Berlinale with Gary Cooper

Politically Berlinale? Correct!

Gary Cooper protested against anticommunist excesses, once a film was considered pornographic, sometimes as anti-Semitic ... Berlinale and was canceled because the jury denied.

Of the major film festivals, the Berlinale has always been the most political. Why? Not only because West-Berlin was during the Cold War frontier city, showcase of capitalist consumerism and civil liberties. West Berlin was also the refuge of the West German youth, a city without armed forces, with cheap apartments and an unrivaled nightlife in Germany. The official West Berlin was probably the antikommunistischste city on German soil, the unofficial developed, young West Berlin, however, the politically most left, wildest and anarchistischsten city. This tension between West Berlin was artistically fruitful, it also influenced the Berlinale.

It was impossible to be apolitical in West Berlin. Even the actor Gary Cooper was not. In 1953 he protested at the Berlinale against the anticommunist witch-hunt of Senator McCarthy and pointedly went to the eastern part, where he happened to witness the uprising of 17 June was.

The Berlinale was created as a political tool of the United States and an advertising space for Hollywood, but they are emancipated. In the 60 years the focus shifted to the new European and Asian cinema, directors such as Chabrol, Godard, Antonioni or Kurosawa. The so-called "Eastern Bloc" did not take part because East and West about the status of Berlin were not united. In the 60s, but also increased the feeling of being caught in an impasse with the festival - both the nascent new German cinema and Hollywood felt badly treated. On the one hand, critics demanded left to abolish admission fees as well as awards of individual films, both were undemocratic and elitist, are not all equally valuable and movies equally well? On the other side of the mighty hire United Artists boycott Berlin for a decade after 1969, the audience and critics favorite "Midnight Cowboy" - with Dustin Hoffman Director: John Schlesinger - when the awards empty-handed.



The scandal of 1970 was sparked by "or k "by Michael Verhoeven. The film portrays the authentic case of a Vietnamese girl who is raped by four U.S. soldiers and then killed. A fifth soldier is witness to indicate his comrades, the display is suppressed. Artistically, "or k "controversial, but in the following dispute was not about aesthetic issues. It was a question whether in West Berlin, these defended by the Americans and could be performed by them dependent island of democracy, a radical American critical work officially. Ironically, turning the "o k "-that is armed to the very question, the" o k "treatment: In the film, on behalf of the United States, a crime covered. The festival should now be suppressed in the name of the United States, of all of this film.

The German jury member Manfred Durniok apologized to the jury president, the American George Stevens, the German competition entry. A majority of the jury asked, "or k "to exclude from the competition, what about the rules of the Berlinale was not possible. A little later came back completely fractious jury, the Berlinale has been canceled. Around the same time it was announced that the planned Spanish competition entry for Berlin, the work of renowned director Carlos Saura, was removed at the behest of the Franco government from the competition again and replaced by a film that the regime of dictator was more comfortable. The window of the West suddenly looked very dirty.

From this political turmoil, the current structure of the festival has evolved. The competition, which abolished shortly after the debacle in the interview was made, remained, but since then stands next to the "Forum", a place for everything that is politically or artistically besides the mainstream. A few years later came the "Panorama" to the really should be some kind of overflow valve for the competition, but quickly developed its own profile, among other things, because it regularly shows films by gay directors or lesbian directors, their sexual orientation to issue make. The festival now has a deck moose for every pot, but also a recurring topic of discussion, because from now on, all's movies in the "Forum" or "panoramic" walk, you could imagine quite well in the competition.

Thanks to the diplomatic treaties from the 70s in West Berlin were also films from the Soviet Union and East Germany are shown. The Berlinale has become a hub between East and West. As the East becomes politically under Gorbachev opened, they showed, especially in Berlin films, which have long been banned, including masterpieces such as Alexandr Askoldovs "The Commissioner".

What recurred regularly, were the political skirmishes. 1976 "In the Realm of the Senses", now a classic, the police seized as "pornographic", 1977, there were violent protests against the alleged anti-Semitic jury member Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In 1979, repeated in 1970 with the opposite sign: torture in "The Deer Hunter" by Michael Cimino with Robert De Niro, Vietnamese American prisoners of war, the Warsaw Pact countries therefore withdrew their films. Even the filmmakers from the East had to leave at the behest of their governments in West Berlin. In 1986, the jury chairman publicly distanced from the winner Gina Lollobrigida film, Reinhard Hauff's "Stammheim", which they accused of glorifying terrorism, mutatis mutandis.

The self-image of the festival is reflected sometimes in the decisions of the jury. The politically well-intentioned but not particularly exciting film is artistically has always been more favorable initial conditions in Berlin than elsewhere. 1978, for example, the Golden Bear, to general surprise, given a flat rate of the three Spanish films of the competition, none of which had impressed the critics really, they were all soon forget. It was, like Wolfgang Jacobsen writes in his history of the festival to a "bowing to the young Spanish democracy." If at some time in Berlin, a film of the brave Tibet comes into the contest, he is probably automatic favorite.

Among the side effects of a Berlinale also, for decades, the political demonstrations included on the opening night, where it was sometimes quite bizarre to concerns. This is over. The Berlinale is politically discreet, honest and scandal-free has become what is rather than at the time of the festival director. Our Dalai Lama Dieter Kosslick would in a political scandal certainly make quite a good figure! Berlin is just now so normal city like never before in the last 100 years, but the nightlife is still unrivaled.