#Erich Müller

[benkaden]

Ansichtskarte

Neu Fahrland Heinrich-Heine-Sanatorium, Waldhaus

Reichenbach (Vogtl): VEB BILD UND HEIMAT Reichenbach i.V. (III/26/117 - A 246/59 - DDR Best.-Nr. 4/843 188/59)

Foto: [Erich] Müller, Böhlitz-Ehrenberg

1959

[mansnooziesmoosmutzel]

Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line, because that is the only thing which brings us through safely, so we turn into wags and loafers when we are resting.

We can do nothing else, it is a sheer necessity.

[...] But our comrades are dead, we cannot help them, they have their rest--and who knows what is waiting for us? We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short.

(ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque)

[christianfriedelfan]

Albrecht Schuch and Edin Hasanović being cuties during the premier of All Quiet on the Western Front

Bonus:

Felix cute waving ~

The Boys (TM) looking dandy in their outfits!

[portraituresque]

Karl Erich Müller - Self portrait

[paseodementiras]

Sin novedad en el frente

Capítulo 1

Nos encontramos en la retaguardia, a nueve kilómetros del frente.

-Erich Maria Remarque

[rwpohl]

*

pogo 1104, wigbert wicker 1984

[juergenfeytiat]

SMS „Emden“ versenkt die „Diplomat“

Gefürchtet und geachtet Die kurze Geschichte einer weltberühmten Kaperfahrt Ich habe lange überlegt, ob ich zu SMS „Emden“ einen Artikel machen soll, da es wirklich genug Literatur und Verfilmungen über das wahrscheinlich bekannteste Schiff des Ersten Weltkrieges gibt. Nachdem aber Kapitän R. J. Thomson, der die „Fürth“ mit seiner Mannschaft von Colombo nach London überführte, mit seinem Schiff…

[germanpostwarmodern]

Already for centuries the book is a primary means for architects to present their work and ideas about architecture. Accordingly there literally are thousands and thousands of architecture books spanning centuries and styles. In 2016 architect and researcher André Tavares published his fabled book „The Anatomy of the Architectural Book“ with Lars Müller Publishers who have recently published the second edition of the long out of print book.

In line with the book’s title it isn’t a history of the architecture book but an exploration of its anatomy as a reflection of architecture. Beginning with two case studies, namely the 1851 Chrystal Palace exhibition in London and Sigfried Giedion’s „Befreites Wohnen“ from 1929, Tavares showcases how in the first example chromolithography allowed color illustrations and involved the publication in the contemporary discourse about the appropriate use of color in architecture. The second example in turn represents an object in its own right with which Giedion supported his arguments for modern housing.

In part two of the book Tavares dives deeper into the anatomy of the architectural book by analyzing a wealth of books. On basis of the five characteristics texture, surface, rhythm, structure and scale he examines books by the likes of Giovanni Battista da Sangallo, Gottfried Semper, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius and Erich Mendelsohn. The latter’s book „Amerika“ from 1926 is one of the examples in the rhythm section: as Tavares explains, Mendelsohn translated his experience of the perceptual dynamism in the USA to the book by organizing the its pages cinematically. This means that he immerses the reader in the American city and its architecture by gradually moving from piercing contrasts to sequences of street views to make the reader aware of its physical qualities.

Although the previous example represents just one of the three methods of organization showcased by the author it demonstrates his in-depth analyses of the architecture book’s development over time. This amalgam of book, architectural and media history makes Tavares’ publication a fantastic read that is highly recommended!

[nordleuchten]

24 Days of La Fayette - The Shadow of Olmütz

Day 1: All the world’s a stage …

As soon as you enter the busy tavern you are met with lively chatter. You exhale, trying to reign your ever rising tension in. If this goes wrong, even attending this meeting can bring you in a potentially deadly predicament. The Austrian government is not known to be kind to those they suspect of sympathizing with French Revolutionaries. You square your shoulders; you have thought about the risks and are willing to take them – your shaking hands be dammed. Your view wanders through the packed room. This is certainly not the finest inn the town has to offer but also not the shabbiest. You spot a group of men sitting together in the far-right corner, seven of them altogether. No, you were told to meet with only two others. On the other side there sits a couple with three young children – a fourth on its way by the looks of the women. You try to further scan your surroundings, as inconspicuous as possible, when someone calls your name. Startled, you turn around. On the table behind you sits Martin Müller, you know him from Church, with his mates. He raises a hand in greeting, and you reciprocate the gesture. Don’t lose your nerves! Suddenly you spot them, two men, both still in their twenties, sitting alone on a table, partially obscured by the bar. You walk over to them, deliberately slow, and take a seat. Both men look up at you and the older one gives you a skeptical look. “We were waiting for a friend to join us”, he informs you. “So was I”, you explain before adding “the fire burns so merrily these days.” An expression of recognition passes over the younger man’s feature after hearing the agreed upon code, and he zealously declares “They say the firewood is imported from Prussia!” You simply nod and allow your glance to wander from one man to the other – you just found your co-conspirators in this endeavor! “I am Francis, Francis Kinloch Huger”, the younger man introduces himself and shakes your hand. You already admire and dread his passion in equal terms. Huger’s father had lodged the Marquis de La Fayette when he first came to America. The son is now a student of medicine in Vienna. “And my name is Justus Erich Bollmann. Pleased to make you acquaintance”, the older, sterner, man introduces himself but does not offer you his hand. You nod again. You know Doctor Bollmann by reputation since he has already served as a messenger for the Marquis’ clandestine notes. You know that he is trustworthy – but now is the time to introduce yourself and show Huger and Bollmann that you are just as trustworthy and dependable as they are!

I am Friedrich Willerich, a physician, just like Bollmann and Huger!

I am Georg Oltmanns, a lawyer in training with some connections to the local officials! (If you choose this option, I might surprise you with a part in Plattdüütsch ;-))

I am Hugo Curie, a French Chaplain, but left my home country many years ago!

[almostarts]

Erich Dieckmann, "Custom armchair,"

Berliner Metallgewerbe Joseph Müller, Germany, 1930,

Painted tube steel, wicker, lacquered wood,

24¾ h × 23½ w × 35 d in (63 × 60 × 89 cm).

The Boyd Collection

[benkaden]

Ansichtskarte

FDGB Ferienort Schmannewitz Waldbad

Leipzig: Erich Müller, Böhl.-Ehrgb.(III/18/162T 424 57)

1957

[mansnooziesmoosmutzel]

[purple-pigeon-art]

Flipped through one if my pigeon books to figure out what pigeon i wanted to draw. Settled on the Prachen Kanik

Pic from the book Fancy Pigeons by Erich Müller and Ludwig Schrag

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Herta Müller. L.M. Montgomery. Charles Perrault. Milan Kundera. Jack London. Betty Smith. Erich Maria Remarque. Jean de La Fontaine. Günter Wilhelm Grass. François de La Rochefoucauld. Wisława Szymborska. Elfriede Jelinek.

[dweemeister]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, Germany)

As a film buff, I retain a preference to reading a book first before seeing its adaptation. But with how many movies I see in a year – sometimes not realizing that a movie is a literary adaptation before starting it – and given how many original source materials are out-of-print or little-read (let alone how slow a reader I am), this is often too difficult a proposition. I make an attempt, however possible, to learn about the themes of an adapted book I was not able to read before heading into a film write-up. Strict fidelity to the text is not a requirement; yet a film adaptation should adhere to the spirit of the text. Any significant changes to that requires the change be done with artistic intelligence and sensitivity. Especially when the adapted book in question is significant in a peoples’ or a nation’s consciousness. Published in 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a landmark novel in anti-war literature and remains – for its depiction of World War I on the bodies and minds of the young men sent to fight it – an important part of modern Germany’s sociopolitical identity.

Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film adaptation at Universal with Lew Ayres was the first cinematic masterpiece following the introduction of synchronized sound and the era of the silent film. Now steps in Edward Berger’s German-language adaptation for Netflix, starring Felix Kammerer, in hopes of reminding viewers that Im Westen nichts Neues (roughly “Nothing New in the West”) is, despite its universal appeal, fundamentally a German story.  Berger’s All Quiet is a stupendous technical masterpiece – harrowing visual and sound effects, overflowing with blood and mud. It is among the most technically accomplished war movies this side of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Along the way, Berger’s All Quiet tries for too much, and betrays the characterizations and the intent of Remarque’s novel. With some of its violent scenes shot too aesthetically pleasing alongside an offensive and disrespectful electronic score, 2022’s All Quiet casts the French civilians and soldiers as “the enemy” rather than fellow victims. It veers perilously close to fetishizing the violence within.

Before a brief synopsis, it seems appropriate to reproduce Remarque’s epigraph to All Quiet on the Western Front here:

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

It is 1917, and the Great War has been plodding along for three years. Along with his friends Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grünewald), Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer), and Franz Müller (Koritz Klaus), student Paul Bäumer (Kammerer) enlists in the Imperial German Army. They all receive uniforms that, unbeknownst to them, belonged to German soldiers killed in action. Skipping almost entirely over basic training, Paul and his friends deploy to the Western Front, on the French side of the Belgium/France border. There, they befriend Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) and Tjaden Stackfleet (Edin Hasanovic), who are several years older and have been fighting since close to the war’s beginning. These young men muddle on in drenched trenches, freezing weather, and their comrades’ horrific deaths. Parallel to the plight of Paul and his fellow soldiers is German politician Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl), who secretly travels by train to the Forest of Compiègne to negotiate with French General Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalembert) an armistice.

Also featuring in this film are Devid Striesow as the so-villainous-he-must-be-a-moustache-twirler General Friedrichs, as well as Andreas Döhler and Sebastian Hülk as two German officers.

This All Quiet on the Western Front occasionally frames its violent scenes as too painterly, the combat infrequently choreographed too closely to action movies (e.g., 2017’s Dunkirk is sometimes more of a suspense movie than it is a war movie and Sam Mendes’ 1917 from 2019 is an aesthetic challenge and action movie first, war film second). The opening moments are a dolly shot that linger over a patchwork of corpses strewn about No Man’s Land, with the dull rattle of machine gun fire occasionally disturbing the soil. There is an almost gawking approach to how cinematographer James Friend hovers over the bodies. One character’s death is shrouded in a blinding angelic light – applying too picturesque a technique for a non-fantastical moment.  Some exceptions to this voyeuristic, perhaps fetishistic approach to framing warfare appears, including the frightening emergence of French tanks through a cloud of gas. Berger succeeds in displaying war for all its brutality. The film’s sheen, however, comes off as too aggressive and its camerawork reflecting a Netflix-esque polish.

The most glaring misstep from the screenplay by Berger, Ian Stokell, and Lesley Paterson is to include any perspectives not involving Paul and his most immediate comrades. Depicting the insights of Erzberger, Foch, and the fictional General Friedrichs removes one of the central pillars of why All Quiet on the Western Front was such a revolutionary piece of literature. Remarque’s novel, at a time when “anti-war” narrative art was in its infancy, was one of the first war narratives that concentrated entirely on common soldiers – not the officers that commanded them or the politicians that guided them.

Before focusing on Paul and his friends, let us get the officers and politicians out of the way first. The insertion of the armistice negotiations and Gen. Friedrichs’ beliefs over politicians selling the Germany army out – more on this fiction shortly – stunts Paul and his friends’ respective character growths. And despite a decent performance from Brühl, these scenes (except for the final time the elite appear) play out repetitively: Erzberger pleads to Foch for a ceasefire, Foch demands a conditional surrender that will heavily punish Germany, and Erzberger mulls over the terms of surrender. This is all distracting from the common soldiers’ experiences, and provides as much cinematic or educational value as an amateur historical reenactment.

Berger’s stated justification for including these scenes – and letting them drag on too long in the film’s second half – is reasonable. Over the last decade, the actions of far right political groups in Germany have become more visible. These contemporary groups espouse the myths that some in 1920s and ‘30s Germany used to justify the nation’s actions leading up to World War II – all which monolithized and exploited German WWI trauma to serve repugnant purposes. The emotional imbalance of the Erzberger*/Foch scenes paints France and the Allies as an unforgiving “other”, as well as the war’s eventual “victors” (the Allies did prevail in WWI, but Remarque sees no winners in warfare).  For a work never meant to be an accusation and written in between the World Wars, the proto-fascist Gen. Friedrichs spits out an early form of the stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory‡. His behavior and appearance, eerily reminiscent of Allied propaganda of Germans as “the Hun”, casts him as the film’s obvious villain. These decisions all provide Berger’s All Quiet with a juxtaposition of morality more appropriate in a WWII movie than one for the Great War.

Beyond the implications of historical morality, Berger, Stokell, and Paterson’s screenplay undermines, at almost every juncture, Remarque’s critiques of the nationalism that began World War I. The decision to have Paul and his friends join the military in 1917 rather than 1914 (as it is in the book) makes it more difficult to have Paul and his friends to have conversations about the nature and the origins of this war. Instead, the screenplay keeps such dialogue to a minimum. As a result, Berger relies on cinematographer James Friend (in his first motion picture of note) to show us close-ups of Paul’s face to reveal his thoughts. In his film debut, Felix Kammerer is doing all he can with his facial and physical acting, but after a certain point this take on Paul results in him being an empty vessel.

Indeed, in Remarque’s book, Paul Bäumer is very much a reactive rather than proactive character. But that does not mean he is without deep introspection, as he is in this 2022 adaptation. Rather than someone who slowly realizes the nationalistic folly of WWI (“We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see.”), muses on how wars begin, and is anything but resigned to war’s inevitability, Kammerer’s Paul emotes and says nothing about these aspects of the war. Any critique from nationalism comes not from Paul in this adaptation, but from Gen. Friedrichs’ cartoonishly villainous behavior and Paul’s teachers in the film’s opening minutes. Paul and his friends are no battlefield geniuses, nor are they intellectuals. But the monotony of war – in the absence and presence of violence – grants them knowledge no classroom can give, wisdom that no elder can impart.

Berger, Stokell, and Paterson have the gall to delete entirely arguably the most critical passage in the book: Paul’s return home after being granted time for rest and recreation. After a lengthy spell fighting in the trenches, Paul’s leave completes his development as a naïve and adventure-seeking student to a detached, disillusioned man. Nationalism manipulates his father and others – mostly older men – into believing the justness of the conflict, that serving one’s country in warfare is glorious.

By contrast, Lewis Milestone’s 1930 adaptation takes Paul’s reunion with his teacher a step further than the book. In that version, instead of a chance encounter at a parade ground, Paul visits his teacher during class, with his newest students a rapt audience. The scene that follows is not subtle. But in the context of Milestone’s adaptation, the film earns it. As Paul, Lew Ayres refuses to gift his former teacher the heroic narrative he requests – paraphrasing Horace, decrying nationalism, and simply stating: “We try not to be killed; sometimes we are. That’s all.” One figures these are the words, delivered in sullen fury, by WWI’s veterans. Berger’s adaptation again leans too heavily on Kammerer to relate any semblance of the above ideas. There is no analogue scene to juxtapose the behavioral and psychological differences between battlefront and homefront, no character or even a faraway figure for Paul to verbally challenge. Kammerer’s Paul does undergo a behavioral and cognitive shift by the conclusion of 2022’s All Quiet. Yet, his transformation is not nearly as dramatic as the narrative needs it to be. These failures all stem from a screenplay that might as well have been titled something else. It is damningly incurious about Paul and his friends.

Major movie studio film scores are moving in a particular direction: amelodic, electronic, experimental, metallic, and minimalistic. It seems, by how awards voting bodies and audiences are reacting to such music, what I am about to write paints me more of an outlier than ever.

Composer Volker Bertelmann (also known as his stage name Hauschka; 2016’s Lion) concocts an anachronistic score that includes all these elements. Devoid entirely of recognizable melody (droning strings), Bertelmann’s score has one repetitive three-note idea – I refuse to call this a motif, as it lacks any sense of development from its first to final appearances – that damages and dominates the movie. Inserted in strangely timed moments and meant to intensify dread, Bertelmann’s idea begins from the root note (B♭), up a minor third (D♭), then descends a minor sixth (F). Bertelmann plays these three notes fortissimo, with synthesizer mimicking blaring brass – trust me, you know the sound and you may know its worst practitioners. When recurring underneath the strings, the idea modulates. Memorable as it may be, this metallic sound is more appropriate for hyping young men before a battle or at a rave rather than suggesting dread. Even worse: this is disruptive music. There is a healthy balance to when music should or should not accompany the imagery onscreen. One should notice music in a movie, and it should empower – but not completely overshadow – the emotions and ideas in respect to a certain scene. Bertelmann’s interruptions appear mostly in calms before the proverbial storms. These are the moments the characters and the audience should collect themselves before the killing restarts. Thus, his three-note idea abuses and instantly overstays its welcome.

Is there a place for such colorless, obnoxious, and offensively manipulative music in film? Certainly. Just not in anything entitled All Quiet on the Western Front.

On its surface, a German-language film adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front would restore a cultural and linguistic authenticity to Remarque’s text, one of the most important literary works in German history. To some extent, Berger succeeds. His All Quiet is a technical wonder, but its human interest is nil. Remarque’s prose is not the most accomplished, but his subjective descriptions of trench warfare and his characters’ philosophizing in moments of boredom and quiet were unlike anything almost any Western reader ever encountered. We, the readers, grow alongside Paul and his friends. In 1930, the viewers saw a small group of friends – Milestone’s adaptation is unique in that Paul does not truly emerge as the main character until halfway through the film – see their youth and optimism pummeled away with each shelling and charge. A humanity remains, but tenuously. Berger’s adaptation treads an easier path by inserting a reenactment of the armistice negotiations and expediting Paul’s characterization by immediately dismantling his inwardness and sense of hope.

As a document of a generation’s experiences, a critique of that era’s nationalism that led to the conflict, and a common soldier’s processing of the war’s origin and purpose, this is a poor adaptation of Remarque’s novel. It clears the hurdle in anti-war narratives by decrying warfare as ugly. Beyond this basic expectation, it accomplishes little else.

My rating: 6/10

* Erzberger was assassinated by the far-right terrorist organization Organisation Consul (OC) in 1921. The group was disbanded the year after, but its former members were absorbed into the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS).

‡ This conspiracy theory was primarily associated with Jews, but the Nazis also extended it to the political elite that negotiated the surrender. And as if it weren’t obvious enough, one of our German characters is stabbed in the back in the film’s concluding minutes.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[tadpolesonalgae]

📖Book Recs: 🪖🎖️

This is so inappropriate for October but I would deeply recommend reading All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It had been on my radar for a while having seen a couple of relatively recent trailers, but the film looked too intense and graphic for me to stomach. (That and I’m not really a film person)

Warnings: it’s a war book so… general death and misery

Synopsis:

One by one the boys begin to fall…

In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war’. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier’ experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

Extract from Chapter 1:

Müller asks him, ‘What did Kantorek say in his letter?’ He Laughs. ‘He calls us “young men of iron”.’ That makes the three of us laugh, though not because it is funny. Kropp curses. He is happy to be able to talk again — And yes, that’s it, that is what they think, those hundred thousand Kantoreks. Young men of iron. Young? None of us is more than twenty. But young? Young men? That was a long time ago. We are old now.

Extract from chapter 4:

Detering raises his rifle and takes aim. Kat knocks the barrel upwards. ‘Are you crazy?’ Detering shudders and throws his gun into the ground. We sit down and press our hands over our ears. But the terrible crying and groaning and howling still gets through, it penetrates everything. We can all stand a lot, but this brings us out in a cold sweat. You want to get up and run away, anywhere just so as not to hear that screaming anymore. And it isn’t men, just horses.

Extract from Chapter 5:

‘Christ almighty,’ says Haie, and his expression softens, ‘the first thing I’d do is pick myself up some strapping great bint, know what I mean, some big, bouncy kitchen wench with plenty to get your hands around, then straight into bed and no messing! Think about it! Proper feather-beds with spring mattresses. I tell you, lads, I wouldn’t put my trousers back on for a week!

Extract from chapter 6:

After a few minutes we hear the first scuffles and scurrying. It gets louder, now it is the sound of lots of little feet. Then the lamps come on and we all lay into the dark mass, which breaks up. The results are good. We shovel what is left of the rats over the edge of the trench and lie in wait again. It works a few more times. By then the beasts have realized, or they have smelt the blood. No more come. All the same, they have taken what is left of the scraps of bread by the morning. In one of the adjacent sectors the rats attacked two big cats and a dog, bit them to death and ate them.