This paper will discuss the first post-world war II film to be made in Germany. The film, entitled The Murderers Among Us (Die Morder sind unter uns, 1946) was directed by Wolfgang Staudte. It is the first in a series of films, which are collectively entitled (Trummerfilme) which means postwar rubble films. The designation of this as a genre corresponds to the central role played in the films by the devastated, post-war landscape of bombed German cities. The Murderers Among us, combines a mixture of cinematic styles, from an emerging neo-realism in European post-war cinema, to a melodramatic narrative that uses noir and expressionistic visual style. In this mix, the message that healing from the war will require both internal and external facets is portrayed. As J. Fisher writes, the themes and context of the films was not completely an individual artistic decision, however. Approved and funded by the DEFA, the Soviet film unit in occupied Berlin, the movie, The Murderers Among Us, is an example of what the Allies chose to allow to be produced to help push forward the reconstruction agenda. (Fisher, 2001) The films would be approved for production, based on their ability to deal with “themes like collective guilt, nation, national identity, reconstruction, humanistic reeducation, fascism and antifascism…” (Fisher: 92)
[...] (Fisher, 2001) As a result, thematically, the resurgence of a new German family amidst the rubble is one of the key themes, and the role of a nurturing heroic woman, who internalizes her own pain in order to help restore the psychic and physical health of the man, and the nation, is another key motif that contrasts with the motif of rubble as disorder and ruin . Fisher writes, “Mertens, as the male subject dislodged from the privileged specular position, stares regularly at the rubble all around him. [...]
[...] (Fisher, 2001) Instead, therefore, the female character is the one who becomes central in the neo-realist film of the post-war period in general, whether in Germany or in the Italian neo- realist cinema, where children are often the symbols of the future, struggling for finding meaning and purpose amidst the rubble of destroyed cities. Fisher writes, of the oblique nature of the entire narrative, and the active female role as protector and force for change, subverting traditional notions of masculine power in the process. [...]
[...] The way that the camera is set upon walls revealing skeletal shadows of broken window panes, or the way that the camera frames clouds or stormy skies through the ruins of once majestic stone buildings, is what links as well, the vision of the dark and destruction to the hope of renewal, through the clearing of rubble and the work of reconstruction, which will lead to ensuring of justice and normalcy. The environment and landscape of rubble then, is a backdrop for all of the idiosyncricies and terrors of characters unhinged. [...]
[...] A key image in the film is that of heroic, healing mothers cleaning up the rubble and trying to reconstruct and piece back together the nation As Elizabeth Heineman writes in an article on women of the post world war II generation in Germany, these motifs found in the film are central gender motifs found in the reconstruction era, their role key, symbolically in bringing about the transformation to the economic miracle or the stability of East Germany under the Communist rule. [...]
[...] This was a very difficult Endeavour, and the films, such as The Murderers Are Among Us, were concerned to find ways, visually and thematically, to reassemble normalcy to the fragmented character of the German post war reality; harsh and rubble strewn, the city scape was both symbol of internal and external complex need to struggle with an overwhelmingly difficult legacy that would lead, hopefully, to more positive historical change. As Weckel contends, whether intentionally or not, the film also raises the whole issue of complicity of Merten's generation, something that can be seen more completely with historical perspective than at the time the film was made, in light of the ongoing continuous debates within German society on the what caused the complicity, silent or active, with the Nazi regime's genocidal aims. [...]
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