Alexander Kluge - Cinematic Works, Literary Works

Writer, born in Halberstadt, C Germany. He became an attorney and novelist, and gained fame for his work as a director and scriptwriter with Abschied von Gestern (1966), Zirkuskuppel - ratlos (1968), the award-winning Deutschland im Herbst (1978), and Der Kandidat (1980). He tackles contemporary problems and those of recent German history, as in Schlachtbeschreibung (1964) about Stalingrad. He was awarded the Lessing-Preis in 1989 and the Heinrich-Böll-Preis in 1993.

Alexander Kluge (born February 14, 1932 in Halberstadt, in the vicinity of Magdeburg, Germany) is a noted film director and author. While studying in Frankfurt, Kluge befriended the philosopher Theodor Adorno, who had returned to Germany and was teaching at the Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School.

Cinematic Works

Kluge directed his first film in 1960, Brutalität im Stein (Brutality in Stone), a 12-minute, black and white, lyrical montage work which, against the German commercial (Papa's Kino) cinematic amnesia of the prior decade, inaugurated an exploration of the Nazi past. That same year, with filmmakers Edgar Reitz and Detlev Schleiermacher, Kluge established the Ulm Institut für Filmgestaltung, to promote the critical and aesthetic practices of Young German Film and the New German Cinema. They include Yesterday Girl (1966), an adaptation of Kluge's story "Anita G.";

1978 Deutschland im Herbst (Director / Screenwriter) 1979 Die Patriotin (Director / Producer) 1980 Der Kandidat (Director) 1982 Biermann-Film (Director) 1983 Die Macht der Gefühle (Director / Producer / Actor: Narrator / Screenwriter) 1983 Krieg und Frieden (Director / Screenwriter / Book Author) 1985 Vermischte Nachrichten (Director / Producer / Screenwriter) 1986 The Blind Director (Director / Screenwriter) 1989 Schweinegeld, Ein Märchen der Gebrüder Nimm (Producer) 1995 Die Nacht der Regisseure (Actor: Himself (uncredited))

Literary Works

"We don't perceive a contradiction between writing books, making films or producing a television program. These days you can't choose how you want to express yourself anymore."-Alexander Kluge

Kluge is also one of the major German fiction writers of the late 20th century and an important social critic. The important texts include:

1962 Lebensläufe (Case Histories, also published earlier in English as Attendence List for a Funeral)--this collection includes the story "Anita G.," which Kluge adapted in cinematic form as Yesterday Girl. 1964 Schlachtbeschreibung (The Battle) 1973 Lernprozesse mit tödlichem Ausgang (Learning Processes with a Deadly Outcome)--this work is one of Kluge's original contributions to the science fiction genre. 1977 Neue Geschichten: Hefte 1-18: 'Unheimlichkeit der Zeit" (New Histories: Notebooks 1-18: "The Uncanniness of Time")--a remarkable collection of several hundred stories, some only a page long, interspersed with documents, charts and images. 1984 Die Macht der Gefühle (The Power of Feeling) 2003 Die Lücke, die der Teufel läßt. (The Devil's Blind Spot)--this collection of 500 stories includes some earlier works;

Two anthologies were published in 2000 and 2001 which together contain the central works of Kluge's and Oskar Negt's collaborative philosophy as well as Kluge's literary work.

2000 Chronik der Gefühle (Chronicle of Feeling)--published as two volumes (Basisgeschichten and Lebensläufe) including the works Schlachtbeschreibung, Lernprozesse mit tödlichen Ausgang, Lebensläufe and Neue Geschichten. 2001 Der unterschätzte Mensch (The Undervalued Man)--a two volume edition including Suchbegriffe (26 conversations and interviews first published in a book format), Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung, Die Maßverhältnisse des Politischen (a completely updated and revised edition Oskar Negt's and Alexander Kluge's critique of Realpolitik), and Geschichte und Eigensinn.

His awards include the Italian Literature Prize Isola d'Elba in 1967, and almost every major German-language literary prize, including the Heinrich von Kleist Prize in 1985 and the Heinrich-Böll-Preis in 1993.

Kluge's major work of social criticism is Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung.