I love German Cinema.
Maybe I don't quite love it as much as Mexican Cinema or Japanese Cinema, maybe not even as British Cinema, but I have more than a passing interest in the cultural output of Germany. This doesn't just include the early days German cinema of 1920s Expressionism a la Fritz Lang, GW Pabst, and FW Murnau (which I love) but also contemporary German cinema from directors such as Faith Akin and films like "North Face."
Yet, even among intellectual circles, there's a penchant for stereotyping the cinema of Germany. German cinema's stereotypes are epitomized in stuff like "Sprockets" from SNL. They're too weird, too experimental for experimental sake, too depressing and serious. If a film is from Germany it always deals with World War II, Nazism, or Fascism. If it doesn't, it's strange, aloof, and elitist.
That's bullshit.
And here's a few elaborations on said bullshit.
1) Of course German films deal with WWII and Fascism.
If you didn't know World War II is kind of a big deal. Everywhere. The UK, the US, France, Japan. That's why all those nations have made endless amounts of WWII films ranging from "Saving Private Ryan" to "Hope and Glory" to "Army of Shadows" to "Grave of the Fireflies" (which represents all the aforementioned nations, by the way). Of course Germany is going to make artistic statements and representations of what happened. Of course they are going to make films that deal with East German totalitarianism ("The Lives of Others") and German resistance fighters during World War II ("Sophie Scholl").
But it seems like that's all Germany makes films about. Right? Well why do they?
2) Germany has a non-profit film sector.
Why do German films do with Germany's past or political situations?
Because it's important, culturally speaking. And culturally speaking is a big deal in Germany.
Most European nations have film councils that use government subsidized funding to invest in films. European countries like the UK, France, and Germany are conscience of how important their cultural and artistic output are. Consequently there's more of an interest to keep an artistic cinema afloat; an artistic cinema that has a posterity to it through its representation of big issues, questions, etc.
The US doesn't really have a subsidized cinema because of the diversity and amount of population we have; there's an audience for something, generally speaking. Plus, there's an economic advantage to making quality films via the interest of a film's aura of prestige cultivated by the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and so forth. In a nutshell, as studio films get nominated for the Academy Awards, more people see them.
For many European countries, they don't have the market the US has, especially in countries like Germany which has a language not commonly spoken around the world. Consequently, as these countries are self-aware of their artistic contributions and the idea of "Hey, we're Italy, we had Donatello and stuff," Germany and these other nations have national funds to ensure a non-profit cinema that exists for artistic reasons, for posterity, etc to keep that "Donatello and stuff" or "We had Bach and Beethoven" thing going.
In order to get these grants a producer/director has to express why the film will be artistic, how it will deal with German culture, etc. For someone who works in theatre (like I have) or for an arts organization in the US you understand this because you probably had to do this with getting a National Endowment for the Arts grant. To get this grant in the US you have to prove that your work is doing some substantial service and artistic benefit; chances are the not so good theatre company that is doing plays about drug dealers in a drug laden community will get more grant money than a good theatre doing spectacle driven shows with low artistic impact in the suburbs.
Usually by getting this grant a filmmaker is getting very little money to depict an element of one's culture and this will consequently be sent to film festivals which will then boost the country of origin's prestige and artistic esteem. This will in turn lead to the film getting attention among film elites...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Before I go into the topic of "film elites" this non-profit cinema is the reason why Germany often deals with political and social problems in its films. Not only do a good deal of films discuss Germany's WWII past but also its contemporary problems. I mentioned Faith Akin, one of my favorite filmmakers, who uses his films to discuss the problems of the Turkish diaspora and Turkish immigrant life in Germany. "The Edge of Heaven" and "Head-On" deal with this.
Not all of Germany's films are this artistic though. Not all films are made with prestige in mind. Just like most films are made in the US with profit in mind, there's a cinema in Germany that's for-profit as well. If you look at the box office smashes in Germany you're very unlikely to see "Lore" but are very likely to see a film made by Til Schweiger, who delves into comedies and more specifically contemporary romantic comedies. This includes "Rabbit Without Ears" which is about a pair reuniting after one has to do community service for the other's day care. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keinohrhasen
Wait a minute, you say. Germany makes romantic comedies? Why don't I see those in the US?
Well...
3) There's Film Elites...and they like the nonprofit films wouldn't you know
The term "Film elite" seems an opaque concept if not pretentious. Let me explain.
Just like in politics there's political elites, people who know a lot about politics and who serve as gatekeepers for political topics via their commentary, their scholarly research, etc there's an equivalent in film that I will call film elites.
Any artistic medium has elites, people who are scholars, critics, etc. People who write film reviews for the Washington Post or Slate, or who run organizations and cinematheques like the Film Society of the Lincoln Center or the Gene Siskel Film Center are film elites for instance. They serve as informal gatekeepers for cinema.
Most casual film goers, people who seek entertainment emphasis films or individuals whose interest in film is passing at best, don't really flock to foreign films. Yet, there's a group of individuals who are super hardcore about films; these people read "Film Comment," "The New York Times," etc. They may even read scholarly articles about films. Therefore they gravitate towards films A.O. Scott, Michael Philips, or David Bordwell recommend or talk about heavily. They are also more likely to have an interest in films that win festival prizes, particularly at the major competitive festivals like Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. I know, because I read A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden and "Film Comment." I'm one of these hardcore fans of cinema.
Studios aren't ignorant of this. Distribution companies understand that in certain areas, like New York, Los Angeles, as well as Houston, Austin, Atlanta, and Seattle among many, many other primarily urban or university centered areas, there's an audience for these films. They can get these films and show them at the major cinemas because the film elites will talk about them and generate interest and all of a sudden "Lore" is coming to the UA Tara Cinema so I (or you) want to go.
It's much, much harder to do that for something like Til Schweiger. Film elites won't be interested in those for-profit films because unlike the non-profit films they were not made with any artistic integrity intended. So they aren't going to really talk about them; if they come to New York instead of having A.O. Scott or Manohla Dargis review it, "The New York Times" may have someone else review it as a blurb in the Arts section. It won't get a special screening at the Lincoln Center or by the Film Society of Austin. It won't win any awards at Cannes or Venice. So those hardcore fans of cinema aren't going to be intrigued to see it. Those kinds of films are the kinds of films casual film-goers would see except they don't want to see a foreign film because they do not want to "read" a film (unless it is a religious film in Aramaic or Hebrew). There's no point for a studio to take up a foreign genre/for profit film if they can make it and sell it to a bigger audience. If a Til Schweiger kind of film gets any attention it'll just be remade like the Italian film "The Last Kiss" which was remade with Zach Braff (yeah, I sorta forgot about it too).
Ultimately the kind of audience that would see a foreign film seeks the prestigious, culturally and artistically important films that for Germany often involve serious discussion about its kind of major World War II legacy. The kind of audience that wants a genre or all entertainment film in the US wants it in English so those kind of films are not bankable for studios. So while Germany has a surprising history of comedy, satire, and humour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_humour) due to language barriers and lack of profit motive this notion of stereotypically serious and depressing German cinema is reinforced, and unfortunately this motivates people to have the stereotype of the average German as a very serious, sterile figure.
Hopefully by now I've made a convincing case that this notion is stupid.
Germans are as unique as any culture but also as similar as anyone who is a human being. They enjoy romantic comedies and action films as anyone else. The difference is that the US rarely gets to see that side because they won't be shown. That's ok too because for those of us that have made an effort to actually go beyond the stereotype of sterile German cinema understand that German films are quite rewarding. Most of them have a modernist emphasis on characterization and not just style for style's sake--they are actually more Victorian than given credit. They deal with history and responsibility that the US or any country should deal with (even if like "Django Unchained"), they deal with big questions about existence ("Wings of Desire,") and they even have some with quite a bit of comedy ("Soul Kitchen"). The stereotype of sterile German cinema in the US needs to end.
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