I’m starting with this one, and maybe I’ll post another one tonight. I’ll start with our first trip to the newly reconstructed space-age shopping center known as the Sony Center at Potzdamer Platz.
Potzdamer Platz is a terrifically interesting place- this is a central commercial zone in Berlin, and has been reconstructed in steel and glass like the most spacey-aged places in the world.
In the 20s and 30s, Potzdamer Platz was the busiest commercial center in Berlin, populated with shops, restaurants, cafes, all that; and the bustling throngs of Wiemar flappers and gents in tightly tailored tuxedos. During the war, the intersection was all but destroyed in the bombings, and was bisected by the Soviets and Allies. It quickly became an urban wasteland, split by the border between the stagnant forces, and was a wide death strip between the east and west walls.
This was actually the first place that D and I saw any of the wall and discovered the cobblestone strip that runs throughout Berlin marking the exact location of the wall. The wall sections at Potzdamer Platz aren’t all that interesting. They basically have been placed directly on the cobblestones as a demonstration of their placement, but they clearly have been moved there, mostly for a temporary exhibition and photo-op for tourists [oddly, we didn't take photos...].
Potzdamer Platz, all shiny and glittery, is dominated by the insane semi-open coporate-shopping center known as the Sony Center [take a guess at who won naming rights there, kids!]. This was designed in the 90s after reunification by several known architects, among them Renzo Piano, who designed the Centre Pompidou here in gay Paree. Now, I really like the Centre Pompidou. The basic concept of Renzo and the other postmodern architects from the mid 20th-current 21st century period [that’s official historical period definition, btw] is a semi-playful explosion and deconstruction of the building materials itself. So, everything that would normally be inside the building is now outside, and you can see it. That’s why the outside of Centre Pompidou shows its ducts. All in a row. [heh heh. Ouch- D, don’t hit over bad jokes!]
The Sony Center is basically a gigantic chunk of glass that is supposed to look “Cool.” I guess it does. It has a big building that is curved glass on one side, and a perfectly straight side on the other, big whoop. It’s most interesting feature is the “Covered” courtyard in the center, which houses the restaurants, movie theatre [more on the movies we saw in Berlin later], and a rather dull animated water fountain. The cover itself is basically a gigantic umbrella hovering overhead, whose central shaft culminates in a huge pointed arrow, and looks rather dangerous in the case of suddenly shifting geography.
So. D and I want here not to see the umbrella and fear for our lives, or to have our love for Renzo Piano’s work smushed in front of us [D has, btw, seen Renzo’s mysterious labs in Paris. She’s walked past, and wondered “what the hell is the deal with the office that just makes ugly balsa wood models”]. We went to meet Svanur, a fellow cinephile, to check out the Berlin Cinemateque and Film Museum, or, Deutsche Kinemathek Museum Für Film und Fernsehen.
I don’t know if this was a hilight on D’s list, but German film history is astounding and interesting, so I was all jazzed, and so was Svanur. We were particularly excited about the early silent cinema, the Nazi propaganda room, and the post-war cinema periods [yeah, I know that basically covers every period of cinema in Germany. Don’t be rash. This is for your edification, not analysis]. We don’t really have any photos of the Museum. No kameras allowed in the Kinematek.
The exhibit itself starts bizarrely and confusingly: TVs showing clips from the great German silents jut out from the mirrored walls- it’s like you’re walking through a hall of mirrors, but with Nosferatu jumping after you. Pretty fantastic.
Then, some exhibits on early film technology, early working cameras, some of which worked, etc. I got to explain to Svanur the radness of a very early ratcheting gear mechanism for camera exposure instead of the currently used all-pervasive claw-method used today. Looked like they were on to something to me! As we moved through, we saw some great stills and props from such works as Metropolis and M, some of our favorite Fritz Lang films. Things are looking good so far.
Metropolis:
Then, a gem: a sound-recording of very very early Marlene Dietrich test film. Very beautiful and amazing to see, a true treasure.
However, immediately following that, we went through about a billion more things of Marlene Dietrich. Yowza. I really like her, she’s great. But... yikes. We saw her luggage [all 12 huge trunks stamped with all the places she's been. I wonder if they float like in Joe vs. The Volcano...?], the mild-to-extremely racially insensitive “mascots” or dolls she carried with her everywhere, letters from Hemingway, her dresses, more dresses, shoes, hats, feathers...
Pretty Marlene intensive.
After wading through all of that glamour, we finally found ourselves in the second most anticipated room: The Nazi-era propaganda room. Many of us know and recognize Leni Reifenstahl and her great Nazi propaganda films, primarily Triumph of the Will. But the Nazis had nationalized the UFO [not the space ship, the film production company] and used it to crank out Triumph along with hundreds of other “commercial” films for their cause. Included in some of the clips were some very anti-Semitic narratives, a few bizarre rip-offs of American films, and my favorite, a German produced, German language, [literally] Nazi Western, filmed in early 1940 just outside of Los Angeles [yikes!]
This room was fascinating and utterly perpexing, and its net result was a mind-numbing confusion. As with most things Nazi-reconcilliation, the great problem is one of presentation. The Kinematek chose a method of presentation that was supposed to be “inclusive” and “interactive.” The room itself is entirely encased and covered in zinc panels, and everything must be opened in order to see it. So, you basically walk into a completely blank-but-shiny-room, and you have to open a bunch of drawers on the walls. As soon as you do open the drawers, a movie plays some bizarre Nazi stereotype, and you’re shouted at with angry German.
A bit tough to digest.
On to the next room, the one we’re all really jazzed about, the Post-War Room!
Except.... the door is locked! And there’s a sign on it! Svanur reads this and tells us that the Post war room, and the rest of the museum, is closed for renovation. Damnit.
After we got shut out of the exhibit we wanted to see, we went to the TV side of the museum, where the hilight was a room showing TV through the ages in Germany. This was an astounding room, a huge kaleidoscopic myriad grid of hilarious and poignant German television from the East and West in a beautifully rendered way. It starts as a few clips shown against a wall, which is itself in another hall of mirrors, so it seems as though it goes forever [what’s with Germans and infinite-mirrors?]. As the decades progress, the hilarious and fascinating TV increases in volume, color, and absurdity, until it is an endless grid of non-stop nonsense, bursting forth forever. Probably better if you A) know German, and B) have seen any of the shows. But it was still spectacular and hilarious for us.
So, that was the Kinematek and the Potzdamer Platz Sony Center. If you like Marlene Dietrick... I mean, really really really like her, I mean, like, you would-stalk-her-if-she-weren’t-long-time-gone liked, then you should definitely make the trip.
I'll be back next with photos we actually took, including the adorable Knut!
Yours-
A.
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