Movies About or Around Europe: "The Lives of Others"/"Das Leben Der Anderen"

Perhaps "The Lives of Others" should be a mandatory double feature with "Goodbye Lenin", which I previously reviewed. http://jensroadtoeurope.blogspot.kr/2014/08/movies-about-or-around-europe-goodbye.html While "Goodbye Lenin" shows a lighter side of the DDR, a life in transition as the wall comes down, "The Lives of Others" shows a country where ordinary people's lives can be destroyed forever by the Stasi, East Germany's state police. Perhaps you have already seen the film, since it has won many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was pretty much universally acclaimed when it came out. If you haven't seen it, however, here's a review of the film which comes with my highest recommendation.

"The Lives of Others" is truly one of the best films I've seen in a long time. 

The main characters are a member of the Stasi, Hauptmann (Captain) Gerd Wiesler, and the artist couple Georg and Christa Maria, whom  he's asked to run surveillance on by his friend and superior in the Stasi. The surveillance turns out to be a set-up on behalf of a high-ranking party official to get Georg out of the picture so that he can gain full access to Christa Maria, whom he's already been pressuring into a sexual relationship.Whether Georg is guilty or not isn't the point. Wiesler is charged with finding something.

What the upper officials don't account for, however, is Captain Wiesler's dedication not just to the party, but to ideas of right and wrong. He's disenchanted from the first by his friend's ambition to get ahead, regardless of the truth. He also appears to be immediately quite personally attracted to Christa Maria, which leads him to look out for her and intervene in her life. At one point in the story he uses information he's discovered about her personality through surveillance to convince her to return to Georg, rather than meeting the party official who's been sexually pressuring her. After his successful intervention, and the resulting happiness of the couple, Wiesler's interest in their lives only grows, and he is drawn deeper into a world of shades of gray and farther from his purpose as a Stasi official.

Captain Wiesler begins to become less strict in carrying out his duties in general, as he's exposed to Georg's private life.

Wiesler is also particularly sensitive to beauty, as in one scene where he appears to be transported by Georg's piano-playing heard through his surveillance headphones. The film's director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, told the New York Times that his initial inspiration for the film was the idea of just such a scene where a Stasi officer would overhear a supposed enemy of the state making music and be moved by it. In the film, Wiesel is also shown "borrowing" and quite enjoying one of Georg's books, a work by Brecht. These artistic connections between Wiesel and Georg create a thread of hope and light throughout the film, that creation and beauty may really trump forces of destruction.

Georg plays a piano song to release his emotions with unimagined effects on Captain Wiesel, who listens in secret. 

This was an exceedingly moving film, and I am sure I will watch it again at some point. The characters are well-drawn and fully human. The plot is involving but not at all rushed. The themes are universal and relevant, and surveillance is certainly not a relic of the past. I think this film is also a great introduction to the dark side of the DDR, though some critics have pointed out that the situation portrayed in the film perhaps would have been impossible, since Stasi officials were generally watched by other Stasi officials or operated in teams. Whether or not it is strictly historically accurate, however, it is true to human nature while also being forgiving of our collective weaknesses and hopeful about our future. This combination is rarer than it should be. I recommend seeing this movie as soon as possible!

*On one final note - I've reached 70 days of consecutive French and German study as of today. I'm happy to say, also, that in the 2 weeks or so since my last German film viewing, I've noticed a large increase in the amount of German which I can understand without the subtitles. I'm understanding whole sentences at times, and I'm getting more words in other sentences. It's really quite encouraging!

Movies About or Around Europe: "Goodbye Lenin"

"Goodbye Lenin" is a funny and moving portrait of one son's efforts to keep his mother from finding out about the collapse of East Germany in order to save her from a life-threatening shock, starring Daniel Brühl as Alex and Katrin Saß as his mother. 

We meet the family in Alex's childhood, as his father disappears from the family life into West Germany. After losing her husband, Alex's mother, Christiane, devotes her entire life to socialism, becoming active in community life and "marrying the party." As protests begin to spring up in 1989, however, Christiane witnesses Alex participating in one, and suffers a heart attack. She then lapses into a coma for eight months, the Wall comes down, and the worldview she devoted herself to collapses with it. When she wakes up, the doctor says another shock could kill her, so Alex decides he and his sister should bring her home and create the past in the apartment. This starts out as a fairly simple matter of redecorating, but becomes more and more complicated as the world continues to change outside the apartment. Eventually, in his love for his mother, Alex goes so far as to help make fake news reports to explain away phenomena such as a Coca Cola advertisement being hung on a nearby building or the presence of West Germans in their neighborhood.

The movie's fake newscasts are some of the most interesting and inventive parts of the movie, as Alex begins to create an alternate history of his country, with the help of a film-savvy friend.

While Christiane is kept in the dark, the viewer is treated to a movie about a country and its people in transition - some are overjoyed and excited, others, mainly the older people, are worried or angry about unemployment and the loss of old routines. Here are, in fact, two links to fairly recent articles about dissatisfied East German citizens - one is an opinion piece in the Guardian, the other a feature in Der Spiegel:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/1989-berlin-wall  http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html

I had a very limited knowledge of East Germany, or in German, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, before watching this film, but the movie made me curious to learn more. It's amazing to think that such a huge transition happened within my lifetime, and within the lifetimes of Germans who are the same age as me. Since I currently live in a divided country, it's of particular interest, though the gulf between North and South Korea is certainly much wider than that between the two Germanys.

Christiane is perplexed as West Germans move into her apartment complex.

I highly recommend this film both as an introduction to this interesting time in German history and as a human drama. The acting is good, the story inventive and creative. It is the kind of movie that makes you think about what you would do in a similar situation and puts you in the shoes of someone from a different culture and time. It's also a great family film, as long as you don't mind some brief, non-sexual, male nudity.

The film made me curious to visit some sites in Germany which might help me learn more about this historical period. Here are some places I might try:
http://www.ddr-museum.de/en  (A museum in Berlin dedicated to the history of the DDR)
http://www.museenfuergeschichte.de/de/7/Zeitgeschichtliches-Forum-Leipzig.html?mid=20  (another museum on the DDR, located in the former East Germany. You'll have to translate this page if you don't read German!)
http://coldwarsites.net/country/germany  (A page which links to a variety of sites within Germany)

Finally, here are some photos taken in the last days of the DDR and an interview with the photographer:
http://www.dw.de/photographer-captures-colors-of-gdr-life/a-16864700

Good and Bad Ways to Study German

Comedian Trevor Noah has some advice for how not to study German at the end of  this video clip. For people who are currently studying German, this could be dangerously hilarious. I actually laughed so hard that I cried.

For people who are interested in studying German without accidentally listening to Hitler's speeches, here are some better ways to access German listening (and other) activities on Youtube:

1. Easy German: Easy German offers a variety of listening exercises involving subtitled interviews with Germans on the street. In the clip below, an interviewer asks interesting questions, such as "What is typical of Germany?" The answers to "Are you proud to be German?" were most interesting to me, because most of the older interviewees seemed very cognizant of Germany's national socialist past when answering the question. Find more by searching for "Easy German" on youtube.

2. GermanPod101 - There are a lot of free listening and vocabulary lessons from this site available on Youtube, which I'm really getting a kick out of. It seems to be a pay site which offers a lot of content free to lure people in. Who knows - maybe at some point when I'm done with all the levels on Duolingo I'll bite. Here's one example; many others are available at various levels:

3. Get Germanized - Wow. This guy is funny! A mixture of  vocabulary lessons and cultural tidbits, Meister Lehnsherr's Youtube channel is so entertaining that it will likely capture your attention, whether you're studying German or not. Granted, he's not for everyone. His lessons - including the  one below - can contain crude humor or language. However, I very much appreciate his down-to-earth tone and inclusion of everyday language, as in this slang lesson:

So there you have it, three ways to study German on-line without being called "black Hitler"! :) Happy studying!

Why Europe?

I live in Gyeongju, South Korea. I've lived in Korea for 5 years now. In that time, I have only ever traveled to one neighboring country - Japan, and I've only had money/time for one trip home. My co-workers always seem to be jetting off to Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other Asian countries, to swim in pristine looking waterfall-laden swimming holes, to drink beautiful-looking drinks and eat beautiful-looking mangoes, visit ancient temples and basically live the good life. These vacations cost them a mere fraction of what I will likely end up spending to fly to and enjoy Europe. So why Europe? Why not 'love the one you're with' and travel Asia? Here are my reasons, but you can feel free to tell me if/why you disagree in the comments.

1. ART - Seeing the great European artworks has always been one of my main motivations for traveling to Europe. I have always been a fan of impressionism, expressionism, and symbolist art. However, I'm also interested in many individual artists from older traditions, including Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya, Peter Brueghel, and, of course, Leonardo da Vinci. Though there is some Western art in Seoul, there is nothing on the scale of what's available in Europe, not to mention the art in situ - art that was created for a specific building/location, such as the works of Gustav Klimt in Vienna. I admire Asian art, but I grew up with Western art. My cultural context allows me to decode Western art much more easily than I can read the cultural signs in Asian art, not to mention the fact that I can't even read the literal signs under the paintings in Korea, which often lack English even for the title. (Yeah - I'm one of those information-plaque-readers at the museum). I long to connect to the great works I've seen from a distance all my life. I dream of seeing Claude Monet's waterlilies at L'Orangerie (and his garden at Giverny), Leonardo da Vinci's "Virgin of the Rocks" at the Louvre, and Albrecht Dürer's "Young Hare" at the Albertina in Vienna, along with so many others.

You can see Gustav Klimt's work in situ on these wall panels at the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, as well as on the ceiling at the Burgtheater. By Culturawiki (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

2. BEAUTIFUL CITIES - I love nature, but I also love cities. Specifically: beautiful, clean, architecturally diverse, quirky, pedestrian-friendly cities. Korea is still playing catch-up on many of these counts. While there has definitely been progress towards more green space even in the short time I've lived here, (Busan just added several new parks, for example), a normal day's walk in Korea will generally include dodging scooters and even cars on the sidewalks, spitting on the sidewalk, few to no garbage cans, and a certain sameness. Korean buildings have a tendency to be tall and utilitarian, perhaps due to the country's quick development into an economic power. Though I'm not under the illusion that Europe is perfect, I do know that many of the city centers are very livable, with cobbled streets, architecture in a wide range of styles and periods, quaint little shops, and pedestrian-only quarters. There are also beautiful places in much of Southeast Asia, but I've also heard from friends about wild traffic that makes Korea's scooter and car traffic sound downright peaceful. What I want is a full rest.

One of Europe's many pedestrian-only zones looks peaceful and inviting! "Strøget, Copenhagen" by Olga Itenberg - originally posted to Flickr as IMG_9995.jpg. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Str%C3%B8get,_Copenhagen.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Str%C3%B8get,_Copenhagen.jpg

3. USING MY LANGUAGES - I speak intermediate French, intermediate Spanish and beginning level German.  I want to use my languages in their native environment. It's like I've been rehearsing all these years for a performance and I'm ready to finally go on stage.

4. VEGAN/GREEN CULTURE - Europe, especially Germany, seems to have a growing awareness towards vegan and green culture. I'm eager to explore what they have to offer. See my previous post about Europe's awesome grocery stores! http://jensroadtoeurope.blogspot.kr/2014/07/eco-europe-green-grocery-stores.html

5. LIBERALISM - I want to be somewhere where I can sunbathe topless and it's not a big deal. I want to be somewhere where kissing in public isn't considered uncouth. I want to attend wild street festivals and funky late night flea markets. Other than a very high tolerance for drinking (which I'm not into) Korea is a conservative culture, as are many of its Asian neighbors, and I am not a conservative person. I want the antidote.

At the Englischer Garten in Munich, people can sunbathe and swim with clothes or without (in designated areas - do check first!) The garden is, moreover, one of the world's largest public parks, at 1.4 square miles it is larger than Central Park in New York. Photo creative commons by Marcio Cabral de Moura https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdemoura/

6. THE HEAD START FACTOR - Finally, I just have an overall head start on Europe. I have a fair idea about its general history and an active interest in World War II history. I have a good amount of knowledge about European languages, culture and geography. I have a way to put Europe into a context. When I travel, it is primarily cultural sites which interest me. Maybe this is a product of my upbringing - our usual family vacations were to Civil War battlefields, presidential houses, and museums. Might sound boring to some, but I have very fond memories of these early trips, which were enriched by having some interest in U.S. history and some background knowledge of what we were seeing. To go to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos or even China and Japan, I'd find it necessary to do a whole lot of research in advance so I could have some context. It's not that I don't enjoy just relaxing on a beach, and, in fact, I hope to relax on some beaches while in Germany. However, I'd also like to understand the language being spoken around me at the beach, and I'd like to know something about the castle or museum I'm going to visit the next day.

My family on one of our many, fondly-remembered, nerdy vacations, circa 1993 or so - this time at George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. Check out our tourist garb, which I thought was very sophisticated at the time, believe it or not!

In the end, we all travel for our own reasons. Some people just want a break or a rest. Others want a party. Some people want to go somewhere none of their friends have ever been (or maybe even heard of). Others feel more comfortable at a popular resort area. Some people want to shop. Others want to hike or camp. Me, I want to see art, deepen my understanding of history, enjoy the good life (cafes, good food, pleasant walks, lovely scenery), and speak the language. For me, Europe is my perfect fit, and it's worth the sacrifice of 4 trips to Thailand or 2 to Japan to finally get there. 

What about you? Why do you travel? Do you prefer to visit places with which you're already familiar or to try something new? Please feel free to share in the comments!

Rick Steves

If I could recommend just one guidebook or resource to people planning a trip to Europe, I'd recommend Rick Steves. Early on in my European research I remembered hearing about him from my brother, who used to watch his PBS shows. A quick Youtube search revealed a wealth of videos on the Rick Steves Youtube channel, and from the first episode, I was hooked. Below is one of my favorites, the episode that convinced me I had to visit Munich!

Steves has an earnest optimism which borders on dorky*, but he also has an incredibly sophisticated outlook on travel. Don't let his very American accent and clothing fool you - Steves knows his stuff. His travel philosophy is to avoid tourist traps and find ways to connect with locals and their culture. His guidebooks, including the excellent starter guide "Europe Through the Back Door," are aimed at helping American travelers to get to know the real Europe. Each book has a conversational and user-friendly tone, while still providing background on the history and culture of the country. He's a great communicator as well as a great source of knowledge. Rick Steves is to European travel what Roger Ebert was to movies - a bridge between ordinary people and an extraordinary, sophisticated experience. If there is any weakness in Steves' guidebooks it's that they are not as exhaustive as other guidebooks. He picks and chooses what he believes to be the best attractions, hotels and restaurants based on years of annual research, and writes more about fewer things. If you're looking for a guidebook with everything in it, he's not your man. But then, if you're looking for everything, that's what the internet is for, isn't it?

Steves also views travel as a political and socially conscious act, which led to him producing a recent travel special on Iran. In the intro to his Iran special he says he's there to "learn, understand, and make some friends." Steves seems able to make friends anywhere, precisely because he keeps an open mind and reaches out across cultures. The Iran video educated me quite a bit about the culture, and though I already had a pretty open mind, it opened my mind further. This video offers a window into the lives of regular people who seem genuinely happy to interact with an American and depicts places of great beauty and historical interest. For me, it actually sparked an interest in visiting Iran someday! Watch for yourself here:

In addition to his interest in socially conscious travel, Steves is also an advocate for legalized marijuana, as well as a philanthropist. Among other things, he donated money to create transitional housing for the homeless in his home state of Washington. Steves is an all-around good guy, the kind of person whose business you feel happy to support.

And Steves is very much a businessman. Steves' company sells its own luggage and travel accessories as well as the travel guidebooks and Rick Steves tours. Last year I bought one of his specially designed travel bags in the first flush of my Europe enthusiasm, when I thought I'd be leaving this year. Steves believes in packing very light, and I'm looking forward to the challenge of fitting 3-4 weeks of clothing and necessities into Steves' compact carry-on bag. I've never been a light packer, but I am convinced after reading the guidebooks and watching his videos that I will be very glad to have only a carry-on climbing up the hilly Parisian streets, or getting on and off trains between European cities, not to mention avoiding spending time at a baggage claim.

As mentioned, Steves also runs tours. While his tours sound like a lot of fun, for several reasons Lee and I will be going it alone. For one - we have some very specific destinations in mind already. Secondly, though Steves' tours seem reasonable, I still think we can go cheaper on our own. Finally, though I've heard some reports from vegetarians faring alright on his tours, I'm not sure how vegans would do. I'd much rather plan my own meals and take advantage of some of the great veg/vegan restaurants that are out there. Using Steves' guidebooks as one of our travel tools I am sure Lee and I will be able to plan out an itinerary which will suit us just as well, but for those who don't have a lot of time to spend planning or who are traveling solo, they seem like a good time.

If I've piqued your interest in Rick Steves, or if you just want to watch some great free programming about European countries/travel be sure to check out the many videos on Youtube and/or check out his site (with a travel forum, store and information about tours) and his blog, where he documents his research trips and other thoughts about Europe:
http://www.ricksteves.com/
http://blog.ricksteves.com/

I also strongly recommend buying "Europe Through the Back Door" or any of his travel guides. The wealth of information they provide in a very readable format is worth paying for, even in this age of endless free information. I look forward to devouring them the way I do a good novel, and his tips are definitely going to save me money, time and headaches as I head into the more serious planning phase at the start of next year.

*Of course I admire this greatly, being a dorky, earnest person myself.

My Language Study Routine

Every day I study languages. Yes, every day. I've found that the best way to keep studying is just to keep studying. When you let languages lie for even a few days, the start-up process can be rusty. So I made a rule with myself to study just a little each day. A little can be as little as 10 minutes - 5 minutes per language - or as long as 2-3 hours on days when I have a lot of time or I'm enjoying myself. But as long as I get that 10 minutes in, things keep moving along. Here is a bit about my daily study routine:

1. DUOLINGO Every day I go to https://www.duolingo.com/ and put in at least 10 minutes. I will never stop raving about Duolingo, because it's just that good and it's free. The system is simple. The lessons are bite-sized, so they're very good for people who are "too busy" to study a language; yet they are also thorough - covering reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as grammar, vocabulary and expressions. I study French, German and Spanish, but there are also courses in Italian, Portuguese and Dutch, as well as courses to learn English and a number of courses currently in development. Here are some pictures from the site:

The Duolingo progress bar gives you your level, your experience points, the words you've learned and a chart showing the amount of progress you've made on a day-to-day basis. At the top of the screen (not shown) it also gives your "streak" - the number of days you've studied in a row, and in another part of the screen the number of experience points you have compared to your friends on the site.

Another screen reveals the lessons you've already learned as well as those you still need to learn or strengthen. Along the left side of each lesson are strength bars. When the left side begins to turn white, it's time to practice that lesson again.In this section I have no strength bars yet for Verbs Present Tense 2, but I'm as strong as possible in the other lessons.

The first time you learn a word, especially a noun, it's often accompanied by an easy, multiple-choice visual aid. It's also spoken. You always have the option to hear the pronunciation for any of the words.

"Type what you hear" is one of my favorite practices. The turtle on the bottom slows the sentence way down when needed. In addition to these practices, there are also: Translate from German to English and English to German, multiple-choice questions, and, if you have a microphone, pronunciation exercises. I make up for my lack of a microphone by always speaking every phrase/word as I go. Duolingo also has an "immersion" section where you can earn experience points through translating text which I believe comes from real websites that need translating. This can be useful sometimes, but I find it's more useful with languages I'm already pretty proficient in. I have learned interesting tidbits about history and art through translating from French to English, however.

2. READING The second part of my language study is reading. I don't do this every day, but some days I read in French or Spanish. I always read out loud. I think it's important to read out loud because it builds on speaking skills and calls attention to words which I need to look up pronunciations for later on. I also go to my dictionary every single time I'm not sure about a word's meaning. Now this is something I specifically tell my students not to do in their English classes. I encourage them to read for the gist, so they don't spend weeks trying to read one book or even one chapter. The thing is, though, I'm not on a time schedule. I actually do have weeks to spend reading one chapter, and the point of my reading is to learn new words and phrases. So I look up every single word or expression, and then I either write them down in my notebook or I write the definition into the book. Then, time permitting, I go back at the end of my reading session and re-read that section out loud, but this time I understand all the words and can cement them into my brain in context. I've learned and/or solidified a lot of vocabulary in this way, and my reading rate is improving. I recently finished reading a graded reader version of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and am currently working on "Harry Potter a l'Ecole Des Sorciers" as well as an article in French Marie Claire.Eventually I hope to add some German reading into my daily routine.

 I just finished this French graded reader, remarkably nabbed at a Kyobo Books in Busan. I'm currently working on "Harry Potter" in French. I confess that it's a friend's book which I forgot to return, and he already left Korea.

I was excited to find this French "Marie Claire" at the Kyobo Books in the Seomyeon neighborhood of Busan. Actually, I see French magazines there quite frequently, although they can be a bit pricy. Still, it's worthwhile, because the language in magazines tends to be more conversational and includes a lot of colloquialisms.

My trusty dictionary (also bought at a bookstore in Seomyeon) and my vocab notebook. I prefer to use a paper dictionary because I like to study in bed and because they tend to offer more varied/subtle definitions than on-line translation.

When I finish all the lessons on Duolingo, I'm going to attack this big book of grammar I found at Fully Booked (sadly closing) in Busan. Pictured on the right is my dream read in French. I've always wanted to read "Madame Bovary" (one of my favorite novels of all time) in the original French. Now that I'm studying every day, I think my dream is achievable.

I was also lucky enough to find these Spanish and German readers at Fully Booked. The Spanish reader I've nearly finished. The German I haven't even begun yet, but I bought it because I was all excited that I could understand the title. ;)

3. FOREIGN FILMS   Watching foreign films is another way I work on language learning. It tunes my ear much more than using online lessons, since the speakers have different accents and often talk more quickly. There's also a lot more use of colloquialisms. I didn't learn the German expression "Genau" on Duolingo, but I sure heard it a lot in "Generation War" and "Die Welle." Similarly, the use of "genial" as "cool" in French didn't really register for me until I heard Julie Delpy use it three times in one conversaton in "2 Days in Paris." There's no way I'm ready to understand without subtitles yet, but I still feel there's value in this input. There's also value in getting a window into the cultures of other countries, although it's important to beware of reading too much into what we see through that window. Imagine if someone randomly selected 10 American movies and tried to understand our whole culture based on those!

One of these days I'm going to get around to re-watching this German classic "Run Lola Run"/"Lola Rennt." I'll be reviewing a lot of movies in the blog, too. I hope to get into the French New Wave films one day soon, for example.

4. OTHER METHODS There are a lot of other language-learning methods I'm eager to try in the near future. I came across these French podcasts recently, for example: https://nativefrenchspeech.com/en/articles_kind/Episode%20of%20podcast.They're a bit fast for me, but they offer transcripts as well, and when I have a little bit of time or when I'm going to do some house-cleaning I think I'll give them a try. Memrise can also be useful, though the lessons are user-created and therefore vary in quality. I'm also considering putting together a French club, or perhaps a foreign language club, in the fall. It'd be nice to gather some people together to speak in French, German or Spanish. Fortunately, my husband is also studying German through Duolingo, so I am able to exchange some conversation with him. For a variety of language resources for quite a few languages please see also this page:  http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons I haven't had time yet to mine its riches, but there seems to be a lot of worthwhile stuff on the site.

In the end, no matter what tools you use, I think studying a language successfully simply comes down to a combination of desire and going slow and steady. If you study a language you truly enjoy and permit yourself to study just a little every day, I think you'll find success. But what if you hit a roadblock? It's important not to concentrate on how much you don't know. As a language learner you will hit points where you grow frustrated (endings of words in German make me a little nuts, let me tell you), but it's important to remind yourself how much more you know than you did before. Instead of thinking: "I can't say X in German" think "I can say Y." Yeah, I can't use the past tense yet, but I can order dinner, and I can tell someone I'm going to Austria. Could I do that one year ago? No. Hence, success.

Are you studying a language? What is your study routine? What are some web-sites and methods you'd recommend? Please share in the comments!

Movies About or Around Europe: "The Blue Angel"/"Der Blaue Engel"

I'm finally getting around to seeing some classic films which I probably should have watched in high school instead of watching "Heathers" or "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" for the fiftieth time. Not to say "The Blue Angel" is fundamentally better than these movies, just to say that it is a piece of film history - a reference point. It may be the first Marlene Dietrich movie I have seen. As someone who considers herself a bit of film geek, I have some catching up to do.

The film is heartbreaking and pathetic, but I'm not going to tell you why, because there's no way to do so without spoiling it. What I can say is that the story involves a professor, played very realistically by Emil Jannings, and a nightclub performer, Lola Lola, played by Marlene Dietrich in her breakout role. Professor Emmanuel Rath is so terribly earnest that it makes him helpless both against the sparkling facade of the nightclub and against the guise of morality of the bourgeois world he belongs to. This is a man who believes in doing what's right - to drive the point home in one scene we see a motto about doing right hanging above his bed. Unfortunately, those who do what's right and take responsibility for their actions are often wronged by the people around them.

This is also a "femme fatale" film - a cautionary tale about the dangers of beautiful women. It's not too hard to take this moral from the film, since Dietrich sings two songs which distinctly warn the audience about getting involved with a woman like her. "Falling in Love Again", Dietrich's signature song goes: "Men cluster to me/Like moths around a flame/And if their wings burn/I know I'm not to blame." Another song, "Blonde Women" warns: " Beware the amazing blond women/Be careful when you meet a sweet blond stranger. You may not know it, but you're reaching danger." Just to drive the point home, there are a series of shots that cut from Dietrich on the stage, to linger for a moment on a statue of a siren (those evil temptresses of the sea who caused men to crash against the rocks), to the Professor gazing at Dietrich.

The arresting presence of Marlene Dietrich shines on stage.

In this sense, I find the film tiresome. Though it wasn't such a warmed-over cliche in 1930, today I've had it with decades of films which warn men against sexy women yet entice men towards them simultaneously. For all the fuss that's made about such women in film, I've rarely if ever met such women in real life, and when audiences are made to sympathize with the poor, duped man over and over again, it sort of takes the heat off the male role in the objectification of beautiful women. It's far more common in real life to see women taken advantage of by men - human trafficking and rape immediately come to mind. However, in films, women and their sexuality are constant, deadly snares, as if Angelina Jolie or a young Kathleen Turner were waiting around every street corner.

Dietrich does manage to make the role of the femme fatale more than a stereotype, however. First, her charisma is intense.  Her screen presence travels across the decades to make this 1930, beginning-of-the-sound-era film seem, if not contemporary, at least not a fossil. She is one of those actors with an extra spark in her eye and the ability to arrest attention. The black and white, somewhat expressionist filming accentuates this allure, and it's not hard to believe that she could hold sway over this club or over human lives. She is more than her charm, however. She also has some fine scenes with Jannings (also terrific), and it is clear that there is some complexity of feeling in her character - some inner conflict.

Emil Jannings as the earnest and upright schoolteacher of "Der Blaue Engel."

At the end of the day, though, I'm not sure if this is a movie I'd recommend strongly. It was interesting to me as a part of film history and as an introduction to Dietrich, whose other films I think I will seek out eventually. It is interesting to see a film made in the Weimar era which possibly reflects some of the tensions of the time. Overall, though, the film suffers from its age and tropes which have been exhausted in the subsequent years.

I did watch the film in German, however, and, as usual that was good practice. I didn't pick up any new expressions this time, but Lee was happy to hear his favorite word: "Entschuldigung" (Excuse me/I'm sorry) from the other room.

One more thing, slightly unrelated, but I couldn't get this song out of my head while watching the movie. It's a pretty great song, for my money the best one on the album. Enjoy: