Goethe Institut is screening short films from 1960 to 1970, almost never seen in Chicago, by the doyen of New German Cinema. With titles like Feuerlöscher E.A. Winterstein, Porträt einer Bewährung, Lehrer im Wandel and Brutalität in Stein, Kluge demonstrates that he created some of the most convoluted and straight forward titles to his films.
Alexander Kluge received virtually every film and literature prize that Germany has to offer, and that is only partially due to his age. After his law degree in 1956, he was called “Adorno’s favorite son” (Oskar Negt), spearheaded the founding of the Neues Deutsches Kino and, with his legal background and his charisma held together a group of 25 individualist as Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Farocki, Schroeter, von Trotta, Syberberg, et al., publishing the Oberhausen Manifesto, famously declaring “Papas Kino ist tot” (Papa’s cinema is dead).
His films attempt to reflect the complications of post-war Germany, which means that you will hardly ever find a seamless narrative, since, according to Kluge, that is never realistic and lacks Zusammenhang (context). Instead you will find his ambitious protagonists going on tangents the audience is free to follow or ignore. “Der Film entsteht im Kopf des Zuschauers.” (AK)
“In his train of thought he remains the conductor” (Toni Kaes) and the audience is free to get off or follow Kluge, who, after all, chooses what we see and hear.
When: Wed, 09/07/2022, 8 PM
Where: Comfort Station Logan Square, 2759 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago
Language: German with English subtitles
Price: Free and open to the public
For more information, please visit www.goethe.de