Agency in contemporary German cinema: Tykwer, Akın and Petzold

Thesis

This thesis demonstrates that an interest in human agency is a significant trend in contemporary German cinema. It includes analyses of Tom Tykwer’s Heaven (2002) and The International (2009), Fatih Akın’s Gegen die Wand (2004) and Auf der anderen Seite (2007) and Christian Petzold’s Barbara (2012) and Phoenix (2014), which illustrate that these three directors, who belong to different traditions in German cinema, have a focus on agency in common. A theoretical framework primarily made up of scholarship by Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, John Fiske and Laura Mulvey illuminates the portrayals of human control in the films. Tykwer, Akın and Petzold share a sense, also articulated in post-structuralist theory and theory which followed it, of the considerable limitations on human agency, which the three filmmakers work into their films for their characters to grapple with. I show that these filmmakers are investigating how individuals can be agents within this context.

The agency which is available to the characters in the films is personal rather than political, but the narratives are situated in political milieus, which complicates the idea of contemporary cinema simply turning towards the personal. Five of the films portray a mixture of scope for action and constraint, whereas The International paints a more pessimistic picture of agency, but illustrates the problems with such a negative portrayal, and problems that filmmakers must deal with when representing human control. This thesis addresses the question of how agency is portrayed in the filmic medium, illustrating how space and place, the gaze, the human body and characters’ appearances more widely are used to convey the phenomenon visually.

Authors: Burt, S

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-e27djgw46
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: petzold; twenty-first century; tykwer; german; Akın; contemporary; agency; film; cinema
• Subjects: petzold; Free will and determinism; tykwer; Akın; contemporary german cinema