German Joys

Italy's Doughnut Hole

Perry Anderson, one of the most astute commenters on Italy, on the emergence of that country's doughnut-hole cultural landscape:

The case of the cinema, where Italy had above all excelled after the war, can be taken as emblematic. There was no relay of the generation of great directors – Rossellini, Visconti, Antonioni – who had made their debut in the 1940s or early 1950s, and whose last important works cluster in the early 1960s. Missing thereafter was any combustible crossing of avant-garde with popular forms to compare with Godard in France or Fassbinder in Germany; later on, only the weak brew of Nanni Moretti. The result was a gap so large between educated and popular sensibilities that the country was left more or less defenceless against the cultural counter-revolution of Berlusconi’s television empire, saturating the popular imaginary with a tidal wave of the crassest idiocies and fantasies – schlock so wretched the very term would be too kind for them.

Tomorrow's Commentary Today

Over at the American monthly magazine The Atlantic, resident blogger Marc Ambinder noticed something a little familiar about the cover of this week's Der Spiegel: 

Namely, that it's rather reminiscent of the cover of an Atlantic magazine cover from a few months ago:

The Atlantic, for those of you who don't already know, is an American monthly magazine of centrist news and commentary. They also have plenty of online features, including political and policy blogs that are usually worth reading.

A German Joys reader who also follows The Atlantic's website closely has repeatedly pointed me to German mainstream-media commentary and analysis that seems, shall we say, to have been influenced by The Atlantic. This reader's theory is that German journalists who are staring deadlines in the face know they can safely crib ideas from The Atlantic, since (1) it's non-controversial and has a solid reputation; and (2) the risk of being discovered is minimal, since The Atlantic is less well-known in Europe than, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post. This reader continues:

During the primary campaign, I noticed that the German columnists Pitzke, Schmitz and Steingart (even though he’s so sour, he would only refer to things from a lofty perch of European condescension and ate his words, sort of, when Obama ended up as the winner) almost always picked up on Atlantic themes about two days after any particular event of significance (primary, speech, absurd scandal, etc.) had taken place.

First, the Spiegel had the “this is what happened” coverage, then a day later, the sometimes thoughtful analysis. In preparing that, they more consistently relied on consensus established by the Atlantic than any other magazine of that nature that I read. Maybe they’ve pinned the Atlantic as commentary that is most on message for their readership. Maybe they just think it’s a reliable bet, seeing as only a few thousand people in this country have ever heard of the site.

To forestall tiresome discussions, let me make clear that I am not accusing anyone or any organization of wrongdoing. This sort of thing goes on in journalism all the time, and is not necessarily a problem, as long as it's acknowledged and credit is given where due. I'm just pointing out an interesting pattern...

Georg Diez on Provincial German Books and Movies

Georg Diez (g), in an article called "Be Popular!" endorses a version of the doughnut-hole theory in the literature section of this week's Die Zeit.  It's not online, so you'll just have to trust my summary and translated excerpts.  Diez begins by noting that Clemens Meyer just won the German Book Prize at the Leipzig book fair. "German literature," Diez begins sarcastically, "how nice! How wonderful!" Everyone's praising each other after the book fair, but, Diez observes, nobody seems to have noticed "how small, how narrow, how provincial is the country that they're talking about -- and, unfortunately, often also the stories that are told here."

Nobody seems to want to film these boring German books. Things are different in the U.S.  Diez points to No Country for Old Men (based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy) and There Will Be Blood (Upton Sinclair) as examples. (I'd add to his list Into the Wild, Sean Penn's fine film of a 1996 book by Jon Krakauer).  On the surface, these movies might deal with life in the provinces or suburbs, but they also contain fierce and uncomfortable truths -- "the whole cosmos," in Diez's words. 

Why, he asks, "doesn't one find in German books this power, this reality, these depths, this consistency and toughness and truth, that could tempt filmmakers -- and, conversely, why don't German filmmakers search for these epic worlds[?]" He continues:

Something's missing, still today. Something that's only approximately described by the word 'reality.' On the one hand, there's the will toward popular success, to telling stories, to being understood; and on the other hand the energy that's released when differing realities collide with one another, twist each other, when injuries result, comfortable truths are torn apart, and the way down to the bottom of the abyss is laid bare, the bottom that, if you follow McCarthy, is dark and heavy -- the stuff of myths. There has to be an end to the constant 'small-small'* in our heads.

Instead of filming epic stories, Diez complains, Germans are "seriously discussing Clemens Meyer's new hairstyle."

I'm with Diez on this one.  You don't have to like all these movies, or admire everything about Hollywood (note that none of the movies Diez praises was a straight Hollywood production), to notice the difference in ambition Diez is talking about here.  I've seen plenty of recent German movies and reviewed quite a few in these pages.  Some of them were just plain dull, some of them were reasonably interesting, but none really stuck with me, except for The Lives of Others and On the Other Side.

I think there's something else at work here, besides the lack of exciting novels.  Note that the category Diez accuses Germany of underperforming in is movies that are both artsy and exciting.  Germany produces plenty of mass-market comedies and dramas for just plain folks.  The problem is that movies that are supposed to tackle 'ambitious' themes often turn out so dreary.

People in the German film industry tell me there's a norming process that controls access to German film subsidies.  Directors have to convince committees of tastemakers to fund their projects.  The filmmakers themselves, and the tastemakers, have strong preferences and prejudices.  They consider themselves proudly allergic to "Hollywood" -- which they associate with Ken and Barbie actors, canned happy endings, staged dramatic confrontations, stereotyped confrontations between good and evil, unnecessary explosions, action-movie cliches, etc.  They're looking for interpersonal drama, for social commentary, for moral ambiguity -- "anti-Hollywood" qualities.  In fact, I've personally seen film scripts that have come back to aspiring directors with passages marked "too Hollywood."

The problem, according to my sources, is that a lot of these tastemakers and directors eventually come to stamp the dreaded "Hollywood" label on any enhanced storytelling technique -- such as suspense, or a happy ending, or a voice-over.  Endings in which everything turns out basically OK will be choppped and replaced with ambiguous fade-outs.  Pleasant, likable characters who we're supposed to identify with will be criticized as too "one-sided" or "subjective."  Humor that's considered too broad (by stuffy Bildungsbuerger) will be squelched.  The end result of this process is films that end up bland and wishy-washy even when they're supposed to be provocative.

And which play in art-house theatres for 5 weeks, get polite and respectful reviews, and disappear forever.

* The original is "Es geht um ein Ende des ewigen Klein-Klein in den Koepfen."  I've translated it pretty much literally, but I get the idea I'm missing some allusion here.  Little help?

The Readers are Revolting

I just heard Jens Jessen, editor of the Feuilleton (arts & culture section) of the German weekly Die Zeit, being interviewed on Deutschlandradio Kultur (g).  He was talking about how the Internet is changing the news business, the subject of the lead piece in this week's Feuilleton (whose title -- is "237 Reasons to Have Sex", mocks Internet features that force reader to click single picture after single picture to generate more "page impressions," as they're called in Denglish). 

Contrary to some editors' expectations, Jessen said, online articles about difficult subjects often do get just as many clicks as news about Paris Hilton's latest derailment: "Of course, the public is stupid (blöd)," Jessen said, "but it's not as bad as some editors think."  (rough quote from memory). The interviewer jokingly warned Jessen that he was going to write that quote down, which made Jessen chuckle.

Here are two possible reactions to Jessen's remark:

Reaction #1.  (The typical American and English reaction). Horror at the snobbery and condescension. Does Jessen really think he and his friends are so bloody superior to everyone else?  This is the key flaw of the European press: its cliquishness and insularity.  If you think the majority of your fellow citizens are idiots, you're hardly going to listen to their complaints or suggestions.  You're going to pay attention exclusively to what's being said and thought in your tiny circle of well-educated haute bourgeois urbanite friends, and that will lead to navel-gazing and stagnation.  And it's not just journalism that suffers from this elitism.  Even Jeremy Rifkin -- that tireless American cheerleader for European social policies -- is horrified by the open snobbery he often encounters among EU officials.  One good reason average Europeans believe that the Brussels elite distrusts them and ignores many of the things they care about them is that the Brussels elite -- regardless of what they say at news conferences -- does distrust them and ignores many of the things they care about.  This can't be good for European society.

Reaction #2.  Jessen is the Feuilleton editor of Die Zeit, Germany's most highbrow mainstream newspaper. It's not his job to appeal to the masses or even enlighten them.  And the Feuilleton of Die Zeit does what it's supposed to do well, week in and week out.  It's ambitious but not too stuffy.  And at least Jessen is honest.  Americans pride themselves (often showily and self-aggrandizingly) on their 'democratic values' and lack of snobbery, but unpack this claim and you'll find plenty of denial.  As W. Somerset Maugham once said of America: "Of all the hokum with which this country is riddled the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions."  American definitely has a class system, and there's lots of horrid stuff being produced for those at the bottom of it.  The only difference between an educated American and German is that the German will say that it's garbage and that the people who consume it are idiots, while the American will only think this.  And what's more important: hurting the feelings of ordinary blue-collar citizens (who, anyway, aren't listening to public radio), or actually designing a society in which they have a chance at a dignified existence and social advancement?  Some of the most elitist Europeans also willingly pay social-welfare taxes that are astronomical by American standards.  And finally, the history of the 20th century doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the wisdom and purity of the common folk, does it?  Nor, for that matter does the 2004 American Presidential election, although with somewhat less disastrous consequences.  And have you looked at a tabloid lately?

I think that about captures it, without tipping my hand.  Any other possible reactions?  What's your reaction, esteemed readers? 

Germany's Doughnut-Hole TV Landscape

Two commentators in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung here try to explain why so much German TV kind of sucks. Adrian Kreye here (G) maintains that "America is unbeatable" when it comes to television, because American TV mirrors the "experience-world" (Erlebniswelt) of higher-class social groups at a high level of quality.  I've heard this from many Germans as well -- even those who see American mainstream movies as superficial trash may love series such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, or Gray's Anatomy.  These high-end series offer clever writing, original ideas, sharply-drawn characters -- exactly the sort of thing you rarely see on German TV.  Not that all of these series play well in Germany -- precisely because they are so finely-tuned to the experience of American social groups, Kreye notes, the best series often flop in Germany, while generic police thrillers like "CSI" do well.  Thus, Kreye's not saying that the solution is to import American shows; rather it's to create the conditions in Germany that will lead to better television.  Kreye suggests that the American practice of offering important players (actors, writers, directors) a percentage of revenue cultivates talent much better than the German system, which is more oriented toward lump-sum payments and buyouts.

Christopher Keil then piles on.  He points to what I call the "doughnut-hole" structure of European popular culture.  Let me here define the Hammel Doughnut-Hole Theory of the European Cultural Landscape™ (HDHTECL): At the high end, we find subsidized "serious" entertainment such as symphonies, operas, museums, and contemporary jazz and dance.  Often uncompromising, usually of high quality.  At the low end, "entertainment" for the masses: tabloid confessional talk-shows, "folk music" festivals positively eerie in their frozen-in-amber 1960s campiness, soft-porn video clips and movies, ludicrously exploitative call-in contests, etc.  In the middle, there's some good stuff, but not much, and with little cross-cultural appeal.

We may contrast this with the Anglo-Saxon world.  The middle-brow consumer in Britain and the U.S. is well-served -- not least becase she's likely to have lots of disposable income.  She can watch the above-named TV series or quirky but non-confrontational movies like Little Miss Sunshine or Sideways. For music, she can see a taffetta-and-morning-coat opera production which would be seen as ludicrously stuffy by European standards, and even a newly-composed opera by someone like John Adams or Philip Glass.  This opera will be comfortingly tonal and possibly even "uplifting."  For the less abmitious, there's a choice of hundreds of indie-rockers, some of whom are damned creative.  Most of this stuff is classic middle-brow entertainment, defined as having some cultural cachet and not insulting the viewer's intelligence; while avoiding formal innovation and direct challenges to middle-class values.  (The debate over whether all this middlebrow entertainment is Good for Us -- about which I have Complex Views -- will have to wait for another post).

So much for my theory, which Keil seems to share.  The problem with German TV, Keil suggests (G), is that educated Germans are "more and more radically turning away" from television as a whole, because they see the whole thing as increasingly dominated by dreck for the masses.  Sensing that educated viewers are ignoring TV, even the large publicly-funded television stations are reorienting their fare towards the lower orders, perpetuating this vicious circle.  Of course, strong anti-TV sentiment from people like this has always existed in German society, but has increased since 1984, when private television channels (which are allowed to aim much farther below the belt than public ones) were first permitted.

It's an interesting argument, but unfortunately, one part of it  -- that is, that educated Germans are increasingly viewing no television whatsoever -- needs to be backed up with empirical evidence, which Keil doesn't provide.  German journalists tend to move in pretty stuffy, insular little circles, and sometimes talk about things people in their social circles are doing as if they were national trends.  So, does anyone know whether he's right?