Stammheim. 1985. Directed by Reinhard Hauff.

(11/21/00-11/23/00)

This film is about the trial of the Baader-Meinhoff gang of terrorists. This was a major incident in German history of the last several decades. I particularly wanted to see this film because the same subject was treated by Gerhard Richter in a series of fifteen painting which is currently on view.

The film appears to be a direct transcription of the trial and thus is a modern descendant of Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. I was unfamiliar with the events that the trial referred to and thus was quite lost watching the film. I didn't know what it was all about for a lot of the time. In the early part of the film the terrorists seemed like a bunch of disruptive, arrogant punks and I had very little sympathy for them. I particularly wasn't impressed with people who chose to go on hunger strikes and then complained that they weren't well enough to stand trial. As the film progressed, howver, it seemed more and more as if the authorities actually were abusing them and that it was a rigged trial. This interpretation seemed especially valid when one of the judges had to resign for leaking details of eavesdropped conversations to the press.

I thought that the actor who played Baader gave a really electric performance--intense in the way James Cagney would have been.

I don't feel that watching this film increased my knowledge of the Baader-Meinhoff group or the events of October 1977 very much.