© 2012 Katrin Polak-Springer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE HAUNTED PUBLIC SPHERE: WOMEN AND THE POWER OF EMOTION IN THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER KLUGE AND THE FILMS OF THE BERLIN SCHOOL By KATRIN POLAK-SPRINGER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in German Studies written under the direction of PROF. FATIMA NAQVI and approved by PROF. MICHAEL LEVINE PROF. MARTHA HELFER PROF. GABRIELE SCHWAB New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Haunted Public Sphere: Women and the Power of Emotion in the Works of Alexander Kluge and the Films of the Berlin School By KATRIN POLAK-SPRINGER Dissertation Director: Prof. Fatima Naqvi My dissertation sheds light on the German filmmaker and author Alexander Kluge and his ideas on filmmaking as they evolved out of his conception of the public versus the private spheres since the early 1960s. It was Kluge’s contention that personal experiences of war and violence could not be expressed publicly in the postwar Federal Republic, causing a rift between the two realms and a haunting presence of trauma within individuals and society as a whole. What Kluge, in cooperation with Oskar Negt, called “alternative public sphere” in Public Sphere and Experience (1972) and History and Obstinacy (1981) is closely linked to Woman and so-called “proletarian” forces countering instrumental reason and the bourgeois cultural matrix. Analyzing four crucial films from Kluge’s creative work, I outline the increasingly allegorical role of his concept of “female mode of production,” which constitutes Kluge’s aesthetics and thematic focus. How the ideas of “alternative public sphere” and “female mode of production” are linked to the cinema and Kluge’s theory of film is the focus of another chapter that scrutinizes Kluge’s recent literary compilation Cinema Stories (2007). Finally, I read a selection of contemporary German films considered the new filmic avant-garde through the lens of ii Kluge’s approach to film, to the “female mode of production,” and to the public sphere. This allows me to compare the ethics, the formal and political attitude of the so-called Berlin School directors to the vanguard movement of Young German Film in the sixties and early seventies. I conclude that the filmic Autoren today deal with a similar problem as Alexander Kluge has done throughout his career, namely the dissociation of personal, lived experience from public representation. They also employ formal and thematic strategies that can be related to the thoughts behind the Oberhausen generation of German filmmakers. While the generation of the leftist student movements sought public recognition of the atrocities committed under National Socialism, the Berlin School directors deal with mediated experience in times of media and finance corporatism as virtual realities threaten to take over the empiric world. iii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the motivation, intellectual inspiration and generous support of the German Program at Rutgers University, chaired by Prof. Martha Helfer. I owe my deepest gratitude to my mentor and advisor Prof. Fatima Naqvi. Not only did her suggestions and enthusiasm encourage my initial interest in Alexander Kluge and German film in general, but her comments and advice made the final draft what it is. I am also deeply indebted to the encouragement and patience of my family and friends. My husband Peter has been supportive in numerous ways, making possible extended stays in Berlin, which facilitated my research on the Berlin School, and editing many scripts and parts of my preliminary work. I furthermore would like to thank Prof. Nicola Behrmann and Prof. Gabriele Schwab for their continuing support, crucial advice, and constructive criticism. The sections on Christoph Hochhäusler’s film This Very Moment and Sören Voigt’s Identity Kills are based on two articles I previously published in Focus on German Studies 16, 2009 ("Eine Qualität, von der man weiß, dass es sie schon einmal gegeben hat. Young Berlin filmmakers on the trail of New German Cinema.") and Edge 2, 2010 (“On the difficulties of letting the other speak. The German- Polish relationship in Christoph Hochhäusler’s Milchwald.”). The peer reviewing and editing process for both articles was extremely helpful to the development of my thoughts about the Berlin School. I am indebted to the editors of these volumes, who worked with me over several years. Finally, the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature at Washington University, in particular Prof. Michael Lützeler, enabled my constant academic growth, making possible two stays in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv iv Marbach as part of its summer week end seminars, as well as funding my participation in the 2010 symposium marking 25 years of the Max Kade Center. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi List of Illustrations vii Introduction 1 I. Kluge, Modernism, and the Avant-Garde 23 II. Of Women and Machines: The “Counter Public Sphere” 48 Yesterday Girl (1966) 58 Part-Time Work of a Domestic Slave (1973) 76 The Patriot (1979) 89 The Power of Emotion (1983) 108 III. A Case Study: Geschichten vom Kino 122 “Primitive Diversity”: Anarchy of Projection 123 “Ein Vaterland außerhalb des Realen“: Woman and the Cinema 139 “Unfilmed Images”: Cinema in the Head of the Reader 157 Self-Reflections: Kluge on Young German Film 165 IV. “Nouvelle Vague Allemande”: The Films of the Berliner Schule 175 The world SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE: Christian Petzold’s Yella 178 Defying bourgeois family structures: Hochhäusler’s This Very Moment 197 Becoming specter: Sören Voigt’s Identity Kills 222 Bibliography 242 vi List of Illustrations Figure 1: Michel Duchamp The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even 43 Figure 2: Abschied von gestern 00:00:52 60 Figure 2: Abschied von gestern 00:00:09 61 Figure 4: Abschied von gestern 00:01:23 63 Figure 5: Abschied von gestern 00:05:14 63 Figure 3: Abschied von gestern 00:16:08 66 Figure 4: Abschied von gestern 00:44:49 67 Figure 5: Abschied von gestern 01:01:52 72 Figure 6: Abschied von gestern 01:02:23 73 Figure 7: Abschied von gestern 01:21:08 74 Figure 8: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:03:09 77 Figure 9: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:00:04 79 Figure 10: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:17:38 82 Figure 11: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:16:45 84 Figure 12: Ludwig Richter drawing in Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00: 21: 41 85 Figure 13: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:17:43 86 Figure 14: Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin 00:07:17 88 Figure 15: Die Patriotin 00:00:15 96 Figure 16: Die Patriotin 00:00:31 97 Figure 17: Die Patriotin 00:10:38, 00:11:04 99 Figure 18: Die Patriotin 01:00:27 101 Figure 19: Die Patriotin 00:31:41 102 vii Figure 20: Die Patriotin 00:01:50 104 Figure 21: Die Patriotin 00:51:54 105 Figure 22: Die Macht der Gefühle 00:52:52 110 Figure 23: Die Macht der Gefühle 00:03:12 119 Figure 24: Die Macht der Gefühle 00:04:08 120 Figure 25: Geschichten vom Kino 12-13 127 Figure 26: Geschichten vom Kino 59 148 Figure 27: Geschichten vom Kino 120 152 Figure 28: Geschichten vom Kino 75 156 Figure 29: Geschichten vom Kino 228 157 Figure 30: Geschichten vom Kino 254. 166 Figure 31: Geschichten vom Kino 271 172 Figure 32: Die Lücke die der Teufel lässt 6 179 Figure 33: Yella 00:00:10 181 Figure 34: Yella 00:07:20 184 Figure 38: Yella 01:12:19 189 Figure 35: Yella 01:12:27 189 Figure 36: Yella 00:30:05 190 Figure 37: Yella 00:30:18 190 Figure 38: Yella 00:18:52 194 Figure 39: Yella 00:18:50 194 Figure 40 Milchwald 00:01:37 207 viii Figure 41: Milchwald 00:09:26 209 Figure 42: Milchwald 01:02:30 211 Figure 43: Milchwald 00:43:42 215 Figure 44: Milchwald 01:12:52 218 Figure 45: Milchwald 01:20:18 219 Figure 46: Milchwald 01:20:46 219 Figure 47: Milchwald 01:24:08 212 Figure 48: Identity Kills 00:00:33 225 Figure 49: Identity Kills 00:06:33 227 Figure 50: Identity Kills 00:16:39 229 Figure 51: Identity Kills 00:02:04 229 Figure 52: Identity Kills 00:02:11 230 Figure 53: Abschied von Gestern 00:21:26 231 Figure 54: Identity Kills 01:08:28 235 Figure 55: Identity Kills 01:15:50 238 Figure 56: Identity Kills 01:16:40 239 ix 1 Introduction Few other terms have shaped the discourse on culture and identity in the postwar Federal Republic as vigorously as the concept of “public sphere” (Öffentlichkeit). In fact, the rift between the “public” and “private” goes back to the European Enlightenment and the emancipation of the bourgeoisie from the absolutist state, a process that in Germany was perverted under fascism. In the 20th century, the German public sphere has largely been discussed in the context of Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit), published in 1962. The book describes the bourgeois public sphere as a historic phenomenon that is based on a shared symbolic matrix of culture, on practices of writing and reading. Individuals inaugurated into this discursive system are, in an idealized version, in a position to discuss matters of public interest freely, rationally and as equals.1 In the aftermath of the Second World War, the “public sphere” became a prime target in the Allied efforts to democratize West Germany through means of mass communication.