The Marriage of Maria Braun

‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ and New German Cinema German Cinema has had its ups and downs in the past couple of centuries. Germany was a country that was torn by World War 2. During the 1950’s, just after World War 2 had ended, Germany was still paying its consequences. The social and economic status of the country was poor, the country was divided into West and East Germany and this was a time of major downfall for Germany. This poor economic status took a toll on the film industry in the country. Movies were being produced but the citizens of Germany were too engrossed in correcting their lives both financially and socially and so a very small percent of the population visited cinema halls for entertainment. This consequently led to the downfall of this Industry. German films before the Second World War lacked story, plot and even distinct characters. However, after the war, things changed. Even though the economic condition of the country was not stable, a group of young, artistic filmmakers namely Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz, Peter Schamoni and Franz Josef Spieker came together to form an alliance. Their plan was simply to uplift German Cinema from its old ways and create and present a new, fresh and artistic form of cinema to the audience. They proactively declared "Der alte Film ist tot. Wir glauben an den neuen" which is german for “The old cinema is dead. We believe in new cinema”. They did this officially and issued the Oberhausen Manifesto on February 28, 1962, which stated the same. Soon other upcoming young film makers with similar ideas and beliefs joined this group. Some of them are Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Jean-Marie Straub, Wim Wenders, Werner Schroeter and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (director of ‘The marriage of Maria Braun’). This is how the German film Industry began to take a different route. This is how it caught up financially and economically and established a name for itself in Germany and

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