Film Policy Information Service No. 290, June / July 2020
By Ellen Wietstock
In the TIME An article by the director and author Edgar Reitz with the title was published on June 4, 2020 Why we need the cinema. The article includes a black and white photo that is pure magic: It shows the actors Gudrun Landgrebe and Jörg Richter, beguilingly young and beautiful, in a love scene. The cameraman Gernot Roll captures a moment in which love arises and in which its transience becomes visible at the same time. At first glance an absolute cinematic moment, but it is a take from the first part of the film trilogy homeland, designed and staged by Edgar Reitz. Filmed in 1984 for ARD, the individual episodes were broadcast at prime time at 8:15 p.m. Something like that was once taken for granted, it’s hard to believe. Incidentally, Edgar Reitz was invited to the Venice Film Festival with this television series. Television and streaming offers can therefore definitely be cinema, which is not least also the great film Roma by Alfonso Cuarón.
In his article, Reitz describes how the film, which was genuinely associated with the cinema, has found other places and possibilities of reception in the last few decades. We need the cinema, according to Reitz, “in order to experience the increasingly rare protected offline space.” His conclusion: The cinema as a place must reinvent itself. So what is he proposing? “I could imagine that a public cinema experimental center will be founded in which future forms of cinema operations will be researched. For example, it would be about innovative event formats, forms of cooperation with Internet providers, but above all new architectural ideas for cinema construction. New spatial concepts could emerge with parallel exhibitions, symposia, series, festivals or festival-like forms, live performances by the artists, binge viewings, cinema-on-demand events and innovative visitor organizations via mobile phone apps. … “
The conclusion is: “The cinema of the future must find an answer to the fact that the film will no longer be the only reason to go to the cinema.” One reads this list of suggestions for reinventing the cinema with great astonishment. These no longer need to be researched, as these are activities with which every dedicated arthouse cinema has been supplementing its film program in one way or another for years. Trying to save the cinema by treating the film as an add-on is a mistake. Rather, all industry participants should deal with the question of why series of streaming services have long overtaken cinema films in their entirety in terms of narrative methods, dramaturgy, camera angles, acting, etc. After all, what stories do German films tell for the cinema? There are mainly themed and theses films, biopics, and literary adaptations, too often told conventionally. What is missing are poetic narrative styles that are indispensable for the cinema, a place of longing. What is missing are stories that go beyond borders and edges.
A lively, extravagant, subversive cinema does not come about through money alone. But through the right interplay of talent and the targeted funding of talent. If the Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters is now making billions available for a “new start” in culture, of which EUR 120 million will flow into the film industry alone, then after the pandemic-induced paralysis – and when, if not now – the exceptional situation should now can be used for a fundamental reform of the entire film funding system, namely for a complete revision of the film funding guidelines of the state funding. As is well known, the detailed proposals have been on the table for two years. They can be supplemented by the experiences of the last few months. Only the film can save the cinema. Reinventing the film is the order of the day.
–
