week seven

week seven was a big one for me! we had just returned from our class trip to hamburg/luebeck and it was time for me to crack down on my project for thorsten's class that i was to present on friday with chris h.

my project that i wrote my paper on (and was to present) was comparing the class readings on saschenhausen concentration camp to texts written by two different authors (isabella engelhardt and harold marcuse) about dachau concentration camp and the way in which the memorials there differ from other camps. also, these texts bring up "big" questions about memorialization (which apparently, microsoft word says is not a real word?) in ways that i have never thought of before and which continue to baffle me.
some of these questions that are raised are so difficult that i feel like they can't be definitively answered, such as "who has the power to create memorials?" and "what makes a memorial successful?". both authors have similar arguments that differ only slightly.

chris and i spent lots of time going back and forth from the topographie bibliothek at potsdammer platz to re-check out our two books because they only let you take them for one night and you have to bring them back early the next morning. later, i felt thankful they at least lend them for one night since the jewish museum library doesn't lend out at all!
i felt really happy with the paper i had written for the class and i tried to examine the arguments about memorialization the best i could. it is possibly the most difficult subject i have written a paper on before because there is almost no right answer to these questions!

in eric's class this week we watched the film, die mauer.
my first impression was that i wasn't so entranced by this film than i was when i watched wings of desire. however, i feel like seeing these pieces of the wall and everywhere that the director/camera takes you through out the film was a point of view that really made me feel like i could have been there and talking with the people that he talked with during the film. it was very real and raw and showed real people in a really unabashed way. for example, the older woman at the beginning that tells the japanese tourists to stop chiseling at the wall so she can hear what is going on. the little boys talking with the director about the pieces of wall they are selling. the director/camera taking the viewer to a new years' party at the brandenburg tor that really makes us feel like we are there. the film leaves in parts that normally would be taken out by other directors but we get the opportunity to see it (like the newscaster practicing his "spiel" several times before it is taped), and this makes the film really real, and therefore likeable to me.
at times the footage was a bit slow, but still kind of beautiful and easy to appreciate from a filmmaker point of view.

as for my group film, progress was slow this week due to every single one of my free hours being put into reading and writing for thorsten's class project. as i write this now, we have plans to film tomorrow. i feel excited about our film, yet a bit apprehensive because it is going to be difficult to get our completely different stories to tie together in a thoughtful manner. i am always trying to think of ways it could that would be thought-provoking to the viewer. as for my own portion of the film, i have planned out mostly all of what i am going to do and what the camera will do but i am a bit stuck on how it will end, again, in a manner that will be thoughtful to the viewer. this aspect is in my opinion one of the most important when i watch films so i would love to have my portion at the very least be one that really makes the viewer think a bit and say, "........ huh". i feel that when we are filming, our group will be able to collaborate together as we make our film and bounce ideas off each other to create the best possible film that we can collectively make.