If, dear reader, you could cast your minds back to January. I had the pleasure of getting my copy of
Peeping Tom out and, using this
series of articles, got an excuse to watch it again. Not that I need an excuse to watch truly amazing cinema—it’s just that I’d watched
Mannequin on repeat in the weeks beforehand and didn’t see any reason to stop.
Mannequin’s amazing. So when you’ve been watching tripe, albeit tripe that is straight up amazing, it can make something as wonderful and as beautiful as
Peeping Tom seem even better, if that’s possible.
Likewise I am about to tell you about
Die Blechtrommel, known in this country, and for the purposes of my own inability to spell that with any ease within this article, as
The Tin Drum. The tripe I just watched was Fulham v Arsenal if anyone’s interested (the straight up amazing tripe being Jimmy Bullard).
The Tin Drum started its life as a novel by Günter Grass. I’m not familiar with his body of work, nor have I read the novel on which this film is based. I have heard good things about the book which continues it’s story after the film finishes. Then another big teutonic literati decided it was his turn to have a cold hearted bleak look at Germany’s history and Volker Schlöndorff came riding in; camera and deck chair in hand.
To give you a full synopsis of all the themes, narratives and general denounement of the film I would need to tell you a wee bit about the history of the Polish-German border, especially that of Gdansk/Danzig, as well as a brief touch on a race of people called the Kashubians. So I wont. Here’s the brief description of the start of the film. It opens with a Kashubian man running away from two huns just before the outset of the great war and his coupling with a random Kashubian woman. This produces a child and this child goes on to produce Oskar who despite not being born for another couple of decades has already started narrating from the outset and, at times, from within the womb. At this point the film almost feels carefree and innocent. This is down to the narrator who is carefree and innocent being the 3 yr old Oskar (and fuck you Christian Bale because David Bennent gives the greatest child performance ever).
So Oskar’s mum is unlucky enough to fall in love with her cousin and, later, some German fella. The German fella knows fine well that the woman he eventually marries is also in love with her cousin but doesn’t seem to mind. It’s still kept secret but it’s an open secret. Little Oskar, however, knows his father is his half cousin. If that’s not complicated enough, the cousin and mother are Kashubian, and as such, see themselves as Polish, like most Kashubians (seriously Wikipedia that shit because I ain’t getting into the ins and outs and Slavic/German nationality and regionalism). His mother’s husband is German and sees his “son” as such. The differing nationalities get on well enough between the wars within The Free City of Danzig (once again, Wiki that one, not even the League of Nations know what went on with national boundaries after the Great War).
But the “family”, even the extended family, is set up on a web of lies like most families and, like most families, everyone knows it. However after a swift visit under the table during his third birthday celebrations, young Oskar finds out through a mixture of hand and leg movements that there’s more going on between the adults than they’re letting on.
Now we all remember that moment when childhood died. Perhaps when you found out Santa wasn’t real or that time the friendly next door neighbour gave you a secret you promised never to tell, and what did you do when that moment hit you? Probably nothing. Oskar, being well ahead of his time, decides to take action so he goes to the cellar and throws himself down the stairs and promises himself he’ll never grow up because all grown ups are cunts. He nearly dies but, amazingly, he also does stop growing up. So do you remember your third birthday? I don’t. Little Oskar did, first he got a shiny new Tin Drum, then he gets his innocence snapped away from him with a moment of realisation beyond his years, he decides to stop growing up and finds out if he screams at glass it’ll shatter.
What follows is very long, very repetitive and very German (and by German I mean Polish and by Polish I mean Kashubian). It’s not for everyone but nothing is apart from Pixar films and a wee bit of tablet.
So in the hours that follow we get a mixture of the following: Oskar finds out about his mum and his half cousin’s secret meetings, he gets a lot of new tin drums, he might have been seduced by an aunt because her husband is a paedophile, his dad joins the Nazi party, he causes the deaths of most of the people he loves by doing such mundane things as taking them to the Post Office, feeding them a pin and we also get to see someone commit suicide by over eating eels. He falls in love and has a kid. He becomes famous and falls in love again. He gets made to eat a “stew” made up by other kids including worms and piss and mud and other nonsense, we find out that all midgets are really kids who decided not to grow up, he witnesses the start and end of WWII and he disrupts a Nazi rally by making them play some jazzy tunes. Each and every little happening is narrated by Oskar in that oh-so innocent way of his. Even with his snide, almost heartless remarks and blasé indifference to the world of grown ups despite the killing, raping, racism, etc. going on, he is interested only in his drum.
For this reason Oskar isn’t the hero he
should be. Nor should he be that hero. As his mind gets older his body remains that of an infant and he uses this to hide away from the life he should be having. He’s a coward knowing his diminutive frame allows him to escape the realities and horrors of life while those around them are forced to handle the extra burden and if he does dislike something he just screams ’til some bulbs or windows smash or bang that drum of his to annoy people. He’s a bit of a cock really.
Of course this brief synopsis doesn’t tell you the genius of the film. For instance he has two father figures: a large bullying German and a slim, weaker Pole. Both his "fathers" are allegories of the two nations his own city is torn between. Oskar, to a degree, is Danzig/Gdansk and his fathers are the two nations fighting over it’s future. His willingness to maintain his own youth could be a parallel to Danzig/Gdansk’s inability to decide its own future and leaving it in the hands of foreigners.
Every single moment in this film has deep,
very deep overtures and… undertures(?). Whether it be Oskar throwing himself down the stairs, eating that stew or watching a fisherman drag a horses head out of the sea covered in eels. I don’t get them all and never will but they’re all there. I told you it was very German (and by German…)
So how would a very long, perhaps dull, German film which is, basically, one German’s attempt to look back at his own nation’s history ever be considered risqué?
Well the tiny Oskar is played by the almost as tiny eleven year old Herr Bennent. Now it would be very illegal, and I would have no right defending this film, if Herr Bennent was to plant his pre-pubescent face into the gaping muff of a tasty blonde girl. It would probably be funny but it wouldn’t be right. However…
Here’s a spoiler. You don’t need to know it to fully understand the controversy of the scene but you really need to grasp what the director was intending and a whole load of other pish. I’d recommend you skip it and watch the film. But here it is.
Oskar’s maw, dragged into depression by Oskar’s reluctance to grow up and the pressure on having two lovers and never being able to be with the one she really wants commits suicide by eating eels. Oskar’s da’ can’t cope on his own so Oskar’s da’ hires a very cute wee lassie to babysit Oskar and Oskar quickly falls in love with her.
Oskar falls in love with her. She looks upon him as a child and, as such, sees no reason not to be shy around him and, when they go bathing, he sees a woman naked for the first time since he saw his mum getting fucked by her cousin some years back causing a lot of damage to some nearby clock faces. Perhaps his mind has reached adolescence, perhaps this is the only way he knows how to react to a naked woman, perhaps it’s some deep seated longing to return to the womb but he rushes forward and plants his face firmly into the crotch of the girl who, at first, seems to smile and then sorta yelps and slaps him telling him it was wrong. Not before this brief encounter has planted a seed into her mind that, maybe, this “child” is no kid after all and begins to have similar feelings for him.
On its initial release this little moment of underage cunnilingus was ignored by all apart from one Canadian territory and remained unbanned, and rightfully so, and everyone was happy.
Then some muppets and fucknuts at the absurdly monikered “Oklahomans for Children and Families” (OCAF) got their grubby little mits on it. Well…they tried.
In 1997 there were a few Oklahoma citizens who had decided to rent this film out from libraries, and video rental shops all over the state like millions of people, the world over, had before. Maybe they’d saw it before and loved it, perhaps it was recommended to them, perhaps they heard a 3 yr old boy licks an 11 yr old girl’s cunt and wanted a wank (although if you are that way inclined I’d imagine S Club Juniors or any films starring the Olsen Twins is far closer to kiddie porn than anything in The Tin Drum). That last one’s unlikely tho’. If that was their intention then the police had every right to turn up at their house with an arrest warrant. That wasn’t the case and instead ordinary people who watch German art-house films, we’ll assume alone, had the very real fear of being branded in the same breath as Gary Glitter, Jonathan King and Jim Torbett.
The head of OCAF, Bob Anderson, had
heard this film contained child pornography. So did he check it out himself? Did he enquire or seek any evidence whatsoever? No. Because when asked if he knew what the film was about Bob Anderson said “I don’t need to know the story.” Furthermore, where did he hear it contained kiddie porn? Some radio host said “…it could be judged pornographic, and that’s all I needed to hear.” If I hear Roughy and Boabie Puller say that
Bambi contains bestiality I’m taking Disney to court.
But just because some self appointed turd decides it’s sick doesn’t make it so surely? How it get from some idiot disk/cock jockey deciding it was a bit iffy to ending up with guys getting their copies of the winner of the Palm D’or and Best Foreign Language Feature Academy Award taken away from them?
Well dear ol’ Bob, looking out for the kids and whatnot, decides to lobby a judge under some Oklahoma Law. Here’s a wee snippet of the law in question (the part(s) that matter)
2. "Performance" means and includes any live or cinematic show of whatever nature over any broadcast media, if the performance contains the following:
a. the obscene material or performance has as one of its participants or portrayed observers a child under the age of eighteen (18) or who appears as prepubescent, or
b. the obscene material or performance contains depictions or descriptions of sexual conduct which are patently offensive as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards,
c. the obscene material or performance taken as a whole has as the dominant theme an appeal to prurient interest as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards, and
d. a reasonable person would find the obscene material or performance taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, educational, political, or scientific purposes or value
Alright, firstly, Oskar is played by an 11-year-old boy, and, although his love interest is only sixteen in the film, she is played by an adult. So it falls foul of 2a. As for 2b, well, not really as we don’t see any nudity. We do not see the girl’s muff (sorry guys) and we do not see anything of Oskar apart from the top of his head. 2c, watch it, even that scene if you can find it on youtube, it’s not there to tittlate and anyone thinking someone could watch it to get some sorta kick out of it is a fool. Even Bob would admit he was wrong if only
he’d fucking watch it. As for part 2d, may I point out again this shared the top gong at Canne with Apocalypse Now and Oskar won an Oscar for his troubles so we’ll assume there is at least some artistic merit.
But it still does fall foul of 2a. Except. It doesn’t.
During the entire shoot the parents of young Bennent were present. Think they’d let their kid do that? Think the
director would let the kid do that? No they fucking wouldn’t and they never. I saw Keanu Reeves dodge bullets on telly once but that doesn’t mean it happened. Are people seriously this stupid? I this day and age they can’t imagine simple camera tricks used by Charlie Chaplin, F.W. Murnau and Georges Méliès at the turn of the century can be used in the 70s? The judge who was lobbied was that stupid and classed this classic as kiddie porn.
Christ almighty. Herr Schlöndorff had to appear in court (see link at the bottom of the page) because of this pish. Thankfully this was all over-turned and, basically, laughed at.
This wasn’t the easiest piece to write about. It’s a fucking difficult film to watch never mind write about. The complexities of the script, direction, cinematography and acting are beyond my abilities to convey. Although it had this one little blip that caused controversy in one part of America caused by one sole idiot it’s not really been that controversial a piece so I had little to go on there. What’s worse for all the difficulty in writing about the film I had to drone on at times otherwise the piece would have been all over the place (sorry…
more all over the place) and that one little blip in its history also needed some explaining. Not that it mattered to the film really but just to show how much power these idiots can hold over us all. These self appointed moral guardians already cost us
Peeping Tom for twenty years as well as forcing my first view of
The Exorcist to be on a shitey VHS copy that was as grainy as a bowl of cereal. I can’t help but ask myself why they bother? They either ruin great films, like
The Tin Drum or
Peeping Tom, or force crap films, like
Zombie Lake or
La Bestia En Calore, to get a reputation they, frankly, don’t deserve. The second lot amuses me. I wouldn’t have went out my way to get my hands on such films if I wasn’t interested in why they were banned and, god knows, it was mostly a waste of time but for every
I Spit On Your Grave I seem to find a
Clockwork Orange.
As I said it would take another ten pages to tell you everything you can learn thanks to Herr Schlöndorff through
The Tin Drum. Another thing it taught us, however, is that we should never, ever let the silent majority tell us what is and isn’t obscene and that any half-decent argument can rip their defence to shreds. That’s why this film is even more important than it should be and it should be really, really fucking important anyway.
The Director’s response to the court
