The Tin Drum (film)
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''The Tin Drum'' (german: Die Blechtrommel) is a 1979 film adaptation of
Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da ...
' novel of the same title, directed by
Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s ...
from a screenplay co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and Franz Seitz. It stars
Mario Adorf Mario Adorf (; born 8 September 1930) is a German actor, considered to be one of the great veteran character actors of European cinema. Since 1954, he has played both leading and supporting roles in over 200 film and television productions, am ...
,
Angela Winkler Angela Winkler (born 22 January 1944) is a German actress. Life and career Born in Templin, Winkler trained to be a medical technologist in Stuttgart. Interested in theater, she went to Munich, where she took acting classes with Ernst Fritz F ...
,
Daniel Olbrychski Daniel Marcel Olbrychski (; born 27 February 1945) is a Polish film and theatre actor who is widely considered one of the greatest Polish actors of his generation. He appeared in 180 films and TV productions and is best known for leading roles ...
,
Katharina Thalbach Katharina Thalbach (; actually ''Katharina Joachim genannt Thalbach''; born 19 January 1954) is a German actress and stage director. She played theatre at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, and was actress in the film ''The T ...
,
Charles Aznavour Charles Aznavour ( , ; born Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian, hy, Շահնուր Վաղինակ Ազնավուրեան, ; 22 May 1924 – 1 October 2018) was a French-Armenian singer, lyricist, actor and diplomat. Aznavour was known for his dist ...
, and
David Bennent David Bennent (born 9 September 1966) is a Swiss actor. Biography He was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. His parents are German actor Heinz Bennent and French former dancer Diane Mansart. His sister Anne Bennent is also an actress. He has lived ...
in the lead role of Oskar Matzerath, a young boy who willfully arrests his own physical development and remains in the body of a child even as he enters adulthood. A darkly comic war drama with magical realist elements, the film follows Oskar, a precocious child living in Danzig, who wields seemingly
preternatural The preternatural (or praeternatural) is that which appears outside or beside (Latin: '' præter'') the natural. It is "suspended between the mundane and the miraculous". In theology, the term is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive t ...
abilities. He lives in contempt of the adults around him and witnesses firsthand their potential for cruelty, first via the rise of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
and then the subsequent
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
. The title refers to Oskar's toy drum, which he loudly plays whenever he is displeased or upset. The German-language film was a co-production of West German, French, and Yugoslavian companies. The film won the
Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and was a major financial hit in West Germany, where it won the
German Film Award for Best Fiction Film The German Film Award for Best Fiction Film (german: Bester Spielfilm) is the main award given for best German film at the annual Deutscher Filmpreis awards, the German national film awards. It has been held annually since 1951 in varying formats. ...
. It was received more controversially internationally, targeted by censorship campaigns in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Despite the notoriety, the film won
Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the 1980 Academy Awards. In 2003, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' placed the film on its ''Best 1000 Movies Ever'' list.


Plot

The film centres on Oskar Matzerath, a boy born and raised in the Free City of Danzig prior to and during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, who recalls the story's events as an
unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unr ...
. Oskar is the son of a half-Polish Kashubian woman, Agnes Bronski, who is married to a German chef named Alfred Matzerath but secretly carrying on an affair with Jan, a Polish Post Office worker and her cousin. The two men are great friends, but Alfred is blissfully unaware of his wife's infidelity. Oskar's parentage is uncertain; though he himself believes he is Jan's son. Flashbacks reveal his mother's conception by his grandfather Joseph Kolaizcek, a petty criminal in rural
Kashubia pl, Kaszuby , native_name_lang = csb, de, csb , settlement_type = Historical region , anthem = Zemia Rodnô , image_map = Kashubians in Poland.png , image_flag ...
(located in modern-day Poland). He hides underneath the skirts of a young woman named Anna Bronski. He has sex with her and she tries to hide her emotions, as the troops pass close by. She later gives birth to their daughter, who is Oskar's mother. Joseph evades the authorities for a year, but when they find him again, he either drowns or escapes to America and becomes a millionaire. In 1927, on Oskar's third birthday, he is given a tin drum. Reflecting on the foolish antics of his drunken parents and friends, he resolves to stop growing and throws himself down the cellar stairs. From that day on, he does not grow at all. Oskar discovers that he can shatter glass with his voice, an ability he often uses whenever he is upset. Oskar's drumming also causes the members of a
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
rally to start dancing. During a visit to the circus, Oskar befriends Bebra, a performing dwarf who chose to stop growing at age 10. When Alfred, Agnes, Jan and Oskar are on an outing to the beach, they see an eel-picker collecting eels from a horse's head used as bait. The sight makes Agnes vomit repeatedly. Alfred buys some of the eels and prepares them for dinner that night. When he insists that Agnes eat them, she becomes distraught and retreats to the bedroom. Jan enters and comforts her, all within earshot of Oskar who is hiding in the closet. She calmly returns to the dinner table and eats the eels. Over the next few days, she binges on fish. Anna Bronski helps reveal that Agnes is worried her pregnancy is due to her relations with Jan. In anger, Agnes vows that the child will never be born. She dies shortly thereafter, seemingly from the accumulated stress. At the funeral, Oskar encounters Sigismund Markus, the kindly Jewish toy seller who supplies him with replacement drums, and who was also in love with Agnes. Markus is ordered by two of the mourners to leave because he is Jewish; Nazism is on the rise, and the Jewish and Polish residents of Danzig are under increasing pressure. Markus later commits suicide after his shop is vandalized and a synagogue is burned down by SA men. On 1 September 1939, Oskar and Jan go looking for Kobyella, who can repair his drum. Jan slips into the Polish Post Office, despite a Nazi cordon, and participates in an armed standoff against the Nazis. During the ensuing battle, Kobyella is fatally shot and Jan is wounded. They play Skat until Kobyella dies and the Germans capture the building. Oskar is taken home, while Jan is arrested and later executed. Alfred hires sixteen-year-old Maria to work in his shop. Oskar seduces Maria, but later discovers Alfred having sex with her. Oskar bursts into the room, makes Alfred ejaculate inside her (when he was expected to pull out, to avoid getting her pregnant), causing Maria to become angry at Alfred when he blames Oskar for the inadvertent insemination. While rinsing her vagina in an attempt to remove the deposited semen, she and Oskar fight, and he hits her in the groin. She later gives birth to a son, who Oskar is convinced is his. Oskar also has a brief sexual relationship with Lina Greff, the wife of the local grocer and scoutmaster. It is implied that Lina was sexually frustrated as her husband preferred to spend more time with the
Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
boys. Lina's husband later commits suicide (or is executed) after an official from the Nazi regime catches him 'playing' with those boys. During World War II, Oskar meets Bebra and Roswitha, another dwarf performer in Bebra's successful troupe. Oskar decides to join them, using his glass-shattering voice as part of the act. Oskar and Roswitha have an affair, but she is killed by artillery fire during the Allied invasion of Normandy while on tour. Oskar returns home. Much of the city has been destroyed and the Russians are fast approaching. Oskar gives Maria's three-year-old son Kurt a tin drum like his own. The Russians break into the cellar where the family is hiding. Some of them gang-rape Lina. Alfred is killed by a soldier after swallowing and choking violently on his Nazi party pin. Later Matzerath's shop goes to Mariusz Fajngold, a Jewish survivor of
Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...
who also takes care of Alfred's funeral. During Alfred's burial, Oskar decides to grow up, and throws his drum into the grave. As he does, Kurt throws a stone at his head and he falls into the grave. Afterward, an attendee announces Oskar is growing again. The family, apart from Anna Bronski, leave for the West.


Cast


Production

The film was mostly shot in West Germany including at the
Spandau Studios The Spandau Studios or CCC Studios were film and television studios located in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. They were established in 1949 following the Second World War by the producer Artur Brauner controller of CCC Films, on the site of a form ...
, with some street scenes, particularly ones concerning the landmarks of Danzig, shot on-location in
Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...
, Poland. The Polish communist authorities gave the crew little time in the country, since the novel itself had been banned in
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
countries. While filming in Poland, a production assistant was arrested by the authorities when trying to buy eels from fishing boats for the beach scene, accused of attempting to sabotage the national industries. The scenes with the Polish Post Office were shot in
Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...
, Croatia as were several generic street scenes. The scenes in France were shot on-set. Schlöndorff was authorised by Grass himself during much of the preproduction and the writing of the script. David Bennent was chosen as the role of Oskar when Schlöndorff was discussing with a doctor the possibility of a child whose growth stops at an early age, and the doctor brought up the case of the son of the actor
Heinz Bennent Heinz Bennent (18 July 1921 – 12 October 2011) was a German actor. Biography Bennent was born in Stolberg, and served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. His career began after the end of World War II in Göttingen. He moved to Switzerland ...
, whom Schlöndorff was friends with. During the filming several difficulties arose: there was a supposed love affair between
Daniel Olbrychski Daniel Marcel Olbrychski (; born 27 February 1945) is a Polish film and theatre actor who is widely considered one of the greatest Polish actors of his generation. He appeared in 180 films and TV productions and is best known for leading roles ...
and
Angela Winkler Angela Winkler (born 22 January 1944) is a German actress. Life and career Born in Templin, Winkler trained to be a medical technologist in Stuttgart. Interested in theater, she went to Munich, where she took acting classes with Ernst Fritz F ...
, and a romantic rivalry between Fritz Hakl, who played Bebra, and the fiancé of Mariella Oliveri, who played Roswitha.


Reception

''The Tin Drum'' was one of the most financially successful German films of the 1970s, taking 25 million marks at the German box office. New World Pictures paid $400,000 for the U.S. rightsRoger Corman & Jim Jerome, ''How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime'', Muller, 1990 p 191 and the film became the highest-grossing German film in the United States, with a gross of $4 million, beating the record set the year earlier by
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Fassbinder's main ...
's ''
The Marriage of Maria Braun ''The Marriage of Maria Braun'' (german: Die Ehe der Maria Braun) is a 1978 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remains unfulfilled due to Wor ...
''. The film presently holds a score of 84% on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on 25 reviews, with an average grade of 7.5/10. Roger Ebert of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' awarded the film two stars (out of four), writing "I must confess that the symbolism of the drum failed to involve me":
Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called it "a seriously responsible adaptation of a gargantuan novel, but it's an adaptation that has no real life of its own. There are a number of things seen or said on the screen that, I suspect, will not make much sense to anyone who isn't familiar with the novel ... However, because the story it tells is so outsized, bizarre, funny and eccentric, the movie compels attention." Gene Siskel of the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' gave the film a full four out of four stars and called it "quite shattering" with "one striking image after another." Charles Champlin of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' declared that it was "like few films since ' Citizen Kane'—a combination of stunning logistics and technique and of humanistic content that is terrifically affecting." Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' wrote that it "will be hard to beat as the season's most prestigious bad idea for a movie," stating that Oskar "doesn't have a personality forceful enough to unify the rambling continuity or replace the narrative voice and complex of meanings that gave the book intellectual vitality and authority." In 2003, ''The New York Times'' placed the film on its ''Best 1000 Movies Ever'' list.The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' via
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
. Published April 29, 2003. Retrieved June 12, 2008.


Accolades

At the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, it was jointly awarded the
Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
, along with ''
Apocalypse Now ''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkness'' by Joseph ...
''. ''The Tin Drum'' was the first film directed by a German to win the Palme d'Or. In 1980, it became the first film from Germany or in German to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


Censorship

The film features scenes in which Bennent, then 11 years of age and playing a stunted 16-year-old, licks effervescing sherbet powder from the navel of a 16-year-old girl, played by
Katharina Thalbach Katharina Thalbach (; actually ''Katharina Joachim genannt Thalbach''; born 19 January 1954) is a German actress and stage director. She played theatre at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, and was actress in the film ''The T ...
. Thalbach was 24 years old at the time. Subsequently, Bennent appears to have oral sex and then intercourse with her. In 1980, the film version of ''The Tin Drum'' was first cut, and then banned as
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
by the Ontario Censor Board in Canada. Similarly, on June 25, 1997, following a ruling made by State District Court Judge Richard Freeman, who had reportedly only viewed a single isolated scene of the film, ''The Tin Drum'' was banned from Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, citing the state's obscenity laws for portraying underage sexuality. All copies in Oklahoma City were confiscated, and at least one person who had rented the film on video tape was threatened with prosecution. Michael Camfield, at the time a member of the Oklahoma chapter of the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
, filed a lawsuit against the police department on July 4, 1997, alleging that the tape had been illegally confiscated and his rights infringed. This led to a high-profile series of hearings on the film's merits as a whole versus the controversial scenes, and the role of the judge as censor. The film emerged vindicated and most copies were returned within a few months. By 2001, all the cases had been settled and the film is legally available in Oklahoma County. This incident was covered in the documentary film ''Banned in Oklahoma'', which is included in the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of ''The Tin Drum''.Trivia for ''Banned in Oklahoma''
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
.


See also

*
List of submissions to the 52nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of submissions to the 52nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non-English-speaking films ...
*
List of German submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Germany has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film since the creation of the award in 1956. The award is handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature-length m ...


References


External links

* ** * *
''The Tin Drum: Bang the Drum Loudly''
an essay by Geoffrey Macnab at the Criterion Collection
Librarian discussion of the Oklahoma case
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tin Drum, The 1979 films 1970s war drama films West German films German war drama films Yugoslav war drama films French war drama films Polish war drama films 1970s German-language films Hebrew-language films 1970s Italian-language films Polish-language films 1970s Russian-language films Political drama films Films about percussion and percussionists Films based on German novels Films directed by Volker Schlöndorff Films produced by Anatole Dauman Films scored by Maurice Jarre Films with screenplays by Jean-Claude Carrière Jadran Film films Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners Palme d'Or winners Films set in the 1890s Films set in the 1900s Films set in the 1910s Films set in the 1920s Films set in the 1930s Films set in the 1940s Films set in Gdańsk Films set in Germany Films shot in Berlin Films shot in Croatia Films shot in France Films shot in Germany Films shot in Paris Films shot in Poland Films shot in Yugoslavia Films shot at Spandau Studios Danzig Trilogy Obscenity controversies in film Film controversies in France Film controversies in Germany Film censorship in Canada Film controversies in Canada Film controversies in Yugoslavia Magic realism films Works subject to a lawsuit 1979 drama films French World War II films German World War II films Yugoslav World War II films Polish World War II films Günter Grass 1970s French films 1970s German films