New German Cinema: The Displaced Image

New German Cinema is the term usually applied to a loose grouping of films that were made in West Germany (FRG) during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. Although grouped together, these films resist clear generic delineation and are in fact marked by their stylistic and thematic diversity. Nevertheless, critics have identified three common elements that unite them. Firstly, all the directors were born around the time of the Second World War, grew up in a divided Germany, and can therefore be characterised as a generation. Secondly, due to funding criteria and opportunities, the ‘new cinema’ was based on an artisanal mode of...