Requiem (Germany, 2006) AS/A2 Film and Media Study Guide Dir. Hans-Christian Schmid Written by Maggie Höffgen Requiem (Germany, 2006) AS/A2 Film and Media Study Guide Requiem (Germany, 2006) AS/A2 Film and Media Study Guide Dir. Hans-Christian Schmid Introduction 1. Curriculum References WJEC A2 Film Studies: Requiem is suitable for the small-scale research project in FS4, where it can serve as the focus film, with reference to two other films which deal with a related topic: The Exorcist, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Obvious points of comparison would be genre, star/performer or auteur. In FS5, World Cinema, Section A, the emerging New Wave of German Cinema could provide a focus of study, in Section B, Requiem could be used for close textual study. In FS6, Critical Studies, Section A, The Film Text and Spectator: Specialist Studies, the focus could be on ‘Shocking Cinema’, again comparing Requiem to The Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Another possible focus could be ‘Genre and Authorship’. AS/A2 Media Studies: Requiem is a contemporary film suitable for discussion in relation to media language and narrative or as the focus for critical research/independent study. 2. Themes The film deals with themes such as mental illness, religious issues, social issues, family, relationships, young people, closed communities. Credits Requiem Germany 2005 Crew Director and Producer Hans-Christian Schmid Screenplay Bernd Lange Cinematography Bogumil Godfrejow Set Design Christian M. Goldbeck Editing Hansjörg Weissbrich Running Time 93 mins BBFC certificate 12a UK Distribution Soda Pictures Cast Michaela Klingler Sandra Hüller Karl Klingler Burghart Klaussner (father) Marianne Klingler Imogen Kogge (mother) Helga Klingler Friederike Adolph (sister) Hanna Imhof Anna Blomeier (university friend) Stefan Weiser Nicholas Reinke (boyfriend) Gerhard Landauer Walter Schmidinger (parish priest) Martin Borchert Jens Harzer (young priest) Requiem (Germany, 2006) AS/A2 Film and Media Study Guide Director Hans-Christian Schmid was born in 1965 in the small town of Altötting in Bavaria, a place of devout Catholicism and pilgrimage. However, he did not grow up in a Catholic family. His parents were liberals who brought him up accordingly. The 1980s in Germany were characterised by massive protests against NATO decisions to deploy nuclear weapons directed at the Eastern Bloc on German soil. (Those were still the days of the Cold War, something we cannot imagine any more nowadays!) The fight against things nuclear was also directed at power stations in Germany and nuclear waste storage. Hans- Christian Schmid went to a left-wing grammar school, and was more interested in peace demonstrations and the Green Party than in going to church. However, the strong impressions made on him by his Catholic surroundings remained with him and inspired some of his interests as a filmaker. Schmid studied at the Munich Academy of Television and Film, where he specialised in documentary filmmaking. In his graduation film of 1992 he turned for the first time to the topic of “organised devoutness” in his place of birth. Subsequently he received a scholarship for a scriptwriting workshop in Los Angeles, where he met Michael Gutmann, who became a long-time collaborator on Schmid’s screenplays. His debut film was made for television in 1994, and dealt again with Image: Director Hans-Christian Schmid religion, exploring the influence of a Christian sect on a young girl and the consequences of religious fanaticism. For his next three films he turned to the subject of youth. Apart from “growing pains” all of them also dealt with family values and social reality in contemporary Germany. The first of these was a comedy:It’s a Jungle Out There (1995), in which the 17-year-old daughter of a relatively well-to-do family in rural Bavaria runs away to the big city, just for one day, for a singing audition. For this film he discovered Franka Potente, who went on to become Germany’s new face in film (and later was the flame-haired heroine of Run Lola Run of 1998). From this film onwards the film festivals and critics in Germany took note of Schmid, not least for his ability to spot new acting talent. His next film, 23 (1998), was a much darker piece – set in the 1980s, against the Cold War, he tells the story of a troubled young man who becomes a successful computer hacker working for the KGB. Ultimately though, his obsessions become paranoia, and he sees conspiracies everywhere. The film ends with him committing suicide. This was also Schmid’s first film to be based on true events, an approach that he would employ in all his subsequent films. When working on Crazy (2000), a more light-hearted film about a young man’s difficulties in life, he already knew that he would from now on turn to other issues. He became interested particularly in ensemble pieces, and set out to make an episodic film, Lichter (2003), which told several stories about different characters, unified by the geographical setting and by events unfolding over approximately 36 hours. The setting is the German-Polish border, the characters are refugees from the Ukraine, a poor Polish taxi driver, and Germans who either use the border “between rich and poor” (Schmid) to their own advantage or who suffer adversity themselves. It is a powerful portrayal of life on the Image: Crazy (2000) margins, made even more powerful by its observational style and non- melodramatic approach. Schmid as Auteur “I am interested in stories that reflect German reality and my own social environment. However, I am not interested in reproducing reality, but more in interpreting it, in the subjective approach of the author.” This quote of Schmid’s is a succinct statement of his approach. How does it work? Several aspects contribute to the successful implementation of this vision. They can be found in his visual (and aural!) style, his work with actors, the stories he unearths and the way he transforms them into screenplays: There is a clear development towards a more and more distinctive visual style in Schmid’s films over the years. This is evident above all in his camera work. He tends to use handheld cameras which can be used very flexibly to create an immediacy and 2 Requiem (Germany, 2006) AS/A2 Film and Media Study Guide authenticity usually found in documentaries. His mise-en-scène looks “unstructured” but is actually carefully worked out to achieve this authentic look. The documentary feel is emphasised by his use of sound. Again there is a development in his work towards less and less extra-diegetic sound. Quite strikingly in Lichter, there is merely a hint of composed film music, mainly just a few notes on the piano. In Requiem music from the 1970s does play an important role. But it is sparsely used to reflect the mood of the time. Schmid insists that composed film music often patronises the viewer. Schmid is much noted for his work with actors. For him casting is, next to the screenplay, the most important aspect of filmmaking. In each of his films he has cast non-professional actors alongside theatre actors whose first foray into film acting it was, and, like many other auteurs, has over the years established an ensemble that he works with regularly. Throughout his work we can trace his interest in “German reality”. In his earlier films he focused on young people and what it is like to grow up in contemporary Germany. There is a strong sense of social and political issues embedded in most of his films, e.g. in 23 the young man is involved in protest actions against nuclear waste storage – a prevalent issue in Germany in the 1980s. In Lichter Schmid focuses on issues of immigration. In addition, from 23 onwards, his young people always grapple with more than growing up, they suffer from mental problems, physical disability, lack of family life, and in Requiem, an excessive religious upbringing. Schmid keeps his eye firmly on social reality, in every detail of his representation. Image: Lichter (2003) The New Wave Hans–Christian Schmid is part of a renaissance of German cinema, which has cautiously begun to be termed “New Wave”. Some New Waves come about because a group of filmmakers decide they are going to do things differently to the way they were done before – e.g. the French New Wave, the Young German Cinema of the sixties/seventies, or the Dogme 95 filmmakers. Others emerge more slowly, without a manifesto, they are part of a wider change in a society or culture, and this where the New German Wave is situated. Germany, which was reunified in 1990 after 50 years of separation into an Eastern Bloc state (the GDR) and a Western democratic state (FRG) has gone through tremendous changes in the last 15 years or so. It has experienced a strong economic downturn with the inevitable results of hardship for many. Reunification of the two Germanys has brought about other social issues; the process of growing together is still going on. These issues have been given a strong voice in film culture by young directors from east and west Germany. There are also issues around immigration, mainly from Turkey. Turkish immigrants have been coming to Germany for more than forty years, but it is only recently that there have been significant self-representations ofTurkish-German filmmakers. A new film culture has developed all over Germany, with the main centres being Berlin, Munich and Hamburg, which also have renowned film schools. Germany’s federalism ensures that film-funding is spread around the country; every individual federal state has its own system of subsidies, which encourages local production, particularly of first features.