The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School

The first book-length study in any language of the "Berlin School," the most significant filmmaking movement to come out of Germany since the 1970s.

The contemporary German directors collectively known as the "Berlin School" constitute the most significant filmmaking movement to come out of Germany since the New German Cinema of the 1970s, not least because their films mark the emergence of a new film language. The Berlin School filmmakers, including Christian Petzold, Thomas Arslan, Angela Schanelec, Christoph Hochhäusler, Ulrich Köhler, Benjamin Heisenberg, Maren Ade, and Valeska Grisebach, are reminiscent of the directors of the New GermanAutorenkino and of Frenchcinéma des auteurs of the 1960s.
This is the first book-length study of the Berlin School in any language. Its central thesis - that the movement should be regarded as a "counter-cinema" - is built around the unusual style of realism employed in its films, a realism that presents images of a Germany that does not yet exist. Abel concludes that it is precisely how these films' images and sounds work that renders them political: they are political not because they are message-driven films but because they are made politically, thus performing a "redistribution of the sensible" - a direct artistic intervention in the way politics partitions ways of doing and making, saying and seeing.

Marco Abel is Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Acknowledgments
Note on Translations
Introduction: So This Was Germany - A Preliminary Account of the Berlin School
Thomas Arslan: Realism beyond Identity
Christian Petzold:Heimat-Building as Utopia
Angela Schanelec: Narrative, Understanding, Language
Revolver Cinema andÉlectrons libres: Cinema Must Be Dangerous
Christoph Hochhäusler: Intensifying Life
Benjamin Heisenberg: Filming Simply as Resistance
Valeska Grisebach: A Sharpening of Our Regard
Maren Ade: Filming between Sincerity and Irony
Ulrich Köhler: The Politics of Refusal
Conclusion: A Counter-Cinema
Filmography
Bibliography
Index