Biographical notes
The Golden Lion winner of 1968, Alexander Kluge, was born 75 years ago, on 14th February, 1932 at Halberstadt (Germany). Writer, lawyer (he studied law, history and sacred music), he is considered the father of Young German Cinema (Junger Deutsche Film) for his role as leading promoter of the Oberhausen Manifesto – the celebrated 1962 document signed by 26 German figures which set out the wish for the rebirth in Germany of a new cinema, free in ideas and language. A disciple of Adorno, Kluge remained a central figure in the debate, throwing himself optimistically and enthusiastically into stimulating (typical of him to this day) new ideas, new avenues, new initiatives. In a short time, he became the key figure within the movement and became its most authoritative spokesman. It is no coincidence that in 1981, Rainer Werner Fassbinder should dedicate the film Lola to him.
Active since 1958 as director’s assistant to Fritz Lang during filming for Der Tiger von Eschnapur (The Tiger of Eschnapur), and director of the Institut für Filmgestaltung in Ulm since 1962 – the first cinema school in West Germany, set up in the wake of the Oberhausen Manifesto – Kluge has from his first feature film been one of the protagonists of the renewal of the Venice Film Festival, where he has been present with his work no less than five times, and where the prizes received make him one of the most rewarded film-makers. He received his Silver Lion – Special Jury Prize in 1966 with his first feature film, Abschied von gestern (Yesterday girl), and the Golden Lion in 1968 for Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos (Artists under the Big Top; Perplexed).
In 1971, Kluge presented Der Große Verhau in Venice, a science-fiction work in which he transfered the contemporary sense of chaos into a future society. As the main feature in the Women and Cinema section, in 1974 he presented the celebrated Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin (Part-Time Work of a Domestic Slave), whose protagonist, a young married women, conducts a solitary feminist battle amidst the indifference of society and the hostility of the institutions. In 1983, he returned in competition in Venice with Die Macht der Gefühle (The Power of Emotion), an essay film in 12 chapters, in which he made use of audio-visual material of various origins. In the 1970s, he also directed a second science-fiction film, Willi Tobler und der Untergang der 6. Flotte (Willi Tobler and the Decline of the 6th Fleet, 1972), In Gefahr und größter Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod (In Danger and Dire Distress the Middle of the Road Leads to Death, 1974), Der Starke Ferdinand (Strongman Ferdinand, 1976), and Die Patriotin (The Patriotic Woman, 1979), through which he criticised the neocapitalist Germany still steeped in danger authoriatianism.
Towards the end of the 1970s, he co-ordinated the collective political adventure of Deutschland im Herbst (Germany in autumn, 1978), co-directed with Alf Brustellin, Hans Peter Cloos, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert and Bernhard Sinkel. In the 1980s, he directed Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit (The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time, 1985) with which he confirmed his terse, aggressive style, and Vermischte Nachrichten (Miscellaneous News, 1986). In 1985, together with Edgar Reitz, he directed a television series dedicated to the history of cinema, in four episodes. Since 1988, he has produced numerous cultural television programmes for the RTL and SAT 1 channels.
He has also written novels and political and philosophical essays: Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung, 1972 (Public sphere and experience, Minnesota 1993); Der Unterschätzte Mensch (2001); Chronik der Gefühle (2000), Die Lücke, die der Teufel lässt (2003), Tür an Tür mit anderem Leben (2006). His latest book is made of “stories of the cinema”: Geschichten vom Kino (2007).
