die siebte Woche

WEEK SEVEN

Semi-success. I have managed to meet some people, not Berliners, but cool people nonetheless. It has been really fun talking with them about Berlin and what it is they are doing here. I went with a friend to look at a WG that he was interested in and it made me wish I was in the market for a WG in Berlin. So I continue to have fun in Berlin...


This week our film screening was Die Mauer, dir. Jürgen Böttcher. Because I had never seen this film, or even heard of it, I really had no idea what to anticipate. For some reason, I was thinking that it would be some kind of dramatic film about the separation of Berlin. Obviously, I was competely surprised by the film right away, mainly because of the extreme documentary feel of the film. My impressions of the film are a little unsure. While watching the film, I really enjoyed seeing different peoples' reacted to and with the wall, especially as it was being torn down. I saw how the wall really became a comodity and a site to see, even for Berliners themselves. Probably my favorite thing about the film was seeing how excited the city became as the wall was being torn down. People climbing over the wall, through the wall, cracking at the wall with hammers, screaming, dancing, and interacting with one another. Watching these scenes made me realize how amazing of an event it must have been. Stylistically, I feel that there is not much to the film. The term "demontage" describes it perfectly; the film consists of long shots of the same scene. After seeing such a film as compared to a cinematically complex film such as Wings of Desire, I felt a little more confident in our group's filming abilities and also the power and effectiveness of such simplicity.

The selected reading on Böttcher's documentary films helped me better understand where the film stood in the documentary-film spectrum and to get an idea of what Böttcher's style as a documentarist is. The reading first elaborates on what a documentary is and what it is that a documentarist does. A documentary is described as not merely an observation of society, but a commentary on society, created by the particular subject matter portrayed and the manner in which it is presented. Thus, a documentarist takes a certain event and then presents his or her take on this event. Historically, the documentary was much more favored and supported in the GDR than in the Federal Republic. Although documentaries received support in the GDR, they had to fall within appropriate party lines, which is where Böttcher's films became problematic. Böttcher took much more artistic and interpretave freedom with his films and thus did not pass censoring often. After reading into Böttcher and about the documentary in general, I can see now that Die Mauer is a documentary, but not in the strictly cronological, historical sense. I'm not sure what Böttcher's personal take on the Mauer is, but I can see that his film is more than a documetation of the slow dismantling of the wall, but focuses on the social interactions of people with the wall and with other people during this time.

This week our film group met to solidify filming plans. As time is dwindling, we realized that we have much to do and that the only way it will get done is if we have a planned schedule. We have marked out the days we are going to film as well as days we are going to work on editing. I think with this new schedule we will be able to get all of our footage by december. I am very excited about our film...we have great ideas, and now we will see if we can translate them into film.