The will to success: Polarkreis 18 are Allein Allein (Alone, Alone)

The first time I saw Polarkreis 18 was in a dark cellar (no, not in my house…) two years ago. It was hot, sweatty and people in German bars were still allowed to smoke. Polarkreis 18 played (in my opinion) one of their best concerts in their life. People were dancing, dreaming and singing with eyes closed. They had just released their album and their single “dreamdancers” was the higlight of this concert. (Please close your eyes, just listen to the song and ignore the video).

At that time I thought, and perhaps it is easy to say that know, that this band was made for the big stage. They had talent, could play and knew how to ‘catch’ the crowd.  As a friend later told me, they also had enough arrogance for a successful band since surprisingly cancelled an interview with an local indie fanzine shortly before the interview should have started. I knew that Polarkreis 18 was far to ambitioned to play for 40 people in a dark cellar.

Now, with their new single “allein allein” are just one step away from their commercial breakthrough. German radio stations play their song over and over and the album is on 14 in the German album charts.

The sad thing is: I wished Polarkreis 18 all the success they deserved. And they deserve it. It just that their new song (and I am not talking about the album here) is just a bunch of shit. I admit, the melody is quite catchy and the beat is danceable, but… It sounds much to much like a bad Depeche Mode song. The song is just a boring repetition of a refrain and finally this is just exactly the kind of ease to consume rock/pop people like to listen to in the radio. It sounds like they really tried to make sure that even Joe the plumber is able to sing along. And the video. An irony-free zone of lord of the ring mountains and snow cold (how ambiguous!) panoramic views. Guys, let Rammstein to that job. A least they can shoot good  ‘serious’ mountain videos.

Oh, I forgot. Here the video.

So, good bye Polarkreis 18, I really had a good time listening.

Peter Fox: German Hiphop Reggae Dance

Peter Fox is becoming one of the most famous representors of new German Music. Formely noun as one of the shouters of the German reggae band Seeed from Berlin he recently recorded and released his first solo-album. His music is hard to describe: Oscillating between Dance, Reggae and Hiphop Fox manages to let his music sound as fresh as Berlin.

Fox said on late night show TV-Total that he wanted to record his album “Stadtaffen” (cityapes) like a soundtrack – including the full equipped Berlin Orchestra in the studio. The video for his first hit single called “Alles Neu” was even featured by Kanye West on his website.

His second single “Haus am See” (house by the sea) is a bit more relaxed. An English version with subtitles is available on youtube but the sound quality of the original version is much more enjoyable.

Peter Fox deserves attention outside Germany. So spread the word!

Camera: The Vertigo Effect

The Vertigo effect, also called Dolly Zoom, is one of the most famous camera tricks.

The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject whilst the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject. (Wikipedia)

The effect got its’ name because it was first used by Alfred Hitchcock in “Vertigo”. While chasing a gangster on the roof in the opening scene of the film the police man and main character  John Ferguson (played by James Stewart) makes a false step. He can only avoid to fall down by clinging to the rain pipe. When he looks down to the ground the Vertigo effect can be seen the first time in film history [0.55-0.58].

The first-person shot succeeds in demonstrating the main character’s fear of heights and his trauma in this scene – which is going to become important at the end of the movie. Since then the Vertigo effect has been used many times in various films. An extreme example is the use of the effect in Kassovitz’ La Haine.

Also fun to watch is the Vertigo effect in the “casino scene” of Tykwer’s German Movie Run Lola Run. With her scream the main protagonist Lola tries to make the ball stop on the right number to win money and to rescue her boyfriend Manni [3.24-3.28].

The Vertigo effect is normally used to show the importance of a scene for the main character. It demonstrates strong emotions like fear or surprise – or a moment of realization. The magically transformation of the background also reminds me of fairytales. In La Haine, the movement shows more a passive movement, that the protagonists are driven by the events (the scene reminds us of persons standing on deck of a ship). Finally, the effect irritates the viewer and makes him aware of the artificial character in a film and the possibility of manipulation.

Elke Heidenreich dismissed

Elke Heidenreich, one of the most famous German literature critics in television, recently lost her Job. Heidenreich critized her employer by writing two very harsh and emotional articles for the German newspaper FAZ.  The reason for the critique in her view was the increasingly declining “cultural” quality of one of Germany’s greatest TV-Channels, the ZDF.

The ZDF is a public TV channel. In contrast to commercial channels in the US it is publicly funded and close to the state. In a contract with the German State the ZDF obliges to cover the cultural diversity of Germany. For many years ARD and ZDF are critized for focussing on pure entertainment instead of featuring culture and art.

Cuts: Jump Cut

A jump cut is a cut in film editing where the middle section of a continuous shot is removed, and the beginning and end of the shot are then joined together. The technique breaks continuity in time and produces a startling effect. Any moving objects in the shot will appear to jump to a new position. (Wikipedia)

The first time I really recognized a jump cut was while watching Godard’s Breathless. The most important point is that jump cuts create a feeling of distance of the viewer from the film. For me the jump cut can be best compared to the so called Freudian displacement actitivity. The viewer becomes aware that something is missing which should not be absent. Mostly the jump cut is associated with the discontinuity – a technique in great contrast to the use of continuity in classical Hollywood movies (even if I doubt that).

Let us look at some examples so that you can get a feeling of what we we are talking about here. The next scene is taken out of Breathless, the sequence in which the jump cuts are used starts at [01:32].

In the camera is positioned behind the head of Jean Seberg, showing also her face but keeping the distance at the same time. We recognize the jump cut because some details in the scene rapidly change: the head of Seberg is in different positions in the picture while also the cars and the view of the street in the background change.