Brandi Besalke
Rentschler, Eric. “How American Is It: The U.S. as Image and Imaginary in
German Film.” The
German Quarterly. Vol. 57, No. 4. (Autumn, 1984), pp. 603-620
In
German literature (and cinema), America is represented in 3 distinct fashions
(or “theses” in Rentscler’s terms). The first places America exclusively in the
role of the cultural imperialist-conqueror: “increasingly ugly, ambassadors of
materialism, diminishers of aura, bringers
of potential doom” (605). The second
thesis is somewhat kinder, depicting a love-hate relationship between the
German filmmaker and the home of Hollywood culture. On the one hand, the
American film culture provided the post-war generation with “an ersatz
homeland” during reconstruction. On the
other hand, this generation of German filmmakers, having grown up during the
50’s, find the entire film process ruled by the Hollywood-ran industry – “a
hegemony over production, distribution, and exhibition which has circumscribed
the making and partaking of images throughout the world” (605). The German feels even more compelled to
follow HollywoodÂ’s rules in film creation due to the legacy of the exiled
German directors (Lang, Wilder, Pabst, Murnau and
Lubitsch) who helped to shape America cinema. In the third thesis America
serves as a memory suppressant – post-war Germans adopted American culture for
themselves as a way to cover up the emptiness remaining from a forced amnesia,
as they sought to forget the last two decades. According to Rentschler,
these portrayals of America are “found in most popular accounts” of German
film, but there is actually a fourth vision of America, in which America helps
facilitate vision: “it functions as a playground for the imagination, as a
mirror that reflects and intensifies the preoccupations and imported conflicts
of its visitors” (606). America here, while foreign, is not exotic; it serves
as a place of self-discovery: “a site where the subject comes to understand
itself through a constant play and identification with reflections of itself as
an
other” (607).
Rentschler looks at this idea first in Luis TrenkerÂ’s
Der Verlorene Sohn (1934) and Werner HerzogÂ’s Stroszek (1977) before moving on
to WenderÂ’s film. Philip WinterÂ’s is disjointed in
America; his snapshots are reflected in the disconnected potrayal
of America in the film both in cut and soundtrack. America provides many
images, but no one picture summing up his experience: “they do not show things
as they are”. By observing, Philip wants to understand the world, but his gaze
is “disinterested” and therefore doesn’t lead to any sort of insight (612). It
is only after returning to Europe with Alice that a cohesive story develops and
he can finish his article. America, Rentschler
continues, is simply a “way station for travelers whose manifest destiny lies
elsewhere”. The travelers learn in America and are able to orient themselves in
their own history, which is located back home in Europe. They learn in America
simply because that Other place acts like a mirror, a
“site of projection […] where unsure individuals see themselves in sharper
focus”. While looking at the Other and through the Other, the viewers in turn view
themselves, just as Philip looks at the Polaroid Alice takes of him, in which
her image is also reflected.
Light,
Andrew. “Wim Wenders and
the Everyday Aesthetics of Technology and
Space.” The
Journal of Aesthetics and Criticism, Vol. 55, No. 2, Perspectives on the Arts and Technology. (Spring,
1997), pp. 215-229
LightÂ’s
article applied theories by Andrew Feenberg and Albert
Borgmann to Alice
in den Städten. Light first discusses Feenberg’s subversive rationalization, a theory which
states that “new technology can also be used to undermine the existing social
hierarchy or to force it to meet needs it has ignored” (Feenberg). Light illustrates this with an example of
Frances Minitel videotext system. It was developed by
the government, and used, for example, by them for ordering train schedules and
tickets. Users, however, found new unintended uses for this system, such as arranging
sexual liaisons or organizing protests against the government (215).  Light then overviews Borgmann’s
ideas of built space: there are thick spaces and thin spaces. Thick spaces are
made up of “focal things”, which are objects that exist in a context, require
skill or attention (a stove, for instance) and through which we are able to
deepen our identity and “enrich our engagement with others” (216). Thin spaces
are made up of “devices”, which do not demand attention from us (a central
heating plant) and consequently diminishes our identity.
PhilipÂ’s
Polaroids are unable to reproduce whatever Philip
thought he was photographing. His friend
says that the photos serve exclusively to prove to Philip that he exists – he
is attempting to find identity. PhilipÂ’s problem is that he is in a banal built
space – and thin spaces produce thin identities and a thin self “incapable of
meaningful human contact” (221). On his
immediate return to the Old World, Europe is portrayed just as thinly as
America; Philip requires a “new lens” to look through, which is incorporated in
Alice: “The embodiment of the new lens in another person seems appropriate, as
it represents a shift from one of the newest forms of representation, the
Polaroid camera, to perhaps the oldest – the descriptions we get of things
through the eyes of other people” (221).
Philip
undertakes a second road trip with Alice, and this second trip is different
because instead of vaguely searching for identity, Philip and Alice are
searching for a thing with context –
Grandma’s house. This is reinforced with
other details, such as the music Philip hears. In America he listed to
pre-recorded radio – a device; here
he listens to a live Chuck Berry concert – though a product of America, here it
is embedded in the context of the location – which is a focused thing. This second trip and search is therefore located in thick space and is meaningful. Alice, in
her child-like viewing of things, enables Philip to see differently. Ultimately
he resumes his identity as a writer – “this restoration was not accomplished by
a simple move from thin to thick spaces: it was an act of subversion of thin
spaces and device relationships.
Questions:
Does the
American landscape help Philip “see himself”, or does it only further weaken
his identity? Would he have experienced the same inability to photograph what
he sees in another foreign location? Does Alice serve as a prosthetic eye
through which Philip is able to gain focus and if so how?
For this
article, I also used the following article, since Light didnÂ’t really explain
subversive rationalization:
Feenberg, Andrew. “Escaping the Iron Cage, or, Subversive Rationalization
and Democratic Theory. URL: http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/schom1.htm