ABSTRACT
As far as the European cinema goes, the 1970s belonged to Germany, or more exactly, to the “New German Cinema.” Breaking through the commercial and critical twilight of the post-war period, a handful of internationally well-exposed star directors - mainly Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders and Syberberg -briefly illuminated a notoriously bleak filmmaking landscape. Looking back, however, one realizes that this blaze of light left much territory underexposed, not least by obscuring the ground on which some of these talents grew. For besides the New German Cinema of auteurs and festivals, to which we owe The Marriage OF Maria Braun, Aguirre, Hitler - A Film FROM Germany or Kings OF THE Road, there existed another New German Cinema that functioned almost exclusively within West Germany itself, and which, in its own terms, was as successful as its better-known half.
