English 345: Women Filmmakers

Course
M, 2:30-5:20
W, 2:30-4:20
Thomson 125

Instructor
K. Gillis-Bridges
Padelford A305
543-4892
MW, 1:00-2:20

Page last updated
12/10/02

Sample Profile: Margarethe von Trotta

“A valley, a valley and in it a stream, why don’t you love me have I not been good?”
Rosa Luxemburg, singing to her niece, Rosa

To what degree can a filmmaker’s life and innermost feelings be revealed through their films, their artistic expression? The subject here is the German director Margarethe von Trotta, a key figure in the New German Cinema of the 1970s, and still influential in world cinema today. What are the common themes she addresses and why does she choose these topics; which cinematic techniques does she employ and to what effect; what can her images tell us about her personal life and the wider society and culture of postwar Germany? These questions will be answered with a close analysis of three of von Trotta’s films, Schwestern oder die Balance des Glücks (Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness, 1979), Die Bleierne Zeit (Marianne and Juliane,1981), and Rosa Luxemburg (1986).

Margarethe von Trotta was born on February 21, 1942. She had an early life which was both displaced and fixed. She grew up with her mother in Düsseldorf where she went to school. Her mother never married, and while poor, was a great influence to the young von Trotta, but Margarethe desperately wanted a sister. "My mother always said that when a woman marries she is suppressed. I believed her. . . . She gave me great liberty of thinking" (qtd. in Acker 310). They both felt like outsiders and spent much of their time confined within the house. After leaving school however, she would become more traveled, studying Fine Arts in Paris and Drama in Munich. In Paris she became deeply interested in the works of existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. It was the imagery in Camus’ L’Etranger (The Stranger) which encouraged her to visit the Mediterranean. She visited Casablanca, Morocco and found the colors and heat of Africa which she was searching for, and although she felt like an outsider, she did not immediately experience the extreme alienation that Camus described: "Fremd habe ich mich sehr, sehr oft gefühlt. Nicht nur im Ausland. Aber nicht alienee, nicht dieses Entfremdet-Sein von sich selbst"/"I felt like a stranger very, very often, not only when I was abroad. But I never felt alienated, not this complete alienation from oneself" (qtd. in Wydra 20).

Von Trotta started her acting career in 1965, and become successful in films of the German new wave working with directors such as Achternbusch, Hauff, Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, who she married in 1971. After the making of Schwestern, von Trotta discovered she had a sister who she had never met. An outsider within the mainstream, an imprisoned wanderer, the desire for a sibling finally realised, von Trotta’s life was among many diverse factors which influenced her filmmaking.

A stream which runs through the valley of von Trotta’s films is certainly the conflict between the personal and public sphere, in fact, virtually all of the other themes she explores stem from this idea. In Rosa Luxemburg, it is suggested that you cannot have both political success (public work) and a family (personal):

Leo: Decide Rosa, do you want to be a mother or a revolutionary?
Rosa: Both.
Leo: No.
Rosa: Why?
Leo: A child makes you fearful.
Rosa: You don’t love me.
Leo: Your vocation is to bring ideas into the world, those are your children!

The implication in this narrative is that women are allowed to be creators in one sense only – either creating life as a mother, or creating art and ideas for the public – they are mutually exclusive. Von Trotta was one of the few women who had a child while being an active filmmaker. Rosa is in constant turmoil between love and politics; should she as a leader live for herself, or for the people?

Die Bleierne Zeit explores the divide from an all female perspective, through the behavior of sisters Marianne (Barbara Sukowa) and Juliane (Jutta Lampe). In one of the prison visit scenes, Juliane suggests that working in the wider community and a family can be successfully balanced:

Juliane: You could have gone to help develop a third world country, and taken Jan. But that would have been unspectacular, daily drudgery.

This has the effect of putting more emphasis on women to be mothers and workers – to achieve the end of dependence on men. It is ironic too, in that Marianne is experiencing the worst kind of daily drudgery in prison anyway, without her family.

In Schwestern oder die Balance des Glücks, there is more emphasis on the personal. The balance here is within the psyche of the women, Maria (Jutta Lampe), Anna (Gudrun Gabriel) and Miriam (Jessica Früh). There is a sense by films end that Maria has realized how she must refine her personality to stop being so oppressive and to give others a chance to decide how they will live out their own lives rather than always being in control. Von Trotta communicates this through visual and narrative means. Maria explicitly states in the final scene in the film that she seeks balance, and that she herself needs to include elements of herself and Anna in her personality. Visually this scene is intriguing because von Trotta presents an identical shot to the first scene of the film, with one major significant difference. The forward zoom into the trees in the forest is no longer a journey into darkness, now it is brightly lit. The forest signifies a natural spirit which Maria only now accepts and is willing to adopt. Throughout the film we see and hear Maria’s learning process, how she reaches that final point.

Dreams, flashback and unnatural imagery are hugely influential in von Trotta’s work. Through Schwestern, Maria’s dreams symbolize her transition from repression to a sense of personal freedom. Once she starts to talk about her dreams, it opens up her emotional side. Her dream about stealing an apple from a freshly painted room in a house "surrounded by the enemy" speaks of signs of change for the better through difficult times. By showing us Maria talking about these dreams and not showing us them, von Trotta is forcing the viewers to use their imaginations too, a very brave and highly effective cinematic technique which links the audience closer to the central character. Miriam realizes that she is being both oppressed and molded into someone else after she wakes up screaming. The following scene show her sitting in a language booth, the composition highly claustrophobic and trapped, symbolic of how Maria is thwarting her musical ambitions and changing her into the replica of her dead sister.

Flashback is used in Schwestern to introduce and comment on themes of identity and the bonds of sisterly love. The flashback to them as little girls, trying on lipstick and kissing each other highlights not only their closeness, but also the fact that they have and will continue to make a mark on each other’s lives. This flashback, coming soon after Miriam has borrowed Maria’s lipstick in the office restroom, shows the link between the Maria-Anna, Maria-Miriam relationships to follow.

Whereas flashback serves as an important function in Schwestern, it drives the entire narrative of Die Bleierne Zeit. There is so much displacement of time in the film that reality in a sense becomes blurred, a function which serves to enhance power to the story, and force the viewer to look beyond a simple narrative. The sequence immediately following the museum scene is revealing in that von Trotta links time and scenario to meaning. The jump cut of the two hot drinks which have been left to develop a skin are simple, and yet loaded with potential meanings. At the museum, Marianne and Juliane are defying an age-old tradition of male dominance through their politics. At home, they are defying their father, the symbol of religious patriarchy. So the jump cut links to the same umbrella theme of patriarchal domination and methods of challenging the weight of history and the power of religion: "In Marianne and Juliane, von Trotta is concerned with contextualizing a past in order to bring into play its absence in the political discourse of the present" (Silberman 204).

Even at a young age, the sisters smiling and joking with each other during grace indicates their contempt for their father and the systems he stands for. It is not on ideas that they disagree, but on methods of bringing about change. Werner highlights this earlier in the film: “as if all her blasted ideas weren’t inside us too. In you and in me. Only we’re too cowardly, or too sensible.” The religious imagery of a large crucifix hangs on the wall behind the dinner table operates in the same way as the statues dominate the museum mise-en-scene; it highlights how ingrained these male-led structures are. There follows a leap forward in time to a short scene with Juliane and Jan on the train, a symbol of the changing times and movement, in itself a link to what Marianne and Juliane are trying to achieve. Jan looks out of the train window as he reminds Juliane he his only a child, and so does not yet have a link to the past. The next scene, where Juliane organizes her thoughts and images about a Nazi history and its impact on women in Germany – shows she is attempting to give a German view which refuses to espouse denial or blind acceptance, while educating the next generation. Juliane here essentially becomes von Trotta, the constructor. Lisa DiCaprio finds continuity to this idea in the final lines of the film:

Felix [Jan] commands, “Begin now!” This shout (“Fang An”) not only means: “Preserve Marianne’s memory”, but on proper reflection, it can be interpreted as a general moral command: “Tell my generation everything!” Thus, the child’s command is the basic imperative of von Trotta’s work. (400)

As Juliane recites Hitler’s views into her Dictaphone, we are reminded of the destructive quality of man, taken to its extreme, but nevertheless something that Germany must confront, collectively and von Trotta suggests, individually. Hitler saw sterility as subversive, another way the political and personal link together. Von Trotta’s message is that the internal values of the individual, and the externals of society, need not clash or be confrontational, and that institutions have made us believe that it should:

Personally I see very few chances of exploding the power complex established by the alliance between economics and science, and above all, I see no movement on the present political horizon capable of achieving this. I believe we still have a very naïve approach to this terrifying power complex. Naturally I fight against it despite my skepticism, for it is certain that those who do not offer resistance are already defeated. To propose new ideas is the purpose of art. (qtd. in DiCaprio 401)

A sharp cut from Juliane in her apartment, to a cityscape of Beirut follows. It highlights the destructions of previous generations and poverty. A low angle shot of a statue of a man holding a rifle highlights this theme, the ‘terrifying power complex’ von Trotta seeks to escape, which is why the film is significantly kinder to Juliane who espouses democratic reform, over Marianne, the terrorist. There is a sharp contrast between "two Mariannes," one who smiles as the children touch her curly blond hair in Beirut, and the other who barges into Juliane’s apartment in the following scene, masculinized, hair dark and tied back and behaving in an unwelcome way, she is becoming the tyrant she is fighting against. The sequence for analysis ends with a long silence broken by one of Marianne’s accomplices sternly shouting ‘say something!’ It could almost be an invitation from von Trotta to the women of the world or a link back to the demand for a real historical education for the German people.

Von Trotta does not limit herself to the search for political and personal freedom. While Rosa Luxemburg is perhaps her most overt ‘political’ film, it includes visual and oral imagery which explore love and nature. Rosa’s voiceover roughly half way through the film while she is in prison explains what drives her revolutionary zeal:

I feel I’m not a real person but some bird or animal miscreated in human form. I feel much more at home in my small garden or in the countryside than at party meetings…my deepest self feels closer to coal tits than to my comrades.

Rosa seeks total natural freedom above all, and as this as been threatened, by issues in eastern Europe and Germany in the early 20th century, her only way is to fight against the system, resulting in her assassination. In the class system, she certainly stands above the people she fights for, highlighted by her large parties, elegant housing and bourgeois costume. She often operates in a very male-dominated arena, yet frequently rises above them, defies them and influences them. This is due to more than a history of the real Rosa Luxemburg; von Trotta both adapts the facts and uses the camera to create a feminist portfolio, to finally bring the woman to the screen in a real and meaningful way:

. . . it is a woman-centered and woman-affirming cinema of the kind still a rarity-women looked at with intensity and love by the woman behind the camera, by one another on the screen, and by women like oneself in the audience, to whose eyes the whole is directed; and because of the visual and dramatic bounty of metaphors and ideas with which von Trotta turns this into art. (Acker 310)

We see examples of this when Rosa gives dramatic speeches, with low angle shots, music and large vociferous crowds making her appear powerful, just as Riefenstahl propagandized Hitler in The Triumph of the Will. However, we also witness her vulnerability and emotion when the camera zooms in on her crying at the absence of Costia, before documentary war footage. Thus, von Trotta depicts many sides and aspects of femininity.
She enhances realism by making ending’s which speak to the audience, rather than simplistic happy denouements which feature romance, success and triumph for good over evil. The death of Rosa, the "start" for Jan and Juliane’s story, and the realization of the need to change by Maria, are all important in von Trotta’s constructs, and tell us about her wish to educate rather than entertain. This is further enhanced by the inclusion of documentary films in the pictures, such as Night and Fog and the images of war and soldiers marching in Rosa Luxemburg.

Where do the influences for von Trotta’s work come from, and what do they say about her artistic intentions? Schwestern, with themes of self-identity and of the protagonist constructing other characters into the vision of a loved one after they have died, links it closely to Hitchcock’s classic Vertigo. There is a Hitchcockian element to the way that voyeurism becomes a major theme in all her films, especially the prison scenes in Die Bleierne Zeit where the women are constantly being monitored, and in Rosa Luxemburg when she is on stage before a crowd. This forces the viewer to associate more importance to the characters and is an excellent dramatic device. The themes of sisterly opposites and rivalry in both Schwestern and Die Bleierne Zeitare also close to Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, albeit in a darker more modern context. Von Trotta here is adding intrigue and a study in identity and freedom for both oppressor and oppressed. Interestingly she makes the oppressive influence a woman; Maria’s change at the end signifies how von Trotta believes women can become influential without compromising their femininity. Rosa Luxemburg is influenced directly by the life of Luxemburg herself, but is adapted to convey messages that women’s careers are vulnerable to love and marriage. Die Bleierne Zeit is another real account, this time focusing on Gudrun Ensslin, one of the members of the far left Baader-Meinhof group, written from the point of view of her sister, Christiane. The fact that Christiane co-wrote the screenplay, and was frequently involved in production, shows von Trotta’s desire to achieve realism. The imagery and mise-en-scene can be said to be influenced by filmmakers like Bergman, yet I believe von Trotta truly found her own unique style in all her films, especially Die Bleierne Zeit.

In conclusion, von Trotta’s films achieve tremendous depth through her use of themes, and cinematic techniques to communicate those messages. It is often problematic to make assumptions about any artist based on the work they produce, especially in a collaborative medium like film, but a number of thoughts can be deduced. Von Trotta’s relationship with her mother drove her political leanings towards a feminist approach. Although she herself married, she was never bound down with that marriage and divorced only a few years later. Her desire for, and discovery of, a sister has influenced many of her films. The closest of female bonds, it can, under a patriarchal system, often lead to breakdown and competition. After all, if the societal systems sought by Marianne and Juliane were in place, there would not be a huge conflict or divide between them. The huge weight of the Nazi era has placed an enormous pressure on German artists to approach the subject with honesty. Von Trotta’s takes a new view of the Fascist era, by approaching it through a German woman’s eyes, and suggests in films like Rosa Luxemburgand Die Bleierne Zeit that without a significant change to the cultural and institutional systems which have been in place for hundreds of years, then a repetition of the horrors of World War two are inevitable. We could do worse than evaluate her warning, for Margarethe von Trotta may well be that stream which flows through the valley.

Works Cited

Acker, Ally. Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema. New York: Continum Pub. Co., 1991.

DiCaprio, Lisa. "Marianne and Juliane/The German Sisters: Baader-Meinhof Fictionalized." Perspectives on German Cinema. Terri Ginsberg and Kirsten Moana Thompson, eds. New York: G.K.Hall, 1996.

Silberman, Marc. German Cinema – Texts in Context. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Wydra, Thilo. Margarethe von Trotta – Filmen, um zu überleben. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2000.

Secondary Sources

Phillips, Klaus, Ed. New German Filmmakers – From Oberhausen Through the 1970s. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co, 1984.

Shandley, Robert R. Rubble Films – German Cinema in the Shadow of the Third Reich. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Web Site URLs

http://web.uvic.ca/geru/439/trotta_bio.html (Short von Trotta biography)

http://cityhonors.buffalo.k12.ny.us/city/rsrcs/eng/strcox.html (Commentary on the last paragraph of The Stranger, by Camus)