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7:00 PM
Goethe-Kino: Hannah Arendt by Margarethe von Trotta
Film|Goethe-Kino (Cinema Screening)
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Goethe-Institut London, London
- Price £6, £3 Concessions and for Goethe-Institut language students & library members.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Hannah Arendt’s death on 4 December 1975, we are screening the biographical drama Hannah Arendt by Margarethe von Trotta. The film focuses on a pivotal chapter in the life of the political theorist: her reporting and reflection on the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, and the controversies her work sparked.
Please note that this edition of our Goethe-Kino will exceptionally take place on a Tuesday.
In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was abducted from Argentina and brought to trial in Israel a year later. Writing for The New Yorker, the German-Jewish historian, philosopher, and political thinker Hannah Arendt—who emigrated from Germany in 1933 and settled in New York in 1941—attended the trial as a correspondent. She was surprised to find that the accused did not appear to her as a monster or criminal mastermind, but rather as a mediocre bureaucrat. After two years of intensive work, her five-part essay Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil was published in The New Yorker in 1963 and provoked strong reactions worldwide. The most serious accusations claimed that she had downplayed Eichmann’s guilt and the Holocaust and that she had attributed partial blame to the Jewish communities for their fate.
In her film, Margarethe von Trotta uses Arendt’s conversations with her husband Heinrich Blücher, philosopher Hans Jonas, Zionist Kurt Blumenfeld, writer Mary McCarthy, and her secretary Lotte Köhler to illuminate the political and philosophical background and motivations behind Arendt’s positions. Excerpts from original footage of the trial offer insight into what Arendt observed from the audience benches. For Margarethe von Trotta, the Eichmann controversy provided not only an opportunity to portray Arendt’s independent thinking and her determined defense of her views, but also to present the private side of Arendt—a woman with deep empathy and loyal friendships—in contrast to her public persona as a strong-willed fighter. This is powerfully supported by lead actress Barbara Sukowa, who has previously portrayed strong female figures with great nuance in von Trotta’s earlier films such as Marianne and Juliane (1981), Rosa Luxemburg (1986), and Vision – From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009).
Germany 2012, colour, 113 min., with English subtitles.
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. With Barbara Sukowa, Kurt Blumenfeld, Michael Degen, Megan Gay, Claire Johnson, Gilbert Johnston, Julia Jentsch, Janet McTeer, Axel Milberg, Ulrich Noethen, Klaus Pohl, Nicholas Woodeson.
Please note that we don't show any advertising and start the film at the indicated time.
About Margarethe von Trotta
After graduating from drama school and performing on stage in Dinkelsbühl, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt, Margarethe von Trotta began appearing in numerous roles in films of the New German Cinema from 1967 onwards. She acted in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The American Soldier, 1970), Herbert Achternbusch (Das Andechser Gefühl, 1974), and Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she also co-wrote several screenplays (Strohfeuer, 1972) and co-directed (The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, 1975).
Her first independent directorial work was The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). She achieved international breakthrough with her third film The German Sisters / Marianne and Juliane (Die Bleierne Zeit, 1981). Loosely based on the real-life figure of RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin and her sister, the film explores different forms of political resistance. With this film, Margarethe von Trotta became the first female director to be awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
This was followed by other widely discussed films such as Rosa Luxemburg (1986), The Promise (1995), the multi-part television adaptation of Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries (2000), and Hannah Arendt (2012). Her films consistently engage in a critical examination of the past—both personal and socio-political—often from a feminist perspective.
The Independent Cinema Office in the UK toured several of Margarethe von Trotta’s films a few years ago and commissioned a series of English-language essays for the occasion, which you can find here.
Please note that this edition of our Goethe-Kino will exceptionally take place on a Tuesday.
In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was abducted from Argentina and brought to trial in Israel a year later. Writing for The New Yorker, the German-Jewish historian, philosopher, and political thinker Hannah Arendt—who emigrated from Germany in 1933 and settled in New York in 1941—attended the trial as a correspondent. She was surprised to find that the accused did not appear to her as a monster or criminal mastermind, but rather as a mediocre bureaucrat. After two years of intensive work, her five-part essay Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil was published in The New Yorker in 1963 and provoked strong reactions worldwide. The most serious accusations claimed that she had downplayed Eichmann’s guilt and the Holocaust and that she had attributed partial blame to the Jewish communities for their fate.
In her film, Margarethe von Trotta uses Arendt’s conversations with her husband Heinrich Blücher, philosopher Hans Jonas, Zionist Kurt Blumenfeld, writer Mary McCarthy, and her secretary Lotte Köhler to illuminate the political and philosophical background and motivations behind Arendt’s positions. Excerpts from original footage of the trial offer insight into what Arendt observed from the audience benches. For Margarethe von Trotta, the Eichmann controversy provided not only an opportunity to portray Arendt’s independent thinking and her determined defense of her views, but also to present the private side of Arendt—a woman with deep empathy and loyal friendships—in contrast to her public persona as a strong-willed fighter. This is powerfully supported by lead actress Barbara Sukowa, who has previously portrayed strong female figures with great nuance in von Trotta’s earlier films such as Marianne and Juliane (1981), Rosa Luxemburg (1986), and Vision – From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009).
Germany 2012, colour, 113 min., with English subtitles.
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. With Barbara Sukowa, Kurt Blumenfeld, Michael Degen, Megan Gay, Claire Johnson, Gilbert Johnston, Julia Jentsch, Janet McTeer, Axel Milberg, Ulrich Noethen, Klaus Pohl, Nicholas Woodeson.
Please note that we don't show any advertising and start the film at the indicated time.
About Margarethe von Trotta
After graduating from drama school and performing on stage in Dinkelsbühl, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt, Margarethe von Trotta began appearing in numerous roles in films of the New German Cinema from 1967 onwards. She acted in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The American Soldier, 1970), Herbert Achternbusch (Das Andechser Gefühl, 1974), and Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she also co-wrote several screenplays (Strohfeuer, 1972) and co-directed (The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, 1975).
Her first independent directorial work was The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). She achieved international breakthrough with her third film The German Sisters / Marianne and Juliane (Die Bleierne Zeit, 1981). Loosely based on the real-life figure of RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin and her sister, the film explores different forms of political resistance. With this film, Margarethe von Trotta became the first female director to be awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
This was followed by other widely discussed films such as Rosa Luxemburg (1986), The Promise (1995), the multi-part television adaptation of Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries (2000), and Hannah Arendt (2012). Her films consistently engage in a critical examination of the past—both personal and socio-political—often from a feminist perspective.
The Independent Cinema Office in the UK toured several of Margarethe von Trotta’s films a few years ago and commissioned a series of English-language essays for the occasion, which you can find here.
Location
Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2PH
United Kingdom
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2PH
United Kingdom