Friendship

By Paul Wrobel & Chantal Franz

The German film production Friendship which appeared in 2010 tells the story of two friends who live in East Berlin. With the fall of the Berlin Wall the two friends Tom and Veit decide to go to San Francisco, USA. The idea of Veit is to travel to the most westerly part of the world. Tom is just as thrilled about the idea and both decide to go to America. Unfortunately, the friends do not have enough money to fly straight to San Francisco but they are only able to afford a flight to New York. From there they go through a lot of adventures to eventually arrive at San Francisco.

Later it turns out that Veit believes that his Dad who has fled from the DDR twelve years ago is supposed to live there but for our further analysis this part of the story will not play an important part. What is interesting is the idea of visiting the very West of America.

We have chosen this item because it relates to the notion of the American West as well as the desire of people from all over the world to go there. It appeared quite striking to us that the two friends are not satisfied by just going to West Germany but crave for absolute freedom and experiences in California which they believe will not get in BRD.

Although the movie takes places in 1989 the experiences of Tom and Veit are similar to what immigrants had to face about a hundred years ago. Willa Cather’s novel My Antonia reflects that well. The story starts with Jim entering the Great Plains and with his descriptions of the landscape being empty and alien. This is depicted throughout the movie several times when the two friends are crossing the country with a scenery showing a treeless, vast, and dry land. Believing that this was intentional by the producers of the movie, an illustration was created in order to demonstrate the huge differences between German and West American landscapes since this is rather unfamiliar for most Europeans.

Considering the expectations that immigrants bring along when coming to the U.S., the Shimerdas, for instance, have to cope with unexpected issues. Thinking they had enough money to start all over again they travel to Nebraska but by buying their own dugout which can barely be compared to a home, they are being deceived. That is when they first realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. The first scene in Nebraska hints at further disappointments and frustrations in the rest of the novel.

Similar things happen to Tom and Veit immediately after their arrival at the airport as they pass security and have to undergo investigations due to their nationality because the police officers suppose they were Nazis. As a result, Tom’s and Veit’s expectancies of freedom and crossing boarders without restrictions are led down, which is the common thread of the movie.

Another theme in My Antonia is the language barrier towards the English-speaking community that Antonia and her family have in the beginning of the story. Consequently, this barrier leads to a separation and prejudices between the fluently English-speaking inhabitants and the immigrants with a different mother tongue whereas in the film the Germans’ lack of the English language entails many incidents that get them into trouble with the police. This goes along with cultural differences, too. For instants, Tom raps the American flag around his naked body in the presence of the police not knowing that he commits a crime in doing so.

Further parallels can be drawn when comparing the diversions that are offered both in the book and in the film. As for the novel, the younger folk attend dances regularly to associate with people and enjoy themselves. The equivalent about a hundred years later are home parties, dance and strip clubs as implied in the movie. Tom and Veit looked forward to these kinds of social events just like Antonia and her friends.

In conclusion, it is evident that even though almost a hundred years have passed between the publishing of the book and the film the basic ideas remain unchanged. While Willa Cather had experienced the American West herself, Friendship was produced by Germans which had no effects on its authenticity of the representation of the West that is due to the usage of the same discourses and notions the Germans applied in their production.

All in all, Friendship functions as a good example to show how American images have spread beyond its borders and found their way into the minds of many foreigners.

Manitou’s Shoe: Winnetou Meets Bavaria

Manitou`s Shoe Vol.1 - Click here for funny video clips

By Maxi Morosow & Oskar Sommerlade

For our group project, we selected the German movie Manitou’s Shoe, which was released in 2001 and directed by Michael “Bully” Herbig. The genres of the movie are primarily comedy and Western.

When we thought about finding a popular artifact from German or European culture that reflects some notion of the “American West”, the Karl May productions about Winnetou and the “Wild West” came to our minds immediately. But after a while we realized that we hadn’t really been much in contact with those books and movies while we were children or teenagers. It had been more our parents and grandparents who had told us about it. There was one movie, however, that was released when we were children and that we could not forget: Manitou’s Shoe.

In 2001, the movie had been a huge success and was one of our favorite discussion topics with our friends at school. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that we could still remember most of the plot and many of its funny scenes. It seems as Herbig didn’t omit any possible jokes for his kind of Western movie: Indians who dig up a folding chair instead of a hatchet, a gay Indian twin brother, a Greek friend who owns a tavern and many other things.

The plot orients itself towards the Karl May productions of the 1960’s. It is often said that the movie is a direct German parody of Western movies. The plot of Manitou’s Shoe also takes place in the Wild West in the 19th century. Back in the day the cowboy Ranger saved the life of the Indian boy Abahachi. Afterwards they became inseparable friends and blood brothers. One day Abahachi decides to buy a new saloon and borrows money from the Shoshone Indians. However, Abahachi gets very unlucky: Not only does the real estate agent, a man from Wyoming called Santa Maria, betray him, he also kills “False Rabbit”, the son of the Indian chief. Due to this, Abahachi gets into trouble with the whole tribe of the Shoshone. In order to clear his debt, he wants to find a treasure that is hidden at a place called “Manitou’s Shoe”. Therefore, he quickly looks for his former girlfriend Uschi, his gay twin brother Winnetouch and his Greek friend Dimitri. Each of them owns a quarter of the treasure map that will lead them to this place. However, Santa Maria also learns about the treasure and awaits Abahachi, Ranger and their friends at “Manitou’s Shoe”.

There are multiple reasons why this movie can be considered a tongue-in-cheek depiction of notions (and sometimes also stereotypes) concerning the American West. Of course it is, as stated above, very loosely based on Karl May’s works, which makes it an interesting case of how certain images and conceptions are „filtered“ through various media. That is to say, Manitou’s Shoe isn’t as much an interpretation of the American West as rather an interpretation of the American West as seen by Karl May, but also with the addition of satirical humor.

One can see in many cases that the movie not only picks up on some common clichés credited largely to May, but also reverses them for comical purposes. For instance, the character of Ranger highly resembles that of May’s Old Shatterhand in the sense that both of them are hardened, leather-wearing gunslingers with telling names. Ranger, however, at one point emphatically confesses being tired of all the usual aspects of life in the Wild West such as “being bound to some stake every other day”. Like his blood brother Abahachi, he also speaks in a broad Bavarian dialect, which mocks the overall seriousness of these supposedly “Western” characters.

Amidst all of this whimsicalness, it is still often possible to find some traces of the more pragmatic ideals that the American West embodies. Even Winnetouch, who would stick out like a sore thumb in every “serious” Western movie with his pink clothes and openly gay behavior, is still able to build up a successful business by running a beauty salon out in the open prairie. What this shows is that the fields of the West can be conquered even by the most uncommon individuals. The aforementioned Dimitri, on the other hand, may seem like just some other “fish out of the water” type of character at first glance, but also illustrates the issue of immigration and cultural diversity that was prevalent in the American West as well.

More than ten years after the release of this movie, one can still sense the profound impact that it had on the perception of the American West in German popular culture. Before Manitou’s Shoe, people couldn’t speak of this subject without mentioning Karl May. Today it might seem that Herbig’s movie has taken that place.

Works Cited
Der Schuh des Manitu. Dir. Michael Herbig. Perf. Michael Herbig, Christian Tramitz, Rick Kavanian, Sky Du Mont, Marie Bäumer. Constantin Film, 2001. Film.

What's going on here?

Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the course "The Modern American West" at the Universität Potsdam. The goal of this blog is to present the work of my students, who will spend Winter Semester 2012 studying the literature and culture of the modern American West with me. In order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to the popular culture of Germany (or Europe more broadly) for representations of the American West and to present them here. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of popular culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, etc. -- they are to explain the ideas of the American West they see reflected in the artifact and then to discuss how these ideas relate to the larger themes of our course.

I look forward to what is to come in the ensuing weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me new glimpses into the notions of the American West which still circulate around the world.

Enjoy!