Mittwoch, 8. August 2007

Gefaengnis: the "slammer series"

Nothing whatsoever to do with Stifter this time. Except for maybe the Schubert in the first film mentioned below, as he was a contemporary of Stifter's, but I don't know if Stifter really even liked him.

Just getting out some ideas, like one needs to shake water out of one's ears when emerging from a swimming pool... or ocean... or, well, a little goldfish bowl as one packs up one's little plastic castle, or from some sort of academic cage-dancing. It's actually sort of like the sensation one has when one has climbed up a tree or a big rock and is not quite sure how to get down again without breaking something... one could always take to the treetops, as in the Calvino story. My present approach is to clip a few ideas up on some sort of clothesline; it seems to be the best answer right now. Meine Waesche.
------------------------------------------------------
One theme I always wanted to do for a film series but didn't have the chance to do was a series called "Gefaengnis/Gefangen/Gefaengene." I also think it would be good to do concurrently with the "crime scenes" course. Perhaps inspired by the cages hanging off the Dom in Muenster, where the heretics or others like unsuspecting grad students can get put away for awhile.

In this series, which features some classic "girls of the slammer," (all the best women seem to end up in jail at some point, whether innocent or guilty-- (update on 8/23: I don't read the news enough, I see, and today learned about the slammer for Hilton, Lohan, and some other girl. I was not thinking of them when I wrote the above) I would include:

--4 Minutes, the "hammer" German film which just played as part of the SIFF :
here's a clip-- (there's also this wonderful scene I couldn't find a clip of, where the prisoner is forced to eat a letter she wrote, which the piano teacher didn't like):


and another:


--Esmas Geheimnis-- Barbara Albert, I think.
--von Trotta: Rosa Luxembourg or Schwestern/Balance des Gluecks or Fangschuss
--Das Experiment
--Bandits
--Funny Games
--Berlin is in Germany
--Der Untergang
--Jakob der Luegener
--more about the DDR, maybe Shaut auf dieser Stadt or Stille nach dem Schuss
--Fassbinder: Effi Briest or Voss or Petra van Kant
--Szabo: Oberst Redl, or Mephisto
--Deutschland, bleiche Mutter, for the Bluebeard story part
--Schloendorff: Blechtrommel, Toerless, or Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
--Die Leben der anderen
--Novembermond
--Herzog's Strosek, Kaspar Haeuser, or Rescue Dawn (English)

maybe:
--Maria Stuart (English)
--Madame X
--Gegen die Wand
--M: eine Stadt sucht....
--addiction films: Bildnis einer Trinkerin, Journey to Kafiristan, Veronika Voss
--Maedchen in Uniform (German)/Loving Annabelle (English)
--Caged (English)
--Bound (English)
--Klavierspielerin
--Das Schreckliche Maedchen
--Der neunte Tag (Schloendorff, I think)
Hope I didn't forget anything.

I don't think I would want to show this series, because it seems like it could be upsetting, or I was at least sufficiently upset by Der Untergang so as not to really want to see it again, so I would have someone else do it, or most of it.

There. That's that.
Wieder frei.
Jetzt steig ich auf.

Which leads me into the library as I trip over some discursive fabric (Hoppla!), or, perhaps, demonstrate some stockholm syndrome. There are also books to go along with this, like:

--Something about the Russian queens and princesses imprisoned in Novodevichy Cloisters in Moscow.
--Ang San Suu Kyi, the female president imprisoned in Myanmar
--Cankar's "The Ward of our lady of Mercy"
--Courasche
--Jungfrau von Orleans
--Maria Stuart (Schiller & Jelinek)
--Sarah Waters-- Selena's Geister, don't know the English title.
--Kafka's Hungerkunstler
--Vaclav Havel's prison book
--Che Guevara
maybe more later.

I will end on a note of going onto other battles now, because Xena is always seeming to escape some sort of prison. Does it match my life? I don't know. I'm not planning to go "home," and I don't like the idea of running around killing people, but it I would enjoy flipping around in the air like that. Emotionally exhausted, I can relate to, but that fades. Here's the clip:

5 Kommentare:

Alok hat gesagt…

So are you doing Stifter as a part of the course work?

His books are so hard to find. I was intrigued about him after reading that W.G. Sebald considered him one of his main influences.

nice list of movies btw. also i think lost honour of katharina blum was directed by volker schlondorff, not fassbinder.

j.b.s. hat gesagt…

Hi Alok, the course is over now- it was a part of the graduate curriculum, but still a lot more reading to do. I found Sebald's essay on him to be mixed, but perhaps as I continue with Sebald the 'Stifterismus' will shine through more clearly.

I'd recommend reading him, but am afraid I can't be of much help regarding English translations. I want my sister to read a few pieces she'd get a kick out of, and she speaks no German and works in a bookstore, and hasn't been able to track anything down. But maybe you can find them and that's just what she tells me.

I think you're right about the Blum movie, which I sometimes confuse with the Ehe der Maria Braun when making lists.

thanks for the commenatary!

Cheshire Cat hat gesagt…

I can testify that "Rock Crystal" is exquisite, even in English translation. Enough to make Stifter one of my favorites.

Interesting sidenote: One of Stifter's translators into English was the American poet Marianne Moore - that's a perfect marriage of sensibilities.

j.b.s. hat gesagt…

Yes, I've looked into it a bit more and was quite excited to find out about the Marianne Moore translation, and it it seems plausible that Stifter influenced some of her poetry and also her fasciantion with "things." Nachsommer is also translated as "Indian Summer." But it seems that many of his other stories remain to be translated....

j.b.s. hat gesagt…

Oh, and the "Bunte Steine" are also all translated.