| Heimat | |
| Director: | Edgar Reitz |
| Producer: | Edgar Reitz Hans Kwiet Joachim von Mengershausen Robert Busch Christian Reitz Margaret Menegoz |
| Starring: | Marita Breuer Henry Arnold Salome Kammer Mathias Kniesbeck Michael Kausch Nicola Schössler Jan Dieter Schneider |
| Music: | Nikos Mamangakis Michael Riessler |
| Cinematography: | Gernot Roll Gerard Vandenberg Christian Reitz Thomas Mauch |
| Runtime: | hours |
| Country: | West Germany |
| Language: | German Hunsrückisch |
Heimat is a series of films written and directed by Edgar Reitz about life in Germany from the 1840s to 2000 through the eyes of a family from the Hunsrück area of the Rhineland-Palatinate. The family's personal and domestic life is set against the backdrop of wider social and political events. The combined length of the 5 films — broken into 32 episodes — is 59 hours and 32 minutes, making it one of the longest series of feature-length films in cinema history.
The title Heimat (pronounced as /de/) is a German word, often translated as "homeland" or "home place", but it has been alleged that the word has no true English equivalent.[1] [2] Usage has come to include that of an ironic reference to the film genre known as Heimatfilm which was popular in Germany in the 1950s. Heimat films were characterised by rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality.
Aesthetically, the series is notable for the frequent switching between colour and black-and-white film to convey different emotional states. In 1987 it won a BAFTA for "Foreign Television Programme".[3]
The first "Heimat" film that covered the years 1918 to 1982, was released in 1984. It was followed by "Die Zweite Heimat" in 1993, that is set during the 1960s. In 2003, a direct sequel to both previous films was released, with lead actors from both films returning as their characters. In 2006, "Heimat Fragments" was released, which was made using unused footage and outtakes from the previous three films, along with newly filmed material to produce. A prequel film to the original was released in 2013.
Before creating the Heimat series, Edgar Reitz produced a documentary during 1980–81 about people from his home region, the Hunsrück, where he later set the Heimat series. In Geschichten aus den Hunsrückdörfern (English: Tales from the Hunsrück Villages) he showed people who had not left the region, unlike Heimats theme of leaving home. This documentary is not considered to be part of the core Heimat series but set the stage for the work to come a few years later.
Berkeley film and media professor Anton Kaes argued that auteur film-maker Reitz's trilogy was autobiographical. Reitz and Paul Simon, his fictional character in Heimat, had fathers who were skilled craftsmen. Edgar Reitz was born in 1932 and Paul Simon in 1898 in Hunsrück. They grew up there, then left when they were in their twenties and returned in their fifties.[4] Like Hermann Simon in the 1950s, Reitz left rural life for the world of German urban avant-garde arts and intelligentsia. Reitz worked at the Institute of Film Design in Ulm, while Hermann became a celebrated conductor in Munich. Wealthy American entrepreneur Paul Simon returned to Hunsrück only briefly when the war ended, but Hermann Simon's return was more permanent. He and his lover Clarissa restored a house overlooking the Rhine that lay in ruins, eventually composing music for representing and celebrating his relationship to Heimat. Both Hermann and Reitz "dramatized the tensions between staying home, leaving and returning" (Kaes 1989:164), Hermann through music and Reitz through film.
After watching Holocaust, Reitz was offended by the American 'melodramaticisation' of the tragic events and the positive reception the film received. In 1979, Reitz began to make notes of his own life and completed a 250-page screenplay draft based upon his youth. Later in the year, Reitz contacted and together after what was planned to be a single night, they stayed for the next thirteen months in a small hut in Woppenroth writing a script. They became friendly with the local villagers and invited them to comment on the characters and incidents in the story.[5] In 1980, Reitz and Steinbach completed a 2,000-page screenplay. The success of Berlin Alexanderplatz had convinced television production companies that there was a market for sagas. After some haggling, Reitz managed to secure funding for the length of the script and remodeling of five Hunsrück villages.
Shooting began on the first film in May 1981, and continued for eighteen months. The cast consisted of 140 speaking parts, 32 full-time actors, 15 non-professional actors and 3,862 extras. Many of the cast had limited stage experience or no acting experience at all. While shooting, the villagers became heavily involved in the project and helped with re-modelling or set changes depending on the time period. Villagers put out advertisements in nearby villages in hope to find authentic items that could be used as props.
During shooting, Reitz decided that certain elements required extra emphasis that only colour could provide. However, Reitz was quick to deny any theories behind the alternations between black-and-white and colour.
Thirteen months were required for editing with Reitz working alongside Heidi Handorf. Together they created an eighteen-hour rough cut that was later trimmed to just over fifteen hours. Post-production continued until the premiere at Munich Film Festival in 1984. The entire project had taken over five years to complete.
While making Heimat, Reitz had become interested in developing a series of love stories with the working title of Men and Women. However, in October 1985, Reitz decided to make these tales the basis of Die Zweite Heimat (English: The Second Heimat).[6] The film follows the character Hermann as he leaves to study music in Munich and meets new friends, who are all following their own dreams.
Running at over 25 hours, Die Zweite Heimat took over six years to write and production lasted 557 days, between 1988 and 1992. The cast comprised 71 leading actors, 310 supporting actors and 2,300 extras. The film's soundtrack also became the longest soundtrack ever produced.
| Film | Episodes | Release | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runtime | Release date | |||
| Heimat | 11 | 15:24 hours | 16 September 1984 | |
| Die Zweite Heimat Heimat 2 | 13 | 25:09 hours | 4 March 1993 | |
| Heimat 3 | 6 | 12:41 hours | 15 December 2004 | |
| Heimat Fragments | 1 | 2:26 hours | 2 September 2006 | |
| Home from Home | 1 | 3:45 hours | 28 September 2013 | |
Heimat, the original series, premiered in 1984 and follows the life of Maria Simon, a woman living in the fictional village of Schabbach. It was filmed in and around the village of Woppenroth in Rhein-Hunsrück, a rural region of Germany to the west of the Rhineland-Palatinate. Subtitled Eine Deutsche Chronik — A German Chronicle, it consists of 11 episodes running in total to 15 hours 24 minutes of screen time. The film spans 1919 to 1982, and depicts how historical events affect the Simon family and the community in which they lived. At the start of each episode, Karl Glasisch narrates the story so far over photographs by Eduard Simon. The digitally remastered version merged some of the episodes together, resulting in seven episodes instead of eleven. No material was cut.
| Heimat episodes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Setting | Runtime | Release date | ||
| 1 | "The Call of Faraway Places" "Fernweh" | 1919–1928 | 119 minutes | 16 September 1984 | |
| 2 | "The Centre of the World" "Die Mitte der Welt" | 1929–1933 | 90 minutes | 19 September 1984 | |
| 3 | "The Best Christmas Ever" "Weihnacht wie noch nie" | 1935 | 58 minutes | 23 September 1984 | |
| 4 | "The Highway" "Reichshöhenstraße" | 1938 | 58 minutes | 26 September 1984 | |
| 5 | "Up and Away and Back" "Auf und davon und zurück" | 1938–39 | 59 minutes | 8 October 1984 | |
| 6 | "The Home Front" "Heimatfront" | 1943 | 59 minutes | 15 October 1984 | |
| 7 | "Soldiers and Love" "Die Liebe der Soldaten" | 1944 | 59 minutes | 22 October 1984 | |
| 8 | "The American" "Der Amerikaner" | 1945–1947 | 102 minutes | 31 October 1984 | |
| 9 | "Little Hermann" "Hermännchen" | 1955–1956 | 138 minutes | 4 November 1984 | |
| 10 | "The Proud Years" "Die stolzen Jahre" | 1967–1969 | 82 minutes | 21 October 1984 | |
| 11 | "The Feast of the Living and the Dead" "Das Fest der Lebenden und der Toten" | 1982 | 100 minutes | 24 October 1984 | |
Die zweite Heimat (literally "The Second Heimat"; English title Heimat 2) (subtitled Chronik einer Jugend — Chronicle of a Youth) followed in 1992. It is set during the socially turbulent years of the 1960s and depicts how Maria's youngest son Hermann leaves his rural home and makes a new life for himself as a composer in Munich.
Hermann is a musical prodigy whose teenage romance in 1955 with 26-year-old soul-mate Klärchen was considered scandalous by his conservative home village. It resulted in her being expelled and coerced to never contact him again. Hermann felt crushed, vowing never to love again and to leave his village forever. He arrives in Munich at age 19 where he befriends fellow students, and meets future love interest Clarissa. Hermann joins the avant-garde culture surrounding the conservatory, which includes film students, while he also takes odd jobs. Hermann and his friends are gradually drawn to the Foxhole, a mansion headed by a wealthy art patroness said to be a "collector of artists". A remaster of "Die Zweite Heimat" was released in 2022.
| Die Zweite Heimat episodes | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Setting | Featuredcharacter | Runtime | Release date | |
| 1 | "The Time of the First Songs" "Die Zeit der ersten Liede" | 1960 | Hermann | 116 minutes | 4 March 1993 | |
| 2 | "Two Strange Eyes" "Zwei fremde Augen" | 1960–61 | Juan | 115 minutes | 7 March 1993 | |
| 3 | "Jealousy and Pride" "Eifersucht und Stolz" | 1961 | Evelyne | 116 minutes | 11 March 1993 | |
| 4 | "Ansgar's Death" "Ansgars Tod" | 1961–62 | Ansgar | 100 minutes | 14 March 1993 | |
| 5 | "The Game with Freedom" "Das Spiel mit der Freiheit" | 1962 | Helga | 120 minutes | 18 March 1993 | |
| 6 | "Kennedy's Children" "Kennedys Kinder" | 1963 | Alex | 109 minutes | 21 March 1993 | |
| 7 | "Christmas Wolves" "Weihnachtswölfe" | 1963 | Clarissa | 110 minutes | 25 March 1993 | |
| 8 | "The Wedding" "Die Hochzeit" | 1964 | Schnüsschen | 120 minutes | 28 March 1993 | |
| 9 | "The Eternal Daughter" "Die ewige Tochter" | 1965 | Fräulein Cerphal | 118 minutes | 1 April 1993 | |
| 10 | "The End of the Future" "Das Ende der Zukunft" | 1966 | Reinhard | 131 minutes | 4 April 1993 | |
| 11 | "The Time of Silence" "Die Zeit des Schweigens" | 1967–68 | Rob | 118 minutes | 8 April 1993 | |
| 12 | "The Time of Many Words" "Die Zeit der vielen Worte" | 1968–69 | Stefan | 119 minutes | 11 April 1993 | |
| 13 | "Art or Life" "Kunst oder Leben" | 1970 | Hermann &<br>Clarissa | 119 minutes | 11 April 1993 | |
Heimat 3 (subtitled Chronik einer Zeitenwende — Chronicle of a Changing Time) premiered in 2004. It continues Hermann's story in 1989 as he returns to Schabbach and depicts the events of the period from the fall of the Berlin Wall until 2000. The cinema version consists of six episodes running to 11 hours 29 minutes, although controversially the version broadcast on the German ARD television network in December 2004 was edited to six 90-minute episodes[7] and it is this 20% shorter version which was released on DVD.
| Heimat 3 episodes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Setting | Runtime | Release date | |
| 1 | "The Happiest People in the World" "Das glücklichste Volk der Welt" | 1989 | 106 minutes | 15 December 2004 | |
| 2 | "The World Champions" "Die Weltmeister" | 1990 | 100 minutes | 17 December 2004 | |
| 3 | "The Russians are Coming" "Die Russen kommen" | 1992–93 | 124 minutes | 20 December 2004 | |
| 4 | "Everyone's Doing Well" "Allen geht's gut" | 1995 | 132 minutes | 22 December 2004 | |
| 5 | "The Heirs" "Die Erben" | 1997 | 103 minutes | 27 December 2004 | |
| 6 | "Farewell to Schabbach" "Abschied von Schabbach" | 1999–2000 | 105 minutes | 29 December 2004 | |
Heimat-Fragmente (English title Heimat Fragments), subtitled Die Frauen — The Women, was released in cinemas in 2006 and focuses on the women of the Simon family at the turn of the millennium, and in the 1960s. It uses deleted scenes and outtakes from the previous films, along with newly filmed material to create a narrative that mostly focuses on Lulu looking back on her family history.
See main article: Home from Home (2013 film).
In April 2012, Reitz started filming a prequel to the series: Die andere Heimat (literally "The other Heimat"; English title Home from Home), with the subtitle Chronik einer Sehnsucht — Chronicle of a Vision. The film takes place between 1840 and 1844 and centres around two brothers, their families and love relations from the Hunsrück area and their decision whether to flee hunger and poverty by emigrating to Brazil.[8] Principal filming was completed in August 2012. It was screened at the Venice Film Festival in September 2013. The film was awarded a score of 70 on critical aggregator website Metacritic, indicating generally favorable reviews.
After premiering in Germany, Heimat was shown in Venice, London and New York festivals. It was shown in movie screens around the world in separate parts. However, it gained its worldwide exposure on television, across 26 countries. In order to shape the film into eleven episodes, Reitz devised introductory segments in which Kurt Wagner as Glasisch narrated the brief story so far, over photographs by Eduard Simon. In Germany, the broadcast received over fifteen million viewers.
Heimat earned Edgar Reitz the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1984 Venice Film Festival, while Marita Breuer won the Darstellerpreis for Best Actress at the 1985 Bavarian Film Awards. In the United Kingdom the film won a BAFTA and the London Film Critics' Circle award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Die Zweite Heimat premiered at the Venice Biennale and broadcast rights were purchased by television companies in 16 different countries. However, the German backers were disappointed that it received a smaller percentage-viewing share than the first. Reitz said the executives overlooked the fact that in 1984 only three channels existed compared to more than twenty in 1992. In the United States the film had a short theatrical run in New York at The Public Theater. It also screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and various Goethe Institute across the country. It was not picked up for television by US cable networks.
In Italy the film was shown at a large venue in Rome, that had sold out tickets weekly. Reitz was presented with the Eurofipa d’honneur award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994.
Die Zweite Heimat had a weekend premiere for its first five episodes in Munich, of the weekend of 17 - 18 September.[9] An essay was written about the weekend on a Heimat fanpage.[10] Episodes six to thirteen followed for the following eight weeks. A Blu-Ray of the remastered film was released in November 2022 [11]
Heimat received acclaim around the world. Many were enthusiastic how it never felt like a television movie, but a cinematic experience. Many praised the themes through the film about leaving and returning and simply how we connect to the larger world from our home. Reitz received thousands of letters from ordinary people, thanking him for retrieving and unlocking their memories of the 1919–1982 period. However, critic Leonie Naughton accused the film of presenting a "bourgeois history of the Third Reich, a homespun tale of innocence."[12]
Die Zweite Heimat received a lukewarm reception in the United States. National press coverage was limited to a single review by Stephen Holden in The New York Times, who described Hermann Simon as "a hotheaded romantic" and the film as a "alternately gripping and lyrical 13-episode serial about German life in the 1960s". Holden also declared the film to be "the ultimate highbrow soap opera for couch potatoes".[13]
British press for Die Zweite Heimat was more enthusiastic with The Financial Times, The Observer and The Independent all praising it.
Heimat was one of director Stanley Kubrick's favourite films.[14] It is ranked 59 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[15] It also finished in 6th place when BBC Two ran a 40th birthday poll celebrating the station's greatest programmes and was 10th in Channel 4's 50 Greatest TV Dramas.[16]
Heimat has faced some criticism for its selective interpretation of German history, with some writers noting that there is limited treatment of the hyperinflationary spiral of the 1920s, the Great Depression, or certain aspects of Nazi history such as the Holocaust of World War II.[4] [17] In 1985, Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The New York Review of Books that:
When you show the 1930s as a golden age of prosperity and excitement in the German countryside, when you are shown the Germans as victims of the war, then you inevitably find yourself asking: But what about the other side? What about Auschwitz? Where is the director's moral judgment? To which the colour filters insistently reply: 'Remember, remember, this is a film about what Germans remember. Some things they remember in full colour. Some in sepia. Others they prefer to forget. Memory is selective. Memory is partial. Memory is amoral.'[18] [17]Heimat 's themes of decadent American values and Western corporate greed rising up against the innocent simplicity of the Hunsrück have been seen as "resurrecting a discourse that prevailed in the nineteenth century about the modernization of Germany's society and economy ... no compromises or delicate balances are possible".[19]
Barbara Gabriel argued that the series was part of a larger movement of national memory work in Germany, provoked in part by the American television series Holocaust. As European art in general and German art in particular underwent a resurgence in the 1960s, artists like Günter Grass and Edgar Reitz captured international attention as they grappled with issues of identity in a divided, post-Holocaust Germany.[20]