Masarykova univerzita

Fakulta sociálních studií

Urban Communication of Berlin through Movies

Diplomová práca

Viktória Bellová

Brno 2018 ​

Čestné prehlásenie/Declaration

Prehlasujem, že som túto diplomovú prácu vypracovala samostatne s použitím prameňov a literatúry uvedenej v bibliografii.

I declare that the following diploma thesis is my own work for which I used only the sources and literature mentioned.

V Brne, dňa 01.01.2019/Brno, 1st January 2019 ………………………..

Bc. Viktória Bellová

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Anotácia

Táto magisterská diplomová práca analyzuje hrané filmy, ktoré boli natočené v Berlíne a mali kinopremiéru po roku 2001. Ide celkom o štyri filmy; Victoria (2015), Oh Boy/A Coffee ​ ​ in Berlin/Ach chlapče (2012), Die Fremde/When we leave/Cudzinka (2010) a Die Fetten ​ ​ Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators/Občianska výchova (2004). Metódou priestorovej semiotickej analýzy, doplnenej o päť princípov formálneho systému filmu, ktoré uvádzajú filmoví kritici Kristin Thompson a David Bordwell a vychádzajúc zo základného delenia znaku podľa Charlesa Sandersa Peircea predstavuje táto práca obraz, ktorý o Berlíne vytvárajú režiséri analyzovaných filmov. Práca tiež približuje urbánnu komunikáciu ako relevantní disciplínu v rámci mediálnych štúdií.

Kľúčové slová

Znak; priestorová semiotická analýza; urbánna komunikácia; mediálne štúdiá; filmová analýza; nemecký film; Victoria; Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin/Ach chlapče; Die Fremde/When we leave/Cudzinka; Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators/Občianska výchova; výskumná práca

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Annotation

This diploma thesis is focused on the analysis of fictional movies shot in Berlin and premiered in cinemas after the year 2000. I analyze four movies: Victoria (2015), Oh Boy/A Coffee in ​ ​ Berlin (2012), Die Fremde/When we leave (2010) a Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The ​ ​ ​ Educators (2004). With the use of spatial semiotics analysis in combination with the five principles of film formal system, introduced by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, and the typology of signs made by Charles Sanders Peirce, I try to discover what images of contemporary Berlin are portrayed by the directors of the selected movies. The thesis also represents urban communication as a relevant discipline within media studies.

Keywords

Sign; spatial semiotics; urban communication; media studies; film analysis; German film; Victoria; Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin; Die Fremde/When we leave; Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators; research thesis

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Acknowledgement

I would like to that you to my supervisor Tae-Sik Kim, Ph.D. for his valuable advices, and also to other professors on the department for their willingness and time. I also thank to my beloved ones, who have always supported me.

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Table of Content

Introduction 8

1 Theoretical Part 10 1.2 City as a Medium 10 1.3 City within Visual and Popular Culture 11 1.4 Collective Identity of the City 16

2 Contextual background 20 2.1 The “Haunted City” 20 2.2 The Image of Berlin 26 2.2.1 The “Always-Becoming City” 27 2.2.2 Destination Berlin 29 2.3 The Trend of Glocalization in Berlin 33

3 Methodology 35 3.1 Research Questions and the Aim of the Research 36 3.2 The Selected Movies 37 3.3 Spatial Semiotics 39 3.4 Analytical tools 44 3.4.1. Function 45 3.4.2. Similarity and Repetition 45 3.4.3 Difference and Variation 45 3.4.4 Development 46 3.4.5 Unity/Disunity 46 3.5 Urbanity 47 3.6 Symbol, Icon, Index 49 4.1 Victoria (2015) 50

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4.1.1 Function 51 4.1.2. Similarity and Repetition 52 4.1.3. Development 52 4.1.4 Urbanity 53 4.1.5. Summary 57 4.2 Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin (2012) 59 4.2.1 Function 59 4.2.3 Unity/Disunity and Development 61 4.2.4 Urbanity 62 4.2.5. Summary: 65 4.3 Die Fremde/When We Leave (2010) 68 4.3.1 Unity/Disunity and Function 68 4.3.2 Similarity and Repetition 70 4.3.3 Urbanity 71 4.3.4 Summary 73 4.4 Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators (2004) 76 4.4.1 Function 76 4.4.2 Repetition/Similarity 78 4.4.3 Unity/Disunity 79 4.4.4 Urbanity 79 4.4.5 Summary 82

5 Discussion 84

6 Conclusion 90

Bibliography 92

Word count: 25 727

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Introduction

What is achieved by communication is the ability of an individual to understand another one. Simultaneously, this understanding is the measure of the distance between each other. We live in times of visual culture, emerging in the images around us. The contemporary world, where we do our everyday actions, is an urban world. Cities are living organisms, depending on their dwellers and the contact between them. We make connections, perceive the proximity and distance between each other, we differentiate between us and them, we create expectations, and we recognize conventions, which make sense only in context, a context we had to learn before. The physical closeness and so the lack of space makes the existing mental distance even more perceivable. As a result, we live as and with strangers in a framed space, exchanging information permanently. The city is full of signs, we can read them thanks to our cultural background. With its transitive character, it communicates like a medium and enables us to exchange information, products and ideas.

For the purpose of this research, I will use the spatial semiotics analysis. In this study, I will have a further look on the public signs which are in contrast with the private space. The communication within the public space is never neutral. Space, as a semiotic phenomenon, suggests that its meaning, as a sign, is understood in relation to other concerns. Simmel (1924) wrote over a century ago about the complex and permanently changing metropolis. Similarly, other initial urban theorists, like Lefebvre (1991), Krase and Shortell (2008) or Lofland (1985, 2003) have claimed that people change the appearance of places and spaces. What is more, as they argue, through their everyday activities and by their presence they also change the meaning of the spaces. Most of the papers, concerned with the spatial semiotics analyse static pictures, for example by using photographic survey (Shortell & Krase, 2010). For the purpose of my research, I decided for the moving picture of film, as it is one of the most popular medium of popular culture. The aim of this research is therefore to examine

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what representation of Berlin is constructed in the selected movies by German and foreign directors. I will have a further look on the chosen city spaces for filming and explore what kind of atmosphere/myth of the city is portrayed in the movies. The acquisition of this paper is the application of the analytical tools of spatial semiotics on the communication of a city (in this case Berlin) in movies. As Farías (2007) points out, the city has gained several images, which make tourists visit the city again and again. The findings should reveal what kind of myths produce the filmmakers about the German capital, as it creates its distinctive image, which is mediated through the world.

This thesis is divided into four parts. The first one is the theoretical one, which brings the topic of urban communication closer to the scope of media studies. It introduces the city as a medium and the way how it appears in the visual and popular culture. It also explains how both history and memory transform the appearance of the city and how its image has been created, reshaped and further sold. The second, contextual part explains how the city-text of Berlin has been written and rewritten, especially through the twentieth century, and what are the consequences of within the image of current Berlin. Moreover, it also drafts out what is the medial representation of Berlin in foreign, German and local periodicals; which brings a better overview of how is the city perceived and mediated in the world. The third, methodological part proposes an aim, the main and additional research questions. It further explains the analytical tool I will work with; spatial semiotics, together with the five principles of the film formal system, introduced by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, and the typology of signs made by Charles Sanders Peirce. The fifth part of the thesis is the discussion of the findings; that is an analytical-reflexiv part, where I interpret the results of my film analyses.

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1 Theoretical Part

1.2 City as a Medium

With the development of technology in 20th century, many theorists came up with different understandings of a city in the world of media. Coming from the very basic definition of media, which “records, transmits and processes information” (Kittler, 1996: 772). The city is ​ not only connected to media technologies, but originally is a medium. In comparison, McQuire (in Chikamori, 2008) stays with more of the technology-based thinking of media, by contrast of the city as a built environment or a configuration of architectural structures. With this said, we should bear in mind the permanently dynamic character of a city. With the more omnipresent and mobile digital media which have infiltrated into the city causing the ‘real-time’ feedback in contrast to the technologies of the past, which were reporting about past events. The modern urban life reshaped picture of city from the old model of a city as a functional and traffic world, to the reshaped picture of the city as the host of modern urban life and the centre of culture (McQuire in Chikamori, 2008: 151). Moreover, modern city has lost its solid shape and was transformed into a ‘liquid city’ (McQuire, in Chikamori, 2008: 149). That means, the urban environment is designed to be adaptable, soft and flexible. That is because of the use of digital technology in the sphere of city planning and architectural design. For the consumer society is the loss of a sense of stability and permanence one of the most distinguishing features.

City is a combination of physical spaces. As people became richer, the consumer city was born (Glaeser, 2011) and people started to choose cities more based on their lifestyle. Consequently, they change their appearance by places of consumption and entertainment, through theaters, restaurants, cafés, cinemas, bars and so on. Interpersonal relations, financial activity or social networking (Giddens 1991; Meyrowitz 1985; Urry 2007 in Georgiou, 2010:

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344) are the examples of phenomena which are not part of those physical spaces described above, anymore. Difference became a distinct feature of urban life. Communication and transportation systems make ideas, people and products possible to move in and out of the city, making it transitive and porous. (Benjamin in Georgiou, 2010: 345) Additionally, the media redesign the city through the process of disembodying in ways that reproduce its universality as an organizational system of economic, cultural and social life (Georgiou, 2010).

1.3 City within Visual and Popular Culture

“The capitalist city is a space where everyone looks and acts alike, but thinks of him/himself ​ as an individual” (Shortell, 2016: 5). ​

American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce contributed to the creation of the modern semiotics by his understanding of a sign. He differentiated between the signs, regarding their motivation and their relation to the entity they stand for. Therefore, he introduced distinction between icon, index and symbol. Icons, as Peirce (in Chandlers, 2007: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 36) explains, are all of the signs, based on the similarity with the signified object (photographs, diagrams, etc.). As index we understand all of the signs, which are connected ​ with the signified on the basis of continuity (fever, which is an index of an illness, etc.), or they accrue on the linguistic level from the context (you, they, today, here, etc.). The last group, symbols, are the signs, connected with the signified only through conventions. ​ ​ Moreover, they are the closest to the Saussure´s understanding of verbal signs, because they do not have to exist in the moment, when they stand for something else. (Chandlers, 2007) Similarly as in linguistics, the focus was redirected from the ‘sentence’ to the ‘text’,

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especially its ‘context’, and from ‘grammar’ to ‘discourse’1. Fairclough (in Cingerová & Motyková, 2017) explains discourse not only as speech (in narrow understanding), but including also visual images. Visual communication bears something like its own ‘language’, within the same broad cultural formation. Though, it is drawn upon differently in different contexts. Following Halliday (in Van Leeuwen, 2005: 14), the set of semiotic choices which ​ ​ typify a given context is then called a semiotic register. ​

We live in the times of ‘visual culture’, the notion mostly used and spread the last two decades, with the implications of the ‘hyper-visuality’ of the contemporary everyday life, explained as: “the shared practices of a group, community, or society through which ​ meanings are made out of the visual, aural, and textual world of representations and the ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities” (Sturken and ​ Cartwright in Rose, 2013: 6). Similarly, as in the sense of the meaning in language, there is a process of production, reception and consumption of the image of a city happening. Significantly, the construction approach, presented by Hall (in Kokosalakis, Christina, et al. ​ ​ 2006: 391), portraits the image, as a product of previous knowledge of the place and own social and personal characteristics. Therefore, as the authors (2006) continue, we might say that place image is a representation of a social construction; it is a conglomerate of physical representations, situated in a structure of the representational and conceptual systems and values, of both the consumer and the producer of the image.

Film is a product of culture and it is a process. The participants are those who interpret and make sense of the world, claims Hall (in Rose, 2012: 2). The visual technologies of nowadays, included film, constantly transfer the world by visual terms. Notably, the visual as central view in contemporary Western societies represents the world around, so the visual

1 Discourse is not understood here as a set of signs (referring to elements that refer to content or ​ representations), but rather as a set of practices that create the objects they are talking about systematically. That is, as a constructive force. (Fairclough in Cingerová & Motyková, 2017: 38)

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culture is a part of our everyday life. Semiologist Lotman (in Ciel, 2011: 23) understands film as a semiotic system, where all of the objects are transformed to signs. So it is a telling of stories through images, appearing as signs. The viewer compares the signs with the real images or situations from his or her memory, with the foregoing and the following sequences, and at the same time with the images of different types, which might not appear in a film, but are concerned with the same or a similar object or situation. So a viewer uses his or her whole cultural encyclopedia, the memory, etc. Film as a medium plays with time sequences in a two-dimensional frame, where it represents the three-dimensional world where our senses are sources for sensory, and therefore semiotic input. Cinema transforms everyday spaces into touristic hot-spots (Keiller in Penz & Koeck, 2017: 27).

Melnyk (2008) uses an example of the English movie Breaking and Entering (2006), ​ where the metropole of London is shown simultaneously as a centre of gentrification2 and migration, the two phenomenons, which could be nowadays seen in many developed cities in the world. At the same time, London is proposed here to a viewer to be imagined as a ‘distinct ​ cultural entity’. The result of this is urbanity, embracing self-referential multiplicity. Morley ​ and Robins (in Rose, 2012: 25) come up with the term ‘Europeanness’, meaning that European audiovisual industry intends to compete with Japanese and US conglomerates. Besides that, the European Union is also keen to increase the consciousness of European people of the destiny and the life they have in common. As Rose (2012) arguments, this is a very narrow view, when by presenting differences between the Europe and the world, it elides divergence within Europe. The city creates a concept of its interior world. “The city was born in its mass ​ expansion, and from the beginning of cinematography it has also became its displayed object” ​ (Matějů & Štoll, 2006). Why did it become so attractive for many artists? The art of

2 The Cambridge Dictionary explains gentrification as “the process by which a place, especially part of a city, ​ ​ changes from being a poor area to a richer one, where people from a higher social class live.” Retrieved from ​ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gentrification

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filmmaking influenced not only culture, but also the perception and to some extend the way of living in the 20th century (Matějů & Štoll, 2006). That was connected to the turbulent development and the qualitative changes of urban space, happening at the same time. As Siegel (in Melnyk, 2008: 2) points out, “the cinema as commodity and art form has been ​ inextricably linked to the cultural and economic realities of the city.” ​

The city is a symbol of the development and its character stands for the Western culture. Notably, it is popular culture with its visual images, through which we construct a certain image in our minds. Film, literature, photography, art and other sort of media mass communication and end established symbols. From American movies and soap operas we get the image of Western society being more liberal than for example of an Asian society, which is considered more conservative. The result of an image of the city is communicated miles away from the actual location. So the potential features of a western city are shifted in media representations and in ways, bringing “the distant other into close proximity” (Silverstone in ​ ​ Georgiou, 2010: 347) to the imagined location.

Media representations make the city character porous and transitive (Amin and Thrift in Georgiou, 2010: 348). They represent it as a place of mystery, crime, excitement, diversity and where the sense of the unknown is part of everyday life. As Georgiou (2010) points out, there are many examples of those representations of images of the city in popular media productions, such as series CSI, Sex and the City or ER, placed in American cities. Notably, cities are chosen by the media as the locations for the stories, because of the attractiveness of the combination of the particular location, the unknown, with its original juxtapositions of uniqueness and the exciting. That is the reason, why action films and thrillers tend to be placed in big cities, where “the porous city is interpreted and represented as the ultimate ​ location of anomie, capturing the most widespread fears of crime, loss and social uncertainty.” (Macek in Georgiou, 2010: 348) ​ ​

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In her research, Huang (2011) looked at the reconstruction of Japanese-ness and Koran-ness in Taiwan, made by Taiwanese media, local consumers and business enterprises by studying how popular culture can help glamorize the image of a nation. Consequently, nation-branding has become attached into nation-building in the sense of globalization. It became not only an international marketing strategy, but also a pattern of consumption. Those global products, (Morley and Robin in Huang 2011: 4) penetrate to people's everyday practices, their shared tastes and habits. As an example she uses Hollywood films, received in many corners of the world.

Globalization is one of the most noticeable features of the modern city. By re-formulating of its own goals and changing of the development, it faces different challenges and changes its shape to the new world. Importantly, globalization is not a final stage, it is “a ​ process that facilitates, the extent and intensity, of any type of movement, communication or exchange beyond the geographical boundaries of a country.” (Bitsani 2014: 2). With the fall ​ of the Berlin wall there was an immediate opening to the world outside for those countries, closed in their little worlds (Madelin and Bichot in Bitsani: 2014: 2). By the words of Sassen (in Bitsani 2014: 7), globalization does not lead to de-localization, because of issues concerning local policies become global.

Notably, a destination image is the expression of all objective knowledge, prejudice, imaginations, emotional thoughts, and impressions of a group or individual about a particular place (Jenkins, 1999). The attribution of a ‘personality’ to the city has been a key aspect in the transformation of American cities into tourist destinations (Cocks in Farías 2007). Urban personalities made the city easily readable, available and intelligible, transformed it into a salable commodity. Wolfgang Kaschuba has described the production of urban identities as “a ​ cultural technique that is predominantly performed in certain societal spaces such as literature, tourism, mass media, pop culture, and history marketing.” (in Farías, 2007: 423) ​ For his research about the city of Berlin, Farías (2007) chose guidebooks, which are the

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devices that serve to stabilize the complex relations existing between identity and space, expectations and practices, semantics and materialities. On one hand, tourist guidebooks produce meaning without needing to be ‘in-place’ to make sense. On the other hand, they are also designed to be used in place, to inform practices of travelling, sightseeing, by indicating where to go and how to see the place.

1.4 Collective Identity of the City

“City is not a place, but a process.” (Castells in Georigiou 2010: 349) In the sense of exchanging the information, cities have roles of global networks. Through the meeting of consumption, travel, urban representation and transnational experience, the place and the process become closely connected. In an era of rapid urbanisation – a social process of which result is an increase of the citizens living in the cities and development of urban way of life – there is a distinctive amount of new researched disciplines, among them also urban sociology and urban communication. Modernisation and its result – modernism are the program visions of social progress, in connection with industrial and capitalist3 expansion. (Kaika, 2005) Modern life is focused in a city, it is growing and developing there.

“Urban spaces are filled with signs of collective identity” (Shortell & Krase, 2011). ​ ​ The French historian Pierre Nora (1989) distinguishes between memory and history. To go further, he divided lieux de mémoire, sites of memory from milieu de mémoire, real ​ ​ ​ ​ environments of memory. The memory is born in permanent evolution by living societies, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting (Nora, 1989). On the other side stands history, the reconstruction, which is always problematic and incomplete, it is a representation of the past. While memory roots in the concrete, in spaces, images, objects and gestures;

3 The Cambridge Dictionary explains capitalism as “an economic, political, and social system in which property, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ business, and industry are privately owned, directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ organizations and people.” Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/capitalism. ​

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history exists in temporal continuities, in the relations between things and in progressions. Memory stays absolute, while history appears relative (Nora, 1989). The markers of memory are also encoded into popular cultural practices like theatre groups, sports teams or bands, and the buildings that house these activities. “How diverse social groups ‘remember’ the history ​ of a city is crucial in the historical process and therefore in the making of identities in various social spaces.” (Bélanger, 2002: 72) In this context, memory can be rendered into ideology ​ when space and time are produced in the form of nostalgic images, or renovated heritage areas. Memories and urban places are not exclusively constituted by materiality. They exist as space where collective identity is acted out.

Diversity in a city is concentrated by migration and immigration. The result of globalisation is that ‘cultural strangers’ share together common environments. The residents communicate across the racial and cultural differences which end up in the behaviour in public places. The responses to exposure with people of different backgrounds emerge in two forms; one on the individual level and the second on the group level, whereby stereotypes and images (either positive or negative) play a much stronger role at the group level than among individuals. The consumption products of multiculturalism like food, art, media, parades, fairs or social networks communicate differences and in-differences between the people (Qadeer, 2016). With that said, we notice different trends of modern urbanity; for example the Mediterranization, when café terraces or urban beaches are installed in the city centers, supporting migrant traditions or art events, urban art and urban gardening, isolating of urban spaces and breaking the routines of urban everyday life. The differences between ‘native’ and ‘migrant’ or ‘private’ and ‘public’ partly disappear and rather turn to ‘intercultural’.

When looking closer to a destination-image, we should consider a term destination brand4. The aim of city or place branding is to create uniqueness. In this sense, the image of

4 Kotler (2002) defines brand as “a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to ​ ​ identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.” ​

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the city is considered as the key concept for both city identity and city branding. Notably, when discussing the work of re-presentation of urban scene, we should bear in mind that what, how, by whom and with what effects is pictured, because it represents both, the urban and the social scene. In her study, Rose (2015) uses an example with the work of Yasser Elsheshtaw about Dubai Behind an Urban Spectacle (Elsheshtawy, 2010). There she uses ​ attractive images with ‘stararchitecture’, sand and sun, through which the city sells itself to tourists and investors. In another chapter she also includes her own pictures of migrant workers, whose work and residential spots are invisible in the dominant imaginary of the city. That is, in a world in which the urban together with the economic and the social are more and more represented visually, the interpretive tools become more necessary and important (Rose, 2015).

The city became a platform, which brought total strangers together. As a result, we live in ‘the world in a city’ (Qadeer, 2016). In this world, there is a new form of strategic ​ ​ moralization emerging in, for example vegetarianism and fair-clothing style, declared to be ethically superior attitudes (Kaschuba, 2005). The way how its residents live, work, feed, entertain and clothe themselves is determined by the spirit of metropolis. In this sense, the notions of metropolis and Home (Heimat) appear to be contradictory. It is because of many class differences among the city residents of social status, origin, intellectual and material demands.

According to Mumford (1937: 94), “the city in its complete sense… is a geographic ​ plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity.” It is defined by symbolic dimensions of meaning, ​ emerging from the structure of space. What is then momentum, creating this kind of ‘theater of social action’? One depends on differences, i.e. his or her mind is stimulated by the difference between present impressions and those preceded (Simmel, 2012). These psychological conditions in combination with the tempo and multiplicity of economic,

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occupational and social life create the basis of mental life in a metropole in a deep contrast with the slower, more habitual and smoothly flowing rhythm of the sensory-mental phase of rural life and small towns. In his movie Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), with the ​ technique of montage, multiple dynamic shots of street life which picture the busy traffic, the movements of crowds, Walter Ruttmann illustrated the impression of the general confusion as a result of living in a metropole. For Simmel (2012), blasé outlook is then a consequence of the rapidly shifting stimulations: “the essence of the blasé attitude is an indifference toward ​ the distinctions between things” (Simmel, 2012: 14). They appear in homogenous colorless ​ light, with no one of them being preferred to another. It makes a person uninterested to what is going on around, because of frequent exposure or indulgence within a city.

When perceiving a city, we might follow the gaze of somebody, who Walter Benjamin (1999) called the ‘flâneur’. The flânerie is not only about visual experience activity from wandering through a city without any distinctive goal, but also about the changing of the whole perception system and dissolving into the other reality of the city (Chikamori, 2008) As the author of the collection of essays Walking in Berlin (1929) Franz Hessel (in Lauster, 2007: ​ 139) suggests, this includes delight in immersing oneself in the crowd, the object of observation, but also being viewed with suspicion. The physical closeness and so lack of space make intellectual distance very perceivable. This metropolitan crush of people produces such a loneliness, distinctive only for a big city. The world-wide shift towards individualized societies ended up in partial results of the ways of human communication. Alienation can therefore be explained as a feeling of estrangement from society. A flâneur attitude has 5 changed to blasé attitude.

5 The English Oxford Living dictionary describes blasé as “unimpressed with or indifferent to something because ​ one has experienced or seen it so often before.” Retrieved from ​ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/blase

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2 Contextual background 2.1 The “Haunted City”

As Tschumi (in Huyssen, 1997) puts it, “how can architecture, whose historical role was to ​ generate the appearance of stable images (monuments, order, etc.) deal with today's culture of the disappearance of unstable images (twenty-four-image-per-second cinema, video and computer-generated images)?” The city, as a visual product, is exchanged and sold around the ​ world and it is mainly reflected in representations of the new and the exciting. Big cities like London, Paris or Berlin as well as the smaller attractive ones became widely lived, branded and imagined through their transnational (mediated) and urban connections. Therefore, the urban space permanently dim between mediation and immediacy, and between stability and change (Georgiou, 2010). The Berliners are mostly divided into two groups; the one which wants to forget and another one, insisting on remembering. The buildings and the spatial arrangement are not only remainings of the history, but with monuments also a form of the city's identity. Notably, a collective identity is a combination of how are the visible structures treated, seen and remembered. Hordová (2006) comes up with the term ‘urban palimpsest’, which refers to a place, with the different layers of various architectonic styles from different eras, so the viewer perceive more time layers in particular space.

As Farías (2007) points out, Berlin´s geography, history and identity is performed, ordered and molded with a focus on division, destruction, tragedy, death, war and renewal. Contemporary Berlin is thus rendered into a landscape in which the burdens of the modern German history are inscribed in the form of voids, memorials, signs, fragments, ruins etc. “Buildings matter. So do statues, ruins, and even stretches of vacant land”, claims Brian Ladd ​ ​ (2008). In in his book Ghost of Berlin (1997), he proposed the image of Berlin being a ​ ​ “haunted city”, connecting urban spaces and historical narratives, and proposing tourist identities and practices. One of the most central references of this is the history of Berlin

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being the capital of the Third Reich. That is, the reconstruction of history tells a complex narrative of Berlin as the place from where the most evil forces of the past century emerged. As Farías (2007) puts it, in tourism, the connection between Berlin and the Holocaust is performed by means of memorials, museums and documentary centres. What is more, many important sites of Nazistic rule have been destroyed; what remains are ruins, imaginary places and voids.

When looking on the image of the city and the way directors have dealt with the city´s presence and past, Saryusz-Wolska (2008) comes up with the two titles from the Weimar Republic onwards. First, it is a legendary “Berlin. The Symphony of a Great City” (1927) by ​ ​ Walter Ruttmann and “Asphalt” (1929) by Joe May, presenting a modern city at the top of the ​ ​ industrial growth. Berlin has been recreated by empire, war, revolution, democracy, Stalinism, fascism, and the cold war. Huyssen (1997) describes Berlin as a void. After the Second World War in 1945, the city was in the ruins. That was captured in the movie “Germany, Year Zero” ​ ​ by Roberto Rossellini, where Berlin appears as a wasteland of decay. In postwar period, the major construction project - the Wall - needed another void, which would hold its Western part in a tight embrace. As Saryusz-Wolska (2008) points out, many non-German movies as Billy Wilder´s “A Foreign Affair” (1948) or Carol Reed's “The Man Between” (1953), where ​ ​ ​ ​ the cameras - despite rebuilding process - focus on those empty and ruined views.

While passing the Humboldthain park, close to the Gesundbrunnen (a borough in Mitte), I noticed the Flak Tower, which used to be a bunker for people and goods, to shelter from the bombing during the Second World War.6 Nowadays, it is often used for small illegal open air parties, with a lot of young people. Notably, its function has transformed dramatically - from a cache during the times of war, which created an isolation of the people, to the spot, connecting people by providing a platform to meet and entertain themselves. Similar example to the Flak Tower is a hill Teufelsberg, in the Grunewald locality of former

6The Berlin Flak Tower. Retrieved from https://www.triphistoric.com/historic-sites/the-berlin-flak-tower ​

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West Berlin. The place has not always been an openair area. According to the Germany's public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle7, first, there was a construction for military technical university in 1937, designed by a German architect Albert Speer (Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi German). After the war, the construction was detonated. The remaining ruins were filled with rubble. Later, the allied forces8 used it as a spot to monitor the air corridors to West Germany, and also the telephone and radio networks in East Germany. Later, the place was a popular target for vandals. So the city declared it a natural area once again, and withdrew the permit.

Walking down the Brunnenstraße - positioned in the quarter of Mitte - I was passing a group of the tourists, standing next to the remainings of the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Straße. About ten people were listening about the regime that ruled East Berlin. The Berlin Wall, the ​ ​ physical division of the city and the no man's land vanished after the Fall from the face of the city. However, the ‘divided city’ and a distinction between East and West Berlin is constantly traced today, and has become a structure of the tourist trails. Touring Berlin along the lines of the “haunted city” is associated to the present pasts, the complicated ways past mixed up together with the present, and about the plexus of contemporary controversies connected to unresolved pasts than about the past itself. Divided city, destroyed city, evil city. Although, these memories refer to particular events in the history, they appear in certain continuity, where memory is an operation, occuring in the present. At the same time, they are as unreachable as for tourists, as they can experience and see a city of voids and absence and “they can only be enacted by means of performances and narratives, such as the ones ​ predominant in tourism” (Farías, 2007: 431). ​

7 Bartlick, S. Teufelsberg mirrors Berlin's dramatic history. (2013, August 08) Retrieved from ​ https://www.dw.com/en/teufelsberg-mirrors-berlins-dramatic-history/a-17074597. 8 Cambridge dictionary explains the Allies as “the countries that fought against the Axis countries (the countries, ​ ​ including Germany, Italy, and Japan, that fought against the Allies) in the Second World War.” Retrieved from ​ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/axis

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The notion of the city is a sign of pictorial and image-related sense. Strolling down from the Gesundbrunnen station, I perceived different kinds of service businesses - hairdresser´s, cosmetician´s, many shops with arabic and turkish goods and cafés with cheap coffee. Cosmopolitanism is in urban context a global identity feature. Similarly, as in the case of the city in Southeastern Turkey - Gaziantep (Karadağ & Kuzu, 2018), also in Berlin has cosmopolitanism become a trait of urban imagery. The reimaging of the city has been realized hand in hand with the commodification of city culture and space. Significantly, urban memory 9 connects visuality to the level of the city as a medium. One of the main features of the modern city is then communication inwards. By researching the poems of American writer Ferlinghetti, Vlková (2012) proposes two perspectives presenting the city. The first one, with the city appearing as a text and intertext, created by different sorts of text like literature, visual arts, architecture, sculpture and music. Notably, we read those texts in the context of the physical location where one text interferes with the other one. The second perspective introduces the city as a mnemonic space, the platform where both collective and individual memory are stored in particular locations. According to Benjamin (in Gilloch, 2013: 67-8), the city is a priori a medium of remembrance. In this sense, there is a permanent exchanging of information between metropolitan environment, collective memory and individual memory. In Benjamin´s concept, symbolism of labyrinth of the modern city in relation with memory represent “a labyrinth (the city) within another labyrinth (memory) within yet ​ another labyrinth (the text)” (Gilloch, 2013: 68). Individual memory is therefore rooted in ​ concrete experiences, by linking an individual to specific places, beliefs, customs of class and to family traditions. In this sense, we understand individual memory as a combination of spatio-temporal dimensions and social aspects (Halbwachs in Vlková, 2012: 36).

9 IGI Global explains urban memory as “a kind of collective memory that is constituted by individuals’ ​ ​ experiences within the place itself and through its history and social environment.”. Retrieved from ​ https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/urban-memory-space-time/31096.

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After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, it became much more difficult to portray the city. First, due to the physical division of the city, but also as a result of different ideological and political restrictions. Berlin has been Germany's capital since 1871. After the reunification in 1990, its dwellers have had to make many decisions about what to preserve and what to build. The two cities, divided by the Berlin Wall, had developed apart and after refusion it was not easy to reconstruct its basics (Huyssen, 1997). In the eighties, the subject of urban and cultural memory became connected to the West-German cinematography and literature. The most famous film from the point of memory and history of Berlin is probably a motion picture of Wim Wenders Wings of Desire (1987). After the Fall, there is a new chapter ​ of narrative of voids added. A wasteland, the extended space from Brandenburg Gate down to Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz was a stretch of dirt and grass. The divisions of East and West Germany did not simply end by the Fall in November 1989. Issues of contemporary urbanism and architecture, historical memory and forgetting, national identity and statehood became after the Cold War10 the main issues of the new capital. On one hand, in the 1990's, the city started to project the new future ideas. On the other hand, the passionate debates about the negotiation of its Nazi and communist past emerged. (Pugh, 2014)

After unification, Berlin's planners decided to repair the damage to the urban fabric. The policy was known as ‘critical reconstruction’ and it aimed to restore the lost character of the city's urban environment. The new Potsdamer Platz construction - a vision of Berlin's Times Square - was by many seen as a thriving and bustling part of the city, by many as cramped pseudo-urban mall. Similar controversies appeared in the dimensions of the historic and restored Friedrichstraße. Known for its furious nightlife by the 1920s, it emerged as the fusion of shopping windows and city's noblest restaurants. On the other hand, Prenzlauer Berg - the large working-class district in the north-east of Berlin - attracted many young westerners

10 The Cambridge Dictionary defines Cold War as “a period of political difficulty involving the US and the USSR ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ between 1945 and 1991.” Retrieved from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cold-war. ​

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after unification. Despite the pressure of gentrification, many older residents remain (Ladd, 2008). Berlin of nowadays has an appearance of Western city, where insistence on historical preservation is very strong. Hand in hand with the ambition of the quintessential modern and experimental city - in all kind of fields; from the performing and visual arts, entertainment, sexual behaviour, through architecture, to political activity - it shapes the decisions about planning and urban design (Ladd, 2008). Berlin is the last decades probably “the most ​ energized site of new urban construction anywhere in the Western world” (Huyssen, 1997: 2). ​ It appears as an exciting place of urban and architecture transformation on one hand, and mess of traffic jams, noise and dirt on the other. Significantly, in terms of its buildings, history and industrial character, Berlin differs itself from other Western European Capitals. The city-text of Berlin has been written and rewritten especially through the violent twentieth-century history (Huyssen, 1997).

The model of leisurely flâneur is replaced by aesthetic spaces for cultural consumption, museal events, festivals, or megastores. The new city culture wants to appeal more to the tourist than to this flâneur. Galleries, museums, modern, as well as historical buildings, clubs and restaurants are investments to attract tourists to the cities. Where the Bernauer Straße and the Brunnenstraße meet, the Ost-West-Café appears. This place for ​ instance, used the copies of the paintings on the Berlin Wall (especially the most famous one - ‘My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love’), soviet uniform or the symbol of the red star ​ ​ as the marketing presentation. Similarly, as in the case of the Gaziantep’s identity, also in Berlin has the reconstruction of the city's identity as cosmopolitan had to go through transformation of its historical past into a consumption matter. (Karadağ & Kuzu, 2018) ​ ​

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2.2 The Image of Berlin

The character of the city is transitive and porous (Benjamin in Georgiou, 2010). That is, cultural landscapes are seen as texts, through which we read mediated feelings and values, as well as the dominant cultural, social and political forces. As Huyssen (1997) points out, the notion of the city as sign is now probably understood more in a pictorial and image-related than in a textual sense. According to Pugh (2014), in the seventies and in the early eighties the mass media labelled West Berlin as “sick” city. The changed nature of the Cold War and more visible West Berlin´s urban problems led to what many called “identity crisis”. Notably, it was a lack of housing, drug abuse, rising number of immigrants or unemployment which West Germany had to deal with. The capital was not an exception. The differences between the neighborhoods in Berlin, affectionately called Kiez, became in the late 1970s associated ​ ​ with counterculture in close-to-the-wall, run-down quarters like Kreuzberg, where squatters11 restored and occupied decaying housing stock (Huyssen, 1997).

In 1987, on Berlin´s anniversary, the West Berlin´s civic leaders saw an opportunity to improve the city's image, its urban environment or Stadtbild (cityscape). This situation was ​ ​ articulated by the renowned journalist Jürgen Engert: “(West Berlin) knows what it was, but it ​ still does not know what it is, let alone what it will be.” Forty years of division and almost ​ thirty years of being surrounded by a wall, the role of West Berlin within West Germany had necessarily changed. The rhetorical stance aimed to establish the literal, cultural and political borders between West and East Germany. In the late eighties, Berlin had a status of kind of holding pattern. It did not have a definitive role in West German identity, but it could not form its own identity either. By many, it was seen as “a capital without a country”. (Pugh, 2014)

11 The Cambridge Dictionary defines squatter as “a person who lives in an empty building without permission”. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/squatter.

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2.2.1 The “Always-Becoming City”

The ‘end’ of the Berlin Wall, on the 9th of November 1989, became through the media images synonymous with the collapse of communism. It marked an ‘end of history’ and a new beginning, of which we can say that we live in a post-Wall era nowadays. There is a lot of myths, connected to this moment, including the German phrase Wir sind EIN Volk (We are ​ ​ one nation) or Wende, the gnomic expression for turning point or change (Manghani, 2008). ​ ​ The time after the Fall seemed saturated with memories, so the upcoming years taught the Berliners multiple lessons about the politics of forgetting: renaming of the streets in East Berlin, the dismantling of monuments of socialism, the debate about tearing down the GDR´s Palace of the Republic and so forth. As Huyssen (1997) points out, this was not connected exclusively with the communist city-text. It was a strategy of humiliation and power, a final surge of cold war ideology, realized via a politics of signs. Through the history, Berlin has gained several labels of its identity. From his research of Berlin as a destination portrayed in contemporary tourist guidebooks, Farías (2007) comes up with the three labels of Berlin´s identity, which are the combinations of tourist identities and practices, images, slogans and tourist attractions. The first one, as he found out, is the “always-becoming city”. This motif (re)appeared during the 1990s and contributed to the rise of Berlin being one of the most visited cities of Europe. The Fall produced a form of ‘event-tourism’, attracting people for relatively short period of time: “With the reunification, Berlin, like no other metropolis in ​ history, has been given the chance – and the challenge – to remake itself following in its own modern perception of what it should be. By comparison, other global hubs like Paris, London and Tokyo, are finished products, whereas Berlin is a work in progress” (Lonely Planet in ​ Farías, 2007: 425).

The question is then how were East and West German national identities created despite a shared history and common cultural heritage? East Berliners, “the poorer cousins” of

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the Westerners, felt at first unwelcome and alien in the environment, where Western-lifestyle, including uncertainty and unemployment, prevailed. The vision of a new rebuilt center was therefore a promise of knitting East and West physically, economically and socially together and a hope to renew the flair of Berlin´s heyday of the twenties. The new center was planned to be in the district of Mitte (Middle), which used to be part of the Soviet sector when the city was still divided. After the Fall, there was a void appearing, which used to be the western border of Mitte (Ladd, 2008). For German cinematography it meant also the end of division to the Western (Federal Republic of Germany) and Eastern (German Democratic Republic) one. As Plazewski (2009) points out, it is surprising that this fact did not stimulate more of the interest. Das Versprechen (1995) from Margarethe von Trotta was a movie about the Wall ​ and the two hermetically divided worlds of Germans. More popular became the movie Good ​ Bye, Lenin! (2003) by Wolfgang Becker, nota bene it is a Western filmmaker’s take on the ​ end of the GDR in a more humorous way, where a young man must protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, to keep her from the fact that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the idea of an “always-becoming city” with its focus on a changing materiality caused a separation of the city dwellers from the city. The idea that the German capital is waiting to be discovered not only by the tourists but at the same time by the Berliners as well. That equates city tourists and city dwellers as spectators of the transformation. Moreover, as Farías (2007) adds, tourists have the benefit of leisure time, which makes space for them to do their own discoveries, which enables them to integrate in the city. On the other hand, the “always-becoming city” expects visitors to come again and again. Regardless how many times is a tourist able to come, the city will always introduce some surprise and novelties. That makes the visitor a new kind of dweller, a kind of sporadic dweller, as he or she has a compelling reason to come back to Berlin. Thus, as Farías (2007) points out, the image of Berlin has been created as the “always-becoming city”, referring to unreachable future and the the “haunted” city, oriented to an inescapable past. Therefore,

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Berlin is portrayed as a city where history is intertwined with the present, rather than as a historical city.

2.2.2 Destination Berlin

The current article (Oct. 23, 2018) of The New York Times, with the title Looking Back to the ​ ​ ​ ’90s, When Berlin Was the Height of Cool12, starts with the juxtaposition of the city of Berlin to New York. Similarly, as the tourists in the American metropole looking for example for the notorious nightclub CBGB, where it used to be, visitors to Berlin today will also find that things have dramatically changed since the city´s heyday: “The time of great freedom and ​ unlimited opportunities in Berlin just after the fall of the wall is becoming more and more of a myth because Berlin has changed so dramatically,”13 said for the New York Times Jürgen ​ Danyel, from the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam. So what is an image of Berlin of nowadays? This ‘legend’ - how the author names it - of dirty and chaotic, but also creative hub is definitely part of it. According to the text, that is the image, which drawn millions of visitors to come to Berlin each year. The exposition mythologizes the early ’90s and it benefits from it. As the journalist continues, after the change of Berlin since the nineties, some things in its modernity remain the same. As Dr. Danyel adds: “It targets things already ​ in the consciousness of tourists.”14 Georgiou (2010) comes up with the term ‘mediascape’. ​ Notably, it is the city´s media diversity, providing a window to itself as well as a window to the world. As the author (2010) puts it, a city has gained a porous character; it is always on the move and it depends on transurban and transnational communication networks. Their job is to sustain tourist and economic life and to create its image as an exciting place.

12 Schuetze, Ch. Looking Back to the ’90s, When Berlin Was the Height of Cool. (2018, October 23) ​ ​ ​ Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/arts/design/nineties-berlin.html 13 Ibid. ​ 14 Schuetze, Ch. Looking Back to the ’90s, When Berlin Was the Height of Cool. (2018, October 23) ​ ​ ​ Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/arts/design/nineties-berlin.html

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“It was a Sunday night in the dregs of December, sleety and dark,” mystically starts ​ ​ ​ ​ his reportage a journalist of the New Yorker Nick Paumgarten,. “We were at a bar in Mitte, ​ ​ the formerly bombed-out and abandoned East Berlin district that was reclaimed by squatters, clubbers, and artists after the Wall came down and is now agleam with fancy restaurants, galleries, and shops.”15 Mitte is definitely an obvious example of gentrification, which is one ​ of the processes tendencies happening in modern cities. The text continues with the visit of “the most famous techno club in the world” - Berghain. The journalist perceives it as a ​ microcosm of Berlin, which perfectly fits to the Berlin’s post-Wall club culture. No one in Berlin is embarrassed to go to a gay club, he adds. The author clearly articulates his own idea how the Berliners are: they are sick of ‘Berlingeist’ - how the city is or no more is a hip place. ​ ​ This is not a hierarchy town: “It doesn’t matter who you are here—or it matters less here, ​ anyway, than elsewhere,” confirms a composer of electronic music to Paumgarten. ​ Moreover, Oliver Stallwood, a reporter of the Britain´s The Guardian, covered an ​ ​ article (2012, December 4)16 where he focuses on turbocharged gentrification in Berlin. Better to say, he wrote about an underground political movement in Berlin, Hipster Antifa Neukölln, ​ ​ which combats a wave against foreigners and particularly, hipsters, who are by many blamed for rapid gentrification in the city. Back then, after the fall of the Wall which created a bipolar city, where the differences between rich and poor became very noticeable. Kreuzberg was definitely one of the city's poorest and most densely populated areas in the seventies and was largely forgotten in the early nineties as people tend to move to the former East Berlin areas like Mitte. Nowadays, as Stallwood describes it, it is “the epitome of cool, a self-consciously ​ semi-derelict hub of arts, ramshackle bars.”17 The article is based on an interview with a ​ member of the above mentioned political movement, who claimed that it started to be normal

15 Paumgarten, N. Berlin Nights. (2014, March 24) Retrieved from ​ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/24/berlin-nights. 16 Stallwood, O. How Berlin is fighting back against growing anti-tourist feeling in the city. ( 2012, December 4) ​ ​ ​ Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/dec/04/berlin-fights-anti-hipster-tourism-abuse 17Stallwood, O. How Berlin is fighting back against growing anti-tourist feeling in the city. ( 2012, December 4) ​ ​ Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/dec/04/berlin-fights-anti-hipster-tourism-abuse

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to dislike tourists. “Known for its relaxed atmosphere, cheap prices and hedonistic party ​ scene, the German capital is a magnet for international creatives and layabouts,“18 labeled the journalist the image of Berlin.

Different point of view on the image of Berlin has a daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, which provides its readers with the “news from Berlin and the world”. The title ​ ​ ​ of the article Warum finden alle Berlin so toll – außer den Berlinern?/ Why does everybody ​ find Berlin so amazing - except the Berliners themselves?19 (2018, April 22) says already a lot. ​ The author of the text Lorenz Maroldt is wondering about what is written about Berlin, especially in the UK and the US newspapers. On the claim of the London´s Times, that there ​ ​ is “excellent public transport” he reacts by his own experience of squeezing into busy buses or being fed up because of the rail replacement traffic or disruptions of the suburban train. “Berlin is very affordable,” is another statement he disagrees with, because of sharply rising rents and house prices each year. When the New York Times writes that „Berlin is a ​ ​ playground paradise,“ he points to the closed playgrounds, from which around five hundred are demolished citywide. When the former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani said that “Berlin is a very clean city,” Maroldt would better show him the parks after the weekends, when they are full of bags, cardboard and bottles. He is asking himself if the visitors change the real city with its problems with the one from the series by Sky, Netflix or Amazon? Despite his critique, he adds that in Berlin, one really experiences the classless living together as very pleasant, but with a lot of effort. “We are proud of our tolerance, but it is hardly ​ stress-free.”20 The fact that the spaces inside the city are being occupied for the party culture ​ is part of the myth of Berlin's nightlife. On the other side, there is state-organized youth

18 Ibid. ​ 19 Maroldt, L. Warum finden alle Berlin so toll – außer den Berlinern?. (2018, April 22). Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/image-der-deutschen-hauptstadt-warum-finden-alle-berlin-so-toll-ausser-den- berlinern/21200348.html 20 Maroldt, L. Warum finden alle Berlin so toll – außer den Berlinern?. (2018, April 22). Retrieved from ​ ​ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/image-der-deutschen-hauptstadt-warum-finden-alle-berlin-so-toll-ausser-den- berlinern/21200348.html.

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culture in peripheral locations. “Thus, the anarchic image of the city, which appeals to many, ​ tilts into conservatism - sometimes even as a restorative. The State Opera House was restored to the state of the fifties, the Humboldt Forum modeled on the castle. So where is the exciting new?”21

Der Spiegel, a German weekly news magazine, writes about the permanently rising ​ rents in Berlin. Stefan Kaiser, the author of the article, compares the prices with other German cities like Hamburg, München or Frankfurt, to which Berlin used to be really cheap. This fact is especially obvious in comparison with other European metropoles like London and Paris. The trend towards higher prices seems logical: Berlin is widely popular. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a multinational professional services network, revealed the information that Berlin was the most attractive European city for real estate investors in 2018. 22 In another article23 writes der Spiegel about the rising amount of the tourists. Already in the ​ first half of the year 2018, 6,4 million tourists visited Berlin, which is almost the whole number of visitors in 2005. In many parts of Berlin one can see a lot of acceptance. In the districts of Mitte and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, however, which are the hotspots for the visitors, people are also annoyed by the tourist crowds. The majority of Berlin tourists come from Germany (almost 56 percent), foreign guests often come from the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands or France.

21 Ibis. ​ 22 Kaiser, S. Wo sich der Wohnungskauf in Berlin noch lohnt. (2017, November 03). Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/immobilien-wo-sich-der-wohnungskauf-in-berlin-noch-lohnt-a-117618 7.html 23 Stammkneipe statt Stadtrundfahrt (2018, August 14). Retrieved from ​ ​ http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/berlin-tourismus-stammkneipe-statt-stadtrundfahrt-a-1223146.html

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2.3 The Trend of Glocalization in Berlin

“A cultural identity is considered a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’” (Kaya, ​ ​ 2015: 37). When perceiving the city as medium, we should recognize between its presence and its image. According to Kaschuba (2005), people living in a city have urban knowledge, which always includes the ‘spatial dimensions’, part of which is historically-based local knowledge, stored in the urban society and urban spaces. For instance, Art Nouveau buildings in Vienna, Carnival in Venice or Cologne or citizens´ initiatives in Berlin represent both general and local knowledge traditions. The double system of production of the city as an image and as a place has now become one (Georgiou, 2010: 346).

Migrant cultures usually mix their previous lives and cultural repertoires with their new set of tools, which they acquire in their migration experience. According to Vassaf (in Kaya, 2015), there is a ‘new cultural space’ emerging. It has been built up in the West by different constituent ethnics of Europe such as Turks. Kaya (2015), uses the term ‘creolization’, referring to the process of globalization, which Roland Robertson (in Kaya, 2015: 41) calls “the compression of the world into a single place”. Berlin is subject to two ​ ​ separate forms of creolization processes. First, there is the creolization of German national culture in the form of ‘Americanization’24. And secondly, there is the multifaceted creolization process, involving the greater majority of immigrants, who come in as refugees and labour migrants, and mostly having to adapt to German conditions. Simultaneously, the two phenomena - globalism and localism - become more and more evident in the late modern times. On one hand, global mass media, mass education, identical clothes, ideas, fantasies, music, books and communication networks spread our identities all over the map. On the other hand, developing localisation, in the form of desperate allegiances to cultural, national, ethnic, religious, class and sexual groups, give us a

24 The English Oxford dictionary defines ‘Americanization’ as the “action of making a person or thing American ​ in character or nationality.” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/americanization ​

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kind of ‘firm’ identity (Berman in Kaya, 2015). The new identities, have been grounded on this antithetical forces of ‘global’ and ‘local’, or ‘glocal’ (Featherstone, in Kaya 2015). As Kaya (2015: 49) points out, “modern cities tend to be fragmented into patchwork diasporic25 ​ homelands such as Kreuzberg (district in Berlin), Southall (district of west London) and ​ ​ ​ Rinkeby (district in Stockholm).” The minority cultures emerging offer intimacy and security ​ for the immigrants. The emergence of ethnic communities with their own institutions, agencies, youth clubs, cafés, and professions gives rise to the so called minority strategy, which is more of a long-life strategy, in comparison to the migrant strategy. That is, not only to maintain culture, but rather to cope with disadvantage and to improve life chances. In Berlin, like in many other metropoles of Western Europe, new cultures go beyond frontiers, cultural fusions and multicultural urban social movements have taken successive forms. Kreuzberg is a good example of this. The Turkish diaspora in Western Europe, and particularly in Germany, made up an illustrative sample in terms of the processes of the modern diaspora communities. Moreover, we should no longer define the Turkish diaspora exclusively as the foreign workers26, driven away from their homeland; rather we should perceive them as active political and social actors in their new countries of residence. “In modern diaspora experience that is facilitated ​ by transnational circle of communications and transportation, identities are constructed in a way that connects together both global and local, roots and routes, inheritance and politics, past and present.” (Kaya, 2015: 88) Kreuzberg 36, SO 36, which is part of Kreuzberg district ​ ​ ​ and home to many immigrants is a typical example of diasporic space, which gives the individual the sense of simultaneously being ‘there’ (homeland) and being ‘here’ (diaspora).

25 The English Oxford dictionary defines ‘diaspora’ as “people who have spread or been dispersed from their ​ ​ homeland.” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/diaspora ​ 26 Between 1955 and 1968 postwar Germany started a labour recruitment in specific industries. Federal Republic of Germany concluded intergovernmental contracts with eight Mediterranean countries: Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia and they were called ‘Gastarbeiter’. Originally, they had a ​ ​ temporary visum, so they were expected to come back to their countries of origin. (Kaya, 2015: 65)

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3 Methodology

In this section, I will introduce the analytical tools, used for my analysis. The method used in my research is spatial semiotics, complemented with the analytical tools, introduced ​ ​ by the film analytics David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson in their book Film Art: An ​ Introduction (2008). They define five general principles of the film formal system (function, ​ ​ ​ similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, and unity/disunity), which ​ should help me to better understand and define the context of the selected movies. I will not

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work with the film analytic method - Neoformalism27, the authors developed, because the scope of this research belongs to the media studies, rather than to the film studies, as it is primarily focused on the subject of how a city communicates and how it is portrayed in movies. As spatial semiotics is widely used within the visual culture and often used on static pictures, my research of the chosen movies would be limited to the exclusively visual and explicit material. These tools together, I believe, can help me to better understand how the identity of Berlin is depicted, how the city communicates with a viewer of the movies and what image of the city the movies create. The contextual and technical aspects make a big influence on what at the end appears like a myth of Berlin, from the point of view of the filmmakers. According to Barthes (2004), before ‘text’ becomes a myth, it has to go through a modus of signification and to turn to a specific form. He (2004) understands a myth as a mode of signification, as a form. Therefore, everything can be a myth, as it is not defined by the object of the message, but rather by the way in which it express the message. Myth is therefore a type of speech which is chosen by history, and it has a tri-dimensional pattern; the signifier, the signified and the sign.

In the second part of my methodological section I will introduce the analytical tools, used in this research. But first, it is important to set a clear aim of the research and to follow the research questions, set beforehand.

3.1 Research Questions and the Aim of the Research

The aim of this research is to examine what image of current Berlin created the filmmakers in the picked movies. I will fulfil the aim by bringing answers to the questions I outlined in the introduction already.

27 Neoformalism analyses a film image in the narrative and stylistic terms. It is an approach to film analysis ​ based on observations, it moves away from the interpretive theory towards a more empirical analysis of film.

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The main research question:

MRQ: How is the image of current Berlin depicted in the selected movies shot in the Third Millennium?

Additional research questions:

ARQ I.: How the way of depiction of Berlin´s urbanity by German directors differentiates ​ from the the way of depiction by foreign directors?

ARQ II.: Which urban spaces were chosen to be filmed and in which way? ​ ARQ III.: How the contextual and technical aspects of the movies influence the way we ​ perceive the city within the chosen movies?

3.2 The Selected Movies

For the purpose of this research, I decided to focus on fictional movies, shot in Berlin after the fall of the Wall28, more precisely, in the new millenium (after 2001), so the movies which portray “current” Berlin. The focus of this study is not on movies which are connected to political events or depict historical moments, but rather on the communication of Berlin. The choice of the movies is narrow, above all to get a complex and detailed analysis of the particular movies. This research aims to bring urban communication into the scope of media studies. Cities are places of communication, meeting spaces for interaction and/or observation. Urban social systems and communication systems can be examined at more levels, as scholars examine interactions in neighborhood communication patterns and public spaces (Gumpert, 2013). The goal of this research is therefore not to bring an absolute overview of how Berlin is depicted in German and foreign fictional movies, but rather to

28 By ‘after the Fall’ I mean a period from 1989 on, not the events following directly the collapse of Communism ​ in Eastern Europe.

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postulate the findings within the new field of spatial semiotics. My aim is therefore to broaden the Czechoslovak scientific scope of modern and contemporary media and to support the idea of extended visual media research, including the city as a medium.

For the purpose of this analysis, I only chose fictional movies, as directors of such movies pick the filming spots based on their preferences and the way how they want to portray a city, where is the movie shot and what is the atmosphere. Documentaries would therefore not be an appropriate source, as they are focused on particular points of view (history, culture, politics, etc.) and the analysis would be a mechanical enumeration of found signs, without an added value or too much space for interpretation. Moreover, it would be needed to verify the facts and to get to know the intention of the filmmakers in interviews. On the other hand, fictional movies are supposed to be the final product of a director's intention, they are constructed to be in some way decoded by a viewer. Because documentaries are directly connected to the depiction of reality, there would be a different approach needed. The combination of documentary and fictional movies within the research scope would therefore be too vague. There is a long history of fictional movies shot in Berlin. The selection of the time period already narrowed the sample. Another step was a choice of film genre; all four movies belong to the drama genre29, as it is connected to some dramatical moment or development and the space has a distinctive role within the plot in all of them. During my stay in Berlin, I took part in a seminar called Cinema and Everyday Urban ​ Environments: The City as a State of Mind with Berit Hummel, a researcher focused on urban ​ space in cinema and media. From this seminar I chose the movies Victoria (2015) and Oh ​ ​ Boy/A Coffee in Berlin (2012). In both movies urbanity plays an important role, it is more than just a background, it communicates with a viewer. Sebastian Schipper, the director of Victoria (2015) and Jan Ole Gerster, the filmmaker of Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin (2012) are ​ ​ ​

29 As Bordwell and Thompson (2008: 320) claim, the word genre is originally French and it means “type” or ​ “kind”. Film genres are therefore certain types of movies: “Genre category are based on a tacit agreement ​ ​ ​ among filmmakers, reviewers, and audiences. What gives films of a type some common identity are shared genre conventions that reappear in film after film.” ​

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both German. The director of Die Fremde/When we leave (2010) Feo Aladag and Die Fetten ​ ​ ​ ​ Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators (2004) Hans Weingartner are foreign directors who shot ​ their films in Berlin, they come from Austria. The divergence of the national origin is therefore intentional, as I suppose that the German filmmakers would portray the city in a different way. The themes of the selected movies vary as well, as the research is not only focused on one particular topic. All of them cope with a kind of conflict, shown in the Table 1:

Victoria (2015) A Coffee in Berlin (2012) When we The Educators leave (2010) (2004)

- conscious choice of - conflict of outer pressure - conflict of choice of - conflict of plenitude dangerous situation for with inner apathy and independent modern with lack; of beliefs with the sense of belonging passivity in life way of life with lifestyle; of friendship conventions of with love; of bourgeoisie traditional life with anti-capitalism

Table 1. The overview of the motifs/conflicts in the selected movies ​ ​

3.3 Spatial Semiotics

Every day, we are surrounded by endless amounts of signs, used unconsciously. Interestingly, within the social interaction, we approach the world with our perspective on it, which is always partial; reflecting a limited view, but the world we live in is the same. Semiotics, as science about signs, is from the times of Saussure, who is, together with Charles Sanders Peirce, considered as its founder. Any semiology states a relation between signifier and a signified, which are objects belonging to different categories. What is more, Fiske and Hartley (1978, 2002) explain three orders of signification. First, there are arbitrary, unmotivated signs. The signifier relates to its signified by convention, by an agreement among the users about the meaning of the sign (a photography of car stands for a real car). In the second order, as

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Barthes in his Mythologies (1973, 2004) and Elements of Semiology (1968) explains, signs ​ ​ operate here in two distinctive ways: (1) as connotative agents and (2) as myth-makers. That is, when a sign carries rather cultural meanings (called myth by Barthes) than purely representational ones, it belongs to the second order of signification. In this sense the sign changes its role; the sign of a soldier becomes the signifier of the cultural values which he embodies in news or film. In the sense of connotation, a general’s uniform denotes his or her rank (which is first-order sign), but at the same time connotes the respect we connect with it (second-order sign). The third order signification is an organization of myths into a coherence that we might call an ideology or a mythology. It reflects the principles by which a particular culture organizes and interprets the reality with which it copes (Fiske & Hartley, 2002). For the analysis of this research, I will almost merely use the second order signification.

Therefore, each kind of semiotics postulates a connection between signifier and signified. Consequently, it is a sign which puts together the two elements (Barthes, 2004). Every cultural artifact comes with its story that has an important function to fulfill. It receives its symbolic and interactive meaning by the intertextual narratives of the participating members. Though, humans can relate rather to other signs than to objects. Collective identity has multimodal character, which includes both language and visual sings. In langue, a variety of resources contribute to interpersonal relations and meanings, and form an important part of our understanding and participation in social life. Similarly, semiotic systems can construe comparable meanings like in the communication on interpersonal level. Spatial semiotics merge interpersonal relations between the participants around and within the space. Identity of a place refers to people who live in this urban environment, not to the urban elements per se. (Haapala, 2003) One-way communication of contemporary urban interpretation is therefore modified into the flexibility.

Our interpretation of people and the signs of culture they embed in the built and social environments are the basis of the emotional bonds we tend to make with specific places. This

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is how we recognize particular places as our home from those which are not - so, as belonging to others. Residents of urban spaces learn to read such signs, as well as the rules of formal and informal socialization processes. That is the way we read the space. Therefore, it is possible to study the nature of urban culture and urban spaces by investigating those signs of collective identity in public space (Shortell, 2016). According to Graham (1997), we perceive human interaction with environment in the form of ‘multivocal and multicultural texts’. What is more important, identity operates here on the principle of inclusion and exclusion, that is by articulating itself by the contradistinction to a hostile other. Those ‘emblematic place identities’ are both reproduced transformed over time through a selective rewriting of history (Graham, 1997). The interpretive context of the signs of collective identity form vernacular landscapes. Signs have meanings that relate to the places and patterns of urban life. These give sensibility to the ‘visual impressions’, observed by Simmel (Shortell & Krase, 2010). Lived experience in urban communities as well as media sources about urban culture make sense of the signs of collective identity (Shortell & Krase, 2010).

Distinctive cultural practices are also a code; most commonly related to food and dress. Jakobson (in Shortell & Krase, 2010), comes up with the four functions of signs, which can help to interpret the visual representations of identity in urban environment: expressive, ​ ​ conative, poetic and phatic. As Shortell and Krase (2010) point out, these categories were ​ ​ ​ meant to be used in the structures of language, though their functionality can be applied for visual markers, too. First, there are expressive signs, which five the subject a voice and are ​ oriented towards addresser, revealing his or her emotive state (in the context of urban space it can be use of flags or place names to proclaim origins). Secondly, conative signs, which attempt to influence others´ behaviour and highlight the relationship between addressee and addresser, and place and obligation on the latter (for example, markers of exclusion as graffiti). Conative signs are common; they make the space between the in-group and ​ out-group by calling the attention to group boundaries. The third group, poetic signs, ​ represent the aesthetic dimension of communication of identity (the components of them we

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can find in urban styles, like hip-hop or hipster). The practices of these are used as stereotypical icons of urban life. Phatic signs are oriented toward contact between individuals, ​ and between people and places. What is more, they are the indicators that the social space belongs to us, that our cultural practices are acceptable there (Shortell & Krase, 2010).

According to Martin-Jones (2006), during the times of historical transformation, cinema often appears as experiment formally with narrative time: “such narratives formally ​ demonstrate a nation’s exploration of its own ‘national narrative’, its examination of the national past, present and/or future in search of causes, and possible alternatives, to its current state of existence.” As the author (2006) puts it, there are such movies which use their ​ narratives to ‘deterritorialize’30 dominant myths of particular national identity. The ubiquity of the word ‘deterritorialize’ explains Deleuze (in Shiel, Fitzmaurice, 2001) as the ‘any-space-whatever’. In this form of space we recognize a shopping mall, a hotel lobby, a corporate headquarters, a downtown street, etc. Following Foucault`s words (in Shiel, Fitzmaurice, 2001), all space is controlled, but in the any-space-whatever it is curiously difficult to apprehend and the intangibility of global capitalism is apparent.

The city is connected to a particular organization of everyday life. It mediates the ‘near order’ of everyday life and its organizations (family, local groups), together with the ‘far order’ of ideology and the state (Shortell, 2016). Regarding ownership, we differentiate between two types of places every urban dweller comes to the constant almost every day. Public space in contrast with private space. Oldenburg (in Shortell, 2016) recognizes ‘third places,’ as social realm distinct from home and work realms, like streets and sidewalks, squares, park or public transportation. Moreover, public transportation is not only a category of everyday mobility, which involves a lot of waiting, standing and sitting. These kind of activities require proximity. The times and spaces of relative nearness therefore become

30 Appadurai and Friedman (in Kaya, 2015: 55) explain deterritorialization as “one of the main parameters of the ​ ​ modern world, which implies the transparency of territories for some transnational actors such as modern diasporas, transnational corporations, money and global communications networks.”

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context for experience of semiosis. As Simmel (in Shortell, 2016: 209) points out, this kind of proximity can be enjoyable or unpleasant; and generates a kind of energy which is essential to urban life.

The dynamic of planned and spontaneous interactions, including direct socialization and sharing public space is necessary to form collective identity on the basis of in-groups and out-groups. Notably, urban dwellers change the living space by their presence. Immigrants, as they are often near the bottom of the status hierarchy, they tend to have less capacity for control and change. Though, by practicing their culture in particular public spaces, they change the way such spaces look. Bauman (in Shortell, 2016) explains a phenomenon of ‘mixophobia,’ “islands of similarity and sameness amidst a sea of variety and difference.” We ​ ​ perceive global cities, as full of diversity (class, language, ethnicity, etc.), except urban life: “Neighborhoods are said to ‘belong to’ the groups whose signs of collective identity are most ​ visible.” ​ In a film system we differentiate between material and abstract level. The material (or actual) elements are those analogical to the reality in front of the camera. On the second, abstract level, we recognize linguistic figures like symbols, metaphors (based on similarity), metonyms (stylistic figures based on contiguity), emerging from an image, and/or from their combination and, from the context of the system (body of moving images, made by the scenes). With reciprocal interaction of the signs, new tropes are occuring. By trope we understand change of the meaning, so the change of the relation between signifier and signified. According to Jakobson (in Ciel, 2011), a specific material of film is optical and acoustic component transformed to a sign. Those operations are called synecdochic, based on the principle pars pro toto (exchange of element with corpus). That is, film arrange signs of images to contexts.

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3.4 Analytical tools

Because perception accompanies us in all phases of life; we call it an activity. While walking ​ ​ down the street, we scan our surroundings for salient aspects - a familiar landmark, a friend's face, a sign of rain. Our mind is never at rest; it is constantly seeking significance and order. Artworks rely on this dynamic in occasions in which we exercise our ability to pay attention, to feel an emotional response and to anticipate upcoming events. So the artwork cues us to perform a specific activity. The cues are organized into systems. Film form is in its broadest sense overall system of relations we perceive among the elements of the film, including subject matter and abstract ideas. According to Bordwell and Thompson (2008: 82), “if form ​ is the total system that the viewer attributes to the film, there is no inside or outside”, so we ​ do not divide ‘form’ from ‘content’. Within the social conventions, each artwork tends to make up its own specific formal principles. The authors of the book Film Art: An Introduction ​ distinguish five general principles, appearing in film´s formal system: function, similarity and ​ ​ ​ repetition, difference and variation, development, and unity/disunity. For the purpose of my ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ research, I will use the five principles for better understanding the contextual background of the movies.

When analyzing a visual text, we should point out, that it is directly connected to the technological side, when the displayed image is produced with an aim to control an audience's reaction. Notably, the text we read is full of signs “constructed with reference to the ​ conventions associated with a genre and in particular medium of communication” (Chandler ​ in Kim, 2011:6). The text of this study are the chosen movies, the setting of urban spaces therefore become communicating media representing realities of current Berlin.

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3.4.1. Function

Bordwell and Thompson (2008) assume that every element has one or more functions. That is, each element has a fulfilling role within the whole system. We can grasp the function of an element by asking what other elements demand that it is present. And when asking about function, we do not ask for a production. The authors (2008, 92) invite us to ask about formal function “What is this element doing there?” and “How does it cue us to respond?” For this ​ ​ ​ ​ purpose, we should consider the element´s motivation. In this sense, “motivation” does not only stand for characters´ actions, rather we apply that to any element in the film that we can justify on some grounds. It might be a costume, light, or a character wandering across a room, who motivates the moving of the camera to follow the action to keep the character within the frame. (Bordwell, Thompson, 2008)

3.4.2. Similarity and Repetition

Throughout any movie, we can observe repetitions of everything from bits of music, lines of dialogue to camera positions, story action and character´s behaviour. The most common term for formal repetitions is therefore motif. That is, any significant repeated element in a film, ​ ​ which might be an object, a place, a color, a person, a sound. Motifs can also assist in creating parallelism. Our recognition of parallelism provides part of a pleasure in watching a film. (Bordwell,Thompson, 2008)

3.4.3 Difference and Variation

The repetition, though, should not be the only component of a film, because it would be rather boring for a viewer. We perceive differences of texture, direction, speed of movement, and so on. Although motifs (actions, objects, scenes, settings) may be repeated, they will seldom be

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repeated exactly. There might be character conflict, settings, actions and other elements, appearing as opposed. That is, we recognize repetition by noticing variation and the other way around. “Shuttling between the two, we can point out motifs and contrast the changes they ​ undergo, recognize parallelisms as repetition, and still spot crucial variations” ​ (Bordwell,Thompson, 2008: 94).

3.4.4 Development

The principles of development from part to part can be used as a way to keep ourselves aware of how similarity and difference operate in film form. Many films possess a journey plot, a search. We might begin with a question (for example; Who is the main character?) and we conclude with the question answered. We can start to understand the overall pattern of the film by looking at the similarities and the differences between the beginning and the ending. More important, formal development is a process; it shapes our experience of the film (Bordwell,Thompson, 2008).

3.4.5 Unity/Disunity

“When all the relationships we perceive within a film are clear and economically interwoven, we say that the film has unity” (Bordwell,Thompson, 2008: 96). Therefore, we call a unified ​ film tight, because it seems to have no gaps in the formal relationship. Unity is a matter of degree.

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3.5 Urbanity

Public space needs to be read, for signs of collective identity are visible and urban dwellers are aware of difference there. So neighborhood is not only space, but also a description of a kind of sociability. Using public space binds the dwellers to the community and that make multicultural places prevailed by micro-segregation. Demerath and Levinger (in Shortell) call it ‘collaborative creativity’, as we become interpretable objects for each other through our appearance and behaviour in public spaces. In this research I apply Jakobson´s () analysis of language to visual, spatial signs. Jakobson identified six functions of signs. They will help me to make sense of the visual representations of collective identity in urban space: the referential, the expressive, the conative, the phatic, the poetic, and the reflexive. For the ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ purpose of my study, I will follow the analytical tools of is an American associate professor of sociology Timothy Shortell, used in his research Everyday Globalization: A Spatial Semiotics ​ of Immigrant Neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Paris (2016), who only used four of them, which are emerging the most often: the expressive, the conative, the phatic and the poetic. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Globalization is often said to have a homogenizing effect (Ritzer in Shortell, 2016: 125). As Shortell (2016) argues, it is rather a glocal mixture of home and host cultures.

- Expressive signs: These kind of signs reveals the affective state of the addresser. In ​ the linguistic sense, they are used to express the personal emotional state or attitude of the adresser (e.g. The forest is so beautiful in spring!). In the context of urbanity people create expressive signs in their everyday practices when enact rituals of identity. They are often linked to feelings of longing, pride and love. An example of this might be a pro-democracy protest of the members of the local Iranian community in Manchester, connected to the election in Iran. This collective action functioned as an expressive sign of their ethnic identity and there is a moment of exclusion, when both the English locals and tourists can not help but notice. Therefore, they are an

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important manifestation of agency among the relatively powerless (immigrants in global cities).

- Phatic signs: Phatic signs are crucial to everyday life in urban communities. In cities ​ full of strangers, help the cultural practices of dress and interpersonal interaction (gestures, maintenance of personal space) establish trust among people who may not be personally known to each other, but who share culture. That is, these signs communicate that one “knows the rules”, but to others the signs also communicate identity. It might also be for example a concentration of international businesses, which marks the space as immigrant one (they are not an expression of ethnic pride). Another iconic phatic sign of middle-class can be an upscale shopping plaza, becoming gentrified and globalized. The mix of local and multinational shops, restaurants and cafes attract as many residents as tourists (Shortell, 2016).

- Conative signs - Conative signs include practices regarding the temporary occupation ​ of - taking ‘possession of’. Conative signs are the local practices by which groups “protect their turf.” Where expressive signs are oriented towards the adresser, conative signs toward addressee. They make the addressee´s own identity more salient. They are markers of exclusion; they answer the question, “whose space is this?” and make us aware of the boundary between the in-group and out-groups (Shortell, Krase, 2013). Interestingly, as Shortell (2016) points out, we tend to read spatial and visual messages as conative signs rather than phatic sings. That is, we tend to see other groups´ identity actions directed toward us, even when they are not (Shortell, 2016).

- Expressive signs - They call the attention to the adresser of the message, they reveal ​ the affective state of the sender. Expressive signs enact rituals of identity. They are often linked to the feelings of longing, pride and love. The most visible practices of these are flags, place names to proclaim origins or national colors (Shortell, 2016).

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- Poetic signs - Poetic signs are usually attributed to urban subcultures, as well as social ​ movements and political parties, who generate poetic signs by their use of public space. They emphasize the content of the communication. They do not refer to identity directly, but rather to space itself. That is why many messages about class identity use poetic signs (e.g. graffiti, posters, as anti-gentrification messages) (Shortell, 2016).

3.6 Symbol, Icon, Index

Following Peirce´s understanding of sign, Eco (1979: 16) explains it as “everything that, on ​ the grounds of a previously established social convention, can be taken as something standing for something else.” For Peirce, ‘the most fundamental’ division of signs (first introduced in ​ ​ 1867), which might be more usefully interpreted as ‘modes of relationship’ between sign vehicles and signified. The three modes are:

- Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified, but ​ is rather fundamentally arbitrary or exclusively conventional (following Peirce, they are based on purely conventional association) - so that the relationship has to be agreed upon and learned: e.g. language (plus specific languages, phrases and sentences, words, punctuation marks, alphabetical letter), national flags, numbers, traffic lights, morse code (Chandlers, 2002).

- Icon/iconic: a mode in which is the signifier perceived as imitating the signified ​ (recognizably feeling, looking, tasting, smelling or sounding like it) - so it is similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g a cartoon, a portrait, metaphors, realistic sounds in ‘programme music’, imitative gestures. According to Chandlers (2002), iconic and indexical signs are read more as natural than symbolic signs, as the connection between signifier and signified has become habitual.

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- Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary, but rather directly ​ connected (causally or physically) to the signifies - this link can be inferred or observed: e.g. medical symptoms (pulse-rate, a rash, pain), ‘natural signs’ (footprints, echoes, flavours, smoke, thunder), ‘signals’ (a phone ringing, a knock on a door), recordings (a photograph, an audio-recorded voice, a film, video or television shot), personal ‘trademarks’ (catchphrases, handwriting). Unlike an icon, the relationship is not based as ‘mere resemblance’, as inex direct the attention to its object. (Chandlers, 2002)

4 Analyses of the Movies

4.1 Victoria (2015)

Victoria (Laia Costa) is a young waitress, who came to Berlin from Madrid, to work and to enjoy the nightlife there. At the end of one party she meets Sonne (Frederick Lau) and three of his friends Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit) and Fuß (Max Mauff). Instead of easy-going boozy morning, the young Spanish girl will go through an adrenalin ride through the metropole. Sonne and his group of friends are by circumstances forced to rob a bank. Victoria finds herself driving the escaping car.

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4.1.1 Function

The movie was revealed in 2015, when Berlin has definitely been the place, known as an exciting and thrilling spot, which are major components for an environment of shooting a thriller movie. Victoria is a story about a young Spanish woman, who moved to Berlin three ​ months ago. She might feel lonely, which can be the reason why she welcomes all new experiences and her new company, though she has to work in a couple of hours. She is wearing very simple clothes in fine colors, which support the fact that she met the four boys just by the accident, she did not call for the attention to the strangers in any way. She meets them in a techno club and joins them for the night. A very specific feature about this movie is the cut. There is none. The movie Victoria became famous at first thanks to this fact and it definitely supports the authentic experience of the viewer. No cut, together with only one shaky camera, which follows the protagonists in close proximity, draws the viewer to the story immediately. We are watching the protagonists from the view of the cameraman.

There is a severe moment, when - after the situation turns out of control - Victoria can step down and forget about the inconvenience. First, it is when after they say goodbye to each other, but the crew come back to the café. Victoria is a witness of them, stealing a car and afterwards, she is asked to drive them with the stolen car to the unknown place. She agrees. She insists to stay with them even after they get a job to rob a bank. Her need for belonging to some group is very strong here and influences her decisions. The same reason motivates the decisions made by the group of the old friends to help to the fellow of the group, in spite of his dark past. After she is accepted (and the boys call her ‘sister’), she agrees on their ‘rules’. Any of what follows, probably would not have happened if Victoria decided to stay in her comfort zone. This is what Bordwell and Thompson (2008) call the traits of a character, made up by her decisions and character. It seems like she only agrees with everything, but the robbery would not be done without her: first, the Boxer´s friends do not agree with it, only

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after threatening of gunmen that they would drag off Victoria, they say yes to the job. She is also important as a driver later.

4.1.2. Similarity and Repetition

In the film, I recognize several motifs. The dialogues in the film are very informal, the protagonists regularly switch from English to German. When they speak to each other, they use German language, especially in situations they do not want Victoria to understand them; so particularly when the tension is accumulating. The used music has very sensitive and slow piano rhythm and appears exclusively in those moments when the relation between the character (Victoria joins them to the roof) or the atmosphere (talk in the garage or celebration after successful robbery) radically changes. In those moments it drowns out the dialogues and grades a dramatic moment and arouses the viewer to better realize and feel the situation. The techno club appears in the movie two times - in the very beginning and then when the crew comes back to celebrate after the robbery. We also see the place between two blocks of flats for two times, before and after they rob a bank, where they hide.

4.1.3. Development

The first scene appears as very easy-going, the main character Victoria is having a good time while dancing alone. First, it reminds me more of the current movie Symphony of Now (2018), ​ which is re-imagination of the silent film classic Berlin - Symphony of a Great City (1927). ​ That is, as a viewer, I expect more of a movie portraying a nightlife in the city in the beginning, rather than a thriller. I suppose that was the purpose of the filmmaker; to shock. It all looks just like hanging out together until the moment one from the group - ‘Boxer’ gets a phone call and he, with his friends ‘Sonne’ and ‘Blinker’, has to go to do some illegal job.

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Because their fourth friend ‘Fuß’ does not feel good, they ask Victoria to join them. From this point on, the development of the movie escalates radically. They meet Boxer’s acquaintance, they have to rob the bank, after they do it, they celebrate and are kicked out off the club, searched by police, they have a gunfight with the police and the two of them are shot. Sonne, the third one is dying next to Victoria in a hotel room and that is probably the moment when she realizes what really happened that night. Sonne encourages her to take the stolen money and forget about all of this and live her life onward. In the last scene is Victoria alone, so the motif of loneliness is repeating. This time, the sun is rising up and she is walking to nowhere, without a goal, again.

Picture no. 1: Victoria 1 Picture no. 2: Victoria 2

4.1.4 Urbanity

The two hours of the thriller start in a techno club in the district of Kreuzberg, which is a popular quarter, known for its diversity of bars, international restaurants and markets. As one of the main quarters of gentrification, we see a lot of poetic signs, while following Victoria there. They are mostly considered as signs of hipster culture - fashionable bicycles, chick bars and restaurants, etc. - which are often seen as the icons of urban life. For many, especially party-tourists, Berlin is a synonym for a thriving techno scene. That means, this image is the synecdochal operation pars pro toto, when a viewer might recognize Berlin´s night scene and identifies it with the city itself. Victoria, the main character, stands for freedom here; a young

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foreign girl, dancing in the middle of the night, symbolizing an international open minded and permanently living city. What is more, I recognize the shown Berlin´s techno club as a phatic sign; it is a place where the cultural strangers get to know each other, but once they get in, they have to follow the rules (do not take photos inside, do not be aggressive, etc.) Similarly, the posters, hanging on the walls of the entrance of the club belong to the group of phatic signs, which confirm the connection between those individuals, who share similar interests and between people and places, because they refer to the particular events within the city. However, they could also belong to the group of expressive signs, if they invited exclusively one particular group of the people to participate on some event. We can not really recognize that in the movie.

“We are not ‘zugezogen’, we are real Berlin guys!,” are one of the first words of Sonne towards Victoria. The word ‘zugezogen’ (those who moved to Berlin) is a convention used to differentiate between the cultural and geographical identity of those who moved to Berlin and those who have lived there all their lives. In this context - though said in a funny way - it bears a negative connotation of in-group and out-group differentiation. The next location, where the crew leads in is ‘Späti’, or Spätkauf, open-late store, where they steal a couple of drinks, often owned by immigrant families. There are many of these kind of shops all over Berlin and they are part of the group of phatic signs, representing a spot where the dwellers regularly come from the surrounding and where they usually meet the same shop assistants on everyday basis, so it is usually a very familiar place in a neighbourhood. In the spreading process of globalization, but also glocalization of Berlin, where each quarter has its specific appearance and one does not only identify himself/herself with the identity of ‘Berliner’, but often also as a member of some smaller community. Berlin is a huge city, where it is very easy to feel alone. The ‘Späti’ from the movie is located on the Friedrichstraße, one of the most frequented shopping areas in Berlin. In the middle of the night it loses attractiveness to tourists, it is almost completely empty. Afterwards they head to the roof on a block of the flats, which is the regular meeting point for the group of old friends.

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At the moment when they are occupying the space, it become a poetic sign, they have an obvious connection to the space. It does not bear a conative function, as it is not shifted to any addressee (better, they want to stay unnoticed).

Victoria has to go to the café where she works and Sonne accompanies her. The café is called Wilhelm & Medné and it is located very close to the Checkpoint Charlie, the symbol of ​ division between East and West Germany and the most famous crossing point, back then. Nowadays, one can find there the barrier and checkpoint booth, the American flag and the sandbags, all of those being expressive signs for Allied armed forces. As viewers, we spend almost half an hour in the café with Victoria and Sonne, where they talk about Victoria's left dream of becoming a professional piano player. The atmosphere radically changes when the whole group come to the café and Boxer gets a phone call. Sobeit the camera stays in the café, it is a already a familiar place for a viewer, so one can feel safe there. In the moment, when the actors are heading to the unknown place (where Boxer has to meet a cobber who protected him, while being in a jail) by a stolen car, the rhythm of the film notably speeds up. There is a blasé effect emerging; we see it at Victoria´s minimal reactions, in the moments of breaking the rules - stealing a car, breaking on the roof, stealing some drinks from the store, etc., as all of this appears to be a regular part of everyday life in a metropole (shown for example in Hollywood movies).

The crew is approaching an underground garage, which normally stands for ‘any-space-whatever’, where the social actors do not head with the aim to meet, but only use it to park a car; so as an interstage for another place. In this case, the garage appears as a poetic sign. It belongs exclusively to the group of criminals, it appears as a gangland of Berlin, good hidden and protected. Although, there is a moment of exclusion (anybody who does not belong to the “underworld”), it is more about the possession of the space, than about the expression of identity. From this point on, the group of the young boys with their new Spanish friend become a part of this “business”. Their position from the crew, who occupy the

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streets of Berlin changes, as they have to rob a bank. In the moment, when they take the guns - index of danger - they agree with the rules of the “game” and therefore become part of it. While Victoria is driving, Blinker does not feel good and ask her to stop the car. She is looking for a place, where they can park discreetly. They find a void, non-place between two blocks of apartments where they hide to wait until Blinker feels better. Afterwards, they go and rob a bank, which is nearby the café Victoria works in. Then the time runs very fast, while they are looking for a non-place again. When they find it, they feel safe enough to go to celebrate their success. After they are kicked off the club, because of their crazy behaviour, they want to come back to the car, which they find occupied by police.

A policeman is an icon of justice or law, but for the group in their situation, it signals danger. They know they are in trouble and there is no exact place they can hide in. Therefore, they ramble around, without an aim, looking for another void. They end up in the residential area of blocks of flats. After the gun-fight between them and the police force, Blinker and Boxer are injured, so they disappear from the picture. In the moment when Victoria and Sonne - as wanted criminals - approach one of the flats, the people living there react very sensitive, as they cross their private, and therefore, safety sphere. Finally, the two manage to get out from the block house and a taxi takes them to the Westin Grand Berlin Hotel. The building was built in the 1980s by the East German state-run Interhotel monopoly with the aim to become a luxury hotel for Western tourists.31 The building was made in the architectonic style of classicism and it is a representative of lieux de mémoire, an object connected to the collective memory of the city. At the same time, it is also an index of luxury and wealth. Because hotel lobby stands for ‘any-space-whatever’, the two characters can finally feel safe there, in that police does not have power over the place. When Victoria loses her last new friend and Sonne dies in a hotel room, she takes the money and walks outside.

31 Kellerhoff, S. F. Zum Glück überlebte Honeckers „Grand Hotel“ die DDR. (2017, August 1). Retrieved from: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article167273443/Zum-Glueck-ueberlebte-Honeckers-Grand-Hotel-die-DDR.ht ml.

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We end up with her again at the Friedrichstraße, walking down the empty street. Beyond the horizon we recognize a construction site, a symbol of the “always-becoming city”.

4.1.5. Summary

In this analysis I found mostly two types of signs and two functions of signs. The filmmaker worked a lot with symbolism - a young open minded Spanish girl dancing in a techno club - symbol of young generation coming to Berlin to have fun. A techno club is for many a symbol of Berlin, as the city is considered to be the “capital of techno”. Chic cafés, many modern bars and restaurants (especially on the Friedrichstrasse) and bicycle culture stand for a life in a metropole as well as they are indexes for gentrified space. As Table 2. shows, most of the spatial signs have phatic function; that is, they are focused on contact and meeting people. Some of the signs bear poetic function (Table 3.; focused on the occupied space). The movie also works with the ‘any-space-whatever’ and non-spaces; especially when the group is looking for a place where to hide from the police and often, they end up in a void (between two blocks of flats). The only time, when a conative function of a spatial sign is revealed, is when the group robs a bank. The space - though for very short time - became possessed by them and their rules (Table 4.; the bank clerks have to give him money under threat). I did not ​ ​ notice any kind of obvious expression sign shown in the movie. That means, the director worked more with the functions of signs, focused on contact - with those which connect people, rather than with the function of exclusion.

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● Kreuzberg: one of the most popular neighborhoods; known for its ​ nightlife, alternative scene and numerous Turkish immigrants. Before the Fall, Kreuzberg used to be isolated. Its eastern parts were surrounded by the Wall. That is why this area had cheap rents as well as Phatic function squatters from the radical left back then.

● a techno club: techno was widely spread in Berlin after the Fall. Today ​ is Berlin by many known as 'capital of techno.

● Späti/Spätkauf: open-late store, usually a very familiar place for people ​ within a neighbourhood, or as a meeting point.

● Friedrichstraße: it runs through Mitte and Kreuzberg borough and ​ it is a major shopping street in central Berlin. Before World War II, the wealthy were coming here for its notorious nightlife. Home to many international and luxury street brands. There is the Checkpoint Charlie (the symbol of division between East and West Germany, expressive sign for Allied armed forces) on the street, though, not shown in the movie, the group is most of the time very close to it.

Table 2. Overview of the found signs, with phatic function

● chic cafés, bars, bicycle culture: icons of urban life and gentrification ​

● underground garage: normally interstage for another place, in the ​ movie appears like an “underworld” of Berlin.

● roof on a block of the flats: a meeting spot for the group of old friends. Poetic function ​ At the moment of occupying the space, it become a poetic sign; they have an obvious connection to it, but they do not use the space to express their identity (better they want to stay incognito)

Table 3. Overview of the found signs, with poetic function

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● blasé effect:- unimpressed with or indifferent to something because one ​ has experienced or seen it so often before. Index for life within a metropole (stealing a car, breaking on the roof, stealing some drinks from the store, etc. as part of "everyday life").

● Westin Grand Berlin Hotel: the luxurious building in the architectonic ​ Symbol, Icon, Index style of classicism is an index for wealth. ● construction site: a symbol of the ‘always becoming city’ ​ ● Victoria (the main character): a young foreign girl dancing freely in a ​ techno club symbolizes an international open minded and permanently living city

● cafés, bars, bicycle culture: icons of life in a metropole and indexes of ​ gentrification

Table 4. Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes

4.2 Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin (2012)

Maybe has Niko (Tom Schilling) a bad day, but more likely, this is how his everyday reality looks like; he is losing his girlfriend, forfeits his driving licence and has no money even for a cup of coffee, etc.. We get to know the main figure not only from his action or passivity, but also through what some of other figures say from time to time about him. The atmosphere of the black-and-white form and jazzy music makes us focus more on the introversive main figure and his slow motion through the busy city in the contemporary Berlin.

4.2.1 Function

The movie starts in an apartment, where we first meet twenty-something years old Niko Fischer. He is breaking up with his girlfriend, but doing it in very indirect way, which already

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creates an impression that the main character acts passively or even apathetically. He represents flâneur, strolling through the city without an aim. The second scene shows his new apartment, with the several views on details - running water, effervescent tablet in a glass, Niko lighting his cigarette with toaster. They introduce us to the slow motion of the movie. We accompany Niko in a day, where he does not plan anything, he only accepts what comes and he is rather emotionally neutral to everything. That fits to his appearance of flâneur and outsider. He accidentally meets his former classmate from high school Julika (Friederike Kempter). She is an element in the movie, which reminds him of his past. She remembers Niko as someone who always knew what he wanted and also as one of those who made fun of her in the school, because she was obese back then. Niko and his friend Matze (Marc Hosemann) go to the filming spot of a movie, where Matze´s friend Phillip (Arnd Klawitter) has a role of the Nazi officer. That is the first moment in the movie of playing with the memory of German nation. After this scene, Niko talks to his father (Martin Brambach). They meet on a golf course, which is an index of wealth. Niko does not seem to feel comfortable in such an environment. That might be the reason why he does not feel guilty to use his father's money each month, though he quit the studies two years ago and did not find any job yet.

4.2.2 Similarity and Repetition

There are several motifs, repeating through the whole story. First, step by step we discover that Niko has quit or dropped out of almost everything he has ever began - his studies, his relationship and a lot of freetime activities as his father later points out. Appearing like the only desire of him is the cup of coffee he orders everywhere he comes, though, ironically, he never gets it. The scene of a running train of S-bahn (a type of hybrid urban-suburban rail) is also repeating regularly. Most of the sequences with the train are dividing lines between the scenes. There are several comic moments, following each other. Niko fails to obtain a suspended driver’s license and the psychologist calls him ‘emotionally unstable’, then when

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he realizes he does not have enough money even for a coffee and the waitress labels him as a ‘bum’. Another person, letting him know about his failure is his father, blaming him for quitting everything. On the other site, Niko, as the representant of the Generation Y32 does not show complete ignorance to everything. He observes and listens to everybody around him; his neigbour, his friend's grandma, and an elderly man, approaching him in a bar. The latter (Michael Gwisdek) recalls the events of Nov. 9-10, 1938, otherwise known as Kristallnacht33. That is another moment of dealing with collective national history on the level of personal memory, by how the old man perceived the event. After the talk, the old man walks to the street and collapses. When Niko finally shows his emotions, the old man dies in the hospital.

4.2.3 Unity/Disunity and Development

Shot in black-and-white, the movie has an easy, jazzy music, which portrays the mood essentially. There is no climax in the story; it is a combination of scenes where Niko talks to and observes other people. In the film, we do not perceive any large development of the main character. We get to know him from his past from what others say to him; he used to be more self-confident.

32 Oxford dictionary explains Generation Y as “the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, comprising ​ ​ primarily the children of the baby boomers and typically perceived as increasingly familiar with digital and electronic technology.” Retrieved from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/Generation_Y. ​ 33 The online Encyclopedia Britannica defines Kristallnacht as “the night of November 9–10, 1938, when German ​ Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property. The name Kristallnacht refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms. The violence continued during the day of November 10, and in some places acts of violence continued for several more days.” Retrieved from: ​ https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht.

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Picture no. 3: A Coffee in Berlin 1 Picture no. 4: A Coffee in Berlin 2

4.2.4 Urbanity

The most repetitive motif of space in the movie is public transportation; more precisely Berlin U-bahn and S-bahn34. Public transport might be seen as ‘any-space-whatever’ in a sense, that it is an anonymous space which transports us between the places of ‘importance’. Nevertheless, it is a place of everyday mobility and contact, that is why I consider it as phatic sign. In such framed space we unconsciously follow the rules of personal contact (avoiding the physical contact, not speaking too loud), and vice versa, we might feel annoyed or even outraged when anybody breaks the rules. On the windows of Berlin´s metro we recognize the symbol of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's most famous monument. In this case it refers to the real landmark; it is its icon. Therefore, I perceive it as expressive sign, as it reminds us - even when we can not recognize it under ground - that we are in Berlin. Brandenburger Tor is a symbol of German division during the Cold War. Nowadays, it is seen as national symbol of peace and unity and motif for many souvenirs.

34 In Berlin, S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn/city rapid railway) and U-Bahn (Untergrundbahn/underground railway) are the most common ways of public transportation. According to the portal berlin.de, Berlin´s metro runs along a network of approximately 146 kilometres and includes 173 stations. Most metro lines operate underground, some run also on above ground tracks. The U-Bahn Berlin is well known for its yellow-colored trains. S-Bahn Berlin covers 15 lines on a 330 kilometre long regional network and with almost 170 train stations. The S-Bahn mostly runs above ground. Train stations can be identified by and white S symbol and the green color. Retrieved from: https://www.berlin.de/en/public-transportation/1746751-2913840-sbahn.en.html.

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Niko lives in an ‘altbau’, which is a German term for an old building. In Berlin, there are several densely built-up quarters with old reconstructed buildings. In the movie, I recognize Prenzlauer Berg, a formerly low-income neighborhood and nowadays one of the most expensive ones. That is why I label it as poetic sign - the quarter has been almost completely gentrified. Another sign of gentrification reveals when Niko comes to a café and wants to order a regular black coffee. He is not only confused by so many options (Arabica, Columbia type, soya milk, etc.), but also by big prices. Such cafés bear a poetic function of sign - though, we might see them as conative as well - they exclusively invite those, who can afford their prices. After the unpleasant talk with his father, Niko goes for a walk to a forest. Berlin is full of such green places (parks, lakes, forests), sometimes even named as the greenest European city. That is in contrast with mess, noise and traffic, which are the features, often identified with Berlin. From the window of a car, Niko observes the evening life in Berlin. It is full of people who are hanging out in the bars and bistros. One of the places, for example, is a kebab shop35. Although, these kind of bistros are seen as the signs of national identity, they do not create a differentiation between in-group and out-group members. It is a spot of everyday contact and Turkish sellers are usually very friendly and open there. That is why the sign has a phatic function.

Niko and Matze arrive to the theatre, where Julika invited them for a performance she is a part of. The place where it is located is an old building, where the walls are covered with posters and graffiti. The interior is in industrial architectural style, with a lot of brick and iron; it might be a reconstructed former fabric. There, a theatre ensemble does a performance36, which Matze laugh on and that is why they later have a heated dispute with the director and he asks them why did they come if they find such kind of art funny. The theatre itself is

35 The first kebab (meat and vegetables in pitta bread) was served on March 2, 1971, in Mahmut Aygun´s ​ restaurant in Berlin. So it is said, kebab is typical Berlin´s meal. (2009, Jan 20) Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/4295701/The-man-who-invented-the-doner-kebab-has-died.html 36 The Oxford Dictionary explains a term performance as: “An act of performing a dramatic role, song, or piece ​ ​ of music.” Retrieved from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/performance. ​

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oriented rather alternatively than classically, so the place only invites those, who “can understand” it. In the context within the movie, I consider the place to be a conative type of sign, it excludes those who do not attend such events. When Niko is having a romantic moment with Julika and she asks him to call her like on high school, Niko refuses and refers to “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”37, meaning ‘overcoming the past’. The last part of the movie with the old man talking is also connected to the term “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”; to its original meaning.

After that, several pictures from the city appear. More of them show a working site in the city, which might be an index for the “always-becoming city”. On another one there is a skate place, where we recognize graffiti “Fuck Yuppies38!” and “Hate cops”, which bear conative function by excluding a specific group of people. Another picture shows stadium reflectors, which is an index for the Mauerpark. Mauerpark is located in Prenzlauer Berg and it is famous for its open air karaoke and flea market each Sunday. It has a phatic function, connecting people from all over Berlin. There is also a picture of probably the most iconic street art in the city. The first mural depicts two figures in the act of unmasking each other, showing the “west side” and the “east side” letter signs (see the Picture no. 7) . Later, there was a second mural added: a businessman chained by his golden watches (see the Picture no. 6). This sign I perceive as expressive, connected to the past of the city, which used to be divided. The businessman might be an icon of gentrification, which might refer to conative type of function, as it is a critique of such a way of life, what is more, it might point to the fact

37 As the portal Deutsche Welle explains, “‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ is generally associated with Germany's ​ ​ process of coming to terms with the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Immediately after the war, the occupying Allied powers in Germany made efforts to "de-Nazify" the way Germans viewed the world.” ​ Retrieved from: https://www.dw.com/en/vergangenheitsbew%C3%A4ltigung/a-6614103. 38 Cambridge Dictionary defines Yuppie as “a young person who lives in a city, earns a lot of money, and spends ​ ​ it doing fashionable things and buying expensive possessions.” Retrieved from: ​ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/yuppie.

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that the dwellers are not satisfied with such a transformation of some parts of the city. The mural does not exist anymore39.

Picture no. 5: Street art made by the artist Blu 1 Picture no. 6: Street art made by the artist Blu 2

4.2.5. Summary: The director (Jan Ole Gerster) works with the motif of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (”overcoming the past”). Niko refers to it in the moment of getting closer with his former schoolmate Julika, who wants him to call her like back at high school, when she was obese. Niko and his friend Matze go to a movie set, where Matze's friend is playing a Nazi officer from the second World War who fell in love with a Jewish woman he hides in his basement. The last moment of referring to the collective memory of the German nation is when Niko listens to an old man talking about the ‘Kristallnacht’. The motif of public transportation is repeating, as the movement of train segregates the particular scenes. There are several moments of portraying gentrification within the city (e.g. when Niko orders a black coffee

39 As Lutz Henke, co-creator of the Kreuzberg murals explained for the Guardian, why they painted over the ​ most famous street art in Berlin: “We felt it was time for them to vanish, along with the fading era in Berlin’s ​ history that they represented.”. Moreover, as he continues, gentrification needs the artistic brand to remain ​ attractive, as it tends to artificially revive the creativity, by producing an “undead city”. Henke names such a process as ‘zombification’, which would turn Berlin into “a museal city of veneers, the “art scene” preserved as ​ an amusement park for those who can afford the rising rent.” (2014, December 19) Retrieved from: ​ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/19/why-we-painted-over-berlin-graffiti-kreuzberg-murals .

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and he is offered several types of coffee, which is too expensive for him, ‘altbau’ - reconstructed old building, etc.). Made in black-and-white, the motion of the movie is slow, complemented with sleepy jazz soundtrack.

● Berlin´s U-bahn and S-bahn: the most common ways of public transportation. ​ Everyday contact, mobility, close proximity between strangers.

● a kebab shop: usually it is a small business of some Turkish family (most of Phatic function ​ them in Wedding or Kreuzberg)

● Mauerpark located in Prenzlauer Berg and it is famous for its open air karaoke ​ and flea market each Sunday.

Table 5. Overview of the found signs, with phatic function

● icon of Brandenburg Gate on the windows of Berlin´s metro: it refers to ​

the physical landmark; it is its icon. It reminds us that we are in Berlin. Expressive function ● the mural made by the Italian artist Blu (Picture no. 7): connected to the ​ past of the city, which used to be divided.

Table 6. Overview of the found signs, with expressive function

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● graffiti “Fuck Yuppie”: aimed against young people who earns a lot of ​ money, and spends it on fashion and on expensive possessions. Conative function ● the mural made by the Italian artist Blu (Picture no. 6): connected to ​ the past of the city, which used to be divided.

Table 7. Overview of the found signs, with conative function

● ‘altbau’: old reconstructed building, Prenzlauer Berg is densely built by ​ them, a concentration of the reconstructed buildings is therefore an index Poetic function for gentrification.

Table 8. Overview of the found signs, with poetic function ​ ​

● Brandenburg Gate: a symbol of Berlin and of German division during the ​ Cold War. A popular tourist attraction of nowadays.

● a forest within the city: index for a green city, Berlin is full of lakes, ​ parks, green spaces

● mess, noise and traffic: in contrast with the ‘green city’, the features, ​ often identified with Berlin Symbol, icon, index ● a kebab shop: as it is said the first kebab was served in Berlin, it became a ​ symbol of the city.

● “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”: meaning ‘overcoming the past’ ​ connected to the National Socialism and the Holocaust. It is an index of "de-Nazifying" the way Germans viewed the world.

● a working site: an index for the “always-becoming city”. ​ ● flâneur: the stroller, the passionate wanderer, a symbol of urbanity ​ ​

Table 9. Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes

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4.3 Die Fremde/When We Leave (2010)

Die Fremde or When we leave talks a story about a young woman Umay (Sibel Kekilli), who ​ runs away from unhappy marriage she has in Istanbul. She wants to start a new independent life in Berlin. She believes she can find missing safety among her family, but the disappointment is huge. She finds out, that her family does not accept her, because of the traditional conventions they stick to. The movie works with the motif of domestic violence against women.

4.3.1 Unity/Disunity and Function

The first scene is a cut from the last one. At first, we might not understand its function and we may even forget about it while watching the film. Just later, we get to know that the running boy from the scene is Umay´s brother, running away from the spot where he was aiming with a gun at his sister. The second scene - in a an interruption clinic - indicates the theme of the whole film - the main character Umay (Sibel Kekilli), suffering from her own decisions. The movie starts in Istanbul, where she lives with her husband Kemal (Ufuk Bayraktar), his family

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and the son Cem (Nizam Schiller) in the suburbs of the city. Therefore, we perceive the Turkish capital only from birds-eye and in the particular frame of the suburb. Umay, who ​ symbolizes a modern woman, is not happy in such environment. Firstly, because her husband behaves aggressively and without respect towards her. And secondly, the life she has there - within the frame of such suburb - is just not enough for her. She takes her son and all the money she has and flees to Berlin, where her parents live.

Umay arrives with the expectation of understanding and support from her family to start a new life as a single mother. Each member of the family copes with the new situation differently. Acar (Serhad Can), the younger brother of Umay, goes probably through the strongest inner fight. Within the world of the Western metropole and German culture (Acar only speaks German), he tries to follow the rules and traditions of the family, but most of the time he fails: he does not feel comfortable to follow his sister when she is going out, he tries to hide a letter which Umay gave him for their mother, after she left the house to go to a women's shelter and meets the brother secretly. The most terrible fate he earns, however, is to kill his older sister to restore the family´s honor. He is not able to do that. In the beginning, her sister Rana (Almila Bagriacik) also feels empathy towards Umay. She changes her attitude, though, when she gets to know that her fiancé´s father annulled the engagement, because of her sister´s action. The most radical position express the father (Settar Tanrıöğen), together with the older brother Mehmet (Tamer Yigit). They want to send Umay back immediately after they find out she run away from her fiancé. They believe she belongs to her husband forever. Umay refuses that and burns her passport. It appears like she has a very close relationship to her mother (Derya Alabora), but she is not able to understand her daughter and urges Umay to stop dreaming. Umay gets employed in a restaurant. There she meets Stipe (Florian Lukas) with whom she falls in love. Her boss Gül (Nursel Köse) tries to open Umay´s eyes by explaining her, that her family will never choose her over their community.

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Umay´s son Cem does not understand the way their family treat them. Most of the time, he just humbly follows his mother´s action. When his aunt Rana has a wedding, together with his mother they are kicked off the ceremony. The question of Cem, why they are not allowed to be there, provokes Umay into coming back and tell her and her son´s story in front of the guests. Consequently, she only gets back derogation. Cem has to get used to new environments again and again. Because, most of the time he is surrounded by adults, he shows no interest to play with other children. That is a first harm he gets from such a way of raising. Another one results from his parents´ action. Cem is the source of their conflict; his father comes to Berlin to take him back to Istanbul. At the end of the movie, after Acar fails to kill his sister to save the dignity of the family, the older brother Mehmet takes action, but he accidentally kills small Cem. His death symbolizes the absurdity of the whole conflict within the family.

4.3.2 Similarity and Repetition

There is a repeating motif of Umay leaving. She packs her stuff and leaves again and again. First, she flees from her life in Istanbul. Then, when she runs away from her family in Berlin to a women's shelter. But even there she can not feel safe; her brother, together with his fellows, comes to threaten her, so she leaves to her friend's (Alwara Höfels) place. The motif of leaving is repeating one more time, after her brother treats her badly at their sister's wedding. She goes to Stipe, who symbolizes a modern Western European in the movie. He is the only man in the film, who does not treat Umay violently or with blame, but with tolerance and respect. These scenes are based on conventions; Umay is running away from traditional patriarchal structures to the modern world of independency.

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4.3.3 Urbanity

There are several places, shown in the movie. First, it is the remote, but vast and quiet suburb of Istanbul. Then, most of the scenes with Umay´s family are set in their flat in Berlin, which is probably part of some particular Turkish community within the city. It might be set in the well known part of Kreuzberg SO36, or in some other quarters of Kreuzberg, Mitte and Wedding, where the largest Turkish communities can be found. Another place in the movie is a Turkish village where Umay´s father come to visit his father. The village is in big contrast with the metropole of Berlin. It is surrounded by mountains and full of ruined houses.

One of the first locations shot in Berlin is a lake, where the two friends sit and talk. The environment around is clean and made up for the purpose of people meeting there. Such green places are shown in the movie more often. Umay is relaxing with her friend on a meadow, she meets her mother in a park. In Berlin, parks are popular places in nice weather, they are full of people, meeting there, doing sports, relaxing. That is why they bear phatic function, they are places of contact. After the fight with her family, Umay runs away to a women's shelter. That I consider a place with conative function; men are not allowed to get in and it should protect the women against potential danger. Umay and her friend are walking through a pedestrian underpass, which is an ‘any-space-whatever’ - it is space to only go through - including some poetic signs; graffiti and posters. In this sense, I consider these items to be poetic signs, because they do not express a space possession of some particular group; most of them appear to be only some signatures or names. They pass a café, next to which stands a big umbrella with the name of the beer brand ‘Berliner’. This brand uses a bear as an icon, which refers to the symbol of Berlin itself. That is, it conveys both information; that we can find beer of this brand inside and also that the café is located in Berlin.

After the dinner with her colleague, the two drive through the city by moped. The city is full of lights and cars, it seems to be still alive. The place where and Umay end up is Teufelsberg. All things considered, as I wrote in the contextual section above, the Teufelsberg

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as a sign has changed its function several times. As a military technical university in Nazi Germany, I consider it to be a conative sign, because it was part of Hitler's plan of ‘Welthauptstadt Germania/World Capital Germania’40. Occupied by the allied forces, it was also exclusively ‘their’ territory, and therefore, a sign with conative function. As a sport areal, it got a function of phatic sign, as it was open for free time activities. As a target for vandals, who were fighting against the idea of the Teufelsberg Resort, it was bearing conative function. That is, the vandals considered it as belonging to public, so with their action, they manifested that they would not accept the incoming investors. Nowadays, we perceive the spot as phatic sign; people meet there, organize parties, and there has been also many filmings done, including this movie.

After this scene, Umay is walking on the Warschauer Brücke. At first glance, it is a place with phatic function, where people walk on, hang out, eat in food stalls and more importantly, it is a traffic junction. Nearby, one can find many popular bars and clubs. Notably, Warschauer Brücke is the last couple of years a spot with increased criminality, including drug crime and pickpocketing41. Though, one would not find any kind of ghetto there, on the contrary, it has its attractivity for curious visitors. That is why I consider the bridge to be both, phatic sign (meeting point) and poetic (spot for drug dealers/crime) sign. There is no moment of exclusion (except the police), so the members of the group do not behave in a way that the place is ‘theirs’. Before the scene, when Umay noticed Kemal

40 As the British Daily Mail explains, “architect Albert Speer was given the task of the pulling together the vision ​ ​ for what was officially known as 'Comprehensive Construction Plan for the Reich Capital', although Hitler toyed with the idea of naming it Germania.” Some of the projects were completed, a great number of the old buildings ​ were, however, demolished before the war, and eventually defeat stopped the plans (2015, August 27) Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-3206338/The-cities-never-Hitler-s-Nazi-capital-floating-utopia-Amaz on-grandiose-plans-didn-t-drawing-board.html. 41 Nibbrig, H.Warschauer Brücke - So gefährlich ist die Partymeile. (2017, October 18). Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article212268757/Warschauer-Bruecke-eine-Party-Meile-mit-Nervenkitzel.ht ml.

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kidnapping Cem, she is walking through a street full of bicycles. In Berlin, many people ride a bike. The movie portrays Berlin´s traffic as uncomplicated and very easy-going.

Picture no. 7: When we leave 1 Picture no. 8: When we leave 2 (Warschauer Brücke)

4.3.4 Summary

Die Fremde or When we leave is a movie about conventions and the fight against those ​ conventions. Umay, the main character, decided to cut her life in Istanbul and run to Berlin, where her family lives. But she is refused; again and again and the repetitive motif of her and her son leaving is therefore the strongest one here. As it is shown in the Table 3, the director (Feo Aladag) worked with symbolism and referring here; Umay stands for a young modern independent woman, her family is traditional and chooses their reputation and acceptance in the community over their beloved daughter and sister. The city is a background of all of this action; though for Umay it symbolizes something more - a new hope; it is a place where she, besides the disappointment from her family, finds understanding and support, friendship and love. Berlin appears to be very calm and embracing here. Even at night we perceive it more as a quiet and slow city.

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● Teufelsberg: as a sign it has changed its function several times. ​ Nowadays, people meet there, organize parties, many filmings have been

done there.

● Turkish communities in Berlin: they apply what Kaya (2015) calls ​ Phatic function ‘minority strategy’, which is more more of a long-life strategy; as they ​ ​ create their own institutions, agencies, youth clubs, cafés, etc. rather than the ‘immigrant strategy’

● Warschauer Brücke: people walk through here, hang out, eat in food stalls, it is a traffic junction. Nearby, there are also many favorite bars and clubs. The last couple of years it became a spot with increased criminality, including drug crime and pickpocketing, though.

Table 10. Overview of the found signs, with phatic function

Conative function ● a women's shelter: a place which should protect the women against ​ ​ potential danger, men are not allowed to get in.

Table 11. Overview of the found signs, with conative function

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● a bear:

- the symbol of Berlin, an icon of bear is used by a beer company ‘Berliner’,

referring to the symbol.

● night lights and traffic:

- symbols of the city which is always alive, the traffic is pictured here as

very easy-going Sign, icon, index ● Umay (the main character):

- symbolizes a modern independent woman; after fleeing her life in Istanbul (which was sad, unhappy and maybe also boring) she finds a job in Berlin, finishes University and falls in love with Stipe, who together with her friend Atife stand for a open minded Western Europeans in the movie, showing her acceptance and understanding.

● Umay´s family:

- her family, on the other site, follows the conventions and the traditions and when they have to decide between her and community, they always think about their family's honour and they deny to accept Umay again and again.

Table 12. Overview of the found symbols, icons, indexes

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4.4 Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The Educators (2004)

The Educators or (its German title) Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei portrays three young people ​ - Jan (Stipe Erceg), Peter (Daniel Brühl) and Jule (Julia Jentsch), who are connected together by a desire to change the world. Jan and Peter name themselves ‘The Educators’ - activists who want to get the attention of and to the rich society in the city, by letting them know that their days of plentitude are gone (“die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”). The complications start when Jule falls in love with both, Jan and Peter. As one action comes out of control, they decide to kidnap a rich man to whom Jule owes money. The three young idealists suddenly come face-to-face with the values of the wealthy people.

4.4.1 Function

Interestingly, the whole movie is filmed with digital hand-held cameras. On one hand, it might be a disturbing item. On the other hand, it also make us feel like we observe their illegal action secretly. Jule has to move out from her flat because she had paid her rent too late. That is a consequence of an accident, which happened when she was not insured and she crashed into an expensive car, belonging to a wealthy businessman (Burghart Klaußner), who symbolizes capitalism42 in the movie. She is struggling to pay off a big debt, for that she works as a waitress. That is in a big contrast with her values; she serves wealthy people, but also she takes part in demonstrations against exploitation and oppression. As a matter of fact, we can perceive Jule in this situation as powerless. Peter invites Jule, his girlfriend, for a trip to Barcelona, but she has to repaint her flat to give it back as soon as possible. Peter goes alone and asks Jan to help her. This coincidence link the two together. While painting, Jule decides to not care about the deposit; the action is accompanied by the optimistic rock music

42 The Cambridge Dictionary explains capitalism as “the economic, political, and social system that is based on ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ property, business, and industry being privately owned, and is directed towards making the greatest possible ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ profits for private people and organizations.” Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/capitalism.

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beats, glorifying the moment of rebellion, culminated in the painting “every heart is a ​ revolutionary cell” on a wall. These kinds of actions of the three are therefore portrayed in a ​ rather positive way in the movie.

The first moment of getting closer of Jule and Jan is when Jule admits her big depths. The second moment of building the trust is when Jan tells Jule about ‘The Educators’. This information instantly become their secret and therefore, it is the beginning of betraying Peter. The idea of ‘The Educators’ gives Jule courage, and together with Jan she wants to break-in to the house where the rich man, to whom she owes money, lives. That is the moment when Jule decides to change her position from helpless victim to an active avenger. After they reorganize the furniture, they stay and have some more fun in the pool, where they experience their first romantic moment, though Jan hesitates because of the friendship with Peter. The light outside turns on and they have to hurry up to get out of the place. Peter comes back from Barcelona. Jule finds out she forgot her mobile in the house. Jule and Jan drive to the place again. The owner of the house comes at the same time the two are inside and he recognizes Jule and attacks her when she wants to run away. Jule and Jan are desperate, they call Peter. The owner calls the police, so they have to come up with an idea what to do, immediately.

The three decide to kidnap the man and they drive to the Austrian Alps, where Jule´s uncle has a cottage. The car they have - a blue van - is a very important item in the whole movie. First, it is an icon of the hippie43 movement. Through the van, Jan and Peter are able to organize their Educators´ actions, it brings them out of the danger of the coming police; first Jule and Jan when they break into the house and then when they decide to kidnap the man and drive a long way until they are safe. Jule and Jan first make love in the van, so on one hand it is also place of betrayal, but on the other hand, the three reunify there on their way back home.

43 Oxford dictionary characterizes hippie as “(especially in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, ​ ​ typically having long hair, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.”

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Picture no. 9: The Educators 1 Picture no. 10: The Educators 2

4.4.2 Repetition/Similarity

The main characters are portrayed as anti-capitalist activists and idealists in the movie. Their fight for values culminates in the cottage, where they talk with the kidnapped businessman Hardenberg (Burghart Klaußner) and they find out that he was a radical himself during the sixties and a part of the Socialist German Student Union44. The motif of contrast is repeating. At the first place it is a huge difference between the rich and the poor. When they break into the villas, we can see all the expensive equipment there. In the next sequence Jule talks about her depth while painting her former flat, which she can not afford anymore. Then, Jule serving rich people in a restaurant, who act arrogantly towards her. The motif of the love triangle is also very distinctive in the movie. First, Peter feels disappointed by his friend´s and the girlfriend´s action, but their friendship means more to him. Once again, the question of ownership is recognizable here, in the matter of relationships this time; Peter admits he does not own Jule and from that point on they emerge like a trio, who - quoting Peter - the three of them are more important that any kind of “boring bourgeoise ethic”.

44 The Socialist German Student Union was Formed in September 1946 in Hamburg and it remained closely ​ connected to the Social Democratic Party in West Germany till 1960. Between 1960 and 1970 the group acted as independent, being more radical in criticism of the established West German parties. It is often connected to an alternative lifestyle and tolerance for same-sex couples, equal rights for women or the right to abortion. (Suri, 2003).

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4.4.3 Unity/Disunity

Hardenberg is the most controversial figure in the movie. First, he represents everything the three fight against. After some talks in the Alps they find out he was once a leader of the German student movement, they can express more sympathy and maybe can even identify with his past himself. That is, he stands for a conflict between his former beliefs and the current way of life. The end of the film is open to interpretation. After coming back from the mountains, Jule, Jan and Peter wake up on the door ring, they are not at home, but in a hotel. When the police gets in, the only thing they find inside is a note: “Some people never change”. The three, then, head on Hardenberg´s boat to a Mediterranean island, with an intention to destroy western European television signal towers. We may suppose Hardenberg let them know about all of that before he called the police. The note might have been symbolically addressed to the people, belonging to the higher society. Another interpretation, is that they did expect Hardenberg to call the police to their flat despite his promise, so they would run away and the last scene is therefore an act of stealing his boat.

4.4.4 Urbanity

The first scene is located in a luxurious villa. In Berlin, more of such buildings are recognizable mostly in the neighborhoods of the former West Berlin. The cut on the young activists, including Jule, demonstrating on the street against imported products, made by children or under bad conditions in Southeast Asia. This kind of expression bears poetic function, as their action is rather connected to the content and the place (a shoe shop, where they approach people), than to their own identity. The street where Peter and Jan live I recognize as Eberswalder Straße, which is part of the quarter Prenzlauer Berg. In the movie,

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the neighborhood is shown as a sign with phatic function. That is, it is full of places where people meet each other, it is open for families with small children, it is full of small parks and some playground. Nearby, there is also Kastanienstraße, known for trendy bars, cafés, restaurants and design shops. Prenzlauer Berg went through a big transformation; from the sixties onwards it was full of activists, independent artists and bohemians. In the nineties, it also was home to a squatting45.

The metro station Eberswalder Straße used to be named Dimitroffstrasse during the postwar division of Berlin, so as a sign it used to have expressive function. Named in honour of Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov, it conveyed a longing to the Russian sector. Nowadays, it has more of neutral name, referring to a town in Brandenburg. Eberswalder Straße is a hub where gentrification in Prenzlauer Berg is probably the most recognizable. It is located nearby Mauerpark and Kulturbrauerei, which is a multipurpose centre for culture (cinema, dance school, etc.) and regular markets. In the movie, there is an example how a phatic sign can be transformed into a conative sign. It is a tram, when the controllers come in, the turf become ‘theirs’. That is, in that moment, they apply their rules by excluding those who do not have tickets, so they are not allowed to use public transport. In this case it is an old man to whom they behave offensively.

Jan takes Jule with a van to a neighbourhood called Zehlendorf, which is financially the strongest one in Berlin.46 It is a place, where architects, real estate agents, lawyers, etc. live, most of them belonging to the upper middle class. I consider this kind of quarter has an expressive function; a lot of architectonic and design features (pompous equipment, a size of such buildings, expensive electronics) are supposed to manifest the wealth of the owners; so it refers to the identity of the people living there. The neighborhood, as a space of everyday

45 Oxford dictionary explains a squat as a “building occupied by people living in it without the legal right to do ​ ​ so.”Retrieved from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/squat. ​ 46 Mohr, R. Reich in Berlin. (2006, December 10) Retrieved from: ​ ​ http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/das-leben-der-anderen-reich-in-berlin-a-452808.html.

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action of those who occupy it, has therefore a status47 of exclusivity. At the same time, it excludes those who can not afford it - so it also bears a conative function. ‘The Educators’ boycotted such consumerist lifestyle by leaving either a note “Days of plentitude are gone” or ​ ​ “You have too much money”. They do not destroy anything, they only rearrange furniture, to ​ ​ make the people feel unsafe in such environment and to make them think about the way they live. But that is only truth until Jule and Jan break into Hardenberg´s house. Jule wants to revenge, destroy something, so they put a sofa to his pool. The act changed from a general manifestation against upper-middle or rich class towards a personal message to a particular person. Until the moment Hardenberg appears in the camera frame, he only stays in our imagination as a representant of the higher society, its symbol.

The second half of the film is almost completely shot in the Austrian Alps. A play with contrast is visible once again here. The environment of a metropole make the proximity between people bigger. What is more, the young activists become more emphatic and willing to accept Hardenberg and maybe can even identify with his younger self. The smaller the shared space, the more intense contact between people. Importantly, the pure nature of the mountains makes Hardenberg reflect about his lifestyle. He thought money could get him more independency, but he only has more worries instead. How can somebody with such a past live the way he lives?, Jan asks him. As he claims, first it was a stable job and income and safety and at some point he found himself voting CDU48.

47 Collins dictionary explains status as “a particular status is an official description that says what category a ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ person, organization, or place belongs to, and gives them particular rights or advantages.” Retrieved from: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/status. 48 CDU (Christian Democratic Union) is a conservative party. Currently, together with its Bavarian counterpart ​ the Christian CSU (Social Union in Bavaria), it has the most seats in the German Parliament. However, the popularity of both is on the decline.

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4.4.5 Summary

The story of ‘The Educators’ points to a big gap between the rich and the average/poor. Though, in Berlin it might not be visible at first glance, there are neighborhoods, which are financially more stronger than the other ones, the director (Hans Weingartner) chose a quarter Zehlendorf as a representative space for the wealthy in Berlin. The movie works with the motif especially in the first half, shot in Berlin. Jan and Peter break into the villas, while their owners are in vacation. As they reorganize furniture to make the people feel unsafe in their small worlds of plentitude, they also attack their identity and integrity. The motif of contrast is visible not only in the question of property. It also portrays a completely different way of life within the city and in the nature; it shows the most controversial figure - Hardenberg - with an inner fight between his beliefs and values and lifestyle. The actions of ‘The Educators’ is shown in rather positive and optimistic light, as they follow their idealism.

● Eberswalder Straße: part of the quarter Prenzlauer Berg, metro station for ​ Phatic function Mauerpark, Kastanienstraße (with a lot of trendy cafés, bars, restaurants), Kulturbrauerei. Big transformation; in the postwar division it belonged to the East bloc, from the sixties onwards full of activists, independent artists and bohemians. In the nineties, also home to a squatting.

Table 13. Overview of the found signs, with phatic function

● demonstration against child labour and underrated work: it bears a poetic ​ Poetic function function; as the activists possess the space (a shoe shop, where they approach people); it is not connected to their identity or to the sense of belonging, but to the content.

Table 14. Overview of the found signs, with poetic function

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● Zehlendorf: the wealthiest part of Berlin; it exclude those who can not ​ afford to live there (conative function) and at the same time it bears an Expressive function expressive function; as it puts together those, who belong to the “higher” society and the quarter it therefore ‘theirs’.

Table 15. Overview of the found signs, with expressive function

● “The days of plenitude are gone”/“Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”: notes ​ which ‘The Educators’ leave after they reorganize furniture in the chosen villas (therefore they are their indexes). They want to make the wealthy people unsafe and let them think about their lifestyle.

● villas, extravagant architecture and design: indexes for wealth ​ ● Hardenberg: first, he symbolizes capitalism, moreover, he appears as an ignorant, as he lets Jule pay a big depth, because she crashed his car, but he Symbol, icon, index does not need the money, as we can later see in his villa. Then, in the Alps the group finds out once he was once a leader of the German student movement, which disrupt his status as a symbol of capitalism.

● Austrian Alps : in the contrast with the metropole, the nature - symbol of ​ freedom.

● Volkswagen van: symbol of the hippie movement ​

Table 16. Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes

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5 Discussion

The space within the cities is articulated by the proximity between dwellers, who change their appearance and meaning by occupying the space and by doing their everyday activities. Film, as a product of popular culture influences distinctively the way how we perceive the world. Cinema makes places attractive to tourists, by transforming them to destinations. That is why I think a further research in the scope of urbanity in cinema is needed, as it constructs an image of particular places. What is more, spatial semiotics enable us to better understand the environment of a city, as it permanently communicates with us and therefore appears like a medium, we come to contact on everyday basis with. In this diploma thesis, I have set an aim to examine what image of current Berlin the filmmakers of the selected movies created. In the particular analyses, I propose partial answers, however, in the discussion part I will, for the purpose of the wider overview, describe the results of the research. Does, and if so, how does the way of depiction of Berlin´s urbanity by German directors differentiate from the the way of depiction by foreign directors? That was the first additional research question. In the second additional question has my interest been focused on the particular urban spaces chosen for filming. The third additional question is concerned about the contextual and technical aspects, which might have influenced how is Berlin perceived in the selected movies. Because this paper is limited by its volume, I only chose four movies for my analysis.

According to its filmmaker Sebastian Schipper, the movie Victoria (2015) “talks about ​ ​ young people at eye level. ...in ten years, 20 years, you can turn to this film and learn something about the youth culture of today.”49 Moreover, as he continues in the interview, he ​ unconsciously wrote a ‘love letter’ to Berlin, as he has lived there seventeen years already. That refers to the found signs, from which most of them bear phatic function, as the protagonists are mostly moving in public spaces, bringing people together. Already the first

49 Lunn, O. What It's Like to Shoot an Entire Feature-Length Film in One Take. (2016, April 6). Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnp95w/sebastian-schipper-victoria-interview

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scene supports a myth of Berlin, as an always-living city with the strong techno culture (the myth created after the Fall of Berlin Wall). The tension creates Berlin as a thrilling place (action, speed, underworld) similar to those from Hollywood movies. The atmosphere is multiplied by technical features, as it is shot in one cut and with the only one hand camera; that together with improvised50 dialogues gives us an authentic feeling of being part of the action. The myth, which is constructed by the movie is therefore the city of exciting nightlife, the city which belongs to the young people and the city which carries a lot of dark places, secrets and action. There are several exchanges of the meanings of particular signs; first as the group turns to criminals - as viewers we tend to perceive them not as dangerous but rather we fan them in their action. Similarly, the police changes the moral concept we connect it with on the second level of signification - from justice and safety - to danger. All of that contributes to the the mediated image, similar to that of most of the foreign periodicals as shown in the chapter Destination Berlin in the contextual part. That is, it fits to what Georgiou (2010) ​ named ‘mediascape’; the city´s media opening a window to the world. Berlin, with its porous and transitive character appears as always on the move. This kind of picture sustains economic and tourist life and creates the city’s image as an exciting place.

A Coffee in Berlin/Oh boy! (2012) portrays the city with maybe “too much” style, as The New York Times points out51. The jazzy tones, black-and-white setting, shadows and slow motion definitely modify the way we perceive Berlin. As in the movie Victoria (2015), ​ we also accompany the main character in the range of a couple of hours of his/her life. The movie is occasionally slightly critical to the phenomenon of gentrification (too many types of coffee, which is too expensive; too alternative theatre, where the people who do not understand it are not welcome, etc.). Coffee shops, bars and the graffitied art spaces which Niko visits are also products of the phenomenon. The images of the street scenes support the

50 Lunn, O. What It's Like to Shoot an Entire Feature-Length Film in One Take. (2016, April 6). Retrieved from ​ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnp95w/sebastian-schipper-victoria-interview 51 Saltz, R. A Young Man’s Dark-Roasted Day. (2014, June 12). Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/movies/a-coffee-in-berlin-explores-a-citys-shadowy-history.html

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image of the “always-becoming” city, as the motif of the building site is repeating. Similarly, the often shown U-Bahn and S-Bahn; which creates an image of an alive city, a city that is always in motion. “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”, the ‘overcoming of the past’ is also an important point, which Jan Ole Gerster, the filmmaker, puts in the foreground. This is a topic which often divides Berliners and Germans into those who think the history should be conserved to overcome it and those who want to forget about it. The director does not really propose his own solution, as Niko (the main figure) stays rather neutral in his reactions. The director clearly articulates that the theme of the German collective memory should not be overlooked. However, it still appears in contrast to the atmosphere of the city shown in the other parts of the movie, which is rather carefree and cool.

The director of the third movie When We Leave/Die Fremde (2010) is Feo Aladag, a ​ Vienna-born currently living in Berlin, who took the surname of her Turkish husband. The idea of the movie, according to her, came from her own experience, as she became more sensitive to how minorities are treated because she experienced it when she changed her name. She also did an Amnesty International campaign on violence against women and she spent two years researching cases of domestic abuse before writing the script52. In the movie, we perceive some kind of mythological fight between Good and Evil. First, as an European viewer, it might be hard to understand why Umay´s family is not supporting her, why they refuse to help her in hard times, but also why she’s coming back again only to get frustrated. The answer lies in the depth of a myth. That is, we perceive a collision of different cultures, where a woman has a different position in society. Umay wants to break such myth, she acts independently and symbolically flees from her conventional life in Turkey to a “better” Western world. Berlin, therefore, symbolizes a modern life for her, as it gives her a chance take care of herself and her son, she starts to study and work there, she even falls in love there. Berlin gave her freedom and that is also the way how we perceive it; easy-going, open,

52 Jenkins, M. Feo Aladag, Exploring Honor Crimes Close To Home. (2011, January 28). Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ https://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133247303/feo-aladag-exploring-honor-crimes-close-to-home

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embracing. Thus, the people she meets in the city are understanding and open minded. On the other side stands her family, who chooses their cultural concept of honor over their daughter and sister, who chose the Western concept of freedom instead. The importance of community is very characteristic for Turkish culture, which is visible also in some parts of Berlin, for example Kreuzberg or Wedding, as they create their own social institutions, agencies, cafés, and professions. This is what Kaya (2015) calls minority strategy (a long-life strategy), in comparison to the migrant strategy (a temporary one). Berlin is after Istanbul probably the second metropole, where the Turkish community has such a distinct representation. That is, the director of the movie supposedly chose the filming spot, with the clear purpose to get an authentic look of the life of traditional Turkish family in the foreign environment.

In the movie The Educators/Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004), the most distinctive ​ ​ motif is contrast. First, it is a contrast between plentitude and lack, but also between the chosen spaces, as it is divided into two parts; first one is shot in Berlin and the second one in the Tyrolean Mountains. There is a similarity with the movie Victoria (2015), as the main ​ ​ protagonists are twenty-something year old people. But Hans Weingartner, the filmmaker of The Educators, contributes to what O´Brien (2012) calls a cinema of consciousness. From this ​ ​ ​ point of view we might identify the myth in the film as illness of global capitalism and young idealists as the medicine against it. That is, the mythological fight of Good and Evil is also appearing here, as we know it from the fairy tales - the rich stand for the bad and evil and the poor or the average for those who are in the story to “safe the world”, the heros. What is more, as viewers we sympathize with ‘The Educators’, as they do their action nonviolently. The symbol of capitalism in this movie - the rich man Hardenberg - who turns out to be a former ´68 student rebel, so he instantly loses his position in the story and gains another one; a contradiction between his beliefs and his lifestyle. The movie stays within two parts of Berlin: the first one is Prenzlauer Berg, which in the sixties onwards symbolized an anchor for bohemians, independent artists and homosexual community. Since then, in has experienced

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strong wave of gentrification. The second neighbourhood, shown in the movie is Steglitz-Zehlendorf, considered a wealthy middle-class borough. The Austrian Alps stand for the place where all of the economic classes are symbolically erased; so they appear in contrast with the metropole.

All of the four movies work with different motifs and myths. Interestingly, the first two movies Victoria (2015) and A Coffee in Berlin/Oh Boy! (2012) are distinctly focused on ​ ​ the urbanity of Berlin. In those movies the city emerges not only as a background, but more distinctive as a platform for an action of the protagonists. I suppose that that might be a result of the personal experience of the two directors, who are German and both have lived in Berlin for some time and maybe wanted to introduce the city from their point of view. Both movies therefore unintentionally appear as an invitation for potential visitors. Victoria (2015) talks its ​ ​ story about the exciting and thrilling place from Hollywood movies and at the same time about the myth of “the capital of techno”. A Coffee in Berlin/Oh Boy! (2012) portrays a ​ ​ careless flâneur, strolling through the gentrified streets full of cafés, bars and artistic places. It builds an atmosphere, similar more to the New Wave. When We Leave/Die Fremde (2010) ​ and The Educators/Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004) are both made by Austrian directors. ​ ​ As they come from a German-speaking country, they might feel closeness to the culture, which can be why they chose Berlin for their scripts. The both directors work with the already existing and merely known images of Berlin; When We Leave/Die Fremde (2010) shows ​ ​ Berlin as an international metropole, open to foreigners, where the presence of Turkish family culture is very strong and visible. The Educators/Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004) uses the ​ ​ picture of the German capital as a hub of alternative underground culture and leftist activists, as the director himself lived in a squatted house in the Friedrichshain district. The conflicts, created by the two latter directors are aimed to inequality and misunderstanding across the classes and the cultures.

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The first limitation of this research is the unavailability of some particular movies from foreign directors, as they might have enriched the variety of the examined and compared movies. Spatial semiotics is a relatively new method, therefore the pool of studies to compare this research with is small. In the field of cinema, there is a gap of the application of this method, as it is merely used for static pictures and photographies. I assume, that for better understanding of how a city communicates within any movie, it is necessary to use, together with spatial semiotics, complementary analytical tools. The five principles of film formal system, which I used for the purpose of this research, helped me to establish the motivation of particular elements in the movies. For further research, I propose to use, together with the spatial semiotics analysis, multimedial discourse analysis, further developed by Kress and van Leeuwen - Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2006). It would be useful for a ​ ​ broader type of research, as it is focused on the third order of signification - ideology. Because of volume limitation of this research I was not able to include it.

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6 Conclusion

The focus of this study was oriented to the city as a medium and its depiction in movies. The aim of this research was to examine how Berlin is depicted in the selected movies. That is, how the city communicates with their protagonists within the frame of the particular movies and how it communicates out of this frame, so with viewers of the movies. I mostly worked with the site of audiencing by using spatial semiotics and the three modes of signs after Peirce. The five principles of film formal system broadened the analyses with the site of production and the site of the image itself. In the discussion part, I worked with Barthes´ understanding of a myth, as I interpreted the found signs.

Besides the aim, I set the main and the additional questions. They focused on the difference between the image of Berlin created by German and foreign directors, as well as on the technical part. The first additional question was partially set as a hypothesis, as I suppose the depiction of German filmmakers would differentiate from the depiction of foreign filmmakers. The fact that the directors from abroad are both of Austrian origin appeared first as a limitation, but at the end it brought a closer view on the relations between the two close nations. We often articulate our identity by setting clear borders of who we are and who we are not (so who are “the others”). The filmmaker of When We Leave/Die Fremde (2010), as ​ ​ well as the director of The Educators/Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004) used a motif of ​ exclusion (in the first one the exclusion from the own community, but acceptance in the “Western world”; in the latter the exclusion of different economic classes). For further research on this topic, it would be possible to widen the range of the study either by using only movies directly connected to important historical moments, or by using movies of different genres, which can bring potential movies from directors of different nations into the focus. Another research could compare the images of two metropoles (e.g. Berlin and New York), depicted in movies.

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The use of technical tools appeared important in the movies made by German filmmakers. Victoria (2015) is a one-take movie, which should make us feel a part of the ​ ​ whole story. A Coffee in Berlin/Oh Boy! (2012) uses various techniques (music, ​ black-and-white setting, shadows) that create a feeling of a slow and easy-going city. That is, the technical part was more important in the movies which did not have one essential storyline or a clearly set motif and which played more with the urban spaces of Berlin. Therefore, I assume that the filmmakers of the latter two mentioned movies intentionally worked with the image of Berlin and modified it to the wished form. That is in the contrast with the urban depiction of When We Leave/Die Fremde (2010) and The Educators/Die Fetten Jahre sind ​ ​ vorbei (2004), as they do work with already existing of Berlin. ​ In this research, I used the analytical tools of spatial semiotics and I applied them to a product of popular culture - film. The operationalization of the methodological section and the results summarized in the discussion section can be useful for further research of urbanity within cinema. It is possible to use spatial semiotics as a quantitative method as well, by enumerating the functions of found signs. For that purpose, bigger amount (ten to twenty) of films can be used and it can be useful for the purpose of comparing artworks of particular filmmakers, or for comparing different time periods of movie production.

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Index of Names

Bordwell & Thompson 3, 4, 9, 38, 35, 44, 45, 46, 51 Barthes 36, 39, 40, 90 Eco 49 Farías 9, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30 Georgiou 10, 11, 14, 20, 26, 29, 33, 85 Huyssen 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27 Kaschuba 15, 18, 33 Kaya 33, 34, 74, 87 Ladd 20, 25, 28 Mumford 16, 17 Nora 17, 62 Rose 12, 13, 18 Shortell & Krase 8, 11, 16, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 49 Simmel 8, 18, 19, 41, 42 Van Leeuwen 12, 89

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Index of Objects architecture 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 83 the “always-becoming city” 6, 27, 28, 57, 64, 67, 86 cinema 4, 10, 13, 14, 20, 24, 28, 38, 42, 80, 87, 89, 91 film 4, 12, 24, 35, 38, 44, 45, 46, 47 German cinematography 24, 28 the “haunted city” 6, 20, 22, media studies 4, 9, 36, 37 research 8, 9, 15, 27, 35, 36, 38, 48 sign 23, 26, 40, 41, 44, 48, 50, 58, 63, 64, 72, 73, 80 spatial semiotics 8, 9, 35, 38, 40, 41, 48, 85, 40, 91, 92

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Index of Pictures

Picture 1: Victoria 1 53 Picture 2: Victoria 2 53 Picture 3: A Coffee in Berlin 1 62 Picture 4: A Coffee in Berlin 2 62 Picture 5: Street Art made by the Artist Blue 1 65 Picture 6: Street Art made by the Artist Blue 2 65 Picture 7: When we leave 1 73 Picture 8: When we leave 2 73 Picture 9: The Educators 1 78 Picture 10: The Educators 2 78

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Index of Tables Table 1: Overview of the motifs/conflicts in the selected movies 39 Table 2: Overview of the found signs 58 Table 3: Overview of the found signs, with poetic function 58 Table 4: Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes 59 Table 5: Overview of the found signs, with phatic function 66 Table 6: Overview of the found signs, with expressive function 66 Table 7: Overview of the found signs, with conative function 67 Table 8: Overview of the found signs, with poetic function 67 Table 9: Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes 67 Table 10: Overview of the found signs, with phatic function 74 Table 11: Overview of the found signs, with conative function 74 Table 12: Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes 75 Table 13: Overview of the found signs, with phatic function 82 Table 14: Overview of the found signs, with poetic function 82 Table 15: Overview of the found signs, with expressive function 83 Table 16: Overview of the found symbols, icons and indexes 83

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