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DVD The Tin Drum - Criterion Collection
This Oscar-winning adaptation of Günter Grass's novel is an absurdist fantasy about a little German boy (David Bennent) who wills himself at the age of three not to grow up in protest of the Nazi regime. Made unnecessarily notorious in recent years due to overzealous censors in some parts of the United States, the film is more startling and surreal than obscene. Bennent is very good, and while the 1979 film doesn't meet the high standards of the best work from the then-renaissance of German film, it has a special place in the hearts of many who saw it upon its release. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff (The Handmaid's Tale). --Tom Keogh
Review(s): DVD The Tin Drum - Criterion Collection
The Tin Drum is a good choice for viewing European filmmaking..
The movie is true to Gunther Grass' book on a little boy that refuses to grow up after witnessing the foibles of the adults in his life. A different filmmaking style makes this a compelling choice if you are a fan of European and non-Hollywood methods of moviemaking.
Not overly impressed
Not overly impressed with this movie. Quality wise, it is excellent, but the overall story is kind of pathetic to tell the truth. Not particularly a fan of Gunter Grass in the first place, but that's really beside the point. The kid in this movie is pretty annoying, and this nonsense about him stunting his growth so he can go around banging his tin drum is kind of absurd. I guess that this is supposed to be a metaphor for how the Germans stunted themselves politically during the inter-war years? In some respects the movie does address certain unseemly aspects of German history in this period, but I also found some of the "dark humour" to be somewhat distasteful. So in the end I'm kind of left with mixed feelings about this movie, and ultimately not all that compelled to recommend it.
A nightmare for all seasons
What we have here is an impossible fantasy story about an exceptionally smart boy, Oskar, who even before he was born was well aware of the outside world, and by age three had made up his mind as to how he was going to live in the world, namely by not growing up. His main tool in this process is a tin drum, which he will bang whenever the mood strikes him, whether it be in school, church, or a circus. He never leaves home without it, and it is a combination of a defense, security blanket, and a sum of who he is and what defines him. Pounding that drum seems to me to serve the same purpose as a young person who can't cope with life, and ends up banging his head against a wall over and over again. By banging on his drum, he can also alter local happenings to some degree, so this kid is more than someone with a security problem. If he can harness and develop his will to alter even more crucial events as he gets older, such as willing someone to die, he has the potential for turning into a raving monster.
So why tell a story like this? The answer is not spelled out in the movie. There is no narrator at the end of the movie that explains everything, and so we have to draw our own conclusions.
There are several possibilities. Is this an anti-war message, that we should not destroy the innocence of childhood? But if so this young boy did not have an innocent childhood. He didn't have a lot of kind friends to play with, and tended to hang out with adults. He was one of those children who seem born defiant, who for whatever reason at a preschool age are already on the road to rebellion. Watching him, part of the feeling I had was to try and find some way to help him and make his life somehow easier. But another part of me saw the makings of a kind of movie type anti-Christ as portrayed in such movies as The Omen--a cheapie I know--or a 15 year old John Dillinger who was at that age well on his way to a life of crime. If this kid is special at age three, what will he be like at age 30? Even though he doesn't grow, he does mature in other ways. And he finds he has a special power: he can scream loud enough to shatter glass, and if he is careful, by screaming he can even carve designs in the glass, such as a heart. Using this power, he seems like a spoiled brat, and hardly lovable. He is sort of like a depraved boy who still needs a mom, and you feel like tossing him out and rejecting him, and at the same time looking for a way to give him more security in an insecure world. Oskar is like the ultimate Calvin character from the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes. Or, a leftover poor orphan from a Charles Dickens story, and with the slow rise of the Nazis, Oskar may have thought that he was born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Or is the message of this movie that we must face life and not run away? Almost at the end of the movie Oskar throws his tin drum away, and decides he wants to grow. But then he has a lot of time to make up for, and so is the message that life will catch up to you whether you want it to or not, and if you are ready or not. Is it like John Lennon's quote, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans"? This is a good lesson to teach a kid, but how many people want to spend time with a hard to control young person?
Or is the message that despite our best intentions life compromises us in some way? Here we have the Nazis invading the city, and everything that was feared has now taken place. Jewish synagogues are destroyed, and Jewish businesses are smashed and burned. So you make your choice to side with the Germans, only to have the Russians come and enter the room ordering everyone to surrender. Suddenly, no one likes being labeled with the Germans, and all the logical reasons why the Germans are the people to bet on no longer apply. Morally, Oskar tries to separate himself from adults' immoral behavior, but ends up being just like the adults despite his best efforts.
So we have an allegory here that is powerful, even though we may not be able to spell it out.
So there is that side of the movie. The other side deals with accusations of child pornography. That very phrase all but makes someone or something guilty simply by accusation, and because of this accusation, this movie was banned in Oklahoma. The situation there was so bad that the police would actually go to people's homes and confiscate legally purchased copies of this movie. It all started when a local preacher railed against this movie, which led to attacks against the local library, which had copies of the movie available, which then lead to the local Blockbuster store having to give up all rental copies, as well as the names of the people who purchased this movie from Blockbuster, and then the police went to these people's homes and confiscated the legally purchased video. There is a short documentary included about this very thing with this Tin Drum dvd.
So what caused all the controversy? Two areas. First, there was a lot of local media hype. There were four forces pushing against each other. One force was a local judge who declared this movie pornographic and ordered all copies seized based on anti pornography legislation, and this even included banning copies from the local library, and seizing legally purchased copies from people's homes. The second force were the protestors. Some were local workers of the ACLU, and others were librarians, who said you should never ban anything from a library. In my opinion just about any one thing found in a library can be used to promote good or evil--or at least be a time waster. It all depends on what a person wants to do with it, so simply banning something is not always the answer.
The second area involved a scene where Oskar as a three year old sees an older woman naked, and runs to her in an intimate fashion, and the woman does not push Oskar away. After seeing this movie, I don't think it was pornographic. Here is what I think is being said. Forget Oskar for a moment. The adults themselves are morally weak, and it is significant that an immoral world would be part of the world that Oskar wants to avoid. Yet, as Oskar grows in maturity if not in size he begins to compromise himself in his desire to remain apart from what he sees all around him, and in the end his tin drum can no longer save him from himself. You can see him change in the movie, too. His moral failures happened in spite of his best efforts to not become like the adults. In spite of himself he became like the people he detested. This is what I think is the point of the movie: it is an allegory that all have sinned and fallen short of, if not God's glory, then whatever standards people have set for themselves. Between the two standards it does not make any difference. You won't be able to live up to it.
This is the best and worst of Hollywood--as a world wide institution. It is not a giant art class, but is an industry, and is there to sell a product, entertainment. Once in a while, however, a film will come along that will make a good artistic statement about something, and in this case it is the depravity of man. Despite his best efforts, man cannot escape his basic depraved nature, no matter who you are or how determined you are. This film may not exactly be a church catechism on dvd, at least not in the way people think of it, but here we have a young person who tried beyond anything imaginable to not be like other humans and not join their world of chaos and fear, and yet in the end does become like the very thing he hates. Anyone who believes in the sinful nature of humanity should not have a problem with this theme of the movie.
I am not trying to defend this movie in the sense that this film is a must-see film. I don't think this type of film is the needed wave of the future, and no matter what I say or how I defend this movie I know someone is going to condemn this movie without having seen it,and without even asking what is the place of allegory in our lives.This is one of those kinds of movies you can't watch and form an instant opinion on--you have to stop for 24 hours and think about it. And it happens almost automatically in spite of yourself.
Hollywood has certainly come out with a lot of junk and tries to pass it off as art. Roger Ebert notes in his review of The Night Porter, for instance, that violence in films always used to have a purpose, but so many of the films that have come recently make the violence an end in itself.
While it took me several hours to decide if I liked this movie or not it is definitely worth keeping, because it shows a young boy overcoming his fear and dependence on something that is holding him back, and this film makes a valid point about human nature, namely the depravity of man. And it does so without banging us over the head with a 50 pound Bible.
But if the movie is bad and should be condemned--Roger Ebert gave it just two stars--why treat it as if it were a four star movie and draw all kinds of attention to it? Let it die on its own. But our best efforts at controlling evil often times just ends up promoting it. This fact alone seems to confirm what The Tin Drum is all about. In our determination to not let our community be conformed to the world, our loud protests only serve to cause the curious to go and watch so they can find out what the fuss is all about. Despite our best efforts, the community then becomes like the very thing we want it not to be like. But we never learn, and we repeat this pattern over and over and over again.
Still, all allegory and symbolism aside, there is a good sense of satisfaction when Oskar realizes he no longer needs his drum for security. If you were a social worker working with this kid, I am sure you would have had to put up with nearly two decades of frustration, but suddenly here is this kid dumping his drum, and no matter how much or how little a social worker had to do with helping Oskar reach that point, the main thing is that Oskar had taken a step of faith, and all the years of going around in circles were in the past. That is a cause of celebration!
Just because this film makes a valid point about human nature, doesn't make this film a good film to show after church some Sunday night--unless the pastor wants to be run out of town on a rail (even if he had nothing to do with choosing this film), or he thinks the color of tar and feather would go good with his tie. Still, it would be a good movie to watch and have a film discussion on, at least for the brave of heart.
And as for Oskar, he had nearly 20 years of living to make up for, and so a happy, feel-good ending is not entirely there to be enjoyed. You are just glad to see him go, and leave his tin drum behind.
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