a few of the moments at this party are perhaps the only parts of LA NOTTE that suffer from age: they seem a bit moralistic and heavy handed now.

Reitz quotes the nightclub scene quite faithfully, right down to the costumes on the black couple and the acrobatics with a half filled wine glass. Salome Kammer's musical composition "Film Im Film" heard during this scene in "Kennedy's Children" is a near direct quotation of the music heard in LA NOTTE as well.

But there is even more. Remember the brief close-up of the film extra playing with the wire toy while they are recording the "atmos track" for the film a few minutes later in "Kennedy's Children"? This same prop plays a major role in LA NOTTE: there is a long scene between Marcello Mastroianni and Monica Vitti in which she plays with this same toy in a medium close-up. Hardly a coincidence.

What is Reitz doing here? Carole Angier suggests that this is a mocking look at the "film generation's" reverence for European art cinema of the period. Yet why reproduce one of the least successful scenes in Antonioni's film? I suspect that one reason Antonioni is not popular today is his near humorless austerity, even while his trilogy and LA NOTTE are among the most visually eloquent and moving films of the past fifty years. I believe that Reitz is laughing at himself, who in the early 1960s took European art cinema as a new religion -- even when it was both arty and tacky as in the nightclub scene -- and now with the perspective of time it some of this near reverence seems rather silly. Yet I think this is also an affectionate memoir as well: a time when film mattered passionately.

Clearly Reitz must have loved LA NOTTE when he was just beginning his career. The detail of the wire toy displays an almost fetishistic attention to detail that might come from someone who saw this film over and over when it opened in Germany.

A wonderful thing about DIE ZWEITE HEIMAT, there are levels of detail here that are only discovered on repeated viewing...

And more boring trivia. You may also remember I was trying to identify the two postcard reproductions in Helga's flat in "Kennedy's Children." As I noted, one is by Peder Kroyer. The other I finally identified: it is a symbolist painting of feminine evil by Albert Penot dated 1890. _________________________
Alan Andres

Kennedy's children

00:28:45

Juan plays Barbarina's Song from Mozart's Le Mozze Di Figaro (Act IV , Scene I) and Renate sings. The lyrics are as follows translated into English:

		"Oh dear me, I've lost it...
		Oh, wherever can it be?
		I can't find it... cousin
		And my lord... what will they say? "

This short excerpt from Figaro is heard twice more in " Kennedy's Children" and considering its tone of melancholy loss and anguish its a fitting background score to the day which some historians say America, and maybe the world, lost its innocence.

(Note this except from Mozart is also heard in Liliana Cavani's Al Di La' Del Bene E Del Male (1978) (aka Beyond Good and Evil) which, coincidentally, is about the relationship between Lou Andreas Salome, Paul Ree and Frederich Nietzsche.)

Alan Andres

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