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The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
“Brisk [and] forceful.” Sight & Sound
"Lucidly argued.” Total Film
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) was a pivotal film for the New German Cinema movement. Julian Preece considers what makes Katharina Blum new and radical, in particular in respect of women's cinema and its portrayal of the ordeal of its female lead in a world run by men. Drawing on archival material including drafts of the screenplay, brochures and props, reviews and interviews, Preece traces the conception of the film and its development from Heinrich Böll's original novel.
Preece analyses how the film continues to resonate with our contemporary moment and has influenced film-makers from the German-Turkish director Fatih Akin to the British screenwriter Peter Morgan.
"Lucidly argued.” Total Film
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) was a pivotal film for the New German Cinema movement. Julian Preece considers what makes Katharina Blum new and radical, in particular in respect of women's cinema and its portrayal of the ordeal of its female lead in a world run by men. Drawing on archival material including drafts of the screenplay, brochures and props, reviews and interviews, Preece traces the conception of the film and its development from Heinrich Böll's original novel.
Preece analyses how the film continues to resonate with our contemporary moment and has influenced film-makers from the German-Turkish director Fatih Akin to the British screenwriter Peter Morgan.
- GenresFilm
104 pages, Paperback
Published April 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 1, 2022
Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum is a book that played a role during my teen years and it helped me to develop a critical outlook towards some type of popular and lurid papers.
I read in German and, even if I think some parts are a bit dated, it's the portrait of an era and how everyone can be involved in a nightmare that will destroy you.
This book is very interesting because it talks about the movie and how it was affected and affected other movie and the book.
I think it's an interesting read if you want to read about life id West Germany during the 70s or how hate-mongers could make this story happen again.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
I read in German and, even if I think some parts are a bit dated, it's the portrait of an era and how everyone can be involved in a nightmare that will destroy you.
This book is very interesting because it talks about the movie and how it was affected and affected other movie and the book.
I think it's an interesting read if you want to read about life id West Germany during the 70s or how hate-mongers could make this story happen again.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
April 4, 2022
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Julian Preece does what the best volumes in the BFI Film Classics series do, namely remind the reader why they liked the film while also bringing new insight and perspective to future viewings.
In my case, I had only seen the film twice, both times in a film class, and while we discussed the reception at the time of release we focused primarily on the film as visual text. Preece brought these wonderful memories back while also giving me so much new, to me, information. From a more in-depth look at the time and context of the novel and the film to the many ways it influenced future works.
Fortunately, the Criterion Channel has their edition, with extras, currently streaming so I was able to watch the film again (okay, twice more) as well as extras including an interview with Schlöndorff and von Trotta, a documentary about Vacano and excerpts from one about Böll.
One of the strengths of this series, and this volume, is bringing classic film into the present. By this, I mean both as a classic film and as a text that can still speak to us in today's society as it did when released. Revisiting a film armed with a work like this not only increases the appreciation of the film itself but helps us to gain new ways to view and understand other films.
I would highly recommend this to those who have seen the movie and for those who may have heard of it but not yet watched it. Combined with viewing the film this becomes a wonderfully multimedia experience.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
In my case, I had only seen the film twice, both times in a film class, and while we discussed the reception at the time of release we focused primarily on the film as visual text. Preece brought these wonderful memories back while also giving me so much new, to me, information. From a more in-depth look at the time and context of the novel and the film to the many ways it influenced future works.
Fortunately, the Criterion Channel has their edition, with extras, currently streaming so I was able to watch the film again (okay, twice more) as well as extras including an interview with Schlöndorff and von Trotta, a documentary about Vacano and excerpts from one about Böll.
One of the strengths of this series, and this volume, is bringing classic film into the present. By this, I mean both as a classic film and as a text that can still speak to us in today's society as it did when released. Revisiting a film armed with a work like this not only increases the appreciation of the film itself but helps us to gain new ways to view and understand other films.
I would highly recommend this to those who have seen the movie and for those who may have heard of it but not yet watched it. Combined with viewing the film this becomes a wonderfully multimedia experience.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
June 1, 2022
Julian Preece, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Bloomsbury Academic, BFI Publishing, 2022.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof in exchange for an honest review.
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schondorff’s film, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, recalls the anguish and despair experienced by my friend when she saw it early in its run after its 1975 release. She returned home shattered and pulsating with the determination to act on behalf of women.
Julian Preece has set out the practicalities of making the film. He describes the background, including drafts of the screenplay; reference to the book by Heinrich Boll on which it was based; copious detail of direction, actors, lighting, script, landscape, and interior settings; and uses interviews and reviews to complete the story. In the same way that the film was devised to appeal to a mainstream audience, this book captures the essence of imparting information to appeal to different audiences. At the same time as this is an ideal reference for the student of film it provides insight for the reader as audience. The anguish the film depicts is unmuted through the exposure of expertise and practicalities behind bringing the film to fruition; the thoughtful description of the film and its workings peels away some of the magic of the technique, but never the feeling.
This is a book that is a solid and demanding read. It benefits from the way in which the book is organised so that a reader can return to clearly defined subject areas. The chapter headings suit that purpose admirably as they are appropriately informative: A Pivotal Film for New German Cinema; Political context in Post -68 West Germany; Henrich Boll’s novel, or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead; Words or Guns? Katharina Blum’s Struggle for Articulacy; and Influence and Afterlives. There are detailed notes and credits, as well as an extensive bibliography.
The first chapter clearly sets out the story line, the political context of the film and the period in which it was first shown, and the context of cinema, films and audiences. The role of music and settings in the film which will be established in detail in succeeding chapters is anticipated with apt references to scenes which establish some of the techniques used throughout the film.
Detail of the days over which the story takes place are divulged in clear informative commentary. This information is accompanied by photos which graphically add to the commentary. The first suggests the use of lighting and placement of figures and faces in the film, detailed in later chapters. Here, Katharina observes a couple. Her face is nakedly clear, and she faces the camera; the couple she observes are barely lit and have eyes only for each other as they are observed by Blum and the camera which catches them from the side. The next shot hides Blum’s face as she is confronted with a derogatory phrase, the paper in which the reporter who is instrumental in her suffering writes providing the background in the photo, and of course, to the note Blum has received.
While the succeeding chapters become more detailed and technical, the first makes an excellent introduction. Its deceptive simplicity carries the reader forward into wanting to know more, however complex the technical detail and political argument.
Preece is an enlightened writer, with a feeling not only for the film and his enthusiasm in bringing its value to a wide audience, but for the woman at the heart of the film. His perceptive commentary on why she behaves as she does, and the way in which she is perceived and treated is one of the enduring feelings I take away from the book. Preece has been able to provide a circle back to my first exposure to reaction to the film, that of a feminist and passionate supporter of women and their demands. This is a commendation of the book in itself.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof in exchange for an honest review.
Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schondorff’s film, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, recalls the anguish and despair experienced by my friend when she saw it early in its run after its 1975 release. She returned home shattered and pulsating with the determination to act on behalf of women.
Julian Preece has set out the practicalities of making the film. He describes the background, including drafts of the screenplay; reference to the book by Heinrich Boll on which it was based; copious detail of direction, actors, lighting, script, landscape, and interior settings; and uses interviews and reviews to complete the story. In the same way that the film was devised to appeal to a mainstream audience, this book captures the essence of imparting information to appeal to different audiences. At the same time as this is an ideal reference for the student of film it provides insight for the reader as audience. The anguish the film depicts is unmuted through the exposure of expertise and practicalities behind bringing the film to fruition; the thoughtful description of the film and its workings peels away some of the magic of the technique, but never the feeling.
This is a book that is a solid and demanding read. It benefits from the way in which the book is organised so that a reader can return to clearly defined subject areas. The chapter headings suit that purpose admirably as they are appropriately informative: A Pivotal Film for New German Cinema; Political context in Post -68 West Germany; Henrich Boll’s novel, or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead; Words or Guns? Katharina Blum’s Struggle for Articulacy; and Influence and Afterlives. There are detailed notes and credits, as well as an extensive bibliography.
The first chapter clearly sets out the story line, the political context of the film and the period in which it was first shown, and the context of cinema, films and audiences. The role of music and settings in the film which will be established in detail in succeeding chapters is anticipated with apt references to scenes which establish some of the techniques used throughout the film.
Detail of the days over which the story takes place are divulged in clear informative commentary. This information is accompanied by photos which graphically add to the commentary. The first suggests the use of lighting and placement of figures and faces in the film, detailed in later chapters. Here, Katharina observes a couple. Her face is nakedly clear, and she faces the camera; the couple she observes are barely lit and have eyes only for each other as they are observed by Blum and the camera which catches them from the side. The next shot hides Blum’s face as she is confronted with a derogatory phrase, the paper in which the reporter who is instrumental in her suffering writes providing the background in the photo, and of course, to the note Blum has received.
While the succeeding chapters become more detailed and technical, the first makes an excellent introduction. Its deceptive simplicity carries the reader forward into wanting to know more, however complex the technical detail and political argument.
Preece is an enlightened writer, with a feeling not only for the film and his enthusiasm in bringing its value to a wide audience, but for the woman at the heart of the film. His perceptive commentary on why she behaves as she does, and the way in which she is perceived and treated is one of the enduring feelings I take away from the book. Preece has been able to provide a circle back to my first exposure to reaction to the film, that of a feminist and passionate supporter of women and their demands. This is a commendation of the book in itself.
April 25, 2026
I dearly love Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s 1975 film based on the novel The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll, and this brief guide from the “BFI Film Classics” series does a great job of explaining the complex social and political situation in which the film was made. The left-wing militant group Red Army Faction (RAF) was active in West Germany in 1975, and both the novel and the film explore the impacts of hysteria surrounding the hunt for RAF members on unaffiliated individuals who (unjustifiably) managed to attract police and press attention.
Author Julian Preece does a comprehensive job of articulating the film’s feminist basis, while also investigating how the passage of time has altered the meaning of some of the movie’s key themes. Most interestingly, he documents the many radio, stage and TV adaptations inspired by the film, including an improbable American made-for-TV movie in 1984. Each of these reinterpretations added their own spin on the source material, and Preece manages to thoughtfully discuss each one in brief but lucid prose.
Author Julian Preece does a comprehensive job of articulating the film’s feminist basis, while also investigating how the passage of time has altered the meaning of some of the movie’s key themes. Most interestingly, he documents the many radio, stage and TV adaptations inspired by the film, including an improbable American made-for-TV movie in 1984. Each of these reinterpretations added their own spin on the source material, and Preece manages to thoughtfully discuss each one in brief but lucid prose.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews