THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL: 'S Author(s): ELLEN SEITER Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 37, No. 2, SEXUAL DIFFERENCE (Spring 1985), pp. 41- 46, 39 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the University Film & Video Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687660 . Accessed: 27/03/2012 16:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of Illinois Press and University Film & Video Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Film and Video.

http://www.jstor.org THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL: MARGARETHE VON TROTTA'S MARIANNE AND JULIANE ELLEN SEITER

"IfMarianne and Juliane were really exemplifies the problems of interpreting what it claims to be itwould not have the outside the gotten any support, distribution or context of German history and culture. exhibition." -Charlotte Frauen und Film' DeLorme, Margarethe von Trotta is one of a handful of women directors making narrative von Trotta's 1981 film Margarethe feature films to gain an international Marianne and Juliane Bleierne (Die Zeit) reputation on the art film circuit; she is raises critical questions about feminist also thewoman director most often iden filmmaking, political narrative film, and tified in theUnited States with theNew the of German films in the interpretation German Cinema.2 While there are many United States. The director has achieved women directors working in considerable critical acclaim and commer whose films are more strongly feminist cial success filmswith making exclusively than von Trotta's, they have failed (with and often female, feminist, protagonists: the possible exceptions ofDaniele Huillet, Die Verlorene Ehre Der Katharina Blum , and Helma Sanders with Volker (co-directed Schlondorff, Brahms) to receive the same recognition in Das Zweite Erwachen Der Christa 1975), theU.S.3 This may be attributed in part to Klages (1977), Schwestern Oder Die von Trotta's collaboration with Volker Balance Des Glucks and most (1979), Schl5ndorff, her association as an actor Heller Wahn recently, (1982). Particularly with the New German Cinema, the noted has been von Trotta's attention to production of her films by Schl6ndorff's intimate between women relationships company, Bioskop-Film. To some extent, and the dimension of these psychological von Trotta's protagonists can be seen as Marianne and Juliane relationships. the female counterparts toWim Wenders' stands as an work especially problematic alienated heroes of the post war genera in this because it is based in on regard part tion; her films, like Schlondorff's, resem the lifeof Gudrun Ensslin, member of the ble a genre familiar toAmerican distribu Baader Meinhof Frak - group (Rote Armee tors, the thriller as Thomas Elsaesser and her tion) explores personal history has argued.4 Von Trotta's films can also be from the of point view of Ensslin's sister, compared to the work of other women Christiane. Set during the 1970's with directors who have had some success on flashbacks to the sisters' childhoods in the the American art film circuit, and whose the film is bound in postwar period, films are distributed in 16mm here. Many German so that it history inextricably of these films have focused, like von Trotta's last three films, on a relationship ELLEN SEITER teaches filmand television between two women, such as Vera at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Her Chytilova's Daisies, Diane Kurys's Entre articles have in Film Reader, appeared Jump Nous, Marta Meszaros's Women and Cut, Tabloid and theJournal of Film and Video. Varda's One The Other In 1983, she received a grant to study at the Agnes Sings Doesn't. Goethe Institute in Bremen, Germany. What distinguishes von Trotta's films from these is the absence of comic @ Copyright 1985by Ellen Seiter relief, nostalgia, heterosexual romance or

JOURNALOFFILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring 1985) 41 careerism. Von Trotta is unremittingly have been murdered in prison). As in serious about relationships between Sisters, thedifferences between thewomen women in her films, and the relationships are emphasized. At the beginning of the she portrays tend to be rather tortured. film Juliane is involved in a stable, childless relationship with a man and is In Sisters (Schwestern) and inMarianne deeply committed toworking forwomen's and Juliane, von Trotta examines the rights through journalism and legal relationship between women in the con reform. The film's first dialogue scene - textof the nuclear family the characters consists of a conversation between Juliane - are sisters and aspects of personal life and Marianne's husband, Werner, in which have been studied by feminists: which it is revealed that Marianne is feminine identity, identification, ego involved in terrorism, has deserted her formation, competition and jealousy husband and her son, Jan, and that Juliane among women. In the first film the older perceives her as selfish, spiteful and sister,Maria and the younger sister,Anna, irresponsible. Marianne's first scenes in are characterized as disparate in personali the film,meeting her sister clandestinely ty,world view, relationship to others and and storming into her apartment in the to theirwork, yet their relationship is one middle of the night demanding coffee and of intense and destructive interdepen clothing, tend to reinforce this view. dence. Flashbacks and dream sequences Juliane (played by , who convey the psychological relationship appeared as Maria in Sisters) is responsi between the sisters. Anna remembers her ble, dedicated, sensitive; Marianne is sister reading a fairy tale to her about hard, cynical, contemptuous of others. In children lost in the forest, and a scene the scenes between the sisters at the prison standing with her sister before a mirror, after Marianne's arrest, they confront one putting on make up and fascinated by their another and their personal and political multiple, doubled reflection.After Anna's differences in exchanges which are alterna suicide, Maria obsessively tries to estab tely tender and violent. When Marianne lish a similar relationship with another dies in prison, Juliane engages in a desper woman. In her dreams she looks into the ate search for evidence to prove that her mirror and sees, not her own reflection, sister's death was a murder, not a suicide, but her sisteras.At the conclusion of the and sacrifices her work and her personal film,Maria gains a painful understanding relationship to do so. Her actions prove to of their relationship and resolves to have no public usefulness, however, and, integrateAnna's attributes into her own rebuked after one attempt to make the personality. information public, she accepts the role of guardian to the now physically and emo InMarianne and Juliane the relationship tionally traumatized Jan. between sisters is more solidly grounded in the nuclear family and social institu Marianne and Juliane resembles Sisters in tions, while von Trotta retains a strong its emphasis on psychology, its sustained emphasis on its psychological dimension. emotional intensity,and its confinement, The story is told from the point of view of in a majority of scenes, to domestic space. Juliane (Christiane Ensslin) and concerns Stylistically the films are realist: eye level her attempts to resolve her troubled camera, moderately long takes, naturalis relationship to her sisterMarianne (Gu tic lighting, location shooting. Von Trot drun Ensslin), to understand her sister's ta's sisters are usually suffering,and we are commitment to violent political action, invited, in several lingering facial close and to come to terms with her death. ups, to scrutinize them. All these char (Gudrun Ensslin was widely believed to acteristics would suggest that the films

42 JOURNALOFFILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring 1985) belong to the domain of the domestic American distribution, with its emphasis melodrama. The characters are angry and instead on the female characters. alienated, however, ill-suited to the kind of sentimental treatment which melo All of the flashback sequences in drama demands. The families are the site Marianne and Juliane derive from of strained and constraining relationships Juliane's point of view, as E. Ann Kaplan and a desperate struggle for identity.Von has demonstrated.6 The firstmeeting of Trotta subjects the family itself to scru the sisters is followed by a flashback to tiny,as well as the individuals within it. It them as small children, watching the skin

J L a

JuttaLampe as Juliane in von Trotta'sMarianne and Juliane.

is this investigation of the past and of the form on their cocoa while their stern relationships which, among other things, looking father recites his morning prayer. gives the films the emotional tenor of the When Juliane attempts to visit Marianne psychological thriller rather than the in prison for the first time, there is a melodrama. InMarianne and Juliane, the flashback to the sisters playing in the yard investigation takes the form of flashback together, racing each other home. Other sequences which occur seven times in the flashbacks present the emotional impact film and cover, with one exception, the of German history on the sisters: at four childhood period from 1945-55. These and five years old, woken in the night and flashbacks situate the relationship taken by theirmother to air raid shelters, between the sisters in history as well as in as teenagers watching scenes of the con the family. The film's original title, "The centration camps in a film projected by Leaden Times," refers toGermany during their father. The longest flashback the "unemotional, dreary nineteen sequences are set in 1955. Juliane has a fifties," according to von Trotta, from a rebellious spiritwhile Marianne is submis line of the Romantic poet Friederich sive and well-behaved. Juliane breaks the Holderlin.5 This emphasis on historical dress code, challenges her father and her period is lost in the retitlingof the film for teacher, smokes in the hallway at school,

JOURNALOFFILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring1985) 43 and, on a dare from her sister, gets up to in their experience in the nuclear family dance alone at a staid social occasion. within a specific historical, national and Marianne, on the other hand, appears to cultural instance, as E. Ann Kaplan has be father's and teacher's pet, practices the demonstrated in her psychoanalytic inter cello, and dreams of joining a missionary pretation of the film.8A very different group. The flashbacks do not appear in interpretation of the flashback sequences chronological order, and only one flash is offered by Charlotte Delorme in her back is set in the time period after 1955: review in Frauen und Film. Delorme the sisters as adults are watching a film suggests that von Trotta offers the same about Vietnam, and Marianne leans over psychological motivations for terrorist and whispers, "I'll never accept that activity that were popularized by the nothing can be done about that."7 German tabloids (Bildzeitungen) in the 1970's, that the political is entirelyperson Conventionally, flashbacks create the al. Delorme summarizes the explanation: expectation of an explanation, a filling-in "a) unresolved (unbewaltigen) conflicts of the information necessary to solve the with authority in childhood lead directly

r

A

40 y

w

/i1 N t:. ,t

Barbara Sukowa as Marianne and Jutta Lampe as Juliane in von Trotta's Marianne and Juliane.

narrative enigma. Marianne and Juliane is to terrorism and b) right equals left."9 structured in such a way that the flash Radical politics are reduced to rebellion backs address the narrative question against the authoritarian father, and all posed by the film's present: how did the such actions are equated, regardless of sisters turnout so differently?The filmcan political position. In this interpretation, be read, then, as an effective dramatiza Juliane serves as a model of responsible, tion of the feminist slogan "the personal is social democratic oppositional politics, political," locating as itdoes the characters while Marianne epitomizes irresponsible,

44 JOURNALOFFILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring 1985) pathological opposition. condemned. The vehemence of Delorme's attack must be seen from the perspective The flashbacks reinforce this polarization of someone reading the film in terms of of the two sisters, for in childhood as well German politics and history, as well as the as in adult life they are unalterably op representation of women. In von Trotta's posed, and in the intervening years depiction of Marianne, Delorme sees the (1955-75), when Marianne made the image of Gudrun Ensslin offered by the transition fromdaddy's girl to terrorist,we government, and the way that image was have no information about the characters. used to justifywidespread political repres The contrast between the sisters and the sion. E. Ann Kaplan's analysis of the film flashbacks' explanation of the adult char is theoretically grounded in semiotic and acters resembles the conventional melo psychoanalytic interpretations of film dramatic treatment of women as opposite from a feminist perspective and is restrict figures: the vamp versus the straight girl, ed to the text of the film;" Charlotte the good mother versus the bad one. In Delorme's review is sociological and domestic melodrama, the genrewhich has historical in focus, and very influenced by offered the most narrative concentration the kind of press the film received in on women, this has usually meant that the Germany, as well as von Trotta's and positive characterization of a female Christiane Ensslin's comments about the character was achieved through compari film. The difference between these per son to another female character who was spectives is also characteristic of differ morally condemned, thus emphasizing ences in German and American film normative definitions of women's roles criticism, and the problems of interpreta and a narrative interest in the punishment tion ofNew German Cinema in theU.S., of women who did not comply with typified by Eric Rentschler as "... a them. concentration on the formal attributes of the film without taking into account the Von Trotta's concentration on pairs of socio-historical setting they reflector issue from: the of text over sisters with disparate attributes is similar primacy to this conventional narrative polarization context."" of women characters. The question becomes, then,whether the filmswithhold IfMarianne and Juliane is read as an moral judgment of the characters and historical film about Gudrun Ensslin, a concentrate instead on the conflicting number of questions can be asked. Why demands on women in patriarchal society. does the film concentrate on the Two widely divergent interpretationshave psychological ordeal of the character been given by feminist critics. E. Ann based on Christiane Ensslin? How de Kaplan describes von Trotta's characters, terministic is the film in its representation "... as actively engaged in a struggle to of childhood experience? To what extent is define their lives, their identities, and their the narrative discourse that of melo feminist politics in a situation where the drama? If the film is read historically, dominant discourse constantly under what is missing from the film becomes mines their efforts, or forces them into important: the broad impact of the terror destructive positions through controlling ists' actions on German society and the what choices are available."'0 Charlotte way that theRAF was used as a rationale Delorme interprets the film as a reaction for the repeal of civil liberties."' The ary and anti-feminist diatribe against narrative structureconspicuously excludes Gudrun Ensslin, inwhich she is constantly information such as Ensslin's invol compared to her sister, Christiane (to vement in the studentmovement inBerlin whom the film is dedicated), and thereby in the 1960's, the reaction to media

JOURNALOF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring1985) 45 of coverage the Vietnam war, the terror of the script of Marianne and Juliane ists' isolation from the left in political reads: "This is not a film about terrorism, Von Trotta's avoidance of these nor Germany. about the motivations to join a of Ensslin's as aspects history relates, well, political underground. Neither is it a to questions about the funding system for documentation of the fate of the sisters German films and the self-censorship of Gudrun and Christiane Ensslin."is That filmmakers on such politically charged statement is perhaps more easily accepted subjects as terrorism.'4 in the United States than inWest Ger many. What von Trotta's films do offer is These omissions can be seen as detracting an of fromMarianne and Juliane's feminist exploration primary relationships between women, where the tension reflects potential. Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike the difficulties for women in an Meinhof were tragically misguided, but securing identity in a culture where are their treatment by the German govern they devalued. It is typical of theNew German ment and theway that theirmedia images Cinema that a film so were constructed are feminist issues. For it fraughtwith poli tical contradictions is, at the same a was precisely because they were women time, quite important women's film in the engaging in violence, and because theyhad United States. rejected the roles of wife and mother, that they were subject to the greatest moral Notes outrage. Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Mein 1 hof are hardly figures for a "positive Charlotte Delorme. "Zum Film 'Die bleierne Zeit' von von image" type of cinematic treatment, but Margarethe Trotta," Frauen undFilm, No. 31 (1982), p. 55. they are crucial figures to understand, 2 See Eric Rentschier, "American Friends since their has been so especially history and New German Cinema: Patterns of Recep obfuscated. InMarianne and Juliane, we tion," New German Critique, No. 24-25, (Fall see the of the terrorist Winter 1981-2), p. 33. consequences 3 Other German women filmmakers are actions ofMarianne portrayed as personal - discussed in Renate M?hrmann, Die Frau mit tragedy her husband's suicide, her der Kamera, (Munich: Carl Hauser Verlag, sufferingand death in prison, the attack on 1980), and Marc Silberman, "Cine-Feminists in - her son but we never understand the West ," Quarterly Review of Film Studies, decisions which led to those actions. There No. 5 (Spring 1980),pp. 217-232, and "Special Section: Film and Feminism in is a resemblance to the melodramatic Germany Today," Jump Cut 27 (1982), pp. 41-52. mode in the narrative on vic 4 emphasis Thomas Elsaesser, "New German Cinema: timization and the emotional rendering of How German is It?," Oregon State University, events. Juliane comes to an Corvallis, Oregon, 24, October, 1983. understanding 5 Raimund "Balanceversuch einer of her sister by the end of the film,but she Hoghe, Rebellin," in Die bleierne Zeit, ed. Hans seems to have done so by primarily by J?rgenWeber and IngeborgWeber, (Frankfurt on herself some of the am inflicting physical Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1981), endured Marianne in p.79. suffering by prison. 6 In the film's final scene, Juliane tells E. Ann Kaplan, "Discourses of Terrorism, Feminism and the in Von Trotta's Marianne's son: "Your mother was an Family Marianne and Juliane," forthcoming in extraordinary (aussergewo5hnliche) Women in Literature. 7 woman." But her change of heart appears "Ich werde mich nie damit abfinden, dass to derive primarily from her understand man nichts dagegen tut." 8 E. Ann ing ofMarianne's act of self-sacrifice and Kaplan, "Female politics in the symbolic realm: Von Trotta's Marianne and her victimization, and Juliane has made a Juliane" inWomen and Film: Both Sides of the sacrifice parallel by finally assuming Camera, (New York: Methuen, 1983), pp. responsibility forMarianne's son. 104-112. 9 Delorme, p. 52 The introduction to the paperback edition (Continuedon page 39)

46 JOURNALOF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring1985) 10 An insistence on fascist production as Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del cinema, pp. 381-409. depersonalized, authoritarian, coercive, 11 and monumental the more sub James Hay, "Popular Film Culture in neglects Fascist Doctoral Disserta inwhich the Italian commer Italy," Unpublished jective ways tion (Austin:University ofTexas, 12 1982). cial cinema sought to communicate atti JeanGili, "Film storicoe film in costume, tudes on a more familiar, less public and Cinema italiano sotto ilfascismo. Edited by Riccardo Redi epic terrain.The Italian films are designed (Venice: Marsilio, 1979), pp. 129-145. to appear more seductive than openly 13 Lucy Fischer and Marcia Landy, "The and their enactments of familial coercive, Eyes of Laura Mars: A Binocular Critique," relations are more important than their Screen, Vol. 23, Nos. 3-4, pp. 4-19. 14 monumentality. A critical reading of these Susan Rubin Suleiman, Authoritarian Fictions. The Ideological Novel as Literary films as genre productions, a linking of Genre (NewYork: Columbia Press, to the motifs of conver University genre practices 1983),p. 65. a 15 sion, and linking of the conversion Francesco Savio, Ma l'amore no (Milan: narrative to the of sexual differ Sozogno, 1975), p. 75. ideology 16 Francesco Cinecitt? anni trenta ence has important implications. Such a Savio, (Rome: Bulzoni), vol. 1, p. 24. reading reveals that even under fascism, 17 James Kitses, Horizons West, Anthony social relations and their forms of cultural Mann, Budd Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah. expression cannot be reduced to the pure Studies of Authority within the Western of operations of verbal and physical force. In (Bloomington:University Indiana Press, 1969). Antonio Gramsci's sense of the term, 18 JohnEllis, VisibleFictions Cinema: Televi "consent" is also necessary.20 sion: Video (London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982),p. 67. 19 Bill Nichols, Ideology and the Image Notes (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1981),p. 2. 1Adriano and Patrizia / 20 Apr? Pistagnesi, Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the favollosi anni trenta(Milan: Electa, 1979), pp. Prison Notebooks (New York: International 24-33. 260-263. 2 Publishers, 1978),pp. Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano 1895-1979 (Rome: Riuniti, 1979); The precedingarticle isbased on material from RicciardoRedi, editor,Cinema italiano sotto il Fascism in Film: The Italian Commercial fascismo (Venice:Marsilio, 1979). Cinema 1931-1943 by Marcia Landy, which 3 will be Roberto Campari, Hollywood-Cinecitt?. Il publishedby PrincetonPress in thenear raccontoche cambia (Milan: Feltrinelli, future. 4 1980). George Mosse, Masses and Men (New York: Howard Fertig, 1980), pp. 159-196; (Continuedfrom page 46) 10 Edward Tannenbaum, Fascism in Italy Kaplan, Women and Film, pp. 104-5. 11 (London: Allen Lane, 1972), pp. 246-391. Kaplan analyzes the of the terrorist, 5 image Susan Sontag, "Fascinating Fascism," as well, in "Discourses of Terrorism." 12 Movies and Methods, Edited by Bill Nichols Rentschler, p. 24. 13 (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1981), For a discussion of some of these issues see pp. 31-44. Hans "Civil Liberties 6 Magnus Enzensberger, Thoams Schatz, Hollywood Film Genres and Repression in Germany Today," October 9 (NewYork: Random House, 1981),p. 22. (Summer pp. and a series of 7 1979), 107-117, Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose editorials from German newspapers by Herbert (Ithaca, New York; Cornell University Press, Marcuse, J?rgen Habermas, and Rudi 1977),pp. 218-234. Dutschke, as well as Oskar "Terrorism 8 Negt, FredricJameson, The Political Unconscious and the German State's Absorption of Con Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, flicts," inNew German Critique 12 (Fall 1977), New York: Cornell University Press, 1981),p. pp. 3-27. 14 130. See Jan Dawson, "The Sacred Terror: 9 George Mosse, Masses and Men, p. 184. Shadows of Terrorism in the New German See also VirginiaWoolf, Three Guineas (San Cinema," Sight and Sound 48 (Autumn 1979), Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), pp. pp. 242-25. 15 142-143. Die bleierne Zeit, (inside cover).

JOURNALOF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring1985) 39