The Tin Drum (1979)

Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up ... See full summary »

Director:

Volker Schlöndorff

Writers:

Jean-Claude Carrière, Günter Grass (additional dialogue)

Stars:

David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler

Won 1 Oscar. Another 15 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mario Adorf	...	Alfred Matzerath
Angela Winkler	...	Agnes Matzerath
David Bennent	...	Oskar Matzerath
Katharina Thalbach	...	Maria Matzerath
Daniel Olbrychski	...	Jan Bronski
Tina Engel	...	Anna Koljaiczek (jung)
Berta Drews	...	Anna Koljaiczek
Roland Teubner	...	Joseph Koljaiczek
Tadeusz Kunikowski	...	Onkel Vinzenz
Andréa Ferréol	...	Lina Greff (as Andréa Ferreol)
Heinz Bennent	...	Greff
Ilse Pagé	...	Gretchen Scheffler
Werner Rehm	...	Scheffler
Käte Jaenicke	...	Mutter Truczinski
Helmut Brasch	...	Der Alte Heilandt (as Helmuth Brasch)

Storyline

Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

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Plot Keywords:

nazi | boy | nazi uniform | subjective camera | surrogate uncle | 

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Taglines:

Academy Award Winner Best Foreign Language Film 1979

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

West Germany France Poland Yugoslavia

Language:

German Italian Hebrew Polish Russian Latin

Release Date:

11 April 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Tin Drum

Filming Locations:

Wedding, Berlin, Germany

Box Office

Gross:

SEK 3,963,773 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Franz Seitz Filmproduktion, Bioskop Film, Artemis Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

142 min 162 min (director's cut) 132 min (1980 cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono (35 mm prints) 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Color:

Black and White Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

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Goofs

When Agnes eats eels, a brown bottle is not visible in one cut, even though other nearby objects on the table can be seen. In the same series of cuts, the position of her empty glass and Alfred's beer glass also change.

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Quotes

Vendor: Look, if you please, at this extraordinary potato... this swelling, luxuriant flesh, forever conceiving new shapes... and yet so chaste. I love a potato, because it speaks to me.

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Connections

Referenced in Familientreffen mit Hindernissen (2011)

User Reviews

Absorbing and Thought Provoking

"That day, thinking about the grown-up world and my own future, I decided to call a halt. To stop growing then and there and remain a three-year-old, a gnome, once and for all" - Oskar Metzertath

The Tin Drum is based on Gunter Grass's highly acclaimed novel which used magic realism to capture the madness of war, and the folly of the people who made it possible. This movie only tackles the first two sections of the novel, leaving out the post-war events. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign film in 1980, and the Palm d'Or at Cannes. It was also banned in Oklahoma as "child pornography". Despite moments of brilliance, The Tin Drum left me feeling incomplete and curiously unmoved.

It is a very different kind of film from the others I saw this week, using satire and surrealism to explore people's reactions during the period from 1939 to 1945. It seems to be saying that it is all right to stop growing (that is, participating in the world) as a protest against the cynicism and corruption of the adult world. The setting for the majority of the film, Danzig (now Gdansk) is a major northern port town in Poland. Danzig was a free and independent city until September 1, 1939, when it became the first region taken by Germany at the outset of WWII. After the war, Danzig became a part of Poland again.

The Tin Drum is the story of Oskar Matzerath, a boy who grows up in Eastern Germany before and during World War II. Oskar decides the only way to protest being part of the adult world is by banging on his drum and remaining a child forever. This is his rebuttal of society and his tin drum is his protest against the mentality of his family and neighborhood, or perhaps against all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. Oskar tries to shock the world out of its inhumanity. His life reflects Germany's struggle to free itself from its own dream of Teutonic superiority and find peace in the national soul.

David Bennent as Oskar gives an outstanding performance, creating a character that is both haunting and frightening. He looks like a little man in a child's body but his eyes are deep and have a very knowing look that seemed to be looking right through me.

Oskar is not a cute little updated version of Peter Pan. Since age three (when he was given his first tin drum), Oskar can scream with such a high pitch that he can shatter any piece of glass. He even controls his scream to the point where he can break windows on the other side of the city, or etch writing into glass. Oskar uses his ability to manipulate and control the adult world, often using vicious and cynical snide comments about the insanity around him. At one point, he disrupts a Nazi rally by changing the beat of his tin drum to the Blue Danube which the band then follows. The ensuing scene where the crowd breaks into a dance and the rain comes down leaving the Nazi soldiers bewildered is one of the best in the film.

I found the scenes where Oskar joins a midget troupe and finds loving companions of his own kind to be very tender and moving. However, the film became morally ambiguous for me when Oskar and his troupe decide to entertain the Nazi soldiers at the front lines. Schlondorff never really makes it clear what his motivations are and Oskar's actions seems to contradict his essentially anarchist protest for most of the film. The Tin Drum also contains some objectionable scenes of childhood sexuality and grotesque depictions of slithering eels being caught using a severed horse head as bait. The result, needless to say, is stomach churning.

I found The Tin Drum to be absorbing and thought provoking yet, despite moments of brilliance, for me it did not add up to a totally satisfying experience.