Roberto Rossellini: 'Germania anno zero' / 'Germany Year Zero'

Roberto Rossellini's Germania anno zero / Germany Year Zero / Deutschland im Jahre Null (1948), the third film of his "War Trilogy," centers on an ailing father, a daughter and two sons trying to stay afloat in Berlin soon after the end of the Second World War. Life among the ruins.

The before and after: some of the survivors still believe in Hitler times, but quietly accommodate the occupiers, selling artifacts and black market services to "golly gee" Americans. Most are dazed and living day by day with assigned housing, ration cards, and not enough legal work to go around. The aftermath of war in a defeated country.

The Criterion Edition (verso) of Deutschland im Jahre Null includes plenty of extras. More is remembered through defeat than through victory.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Svetlana Alexievich: 'The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II'

Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Random House, 2017. У войны не женское лицо: Russian language edition originally published in 1985. The author won a Nobel Prize for literature in 2015.

“’History will spend hundreds of years trying to understand: What was it? What sort of people were they? Where did they come from?’” (page 51)

“There have been thousands of wars on earth . . . but war remains, as it has always been, one of the chief human mysteries. Nothing has changed. I am trying to bring that great history down to human scale, in order to understand something. Yet in this seemingly small and easily observable territory . . . everything is still less comprehensible, less predictable than in history.” (page 139)

“'Once during a drill . . . We finished shooting and were going back. I picked some violets. A little bouquet. I picked it up and tied it to my bayonet. And went on like that.’” (page 52)

"There is not only shooting and killing people, mining and demining, bombing and exploding, going into hand-to-hand combat -- there is also laundering, cooking kasha, baking bread, cleaning cauldrons, tending horses, repairing machinery . . . Ever during war life consists by more than half of banal things. And of trifles, too . . ." (page [159])

"'Dense forests, continuous wire fences with rotted stakes, overgrown minefields. Flowerbeds gone to seed. There were always mines hiding there; the Germans loved flowerbeds. Once there were people digging potatoes in a field, and next to them we were digging mines . . ." (page 222)

After a contingent of Soviet sailors hit a minefield, many were killed. But Olga Vasilevna refused to terrorize German POWS. "I hadn't forgotten, I hadn't forgotten a thing. But I couldn't hit a prisoner, if only because he was already defenseless. Everybody decided that for himself, and it was important." (page 151)

"'If you ask what color war is, I’ll tell you – the color of earth. For a sapper . . . The black, yellow, clayey color of earth . . . Two months later I wasn’t killed, I was wounded. My first wound was light. And I stopped thinking about death . . .’” (page 213)

A lieutenant, commander of a sapper-miner platoon: “We’d spend the whole day watching everything attentively and drawing up a map of the observed front line and marking the places where changes in the surface of the terrain appeared, If we saw bumps on the ground or lumps of soil, dirty snow, trampled grass or dew smeared on the grass, that was what we were after . . . our goal . . . It was clear that German sappers had placed mines there . . . It was necessary to find out . . . [w]hat sort of mines they had put there: antitroop, antitank, or surprise mines. We marked the enemy’s firing points . . . We felt the ground inch by inch. Made corridors in the mine fields. All the work was done by crawling . . .” (page 217)

In addition to serving as pilots, snipers and partisan fighters, Soviet woman also served as doctors, nurses, drivers, mechanics and in many other capacities. Survivors retained memories of harrowing, brutal events that never quite went away. Alexievich has ensured that these people and what they lived through will not be forgotten. Wars will continue, though, remembered or not -- that fact, it seems, nothing can change. 

Today's Rune: Signals.  

"The Italian:" The Life and Times of Tina Modotti (1896-1942)

Time is a trickster, compadres!  It's been two years since I last posted about Tina Modotti (1896-1942), but she sticks with me. Haunts me with her distant look and life's arc. 

After finishing Patricia Albers' Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 1999), I came across Margaret Hooks' Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (London and San Francisco: Pandora, 1995, 1993). Both are absorbing, as befits their subject. By now I've gotten to catch some of her photographs during my travels and will keep those eyes open for more.

The quick version. Tina Modotti emigrated from Italy as a teenager, joining a small family foothold in San Francisco. Others would come later. Immigrants! Tina's arrival was nicely timed between the great earthquake of 1906 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. 

Tina did various and sundry to make ends meet, and then became an actress! She also engaged with artist-photographer Bohemian types. She became involved with "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey, dandy poet, and Edward Weston, photographer. She was also friends with Ricardo Gómez Robelo (1884-1924), who would later help her when she lived in Mexico. Richey died in Mexico and Modotti broke off her romance with Weston (more or less). She became closely engaged with the Mexican cultural scene and increasingly aware of the erupting global socio-political situation.   

Diego Rivera, En el Arsenal, 1928, Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico City.

Also in Mexico, Tina became jumbled in with Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Guadalupe "Lupe" Marín (1895-1981), Gómez Robelo (her friend from California days), and Comrade Concha Michel. By the time Rivera painted En el Arsenal (above), others were on the scene, too: Xavier Guerrero (1896-1974), the Cuban Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929) -- the Che Guevera of his day -- Frida Kahlo (1907-1954),  and Vittorio Vidali (1900-1983). 

They all or most became (at least nominally) Communists -- when not enjoying various Bohemian distractions. Some, like Modotti, Vidali and Mella (all three pictured in the right foreground of Rivera's painting) became hardcore communists. Mella was gunned down right before Tina's eyes while they were walking down the street. Her life's story to date was plastered over the newspapers as scandal, with Modotti referred to as "The Italian."

In 1930, she made it to Berlin with the help of International Red Aid (MOPR), just barely escaping the clutches of Italian fascists, who would have killed her. After several harrowing cloak and dagger years, Modotti and Vidali headed into the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939),  Modotti as "Maria" and Vidali as "Comandante Carlos." After Spain fell, they returned to Mexico. After Pearl Harbor and the German Declaration of War, the US became coalition partners with the Soviet Union, strangely enough -- such is the bizarre kaleidoscope of history. 

Poor Tina died of heart failure at age 45. Her life had been anything but bland, though. She'd shifted in her immediate relationships from namby-pamby men to the ruthless Vittorio, from Bohemian actress to grim operative. She had mixed with wildly creative artists and became for a time an excellent photographer of the Mexican proletariat. 

What an arc, from Italy to Mexico and stations in between! I would love to have met her!

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of 'On War' (2016)

Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Using primary source material, this book fills in gaps and contextualizes the story of Marie Sophie von Brühl and Carl von Clausewitz, giving readers a glimpse of European life before, during and after the Napoleonic period, most specifically from the point of view of Prussia and other German-speaking lands. The spirit of Napoleon and the French Revolution permeates everything, even fledgling German nationalism.

Back up a minute. Two of the great (and possibly most important of them to date) books on and about war and human society are:

孙子, 孙子兵法 / Sun Tzu, The Art of War (first Chinese edition circa 500 B.C.)

Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege / On War (first German edition 1832 A.D.).

We can't say much for sure about the creation of The Art of War, but Bellinger's well-researched study clearly shows that Countess Marie Sophie von Brühl (1779-1836) was a key player in the development of Carl von Clausewitz's (1780-1831) adult life and work. Though she started higher up in the social scale, Marie faced constraints in the public sphere because of the conservative status quo regarding gender roles. She pushed against them to the point of shocking many of her peers. 

The two married in 1810 and, when parted from each other's company due to wars and other duties, carried forth a lively correspondence. In person, they enjoyed free-wheeling tête-à-tête discussions and active participation in literary salons. Throughout, she influenced him and he influenced her. They both wrote, organized and edited.

After Carl died at age 51 from cholera, Marie steered On War and Carl's other works into publication, and just in the nick of time. For Marie died just five years after Carl, at the age of 56. Marie, incidentally, like George Washington, was killed indirectly by her doctors, the most likely cause of her fatal infection. 

One of my favorite parts of On War is the discussion of "Friction" in war (which stands in for other aspects of life, as well). "Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult . . . Countless minor incidents -- the kind you can never really foresee -- combine . . . so that one always falls far short of the intended goal . . . Iron will-power can overcome this friction: it pulverizes every obstacle, but of course it wears down the machine as well . . ."  ~~ Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984 edition; originally published in 1976), page 119. 

Without Marie von Clausewitz, there wouldn't have been such a gestation and early launch for Vom Kriege; without Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, we wouldn't have truly grasped even that. This is important historical work -- making more visible a previously obscured mover and shaker, inspiring us to muse anew about On War and its impact. 

Today's Rune: Journey. 

Four More from Germany / Deutschland, 1990

Germany, 1990. If every picture tells a story worth a thousand words, what's going on here?

Soviet T34 tank. «тридцатьчетвёрка»

Germany: fun with a rifle. 

Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. 

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Germany / Deutschland, 1990

More digitized slides from my parents' adventures in Germany. On October 3, 1990, the Day of German Unity / Tag der Deutschen Einheit (reunification of East and West Germany), the international Photokina began another of its bi-annual trade fairs in Köln / Cologne. These shots are from this trip, taken around Cologne and elsewhere in Germany. The picture above is spectacular when enlarged to a massive scale. 

Photo-related advertisements - pre-digital age. 

Big pretzels (Die Brezel)!

Riparian mystery reminiscent of a Bruegel painting. People painting murals on open sections of wall?  Strange days in Germany.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Berlin: November 1989

These are digitized slides, pictures my parents took while in Berlin in November 1989. The Wall was coming down! Here, a Romani family stops by for an impromptu portrait.

Partially dismantled and ransacked guardhouse. 

Bullet-riddled section.

Part of the Wall with temporary fencing.

Dismantled bits.

I've only been to Berlin once -- before the Wall was dismantled. East Berlin was . . . interesting. Thanks to my Mom for digitizing these images! 

Today's Rune: Movement. 

David Bowie, Where Art Thou?

David Bowie, Where Art Thou? [Originally posted in 2006 -- ten years ago!]

David Bowie (1/8/1947-) is one cool dude. I've been lucky enough to have seen him in various venues over the years, but the last time was by far the best -- at the relatively small Detroit State Theater on September 21, 1997. He was in perfect pitch and riding the catchy Earthling album with its techno overtones ("I'm Afraid of Americans" is hilariously cool). He spryly moved around the stage, sometimes barefoot, seeming both very earthly and very much a Cosmonaut at the same time.

What's especially heartening about Bowie is that, yes, he can do the "I'm a millionaire pop star" thing as well as anyone, but he's chosen -- much like Prince -- to stick to his own guns over the long march. He remains true to form, and very much in touch with technology and its cross-genre artistic possibilities. I adore his music and like many of his movie appearances (must see again The Man Who Fell to Earth for one trippy example, an ultimately sad 1976 tale of a fallen alien stuck on Earth while his home planet slowly dies), but have my favorites.

It's hard to beat the dazzling concept album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), which was so at odds with the waning hippy ideals of the time, so perfectly attuned to undercurrents of global social changes and the explosion of punk and New Wave on the horizon. Then there's the electric shocker Aladdin Sane (1973), featuring "Panic in Detroit" and a sonic romp through the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," among other treats. Ramble on through the eerie Diamond Dogs (1974) to the groovy plastic pop of Young Americans (1975), the lyrical and occasionally overarching Station to Station (1976), and the revolutionary "Berlin trilogy," Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), and Lodger (1979). Bowie had already done some fine work with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop to everyone's benefit, as well. Next, there's another wild and sometimes campy romp via Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), followed by another bid for mainstream pop stardom in Let's Dance (1983). Throw in always entertaining and sometimes bizarre videos, and presto, this period would have been enough successful output for any "normal" artist's entire career.

Bowie continued, though he slowed down the pace a bit. Here's where he and Prince again moved on parallel lines, though Bowie never took the drastic step of calling himself "The Artist Formerly Known as David Bowie."

During his Reality Tour in 2004, he suffered chest pains and underwent a sudden angioplasty, and has been understandably taking it relatively easy since then. Based in New York City, he continues working; his recent comings and goings can be found on his buzzing website, complete with alien-tinged motifs, at: www.davidbowie.com Check out the BowieNet for a little adventure in cyberworld.

Viva David Bowie! May the man who shares Elvis' birthday rise again.  

[RIP David Bowie, 1947-2016]

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975)

Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta's Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum / The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), spotlights the main character, Katharina Blum, in a way that underscores the exuberance of mid-70s feminism. 

Found chart courtesy of the internet. 

Combine global male resistance to independent women with fear and panic over security and terrorism, and voila, you've got a film ready-made for the 21st century. 

The movie is based on Heinrich Böll's darkly satirical 1974 novel, Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann /  The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: How Violence Develops and Where it can Lead. 

The almost absurdly intrusive surveillance and media system depicted in the film might seem beyond belief were it not for a series of similarly themed dystopian science fiction works -- and actual historical developments still being played out. 

Angela Winkler is key to the success of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. As she would later do playing "the eel-eating woman" in Volker Schlöndorff's Academy Award winning The Tin Drum (1979), she delivers here with total commitment.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

  

Signs and Wonders at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA): Third Cycle

In the West Building at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh: The Iris. "Open, elegant, and filled with light, the restaurant is lined by floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the entry court and surrounding gardens. The opposite wall showcases a site-specific sculpture by Patrick Dougherty featuring branches and boughs from the surrounding area, further enhancing the dining experience by bringing the outdoors in." (Official desciption on website). Filled with people when in operation. 

Ben Franklin by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (circa 1779).

Me taking a picture of the projection from a video camera that is taking moving pictures of me while I am capturing one of its flickering images: a continuous image loop that could lead to madness! What you're seeing is a reflection of the video camera's eye through the scrim of a mobile phone, in an art gallery at the NCMA.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), Panama Tänzer / Panama Dancers (ca. 1911).  "All art needs this visible world and will always need it. Quite simply because, being accessible to all, it is the key to all other worlds." (1921). 

Today's Rune: Flow. 

Chimes at Midnight: Kraftwerk Late Show, Austin, Texas

It was weird listening this very morning to outdoor wind chimes dingling and tintinnabuluming as a result of a light air-breeze, sounding alternately like a bit of music echoing off a Jean Michel Jarre theme (Ryan's Daughter) or various phantom samples from a Kraftwerk track ("Computer Love," "Spacelab," etcetera).  

Indeed, life and art are often working together, hand in hand, through each other, in time, beyond space and by way of tingling memory responses triggered by music or comparable stimuli . . . 

I can write quite a lot about Kraftwerk's evening performance at Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas, this past Friday (September 25, 2015 A. D.), but it mostly comes down to transcending time -- funneling time and feeling and memory -- regaining two other Kraftwerk performances -- Brixton 1991 and Detroit 1998 -- heightened consciousness of our (via Marshall McLuhan) "electronic envelope," keen awareness of "the extensions of man" or humanness, our evolving nature as man-machine, human-machine -- total immersion, total realization . . . total immersion through pure art. 

I can now refer you to an excellent review of the daytime show by Wes Eichenwald here. He gets at the gist of things, giving me no reason to try to reinvent the electronic wheel for this particular post. 

Kraftwerk's music in Austin, with dazzling "retro future" interaction that included multi-lingual text (German, English, Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese . . .), numbers and Gestaltic iconography, was played more or less in this order:

 "Numbers;" "Computer World;" "Home Computer" and "It's More Fun to Compute;" "Computer Love;" "Pocket Calculator;" "The Man Machine;" "Spacelab;" "The Model;" "Neon Lights;" "Autobahn;" "Airwaves" . . . "Geiger Counter + Radioactivity;" "Ohm Sweet Ohm;" "Electric Café;" "Tour de France;" "Trans Europe Express" . . . (first encore) "The Robots;" (second encore) "Aerodynamik;" "Boom Boom Tschak" + "Techno Pop" + "Musique Non Stop" plus individual bows and a dandy Auf Wiedersehen.  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Kraftwerk 2015: Austin. Meine erste Reaktion.

Road trip to Austin, Texas to catch the Kraftwerk 3-D concert on Friday, September 25, 2015, at the Bass Concert Hall off 23rd Street, 10:30 p.m. until well past midnight.

Brilliant, wonderful show and I wish I could see them again in Detroit or Philadelphia! 

Kraftwerk comes from the Mount Olympus of electronic music. One must pull out all the stops to see them. Orphic electronica!

Kraftwerk's remaining venues in the USA for this year are all coming up in October:

October 2nd: Philadelphia
October 3rd: Boston
October 5th: Detroit
Then Minneapolis and Kansas City.

In November, Kraftwerk is off to France, Monaco, and other European hot spots. Pictured above is a scanned copy of a packet for 3D glasses given out at the Austin late show. 

More on Kraftwerk coming down the tracks.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: Round Two (Clothes)

Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing translated by Cathy Hirano (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2014)  / Magic Cleaning: Wie richtiges Aufräumen Ihr Leben verändert [lit. "How real tidying changed your life"], (2013).

KonMari categorical method – clothes. All in one go. “Does it spark joy?”  “Express appreciation.”  I gathered all my clothes -- everything except what I was wearing -- and coats -- and piled them on a blanket on the floor. Then I handled every single item and decided one of three ways to go: keep, donate or discard. Everything. What I hauled away:

Sports jackets/suit tops
Donate = 3 (1 tweed)

Sweaters
Donate=1

Button shirts:

Discard = 1

Donate = 5

Sweat tops

Donate = 2

Trousers

Donate = 1

Sweat pants

Donate = 1

T-shirts

Discard = 6

Donate = 26

Gloves

Donate = 1 pair

Knit hat

Donate = 1

Pairs of socks

Discard = 14

Hangers

Mix of donate and discard (broken ones)

Total = 1 sack of discards, 3 sacks of donations

Marie Kondo's Magic Cleaning: Wie Wohnung und Seele aufgeräumt bleiben [lit. "how apartment and soul remain tidy"], (2014).

Closet reorganized -- heavy on left to light on right “like an archer’s aim.” Chest drawers reorganized and folded for optimal display and utility. Storage cabinet ditto. Room for everything, in a civilized fashion. Spare buttons, etc., donated to tailor/seamstress next to dry cleaner. Two ties to dry cleaner. One coat in for repair.

Elapsed time: three hours.

Success: total!

Next category: Books. 

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Margarethe von Trotta: 'The Second Awakening of Christa Klages' (1978)

Margarethe von Trotta's Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages / The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) is a beautiful gem of a film. First, it captures the Zeitgeist of the 1970s -- the spirit of the times: think Patty Hearst and the Baader-Meinhof, for example. This spirit pervades a crisis framework for the characters to move within, but the more surprising aspects of the film arrive through interdependent character development and social interaction that is refreshingly different from the more typical "buddy movie." 

Barely before The Second Awakening of Christa Klages is underway, two young men and the title character rob a bank in a most foolhardy manner; their ill-conceived notion is to help fund a sort of hippie school for little kids where Christa worked and has left her daughter for safekeeping. 

From this strange beginning, everyone is figuratively off to the races. One of them makes it to an idealistic collective in Portugal, but things don't end there. 

The strongest and more interesting characters in The Second Awakening of Christa Klages are three women and one man. Christa (Tina Engel) befriends the kind and thoughtful Pastor Hans Graw (Peter Schneider) and she also finds solace with Ingrid (Silvia Reize), a friend from the past. Finally, the mysterious Lena (Katharina Thalbach) works at the exchange bank Christa robbed and appears to be stalking her. 

Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages was director Margarethe von Trotta's first feature-length contribution to Der Neue Deutsche Film / the New German Cinema movement. The film print of the version I saw was washed out; it would be nice if this movie could be added to the Criterion Collection and given full honors. This is a cool indie film, different from most up to its time because of its special consideration of female characters. 

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Tina Modotti, 1896-1942

Lately I've been submerged in the life and times of Tina Modotti (1896-1942) as she makes her way from Italy to California to Mexico to Germany to Russia to Spain and back to Mexico. Her raucous friendships and work with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and various other artists, photographers, writers, explorers, travellers, revolutionaries and rebels flash by as in a dream machine. 

In Patricia Albers' Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 1999), it's 1930 and she's made it to Berlin with the help of International Red Aid (MOPR), just barely escaping the clutches of Italian fascists, who would have killed her. It's a fascinating, often wild ride. 

Even now, Tina Modotti can be seen depicted in Diego Rivera murals created in the 1920s. She in turn, having documented much of his artwork through photography, often using a single-shot Graflex camera, left for posterity many picture-artifacts to muse over.

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Berlin: Artefakte / Artifacts (Je me souviens)

Berlin: nach dem 9. November 1989.

Berlin: Die Mauer. 

Berlin: Pausenloser Einsatz. Die Mauer am Brandenburger.

Berlin: Die Mauer am Checkpoint Charlie. 

DDR East German street art with cosmonauts and spaceships: "friendship of CCCP and DDR." Early 1980s. 

It occurs to me that I don’t believe in states or nation states or tribes. Oh, I know the laws and customs and I pay taxes and all that, but I don’t believe in the ethos of states or nation states or tribes. Maybe I'm a human being, a person first, a mortal being, one man, a global citizen, a Catholic, a libertarian socialist, a professional of sorts, an inhabitant of the 20th and 21st centuries, an environmentalist, a feminist, a thinking denizen who happens to know American English as a first language ~ and maybe I'm a little more than that.  Maybe I'm a refugee, an exile. Or so it feels as I write on this Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, Poppy Day, Le jour du Souvenir, El Día del Recuerdo. Above all, as they say in Emilia-Romagna: Amarcord; and in Quebec: Je me souviens ~ I remember.

How about you?

Today's Rune: Protection.