Germany Year Zero
| Germany, Year Zero | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Roberto Rossellini |
| Produced by |
Salvo D'Angelo Roberto Rossellini |
| Written by |
Roberto Rossellini Max Kolpé Sergio Amidei |
| Starring | Edmund Moeschke Ernst Pittschau Ingetraud Hinze Franz-Otto Krüger Erich Gühne |
| Music by | Renzo Rossellini |
| Cinematography | Robert Juillard |
| Edited by | Eraldo Da Roma |
|
Production
company |
Produzione Salvo D'Angelo and Tevere Film
|
| Distributed by | G.D.B. Film |
|
Release date
|
1 December 1948 |
|
Running time
|
78 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language |
German English French |
Germany, Year Zero (Italian: Germania anno zero) is a 1948 film directed by Roberto Rossellini, and is the final film in Rossellini's unofficial war film trilogy, following Rome, Open City and Paisà. Germany Year Zero takes place in post-war Germany, unlike the others, which take place in German-occupied Rome and during the Allied invasion of Italy, respectively.
As in many neorealist films, Rossellini used mainly local, non-professional actors. He filmed on locations in Berlin and intended to convey the reality in Germany the year after its near total destruction in World War II. It contains dramatic images of bombed out Berlin and of the human struggle for survival following the destruction of the Third Reich. When explaining his ideas about realism in an interview, he said, "realism is nothing other than the artistic form of truth."
Twelve-year-old Edmund Kohler lives in devastated, post-World War II Berlin with his ailing, bedridden father and his adult siblings, Eva and Karl-Heinz. Eva manages to obtain cigarettes by going out with soldiers of the Allied forces, but she resists her friends' advice to prostitute herself. Karl-Heinz is the older son who fought in the war and is a burden to the struggling family, refusing to register with the police and get a ration card because he is afraid of what would happen if they found out he fought to the bitter end. The Kohlers and others have been assigned to the apartment home of the Rademachers by the housing authority, much to Mr. Rademacher's irritation.
Edmund does what he can for his family, trying to find work and selling a scale for Mr. Rademacher on the black market. By chance, Edmund meets Herr Henning, his former school teacher, who still remains a Nazi at heart. Henning, who exhibits what may be interpreted as a pedophilic interest in Edmund, gives him a recording of Hitler to sell to the occupying soldiers, entrusting him to the more experienced Jo and Christl. Henning gives Edmund 10 marks for his work. Afterward, Edmund tags along as the young man Jo steals 40 marks from a woman by pretending to sell her a bar of soap. Jo gives Edmund some of his stolen potatoes and leaves the inexperienced boy with Christl, whom another member of their gang describes as a mattress that dispenses cigarettes.
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