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A Land and a People of Extremes – Ireland and the Irish in German Cinema

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09670882.2012.660778

1469-9303

Fergal Lenehan,

Migration and Exile Studies

Abstract Irish film history has often been seen as a pragmatic “creative bricolage” that draws almost exclusively on images of Ireland and Irishness that have emanated from the cinema industries of the USA and the United Kingdom. Yet, Ireland has also featured in the film industries of other non-Anglophone countries and the images produced in these contexts also represent an element within the vast and extensive archive of Irish filmic images. This article writes the first chapter in the expansion of Irish film history by examining the depiction of Ireland and Irishness in German film. Ireland and the Irish, not unlike the Anglo-American gaze, are depicted as a people and a land of extremes marked by an intensity of emotion, nationalism, Catholicism and alcohol, while extremes of poverty and wild untameable landscapes also feature prominently. Keywords: Irish cinemaGerman cinemaintercultural linkscultural appropriationnation Notes 1. CitationRuth Barton, Irish National Cinema, 4. 2. Sabine Hake, German National Cinema, 2. 3. Best known here are probably the film versions of Bram Stoker's Dracula - F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu from 1922 and Werner Herzog's remake of the Murnau film from 1979. There is however also a German version of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion from 1935, directed by Erich Engel, as well as an Austrian film version of Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds, directed by Kurt Palm from 1997. 4. CitationGillespie, Myth of an Irish Cinema, xiii. 5. CitationCrofts Wiley, “Rethinking Nationality”, 91, 92. 6. CitationRogers, “From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation”, 474. 7. CitationMitchell, “Distinctions Between Everyday and Representational Communication”, 114. 8. Rogers, 476, 477. 9. CitationDillard and Solomon, “Conceptualizing Context in Message Production Research”, 169. 10. CitationSoja, Third Space. 11. A religion other than Catholicism is not depicted; this although landlords and the Aristocracy, in Ireland largely but not only Anglican, are represented as having a central place in the local community. 12. CitationKetteman, “Irish Male Brutality and the Semiotics of Landscape”, 153. 13. CitationLuke Gibbons, “Romanticism, Realism and Irish Cinema”, 211. 14. CitationSterzenbach, Die deutsch-irischen Beziehungen, 410–430. 15. CitationHolfter, Erlebnis Irland, 82, CitationDohmen, Das deutsche Irlandbild, 105, CitationO'Neill, Ireland and Germany, 260. 16. Holfter 104–105. 17. The Nazis, of course, also held radio broadcasts intended for an Irish audience in both the English and Irish languages. See: CitationO'Donoghue, Hitler's Irish Voices. 18. Hake, 64f. 19. CitationTegel, Nazis and the Cinema, 176. 20. A discussion has raged for some time as to whether the national identity of the ‘inventor of the concentration camp’ is British, German or, indeed, Spanish. In early 2007 this discussion also reached Ireland as letter writers to The Irish Times newspaper - spurred by the Korda Productions documentary film Citation Hitler's Irish Movies that dealt with Nazi Irish-themed propaganda films - proffered various opinions on the matter in a letter series entitled ‘Origin of Concentration Camps’. See: The Irish Times, February 2007. 21. A discussion has raged for some time as to whether the national identity of the ‘inventor of the concentration camp’ is British, German or, indeed, Spanish. In early 2007 this discussion also reached Ireland as letter writers to The Irish Times newspaper - spurred by the Korda Productions documentary film Citation Hitler's Irish Movies that dealt with Nazi Irish-themed propaganda films - proffered various opinions on the matter in a letter series entitled ‘Origin of Concentration Camps’. See: The Irish Times, February 2007, 29, CitationWelch, Propaganda and German Cinema, 228. 22. Tegel, 131. 23. Welch, 228. 24. For a comparison of the novel and the film see: CitationEoin Bourke, ‘Two Foxes of Glenarvon’. 25. CitationKlaus, Deutsche Tonfilme, 53. 26. CitationKlaus, Deutsche Tonfilme, 240–241. 27. Hake, 70. 28. Tschechowa, 12. 29. Hake, 82, 83. 30. CitationElsaesser, ‘Olga Tschechowa’, 237. 31. All translations by the author. 32. Hake, 78, 79. 33. Hake, 120f. 34. Hake, 112. 35. CitationElsaesser and Uhlenbrook, ‘Gerhard Lamprecht’, 156. 36. For example Laar's main Irish character, John Fitzpatrick St. Ives, Baronet of Eryllgobragh (a fictitious Irish place name that, of course, contains echoes of the nationalist motto ‘Erin go bragh’), is depicted as a natural local leader and a glowing patriot who desires the unification of all Irish nationalist elements; the landlords, Sinn Féin (in 1902!) and the Fenians. The main reason for this is, initially, to defeat the Wyndham Land Act that will change the ‘natural’ land owning system, disempowering the Aristocratic elite and also, apparently, enslave Ireland to England. See: CitationLaar, Meines Vaters Pferde. In the film version these ‘political’ elements, while generally important for the film and the character of ‘Pat’, remain more underplayed than in the novel. 37. In Laar's novel only the central Irish characters are said to speak German and for different reasons – Pat has served as an officer in the Prussian army, Nicoline went to boarding school in Switzerland, while the family's Catholic chaplain Father Quentin once lived in Würzburg. 38. Hake, 115. 39. CitationFeldvoß, ‘Weltstar Curd Jürgens’. 40. Film-Echo, January 8, 1954, 120. 41. Film und Frau, No. 3, VI, 1954, 30–33, 30. 42. Evangelischer Film-Beobachter, February 25, 1954, 104, 105. 43. CitationFischer and Holfter, ‘Irish-German Biographies and Irish-German Studies’, 1. 44. CitationElsaesser and Vincendeau, ‘Max Ophüls’,184; Hake, 97. 45. CitationMüller and Dütsch, Lola Montez. 46. Two quite rare early silent German film versions of Citation Lola Montez also exist; a 1918 version by Robert Heymann and a 1922 version by Willi Wolff. 47. The English translation appeared ten years later and it was generally positively reviewed in the Irish, British and American press (see: Holfter 1995, p 150–154). An exception was Conor Cruise O'Brien's review in the New York Review of Books. He states that within the ‘Teuto-Celtic twilight of Herr Böll’ the author's ‘understandable revulsion from the manners and customs of his fellow-country men has led him to idealize everything’ that he views in Ireland and he ‘laments any signs of progress’ within Irish society. See: Conor Cruise O'Brien, the New York Review of Books, September 14, 1967. 48. Sagarra, in: CitationO'Reilly and Holfter, “German-Irish relations since 1989”, 170. 49. O'Neill, 260. 50. Holfter, 176–178. 51. Holfter, 195f. 52. Holfter, 179. 53. CitationElsaesser and Uhlenbrok, ‘Ruth Leuwerik’, 159. 54. CitationWarnecke, ‘Ruth Leuweriks schauspielerische Präsenz’, 66. 55. CitationThiele, ‘Ruth Leuweriks vermittelnede Frauenrollen’, 38. 56. Enno Patalas, Filmkritik, February, 1960, 38. 57. Der Spiegel, January 6, 1960, 71. 58. Evangelischer Film-Beobachter, January 9, 1960, 22. 59. ‘Irland lohnt ein Abenteuer”, Film und Frau, No. 6, XII, 1960, 8. 60. Karl Friedrich Scherer, Film-Echo, January 9, 1960, 26. 61. For an overview of recent literature on this subject see: CitationPádraig Murphy, ‘Neutrality by Ordeal’, Dublin Review of Books, Summer 2011. 62. CitationGarncarz, ‘Heinz Rühmann’, 207. 63. Heinz Rühmann, Das war's. 64. CitationGörtz and Sarkowicz, Heinz Rühmann 1902–1994, 342. 65. Wilfried Berghahn, Film-Kritik, May, 1961, 251 and Der Spiegel, January 1, 1961, 55. 66. Evangelischer Film-Beobachter, January 7, 1961, 6. 67. Ernst Bohlius, Film-Echo, January 4, 1961, 21. 68. Hake,120. 69. CitationHobsch, Liebe, Tanz und 1000 Schlagerfilme, 68. 70. CitationBardong, Demmler, Pfarr, Das Lexikon des deutschen Schlagers, 261. 71. Evangelischer Film-Beobachter, October 7, 1961, 513, 514. 72. Ingrid Theissen, Film-Echo, October 11, 1961, 1166. 73. Dohmen, 158. 74. Dohmen, 164–168. 75. See CitationMary Lawlor, ‘Fitzcarraldo, Irish Explorer’. 76. Hake, 168. 77. CitationReitze, Zur filmischen Zusammenarbeit von Klaus Kinski und Werner Herzog, 43. 78. CitationReitze, Zur filmischen Zusammenarbeit von Klaus Kinski und Werner Herzog, 43 79. CitationRobinson, Connemara, 130.