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"Brisk [and] forceful." Sight & Sound
"Lucidly argued." Total Film
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) was a pivotal film for the New German Cinema movement. Julian Preece considers what makes Katharina Blum new and radical, in particular in respect of women's cinema and its portrayal of the ordeal of its female lead in a world run by men. Drawing on archival material including drafts of the screenplay, brochures and props, reviews and interviews, Preece traces the conception of the film and its development from Heinrich Böll's original novel.
Preece analyses how the film continues to resonate with our contemporary moment and has influenced film-makers from the German-Turkish director Fatih Akin to the British screenwriter Peter Morgan.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Pivotal Film for New German Cinema
1. Political Context
2. The Novel
3. The Film
4. Reception, Influence and Afterlives
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Credits
About the author
Julian Preece is Professor of German at Swansea University, UK. His articles have featured in The German Monitor, German Life and Letters, and Monatshefte. His previous books include the BFI Film Classic The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (2022), Günter Grass (2018), Baader-Meinhof and the Novel: Narratives of the Nation / Fantasies of the Revolution, 1970-2010 (2012), and Out of the Shadows of a Husband: The Rediscovered Writings of Veza Canetti (2007).
Summary
“Brisk [and] forceful.” Sight & Sound
"Lucidly argued.” Total Film
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) was a pivotal film for the New German Cinema movement. Julian Preece considers what makes Katharina Blum new and radical, in particular in respect of women’s cinema and its portrayal of the ordeal of its female lead in a world run by men. Drawing on archival material including drafts of the screenplay, brochures and props, reviews and interviews, Preece traces the conception of the film and its development from Heinrich Böll’s original novel.
Preece analyses how the film continues to resonate with our contemporary moment and has influenced film-makers from the German-Turkish director Fatih Akin to the British screenwriter Peter Morgan.
Foreword
A study of Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff's influential film The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) in the BFI Film Classics series.
Additional text
Julian E. Preece’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum offers fresh perspectives on a classic for a new generation of scholars, readers, and movie-goers. Based on extensive archival research, Preece produces unexpected insights on this politically provocative West-German film and its many after-lives.
Report
Brisk [and] forceful.
Adam Nayman Sight & Sound
