Two Generations in Motion: Negotiating the Legacies of the West German Student Movement
The legacy of the West German student movement continues to be a debated topic in Germany today: Did the call for political and social change bring about a new and truly democratic Germany or did it trigger a backlash that determined the politics of the 1980s and 1990s under conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl? Did the activists themselves “sell out” and betray their own ideals? How did the student movement influence the next generation growing up in Germany? These questions about the social and political effects of the student movement influence discussions about pedagogy, violence in schools, and about how young Germans today understand political change and social activism. Media often paint a simplistic picture of both, of what became of the generation of activists in 1968 and of their “children” who were born in the 1970s and came of age in the 1990s. Not only conservative voices since the late 1980s support the idea that members of the student movement of the 1960s brought up a generation of confused young people without clear values and moral guidance. The question of whether the ideals of liberal education failed led to heated debates within the Green Party in the 1990s. An article in the news magazine Der Spiegel cites Beate Scheffler, a forty-year-old teacher and Green Party delegate:
The cinema of Wim Wenders : image, narrative, and the postmodern condition
"The Cinema of Wim Wenders" is a unique anthology of source materials and selected essays on the films of Wim Wenders, a major filmmaker in the so-called New German Cinema movement. Although arguably the leading European filmmaker of the last two decades, Wenders has not received as much attention by scholars in the United States or in Europe as some of his colleagues who also had their beginnings in New German Cinema, like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. "The Cinema of Wim Wenders", the first anthology of scholarly work on Wenders, serves as an introduction to the central concerns of his cinema while situating his work within German film history and the contemporary debates about postmodern film and media theory. The first section of the book features essays by Wenders that chronicle important shifts and continuities in his work over the last 15 years. The voice-over to his short "Reverse Angle", a diary film made in New York for French television, is published here for the first time. These essays are complemented by excerpts from interviews that offer Wenders' own informal and personal perspectives on the central television that inform his films and writings, concluding with an interview conducted in 1994 by Gerd Gemunden, one of the anthology's editors, in which Wenders responds to the disappointing reception of "Faraway, So Close!". His work, probably more than that of any other European director, reflects the tension between the European "auteur" tradition and the increasing dominance of the American media industry. In both his filmmaking and his critical writing, he explores how the relationship between image and narrative manifests the basic opposition between these two film traditions. The second part of the book consists of contributions by ten American and European scholars exploring aspects of Wenders' work and his films, including "Paris, Texas", "Faraway, So Close!" and "Wings of Desire", among others. Differing significantly in methodology and scope, the essays all trace and theorise the twists and turns Wenders' work has taken amidst concurrent changes in contemporary European and American history, film history, cultural production, media technology and aesthetics. A filmography and bibliograhy on Wenders complete this comprehensive collection.
Successful Failure? The Impact of the German Student Movement on the Federal Republic of Germany
Introduction I n 1993, M atthias K opp's film essay “Erfolgreich gescheitert,” broadcast on Deutsche Welle-TV , cemented the dual view of the impact of the German student movement on the Federal Republic of Germany. The movement was seen to have succeeded because — in spite of opposition to American capitalism and global power politics — it secured West Germany's orientation toward the West. Thus it promoted sexual liberation, a tolerant multicultural society, equality, a sense of hope, and thriving subcultures. The student movement was seen to have failed because it was remarkably ineffective regarding any change in the political system, the economy, or the workplace. Moreover, it was, and still is, associated with allegedly disastrous antiauthoritarian education practices, terrorism, and drug abuse. The term “successful failure” was introduced during the first of the increasingly ritualistic anniversary debates on the movement in 1988, but the matter-of-fact tone in which this paradoxical verdict was delivered by Kopp in 1993 suggested that the formula, which allowed former adversaries to save face, had now become widely accepted. Each side could claim victory: the 68ers for conquering the imagination, the conservatives for conquering reality. In 1998, this uneasy co-existence was shattered by a plethora of new books, essays and editorials. The battle for cultural hegemony and the exclusive right to interpret the past in the Federal Republic erupted again in full force, with the added spice that whilst for the first time historians attempted to argue that 1968 had indeed become history, a new government had been elected whose ministers had their roots in the radical politics of that period.