New German Cinema
| Years active | 1962 - 1982 |
|---|---|
| Country | West Germany |
| Major figures | Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Peter Schamoni, Volker Schlöndorff, Straub-Huillet, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta, Werner Schroeter, Wim Wenders |
| Influences | French New Wave |
New German Cinema (German: Neuer Deutscher Film) is a period in German cinema which lasted from the late 1960s into the 1980s. It saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave, such directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Harun Farocki, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders made names for themselves and produced a number of 'small' motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences, and enabled these directors (particularly Wenders and Schlöndorff) to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of the films were commercial failure and, by 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
As a reaction to the artistic and economic stagnation of German cinema, a group of young filmmakers issued the Oberhausen Manifesto on 28 February 1962. This call to arms, which included Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz, Peter Schamoni, Haro Senft and Franz-Josef Spieker among its signatories, provocatively declared "Der alte Film ist tot. Wir glauben an den neuen" ("The old cinema is dead. We believe in the new cinema"). Other younger filmmakers allied themselves to this Oberhausen group, among them Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Jean-Marie Straub, Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in their rejection of the existing German film industry and their determination to build a new industry founded on artistic excellence rather than commercial dictates.
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