The significance of war films lies in reflection, through the recurrence of war and wartime life, to reflect and examine the past history. And in Germany documentary healing department director Christian. In Schwarhofer's German Lesson, reflection is not justified and exuberant, but seeks light in the repression of silence, contemplation of all kinds of deviating from the norm after human nature has been alienated.
Like many good anti-war films, German Lessons is from the novel of the same name, written by Siegfried. Lenz. Lenz was born in the spring of 1926 in a small town called Luc in East Prussia. Most of the inhabitants of the town were workers, craftsmen, petty traders, fishermen and petty officials. Before it really came, the city known as the "Pearl of Masur" was peaceful and tranquil, and when the fog rose on the lake, the whole town was like a hazy oil painting, looming.
Sadly, by the time Lenz was born, the city had entered a wartime state. There are many training grounds outside Luc, and throughout the year, the sound of gunfire is incessant, and the war has destroyed the tranquility of the city and brought deep disasters to the city.
At the age of ten, Lenz joined the Hitler Youth, and from then on he felt the influence of the German Nazis on his life. Although everything was in a state of ignorance and unknownness, it was precisely because of this state of confusion that he felt uneasy. When he was thirteen years old, World War II broke out, and he still didn't understand what war was, "The day the war started, I stood on the street, stood on the side of the street, and watched this misfortune with blinking eyes. I didn't complain about what I saw, nor did I fear, nor did I ask how it all happened, neither the desire for self-denial nor the idea of being afraid: I felt like a spectator. ”
Later, Lenz joined the Hitler Youth, and at this time the outline of the war gradually became concrete, and he and his friends participated in various trainings, waiting to go to the battlefield and prove their worth with war. At the age of seventeen, Lenz graduated from liberal arts and sciences and was immediately conscripted into the army to join the Naval Combat Corps. After four months of training, Lenz was given combat assignments.
He was going to fight on the Baltic Sea, and under the powerful military offensive of the Soviet Navy, Lenz witnessed the cruelty of war for the first time: fleeing, casualties, sinking ships, friends dragging their lingering bodies to him for help. In the last months of the war, Lenz went into hiding and was later captured, and in the camp he worked as an interpreter for the British before being released.
Returning to freedom, Lenz moved to Hamburg, Germany, where he began his university studies, majoring in literary history, English language and literature, and philosophy. During his studies, Because of his poverty, Lenz did a lot of work and even sold blood. He had planned to become a teacher after graduation, but by chance, he was interviewed by a reporter, and this interview changed his ambitions and made him choose to become a writer.
In 1951, Lenz published his first novel, The Goshawk in the Air, and has since become a freelance writer. In the half-century since, Lenz has written novels, essays, poems, and plays, and has won several literary awards.
Looking back at history today, war is always an unavoidable topic. In Lenz's creative career, war was his eternal motif. The historical evolution of the twentieth century, especially the things he has participated in, witnessed, and experienced, are the subjects of his writing.
Unlike some exile writers, Siegfried. Lenz's attitude to war was ambiguous and complex, and he grew up in the Nazi value system and was also a war fanatic. When the absurdity and cruelty of the war were gradually revealed, he began to doubt the Nazi education he had received. The collapse of faith plunged Lenz into nothingness, a void in which he doubted his own choices, his doubts about war, his doubts about so-called nationalism.
When Lenz first witnessed the horrors of war, he suddenly realized that the nature of war was actually absurd. All he had experienced seemed to be nothing more than history's cruel play on their generation. Understanding the true side of war, the pain of the soul is far more thorough and heavier than the pain of the flesh. The experience of the war not only completely changed Lenz's attitude towards life, but also essentially determined the direction and theme of his creation.
As a realist writer, everything That Lenz shows in his novels stems from real social life, and we do not see in his works generals with outstanding military merit, or delicate descriptions of war, but ordinary little people, whose problems may not be earth-shattering and sensational, but it is undeniable that it is these people who constitute the truth of history.
Lenz once said that some of the experience acquired by man can be understood as a task or responsibility, or at least should not be separated from the experience of his contemporaries. Violence, flight, abuse of passion, meaningless death, these are the experiences of my peers, for me to explore all this is a matter of course, writing is the best possible way to understand external and internal events.
The best way to understand the rounds is to delve into his work, where the German lesson, which focuses on the conflict between father and son, is the best window. "German Lessons" is about what happened in a German class in a german class for a juvenile offender in a correctional institution in Hamburg, Germany. The teacher assigned an essay called "The Joy of Due Diligence." When Sigi got this topic, he was excited, but he didn't know where to start, and finally he could only hand in a blank homework book.
As punishment, he voluntarily asked to be locked up in a single room and write around the clock. When he began to conceive, the past came to mind. He began to think back to his father, an iron-faced selfless, chief of a police post in the far north of Germany. In order to carry out Nazi orders, regardless of friendship, strictly enforced the ban on speech. He abandoned his son, who was a deserter, in defiance of his father-son relationship, and was seriously injured. Sigi, who was only ten years old at the time, helped the painter hide his works and helped his brother find a place to live when his values were not clear.
After the end of the war, Sigi's father remained paranoid about his mission, eventually breaking off his friendship with the painter and breaking off the father-son relationship with his eldest son. Sigi, worried about the artist's work being destroyed, is always trying to help him hide it, but is eventually discovered by his father, who sends Himji to a correctional institution. Sigiri spent months completing his homework. After that, Sigi is released, but where his future is, he does not know.
In Siegfried. In Lenz's novel, the relationship between father and son is the main line, and Lenz uses war as the background to tell the process of alienation of people, which is not only war, but also the social system and political atmosphere of the time. When the novel is put on the screen, we can see the growth of a teenager under the lens of Christian Schwarkhov, the confrontation between art and politics, the destruction of human nature by war.
Realism, which originated in the 1830s, has brought many wonderful artistic presentations to people, whether it is literature, drama or film, but when it is based on reality, we can always smell a heavy side. When it comes to the origins of realism, we have to go back to the history of Europe in the nineteenth century, when there were frequent social wars, social unrest, and people's livelihoods. Many intellectuals voluntarily shoulder the responsibility of exposing the dark side of society, so they break the cage through language and writing, and reveal the ills of society through the portrayal of real life. In such an environment, realism became their new weapon. After the seventies, realism reached its peak, and its influence spread around the world.
Christian. Schwarhof chose a more restrained format when filming German Lessons, and in his films we can feel an extremely depressing atmosphere. All the characters do not smile, all the feelings are suspended in mid-air, there is no foundation, can not lean on. This is the effect of war, the alienation of life by war, and thus from man.
All the characters in the film have contradictions between each other, the conflicts between father and son, the contradictions between friends, the indifference between family members, and so on, which constitute the tone of the movie. We can't see everyone in this movie as they really look, in the shadow of war, they are not exhausted, only the sirens and the seriously wounded eldest son represent the cruelty of war.
Some fans said that "German Lessons" was not enough fun, not as wonderful as the original. In fact, the contradiction between the film and the original has a long history, and there is no comparison between the two different art forms. I liked the film, though, because director Christian Schwarkhoff shot the style of realism that realism should have: objective expression, rational expression, and respect for history.
Objective statement
There is such a principle in realist films, "Taking the objective reality of reproducing life as a basic principle." "This concept derives from realist drama, in which the performance on stage must organize story conflicts and scenes strictly according to the logic of life. Whether it is the psychological changes of the characters or the details of the actions, they must be as close to life as possible.
In German Lessons, director Christian Schloughov follows the style of the original book, and when portraying the relationship between people, Schwarkhoff accurately grasps the cautious communication between people in the environment at that time. For example, the change in the relationship between Nazi officials and painters, the change in attitude towards sons, and the attitude towards wives. As the central characters in the film, the changes in Nazi officials can be understood as the alienation of people by war.
Change never happens overnight, and In the film Schwarhofer gradually expresses the hypocrisy of Nazi values and the distortion and alienation of ordinary people's emotions and human nature. His son, Sigi, was the only one to remain sober, and unfortunately, that sobriety didn't get him out. On the contrary, in the environment at that time, sobriety was just another kind of confusion.
Rational performance
Realist works often pursue the typicalization of art, through which they satirize, contrast or reflect. Therefore, many of the realist works we see are selected through selection, and such choices are made to achieve artistic expression. Nevertheless, the realistic, objective and rational performance of the details is still the key.
Director Christian Schwarhof portrayed two families in German Lessons, one of Nazi officials and the other of a painter. In showing the conflict between the two families, the director did not deliberately create contradictions and conflicts, but with the development of the plot, the contradictions intensified step by step. When the painter's wife died, the conflict between the painter and the Nazi officials reached its peak.
Faced with the painter's provocation, the Nazi official took out the pistol from his waist and pointed it at the painter, and the residual emotions and conscience made him point the pistol at the sky. After the gunshots, the relationship between the two broke down completely. This also laid the groundwork for his son, Xi ji, to collect the works of the painter, who was sent to the correctional home by him. In German Lessons, there are explanations for every action, and through these rational explanations we can see how a person is influenced by absurd values and how human nature is distorted.
Respect history
The subject matter of realism originates from life, from the things that happen in our daily lives. The novel German Lesson is based on Siegfried. Lenz's real life, and on this basis added Lenz's thinking about war. The film "German Lesson" has both a loyalty to the original work and the personal style of director Christian Schwarhof.
Christian Schwarhof is known as the German documentary healing director because he can always extract the warmth of human nature from the cold subject matter. In German Lessons, Sigi's help to the painter and his brother is the light of humanity. The romantic treatment of realistic themes stems from Schwarhof's experience. His father and mother, who were active in the broadcasting world, gave Schwarkhoff a unique experience at an early age and showed his artistic talent in painting, photography and music.
Growing up, Schwarkhoff worked as a journalist, writer and editor on various television and radio channels, and eventually Schwarkhoff made film his lifelong ambition. In the film, Schwarkhov makes full use of his talents in photography, music and painting. In German Lessons, we can see a lot of delicate compositions and poetic empty shots. These shots dissolve the dullness and cruelty of the film, and at the same time, these exquisite shots also give people hope.
The biggest difference between "German Lessons" and spectacle war movies is "respect for history", history is composed of countless small people, and the joys and sorrows of small people are the truest appearance of history.
In films with historical themes, we can often see a country's reflection on war. But this reflection often endures the onslaught of history and tradition. When history enters the art, what we glimpse in the art is the presentation of the film creators to the war, in this almost real presentation, we can not only intuitively feel the cruelty of the war, but also marvel at the impact of realist themes on the director's artistic creation: in a limited time and space, they use their understanding of war, the choice and processing of the subject matter, and the innovation and choice of artistic techniques to make it a complete work of art.