Customer Reviews

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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German director Volker Schlondorff's adaptation of the novel by Heinrich Boll is a terrifying indictment of the perversion of "freedom of the press". Although all Katharina Blum appears to be guilty of is picking up a man from a party, that one night causes her notoriety when it turns out the man is an army deserter and a thief. It is assumed Katharina is suspect by association, and her life is scrutinised by the police and the "gutter" press, every nuance projected with ulterior motive. The police here are as much to blame for Katharina's nightmare, since they feed the press the details of her life and the press subsequently interpret them to present her in the most damaging way. The press' justification for humiliating her is that the public has a right to know, but whose life doesn't feature things to be misconstrued, or aspects that are so private that they cannot be explained? The point that the newspaper publishing articles about her is considered "gutter" doesn't alter the potency of the effect it has. The reactions of the public to Katharina demonstrates our willingness to believe the worst about celebrity, and the vicious food cycle of press and it's readership. Katharina's employer tells her that no one takes the paper seriously but she replies that everyone she knows reads it. The horror of this tale is the way Katharina eventually acts to restore her lost sense of honour, which ironically makes her a tragic figure, her story evidence of the cruelty of fate. Schlondorff undoubedly knows that this material is gothic enough without needing to highten it further with effects, and he presents it simply, with discrete almost inperceptible music. As Katharina, Angela Winkler has the ordinary look of her mousy housemaid, but also the dark eyes of someone with hidden depths.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum, originally released in East Germany as "Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann" which translates to: "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead" is an excellent film regarding the treatment of persosn suspected of consorting with terrorists. It is based on a book by Heinrich Böll.

I would assume the re-release was inspired in part by the September 11 attacks and the susequent crackdown on those suspected of helping terrorists.

In the film a woman is accused of harboring a member of a left-wing terrorist group. After her release, she is followed everywhere by a member of a tabloid newspaper and receives obscene hate mail and prank phone calls. The film depicts how every person who comes into contact witht he terrorist is followed by the police and checked out.

The film stirs worries that some have regarding their civil liberties in a post 9/11 America. I find the film to be quite good and is set against actual events in 1970's Germany during an uprising of a German terrorist group known as the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion or Red Army Faction)

The Criterion Collection release has interviews with the film's two co-directors,Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. and with director of photography, Jost Vacano.

Thre is also a documentary about author Heinrich Böll and a theatrical trailer for the film.

The film is quite good but is not for everyone.

As I was watching this movie I couldn't help but be reminded of another story - 'the Trial' by Franz Kafka. Like 'the Trial's' main character, Joseph K, Katherina is a victim to a corrupt bearucratic system based upon ruining someone's life for the sake of others.

Whereas, I did not like 'the Tin Drum', Katherina Blum struck me very deeply - maybe because it is so real and relevent.

Along with this film I would recommend Fassbinder's 'Mother Kusters goes to Heaven' (a similar story about tabloid journalism following a tragedy).

Although first released in 1975, THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM (Criterion) grows more relevant every day. Adapted from a political parable by Nobel Prize for literature winner Heinrich Boll (1917-1985), The Lost Honor Honor of Katharina Blum is a searing examination of the power of the Press and the State to persecute.

On the morning after a one-night stand, the police burst into Blum's apartment looking for her lover, an alleged terrorist. He is gone and Blum is arrested for aiding and hiding a fugitive. The media focus, the ruthless interrogation by the police and the greed driven feeding frenzy of the tabloid press turns Blum's life upside down. Angela Winkler gives a bold and compassionate performance as the put-upon Katharina Blum who finally explodes in defense of her own sanity. This great film, tense and meaningful, is laced with dark humor.

Extras include a new video interview with directors Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta and master cinematographer Jost Vacano. Also, excerpts from a 1977 documentary on German author and activist Boll. Highly recommended.

This movie stems from a time when German movie making was at its zenith, in the 70s and early 80s. The script of this film is very true to the book of the same title, written by the German Nobel Laureate Heinrich Boell. A woman, who has had a brief affair with a man supsected to be a left-wing terrorist is arrested by the police, who want to link her to terrorism as well. Despite the aggressive attempts by the interrogating police officers to talk her into submission and to strip her of her dignity, they fail to produce anything of value to their alleged case. The press, however, (symbolized as a sensation-hungry tabloid, modelled after the German daily "Bild") manages in a smear campaign to "indict" her in public.

This is a very powerful, maybe a little bit outdated movie, where an incredibly great cast had been assembled: Angela winkler in the title role (she also stars in "The Tin Drum"), Mario Adorf as a police officer, and Heinz Bennent.

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlondorff, 1975)

Schlondorff (The Handmaid's Tale, Homo Faber, Swann in Love, etc.) directs his and Margarthe von Trotta's adaptation of Heinrich Boll's novel, and in the process shows us a treatise on how not to make a crime film.

Katharina Blum (The Tin Drum's Angela Winkler, perhaps the only good thing about the film) suddenly finds herself pursued by the police and tabloid journalists after being linked to a terrorist (Jurgen Prochnow, who has so little screen time he never really gets a chance to act). They think she's in league with him; she claims he was a one-night stand. The movie's tension turns on the basic question of which one of them is telling the correct tale, and how much harassment Katharina is going to take before snapping.

The wonder of Boll's novel is that it takes this premise (which should be familiar to readers of Kafka's The Trial) and turns it on his head; the novel opens with the climax, then takes us back to the preceding events to make us understand how she got there. The film ignores this opening, putting the climax at the end. In order to increase the mystery factor, I guess. Problem is it doesn't. All it does is confuse the picture, so we have little idea one way or the other what's going on through most of the film. (The film is also much clearer about the question of Katharina's innocence/guilt, which takes much of the fun out of it all.)

Winkler is a fine actress, and the one thing that might make this worth watching again; everything else about it is quite pedestrian. **

Good movie based on the novel by Heinrich Böll. Katharina Blum (Angela Winkler) is interrogated by Kommissar Beizmenne (Mario Adorf) because she has just spent the night with Ludwig, a terrorist. The police are brutes, but we're never really sure what Katharina knows or doesn't know, and I thought the moral ambiguity on this point increased the overall credibility of the film. The best part about it was pretty unambiguous, though - pretty damning indictment of the press, here characterized by an incredibly unscrupulous newspaper reporter, Toetges (Dieter Laser). Nice score by Hans Werner Henze. The DVD edition includes a great interview with the husband and wife directors, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta.

This is one the most appreciated gems in the german cinema of the middle seventies.

The bitter and unstopable process of decay in Katherine Blum is described with vivid expression , overwhelmong camera work and superb script .

You will watch a depressive movie and a mature picture . Tasefully made but without any drop of oversimplifications and

ornaments . The film is incisive and direct . It plays hard with the sensibility of the viewer . So beware with this movie .

Extraordinary film and undoubtedly a master gem of this brilliant director , unfortunately missed in the present time : Wolker Schlondorff.

Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is a contemporary love story about Katharina and Ludwig who fall in love at first sight at a party. After the party Ludwig spends the night with Katharina and when Katharina wakes up in the morning the police barge into the apartment in order to arrest Ludwig who is a wanted terrorist. The police are unsympathetic to Katharina's needs and rights as they discover that Ludwig has evaded the long arm of the police. This becomes the initial step towards a long humiliating suffering for Katharina as the press and media drag her reputation through the gutter. This film is a tribute to democracy as it displays the importance of information distribution and the responsibility that the press and media carry. Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is an intricate story where love drives the plot and engages the audience. However, the simplicity of the story steers the audience toward several subplots and cerebrally engaging notions, morals, and values. This results in a brilliant cinematic experience that will keep the audience mesmerized.

Tense, taut suspenser presents an object lesson on the nature of presumed guilt, and the corrosive power of the media, working with a police force desperate for "results', to virtually destroy the life of an innocent person. Directors Schlondorff and Von Trotta unfold this waking nightmare with a tense realism that's unnerving. Winkler makes a most sympathetic victim, while the craggy, enigmatic Prochnow is tailor-made for his shadowy part. In all, a disturbing and thought-provoking entry, expertly rendered.