Cinema Development in Berlin - Essay Example

Berlin in Cinema Introduction Movies have always been connected to urban space. Films were born in the major cities of the world like Berlin, Paris, Hollywood and others. Cities continue to be the only spaces where all major film industries are located. Cities also serve as locations and subject matter for films. Cinema changes the way we discern our cities, converting familiar sights into icons or truisms, re-imagining streets and environs and the people that inhabit them. The city has always occupied a special space in cinematic space and history. In October 1888 the French inventor Louis Le Prince shot the first experimental movie clip ever of Leeds Bridge and the urban activity all around it. Thus the first cinematic clip was that of a city. Cinematic images of cities shed light on the past and future of urban spaces the crises and sensations of the inhabitants of the city are projected through cinema's endless capacity to contrast the urban and corporal (Barber, 2002) Wim Wenders' 'Der Himmel 'ber Berlin /Wings of Desire' (1987) and Tom Tykwer's 'Lola rennt/Run Lola Run' (1998) are two films which showcase the city of Berlin. The former portrays the divided Berlin of the cold-war era and the latter the modern city after the reunification of Germany and its capital. The city of Berlin The city of Berlin possesses a unique history which has always been entwined with European history. At the start of the twentieth century Berlin desired to replace Paris and London as the leading European metropolis and become the cultural capital of Europe. After Hitler's coming to power, it became the place where the destiny of millions of people was decided. This era of Berlin's history is its most shameful and old Berliner's have tried to erase this period from their city and memory both. After the Second World War the devastated city was separated into East and West Berlin and thus became a unique place where communism and capitalism were confronting each other. The icon of the division, the Berlin Wall, was erected in 1961, and was dismantled in 1989, which smoothed the way for reuniting Germany in 1990. In 1991 Berlin was named the capital of the new unified state of Germany. Nowadays Berlin has changed drastically and claims to be the city of the future and is known all over the world for its ambitious architectural projects and bold decisions in urban planning. It has re-invented itself a dozen times and continues to do. The new city of Berlin is a symbol of defeat of both communism and its Nazi past and hope and development for the future. Berlin and cinema Berlin is also famous as a city from the point of view of its various world famous portrayals in text and film, starting with 'Berlin: Symphony of a Great City'(1927) by Walter Ruttmann and 'Alexanderplatz' by Alfred D'blin (1929) to the modern 'Wings of Desire' (1987) by Wim Wenders' and 'Run Lola Run' (1998) by Tom Tykwer's. Since the 1960's artists have arranged artworks and shows in the public areas of the city which criticized the cold war order and institutions, and later on the frantic attempt by the German regime to erase the past after fall of the Berlin Wall. Portraying Berlin means looking at a city that has undergone remarkable changes over the last century in which an emperor was banished and a new republic was created then failed, being followed by a Nazi dictatorship ending up in Germany's division which has now been overcome, but, naturally left its scars. Additionally, capitals and their self-perception are of enormous importance to a nation's identity, which is especially true for Berlin, a city owning the status of a 'full-blown metropolis, unlike any other German city' (Clarke, 2006:151) Since 1945 the film industry has put singular emphasis on screening a city's development, in chronological as well as in visual terms. Inversely a city itself can project a definite cinematic class which can be experienced in daily life. James Donald, in his sociology of the city imaginary, says that cinema has educated 'audiences across the globe ways of seeing and so imagining the modern city, whether or not they live in one. The imagined landscape of the city has become, inescapably, a cinematic landscape' (Donald, 1999: 68). Wings of Desire - The Story Wim Wenders' 'Wings of Desire' is the story of two angels Damiel and Cassiel. Both have always existed as angels in the space of Berlin even before it was a city, and in reality before there were any human beings on the planet. Damiel the angel wants to enter the material world, as he is tired of being only a spectator, he wants to partake in life, to smell, to taste, to feel, to make a mistake. He falls in love with a lonesome trapeze artist Marion. She looses her job in the circus and feels desperate, prompting Damiel to take the decision to become a human. He meets Marion at a bar and they start a new life together. Wings of Desire and Berlin At first, the city of Berlin may not seem a very likely contender for a 'city of angels.' But Wim Wenders made this German city the star of this homage to hopefulness and the theory of guardian angels. The actors work in locales that co-star with the humans in the movie. Berlin's immense public library, the Staatsbibliothek, in particular, is prominent as a meeting place for the angels, a church that is full of books and the thoughts of the readers. The no-man's land the old man wanders is the dead zones and bordering the Berlin wall. He is looking for the Potsdammer Platz, which has been obliterated by the changes wrought by the war and the subsequent division of the city as East Berlin and West Berlin. Of course, the Berlin Wall (that no one making the film ever expected to fall in their lifetimes) also stars in the movie. Both the genuine Wall's west side and a replica of the no-man's-land on the east side (filming in East Berlin was not possible) also star in Wings of Desire. Run Lola Run - The Story The film features three acts or 'runs', in which the same event, that of Manni losing the mob's money, is the starting point of Lola's three runs to save him by getting the cash. The first two runs are unsuccessful. Lola and Manni are both fatally injured during the film. Lola is hurt at the end of the first run and Manni at the end of the second run. These injuries trigger two breaks in the story that show Manni and Lola lying together in bed. In the first break, Lola, asks Manni if he loves her. When he says 'Sure I do', she asks him how he can be sure and a dialogue ensues. During the second break, Manni and Lola's positions are reversed. Manni questions Lola about how lasting her love is. He poses the theoretical question about what she would do if he died''.. Only the last run is successful. Lola never weakens in her resolve and will not let any obstacles thwart her from saving Manni and keeping their love intact. As Maurcie Yacowar points out 'Lola has always claimed that love can solve any problem; Manni virtually dares her to save him' (Yacowar, 1999: 558). The sheer strength of Lola's will permit her to restart the story twice and to win at the roulette table. Even though the three runs are shown as alternative realities, there are a number of events which are logical only if the three runs take place in sequence. For instance, in the first run, a jumpy Lola is shown by Manni how to use a gun, whereas she does this as if remembered from a previous experience in the second run. Lola's meetings with Schuster also have an air of the paranormal. Run Lola Run and Berlin While Run Lola Run does not overtly indicate that the space of action is in Berlin, audiences are clear of the setting; a recurring establishing shot of the Friedrichstrasse U-Bahn stop, which is a central commuting street near the Brandenburg Gate in the former East Berlin (which has undergone much renovation since 1990), begins each incident of the film. The setting of the movie is also implied by the use of the Berlin dialect in the dialogue of the film. The city is clearly identified as Tykwer often films scenes at clearly-marked street junctures which classify particular locations throughout eastside and Westside of united Berlin. The audience can see that Lola escapes her father's bank during one of the runs and faces Unter den Linden and several scenes unfold on the banks of the river Spree. Again, Lola sprints between the Altes Museum and the Berlin Cathedral, all of which point to Berlin as the city of Run Lola Run. (Mesch, 2000) Berlin vs. Berlin In his article on the elusive cinematic city, Colin McArthur argues the 'substantial discursive presence' of renowned cities, that is, an extensively held common perception of a city's collective identity (McArthur, 1997: 19-20). This 'presence' can alter over time, but each era will have its own particular image of a city.' This concept can be applied to Berlin, a city with such a 'presence' within the national German imaginary, and internationally as well. The ways in which cities are depicted can be classified in different ways. There are two main ways to project a city, the director can either try to create a realistic portrait of the city as Wim Wenders has done or reject this by setting up a fictional image of a city somewhat like what Tim Tykwer has done in Run Lola Run. As dissimilar as they are in manner and appearance, Wings of Desire and Run Lola Run both are set in Berlin. Wenders' Berlin is a forlorn, drab, historically divided city, while Tykwer's Berlin is a throbbing, reunified metropolis. Berlin is unquestionably visible in both films; there is no ambiguity with regard to the setting, even though the use of that visibility is different in each film. Wings of Desire is more obviously a Berlin film as it uses well-known landmarks. In many films such landmarks serve merely to establish the location but in Wings of Desire, these landmarks serve as home to the angels. Moreover these locales - the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ged'chtniskirche), the Victory column (Siegess'ule), the Berlin Wall - cannot be separated from Germany's socio-political history; they summon the image of a city that has shaped, and been shaped by, history. These historical signs are further reinforced by images of Cassiel's remembrances of war-time Berlin, by the footage of a film starring Peter Falk that is placed in 1945 Berlin, and by the memories of Homer, who searches for the Potsdamer Platz of his recollection but finds only a barren field. Berlin is also recognizable in Run Lola Run but unlike Wings of Desire only a few historical landmarks are seen. Lola runs through streets and past buildings that are part of Berlin, but which are at opposite locations. The audience sees Lola crossing Friedrichstrasse, Unterden Linden and Gendarmenmarkt, passing Oberbaumbruecke (in East Berlin), Humboldt University, entering the Zeughaus (instead of the Deutsches Historisches Museum it hosts the casino.) and lastly reaching Prenzlauer Berg. These routes are geographically inaccurate so that Berlin seems like a puzzle. The routes Lola is following are fictional, as it would be impossible to reach all these places within 20 minutes. (Ossenbr'gge, 2007/8:6) The film produces an edited, compressed side of the city. As Margit Sinka points out, this collage of sites is geographically incredible and thus results in a really new, unified Berlin on the screen. (Sinka, 2000) Berlin has often been characterized, in visual art and in cinematic imagery, as the modern metropolis; the Expressionist and Dadaist painters, Fritz Lang, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Walter Ruttmann all depict it as the city that led the modernization of Europe. Run Lola Run portrays its setting, Berlin, as a virtual world obstacle course or environment that is usually allied with interactive computer games. The uncanny barrenness of the Berlin of Run Lola Run is like a fantasy projected onto a modern city which has been called the lone largest construction site in Europe. Conclusion A movie's ability, by way of editing, montage, and other procedure, to demonstrate the motion and ordered chaos of city life, has generated a widely-held outlook that cinema is the ideal medium for representing the city. Ezra Pound has noted that 'in the city the visual impressions succeed each other, overlap, overcross, they are cinematographic', whereas 'the life of the village is narrative' (quoted in Donald 1999: 74) Wings of Desire and Run Lola Run provide new narratives in which the protagonists travel through the city as they try to fashion new stories for themselves. Though the two Berlins are different, Wenders' Berlin reveals an intimacy that Tykwer's obstacles disallow. Wings of Desire has become a really historic document. Many of the film's locales, shot in West Berlin when the Wall was still standing, have vanished like the Wall itself. Thus the movie Wings of Desire has become a visual record of many things that vanished along with the Berlin. On the other hand Berlin in Run Lola Run, in the historical context, can be considered as city in between two time periods. It is also represented as a virtual or fictional city in which the film's structure is very similar to that of a video game. Just like a character in a video game, Lola dies several times before figuring out how to 'beat the level.' That this can be done in the city of Berlin speaks to the enormous sense of opportunity and promise which this urban space continues to hold in our imaginations. ' Films Tykwer, Tom (1998) Lola rennt. X-Filme Creative Pool. Wenders, Wim (1987) Der Himmel 'ber Berlin. Road Movies Filmproduktion. Bibliography Barber, S., Projected Cities: Cinema and Urban Space, (London: Reaktion, 2002) Yacowar, Maurice (1999) Run Lola Run: Renn for Your Life. Queen's Quarterly, 106, 557-65. David Clarke, German cinema: Since unification (London: Continuum, 2006), p. 151 Donald, James (1999) Imagining the Modern City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McArthur, Colin (1997) Chinese Boxes and Russian Dolls. Tracking the Elusive Cinematic City. In: David B. Clarke (ed.) The Cinematic City. London and New York: Routledge, 19-45. Mesch, Claudia. (2000) Racing Berlin: the games of Run Lola run. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(3). Accessed on April 21, 2009 ([your date of access]). Ossenbr'gge, Julia. (2007/8) Images of Berlin in Film: The School of Historical Studies Postgraduate Forum E-Journal Edition 6, 2007/08. p. 6 Sinka, Margit (2000) Tom Tykwer's Lola rennt: A Blueprint of Millennial Berlin. glossen, 11. 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