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The Aesthetics of Violence and Power in Uli Edel's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

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The Aesthetics of Violence and Power in Uli Edel's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex SoltaU The AesTheTics of Violence And Power in Uli edel’s der Baader Meinhof KoMPlex Noah SOlTAu The uNIverSITy Of TeNNessee, KNOxvIlle The confluence of art, politics, and aesthetics Les relations entre art, politique, et esthétique has a troubled and troubling history, and ont, historiquement, toujours été troubles the article reflects on that by examining the et continuent de résister aux schémas aesthetics of Uli Edel’s film Der Baader Meinhof interprétatifs. Cet article propose de repenser Komplex in terms of its use of iconic historical ces relations à travers l’esthétique du film d’Ulli and—in terms of film history—stereotypical Edel: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, dont images. The absence of conventional narrative les images iconiques, représentatives d’une structures in the film opens it up to methods certaine période, et stéréotypées en termes of understanding and critique that use image d’histoire de la cinématographie, permettent de and montage as a means of analysis, rather renouveler ce débat. En l’absence de structure than examining a cogent (because absent) narrative conventionnelle, le seul recourt narrative. By cataloguing the use of different interprétatif possible repose sur une analyse genre conventions and iconic film images visuelle et structurelle du film. On s’aperçoit and tropes, the article points toward the que le catalogage des conventions et genres development of a “terror(ism)” genre. cinématographiques, des images iconiques et des tropes, tend vers le développement d’un genre de la terreur et du “terror(isme)”. 29 • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • IMAGINATIONS thE aESthEtIcS of VIolEncE and PowEr Uli Edel’s 2008 film, Der Baader Meinhof the head of the German police force Horst Komplex, is a montage of file-footage, fiction, Herold. And while he succeeds in his relentless filmic tropes, and political maneuvering. It pursuit of the young terrorists, he knows he’s purports to tell the story of the actions the RAF “only dealing with the tip of the iceberg.”1 took against the West German state without Already, then, the film is being framed both as taking a definite political, ethical, or moral a real, historical conflict between generational position. The film instead adopts an aesthetic German ideologies, and as action blockbuster position. According to the filmmakers, it is a and crime caper. While the film’s dust jacket “shredded drama,” with moments and images synopsis certainly boils down the action and “ripped” out of their context and put into a conflict of the film, it reflects neither the goals sort of “mosaic,” connected “in a different way of the filmmakers nor the structure of the film than a film where you identify with the main itself. character: here we have many people, and no ones [sic] to identify with” (Dittgen 26). A key to exposing the aesthetics of the film The filmmakers see the film as a “complex:” a are through the ideas of the “constellation,” constellation or collage, and not a traditional “mosaic,” and story-telling, which are narrative. The film opens itself to a wide all key concepts in the writings of Walter range of critical methods because it lacks a Benjamin. Benjamin wrote the following of traditional narrative, and it encourages the the confluence of art and politics in the early viewer to focus on moments and images as a days of film: “The logical result of Fascism method of story-telling. This focus on specific is the introduction of aesthetics into political images also allows critics to construct genre life…. All efforts to render politics aesthetic conventions and the social aesthetics of the culminate in one thing: war” (241).2 He was “terrorist film.” concerned that film would be used as a tool of Fascist institutions to incite and propagate Constantin Film, the production company for war, and he saw Communism as the antidote Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, sets up the to this poisoning of art: “This is the situation of action of the film in blockbuster style with the politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. following, “Germany in the 1970s: Murderous Communism responds by politicizing art” bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and (241).3 Both Benjamin and Theodor W. the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the Adorno argued that “cultural forms like films very foundations of the yet fragile German can provide ‘dialectical images’ that illuminate democracy.” The “radicalized children of the their social environments” (Kellner 16). Nazi generation,” lead by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), Ulrike Meinhof (Martina This early consideration of the confluence of Gedeck), and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna art, politics, and aesthetics serve the discussion Wokalek), are fighting a violent war against of Der Baader Meinhof Komplex and films what they perceive as “the new face of like it, both fictional and “documentary.” fascism: American imperialism supported by These films aestheticize political life. However, the German establishment,” many of whom they can also politicize art, if Uli Edel can be have a Nazi past. Their ostensible aim is to taken at his word. The confluence of these forge a better and more humane society, but opposing aesthetic and political tendencies by employing inhuman means, they not only in one film opens a critique of film based “spread terror and bloodshed, they also lose on its aesthetic choices, and also allows for their own humanity.” Setting up a classic thriller discussion of the possibility of a “terror(ism)” motif, the synopsis continues, as “the man film genre. The development of a genre points who understands them is also their hunter:” to an aesthetic code and a cultural sensitivity IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • 30 SoltaU that exist beyond the individual film maker have with one another, and with our social or cultural and historical context. Critics and political environment. If film is a visual can uncover these codes and sensitivities relationship between people, or between by examining films about “terrorists” and groups of people, then those images can be looking at the qualities those films share with revelatory and deserve attention beyond or other genres and the tools the film makers use despite their role as spectacle. Film, then, is to tell the story. In this particular case, the not just entertainment, though many film representations of and relationships between critics have argued that that is all Der Baader Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Ulrike Meinhof Komplex is. Meinhof create relationships to other genres, and those genres in turn have an aesthetic Der Spiegel criticizes the film harshly, saying code and grammar that bears on this film. it was “‘event cinema without impetus […] These relationships, this social aesthetic, could behind the action and the film’s finesse hides lead to the development of a new genre, or a history lesson that lacks a clear position’ at least a heightened awareness of the effects (September 18, 2008)” (Gerhardt 60). While terrorism has on a culture. this statement criticizes the clarity of the film, it also reveals the political and aesthetic For-profit depictions of left-wing terrorism positions the filmmakers develop through their in a capitalist police-state have a multitude work. The lack of an ethical or aesthetic one- of intrinsic political problems and sources, liner calls into question not only the actions and there are tensions between totalitarian of the terrorists, but those of their antagonists, impulses on both sides. Critics may emphasize and the conditions that fostered their extremist the political and aesthetic messages and tropes violence. It also allows the film’s audiences to of the films as a method of cultural critique, develop their own positions. which reveals the hidden system of signs and signifiers through which we (as a culture) Walter Benjamin could not and did not foresee represent terror, the state, political action, the way film would continue to develop, and and rebellion. The social aesthetic of the film his binary notion of film’s role in politics and tells us not only about the historical events culture demands reconsideration. However, it depicts, but also about the culture and his idea that a spectator of mass media or political climate in and for which the artwork entertainment can become an expert and a was produced. According to Karin Bauer, this critic capable of nuanced insight has proven aesthetic constellation is all the critic and true, and is liberating to the audience and audience can hope to grasp: “The RAF is professionals in the field (Kellner 46). In order not simply a terrorist group founded in 1970 to decode and confront the “terror(ism)” film, and disbanded in 1998, but a continuing and though, newer and more nuanced theories of continuous spectacle performed in the public politics, culture, and mass media prove useful. sphere” (3). By re-contextualizing some of the films iconic images, drawing parallels across genre, and The spectacle has diverse political and examining the aesthetic, social, and political aesthetic sources, and, to draw on Guy messages of those images and genre, the critic Debord’s concept of the hegemonic spectacle, and viewer can glean useful insight even it is “a social relationship between people that from a film in which “detail overwhelmed is mediated by images” (12). If that is true, any analysis: ‘For all the action, attacks and then by examining film, we can come to a assassinations, there is barely any time to better understanding of the relationships we breathe, because all the slogans and rallying 31 • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • IMAGINATIONS thE aESthEtIcS of VIolEncE and PowEr cries that one knew from the era had to be This allows a sympathy toward and an tallied up, all the images recreated’ (Frankfurter understanding of the on-screen figures that Allgemeine Zeitung, September 24), indicative the historical ones would likely not enjoy.
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