Last year the film director Edgar Reitz celebrated his 90th birthday. He is best known for his series Heimat which charts the lives of a family in the Hunsrück region of Germany throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. To mark his 90th birthday the autobiography Filmzeit, Lebenszeit (C219.c.2371) was published in October 2022 in which Reitz offers us a detailed insight into his development as a film director. I was particularly interested in the chapters covering his early career as I had recently cataloged a brochure (CCA.60.792) documenting the fascinating multi-media project “VariaVision” from 1965. This brochure is part of the library of Walter Schobert, former director of the Filmmuseum Frankfurt, which the University Library received as a donation and is a unique resource for film studies.
VariaVision was an interesting experimental project commissioned by the German railway company Deutsche Bundesbahn for the Internationale Verkehrsausstellung held in Munich in 1965. The project involved the architect Paolo Nestler, Edgar Reitz, the composer Josef Anton Riedl and author Alexander Kluge collaborating to produce an installation of 16 large screens in a hall, featuring a collage of multiple film loops, sound and text on the theme of journeys.
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The brochure shows what technical difficulties had to be overcome to synchronise the various elements. In fact, the technology proved too complicated and on the first day the installation did not work and had to be repaired. The effect on the viewer must have been quite overwhelming. Sadly, nothing survives of this installation, the technology was not used again, and the film and sound recordings have been lost. This makes the brochure incredibly useful as it documents the project in fine detail. In his autobiography Edgar Reitz gives a detailed account of the project and its difficulties. He specifically mentions the brochure as the only document showing the uniqueness of this experiment.
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The brochure was produced by the innovative Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm where both Edgar Reitz and Alexander Kluge were teaching at the time. Ula Stöckl, a student at Ulm, edited the brochure and went on to become a well-known film director herself. The University Library is proud to hold the only copy in the UK. Even in Germany copies can only be found in the libraries of the film schools in Munich and Potsdam.
VariaVision was Edgar Reitz’ last industrial film project. His work with industrial commissions allowed him to experiment and develop his film techniques which he then put to use in his feature films when he became an independent filmmaker. His first feature film, Mahlzeiten, was released in 1967 and he became a key figure of the Neue Deutsche Film movement. In a 1973 publication, Die Filmemacher, he reflected in an interview on the challenges of being an independent filmmaker. Our copy of this title (CCC.60.617) again comes from the library of Walter Schobert.
Returning to the autobiography published last year, one of its interesting aspects is the space Reitz gives to his work that preceded Heimat. This allows us to track his long route towards the Heimat project and to appreciate that he was a highly accomplished filmmaker before Heimat.
Christian Staufenbiel
Languages across Borders 