die vierte Woche

FOURTH WEEK

I've been in Germany for over a month now. I can hardly believe it; time passes so quickly. At this point in time I am worrying that I am completely failing at one of my intended goals for the program-improving my German. I have been speaking German with store clerks and the like, but it is not enough because I still find myself getting lost in conversation. Perhaps I need to immerse myself more intensely into the language and force myself to improve. Confidence is no problem, but experience is lacking. We'll see...

In Thorsten's class this week we discussed the Bayerisches Viertel, Schoeneberg, and the Stihl-Snock art/memorial exhibition. To begin with, we talked about the evolving state of German "memorial" culture beginning in the 1970s with examples such as the "excavate where you stand" project. Memorials were becoming much more open and honest, confronting Germany's past in a much more pulp manner than ever before. The reading pointed out that when the Stihl-Snock memorial was first installed, people called the police in fear that the signs were neo-Nazi propaganda. This reaction by the people tells me that never before had German people been confronted with such an honest memorial and because of that they were still very sensitive to the subject. I feel that the Stihl-Stock project is important because it affects people on a much more personal level; it doesn't merely say how many Jews were murdered but informs people of the day-to-day activities that Jews were prohibited from doing, activities that we take for granted every day but without them our lives would be much more difficult and less enjoyable. The everyday context of this memorial makes it more personal and effective, i believe.

For our weekly film screening we watched Rossillini's Germany: Year Zero. This film is a rubble film made by an Italian director about a boy and his family trying to survive in post-war Berlin. I really enjoyed this film. What was most interesting to me was the portrayal of Edmund and the pressure placed on hiim by his family. It was almost as if the adults were occupied with recovering from the war and the youth were forced to pick up the pieces. This theme of children coping with post-war tragedy was foreshadowed in the opening narration. Rubble films are unlike any film I have seen before; the everyday actions that take place in the setting of destroyed city blocks is somewhat surreal to me and yet so symbolic.

Our film group met this week for about an hour in a cafe and again we threw around some new ideas. We always have these great conversations and come up with such great stuff. We are still refining our film idea more and more, which is good because it makes the project as a whole more managable. I feel we now have a more clear idea of specific scenes we are going to film. Before we get too far into our major film we have to finish our acoustic film. We have some good sounds, but the hard part is going to be putting them together in an interesting way. We are hoping to really contrast Berlin with the countryside...through sounds only. I'm pretty excited to pursue this.