This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ THE REDEMPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY FILMS FROM THE BERLIN SCHOOL THROUGH THE LENS OF SIEGFRIED KRACAUER’S MATERIAL AESTHETICS Hammelmann, André Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). 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Sep. 2021 THE REDEMPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY: FILMS FROM THE BERLIN SCHOOL THROUGH THE LENS OF SIEGFRIED KRACAUER’S MATERIAL AESTHETICS André Hammelmann PhD in German Studies 2 Abstract This thesis explores the contemporaneity of Siegfried Kracauer’s conception of cinema as outlined in his book Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, first published in 1960, and defined by Kracauer as a study of “material aesthetics.” Though the book is often seen solely as a contribution, albeit a significant one, to so-called classical film theory, in this study I want to make the case for the ongoing relevance of Kracauer’s notion of the medium, presenting ways of making his approach productive for the examination of contemporary cinema. As case studies, I have chosen films associated with the Berlin School, a group of contemporary German filmmakers whose material realism strikes me as ideally suited for discussions in relation to Kracauer’s material aesthetics. This is what I aim to do in this study: bringing together Kracauer’s idea of cinema’s redemptive potential for re-experiences of the material world with contemporary realist filmmaking. However, I do not consider Theory of Film a dogmatic manual of cinematic realism but an open text that raises significant issues about the medium’s relationship with reality. Thus, rather than aiming to prove Kracauer’s film theory right or wrong, I want to use the book as a toolbox to think about contemporary cinema and the current possibilities for experiences of reality. In so doing, this study, I hope, will help to open up a discussion on the relevance of Kracauer’s Theory of Film for current realist approaches not only in the Berlin School films that are my object, but in world cinema. 3 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... 3 TABLE OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 8 1 THE REDEMPTION OF SIEGFRIED KRACAUER’S MATERIAL AESTHETICS ..... 11 PHOTOGRAPHIC MEDIA’S PECULIAR RELATIONSHIP WITH REALITY ................................ 22 THE REGISTERING CAMERA.......................................................................................... 22 ONTOLOGICAL REALISM: OF INDICES AND ICONS ............................................................. 23 BETWEEN MIMESIS AND ALIENATION ............................................................................ 27 CINEMA’S REVELATORY POWER ................................................................................... 29 EXPERIENCING THE MATERIAL WORLD ................................................................... 33 THE GOOD OF FILM EXPERIENCE ........................................................................... 36 THE CONFLICTING PRINCIPLES OF THE FEATURE FILM ................................................. 42 THE TWO MAIN TENDENCIES ....................................................................................... 42 THE DILEMMA OF NARRATION ..................................................................................... 43 (THEORY OF) FILM IN ITS AND IN OUR TIME ............................................................ 47 A PROBLEMATIC RECEPTION ........................................................................................ 47 THE CONTEMPORANEITY OF KRACAUER’S MATERIAL AESTHETICS ....................................... 52 2 FILMS FROM THE BERLIN SCHOOL: MATERIAL APPROACHES TO REALITY . 57 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TERM ............................................................................ 58 THE FIRST GENERATION .............................................................................................. 58 THE DFFB ............................................................................................................... 61 THE SECOND GENERATION .......................................................................................... 64 4 THE SCHOOL THAT ISN’T ONE....................................................................................... 65 THE MATTER OF REALISM ................................................................................... 69 REALISM: A GLOBAL TENDENCY .................................................................................... 71 MATERIAL REALISM ................................................................................................... 76 3 RECORDED AND CONSTRUCTED: THE AMBIGUOUS CHARACTER OF PHYSICAL REALITY ........................................................................................ 78 THE PROSCRIPTION OF MANIPULATION .................................................................. 83 ANGELA SCHANELEC’S MARSEILLE: AESTHETICS OF NORMALITY ................................... 85 FRAMING THE WORLD ................................................................................................ 89 SONIC MATERIALISM .................................................................................................. 95 FILMING THE LIGHT ................................................................................................... 98 THOMAS ARSLAN’S DER SCHÖNE TAG: MULTI-LAYERED REALITIES............................... 103 EXPLORATORY MOVEMENTS ...................................................................................... 107 MEDIATION RENDERED SENSIBLE ............................................................................... 111 THE PARADOXES OF CONTEMPORARY REALISM ............................................................. 116 CHRISTIAN PETZOLD’S GESPENSTER: IMAGINATIVE REALITIES ..................................... 117 THE IMAGINATIVE FORCE OF AMBIENT SOUNDS ............................................................ 122 FANTASTIC REALISM ................................................................................................ 125 MATERIAL GHOSTS .................................................................................................. 129 4 OBJECT AMONG OBJECTS: THE HUMAN BEING AS OPAQUE SURFACE ..... 137 CREATING AMBIGUITY: PERFORMANCE IN BERLIN SCHOOL CINEMA ............................. 142 BEING INSTEAD OF SEEMING ..................................................................................... 144 BRESSONIAN FIGURES: SOPHIE, DENIZ, NINA ......................................................... 147 THE SURFACE OF THINGS .......................................................................................... 148 SHOWING / NOT SHOWING ...................................................................................... 150 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RÜCKENFIGUR .................................................................... 151 WORKING AGAINST OVERSIGNIFICATION ..................................................................... 153 NEW WAYS OF SEEING ............................................................................................. 157 RESTRAINED EXPRESSIONS ........................................................................................ 162 5 VALESKA GRISEBACH’S SEHNSUCHT: LONGING IS EVERYWHERE ................................... 170 BETWEEN FICTION AND DOCUMENT ........................................................................... 170 LONGING RENDERED SENSIBLE ................................................................................... 175 THE PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE OF DANCING ...................................................................... 179 ULRICH KÖHLER’S BUNGALOW: NO EXPLANATIONS ................................................. 182 AN OPAQUE STRANGER ............................................................................................ 185 5 (NON-)PLACES: THE UNFAMILIAR IN THE FAMILIAR