Berlin Calling

1. Personal Reaction

The movie is full of emotions and awesome electronic music. The club scene is associated with drugs, but it is not a movie about drugs either. Yes the main character is a drug addict DJ who has mental issues. The movie explores the life of an artist, their choices, their complete loneliness, creativity and above all his relations to other people. I thought this movie was great for a low budget film and the soundtrack is pretty good as well.
2. What do drugs mean to Ickarus?

They mean a release from the outside world and also his past and music. It seems to put him in a calm state so he can make and perform his music.

3. Why, when, and how are his fans taking drugs, and which drugs do they take?

The drugs seem to make the audience become more easily transformed and get into the music. They take the drugs before, during, and after the show.  They buy them from dealers at the show and continually take them at the show. They take all sorts of drugs, but the common ones throught the movie were crystal, keta. MDHD, and ecstasy.

4. While we can see that his drug habits get him ill and into a psychosis, and while we witness his relapse and inability to work successfully, why does the subculture Ickarus is in focus on drugs?

In that atmosphere the drugs are the culture. The atmosphere is surrounded by drugs in which so is Ickarus. Because the drugs surround those people and everybody takes them, others seem to have the need to take them also. Maybe the drugs are the culture of that type of music as how the music is played and how the drugs make those people feel during the shows.

5. Compare the standards you know from your home society with the people you see depicted in this movie. Which are the stark differences and contrasts?

The clubs we have here in America are what I think are far different. I don't think the drug seem is as prominent as what they are in Germany. I could see how and maybe and underground club or something of that nature would be more closely related. However, there maybe drugs going around in the area of downtown St. Cloud on a Thursday night but it is not publicized the same way. It's not out in the open.

6. Germany is considered a strong industrial nation the world over. Do you think that the youth culture as depicted here could change that? How about work ethics of Ickarus and of Alice, the label director who fires and then re-signs him?

Yes I do think this culture could change that. Its like the trickle down effect.  If this culture is used to party all the time there will be no time for work or responsibilities. In the direction the economy has gone with lack of people in the work force today that is very well possible. All are just trying to make fast money, make a name for themself and party. Nobody is willing to put in any effort to their life, its just one big party to all of them.

7. Which similar "cult movies" of US origin have you seen, if any?

I would have to say maybe Pulp Fiction, Out Cold, or Half Baked.

The German Literature Expansion on the 18/19th Century

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 he had won the Noble Prize. He was known for his series of symbolic and ironic novels. His work was noted for its insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family, and portrayed his own family in his book Buddenbrooks.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann moved to Switzerland. A few years later when World War II broke out in 1939, he fled to the United States,Thirteen years later he returned to Switzerland in 1952. He would never again live in Germany.

In 1930 Mann gave a public address in Berlin titled "An Appeal to Reason", in which he strongly denounced National Socialism and encouraged resistance by the working class. This was followed up by countless essays and lectures atttacking the Nazis. Due to his unliking of the Nazis policies his son advised him not to return and in 1939 the Nazi government took away his German citizenship. During the war, Mann made a series of anti-Nazi radio-speeches, Deutsche Hörer! They were taped in the USA and then sent to Great Britain, where the BBC transmitted them, hoping to reach German listeners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann

20th Century Sports- 1936 Olympics

I will be expanding on the topic of the 20th Century Sports particularly on the 1936 Olympics which was held in Berlin, Germany. I chose this because I enjoy watching the Olympics and I was interested in how Hitler tried to hide all the propaganda and ensure how Germans and foreigners envisioned the German race.

In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. Two years later, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and quickly turned the nation's democracy into a dictatorship.

In April 1933, an "Aryans only" policy was instituted in all German athletic organizations. Jewish or part-Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) athletes were systematically excluded from German sports facilities and associations.

In August 1936, the Nazi regime tried to hide its violent racist policies while it hosted the Summer Olympics. Most anti Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down their harsh slander. Thus, the regime exploited the Olympic Games to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Forty nine athletic teams from around the world competed in the Berlin Olympics, more than in any previous Olympics. Germany had the largest team with 348 athletes.

Germany skillfully promoted the Olympics with colorful posters and magazine spreads. Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, symbolizing the Nazi racial myth that a superior German civilization was the rightful heir of an "Aryan" culture of classical antiquity. This vision of classical antiquity emphasized ideal "Aryan" racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features.

After the games, Hitler pressed on with his plans for a German expansion. Persecution of Jews resumed. Two days after the Olympics, Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner, head of the Olympic village, killed himself when he was dismissed from military service because of his Jewish ancestry.

Sources: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005680