MANFRED KIRCHHEIMER Ser un Mensch / Being a Mensch
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a desde o principio, Manfred Kirchheimer foi recoñecido como destacado cineasta. E, no entanto, ao longo dunha carreira profesional que agora facilmente abrangue seis décadas, nunca tivo valedor, nin se cultivou o estudo da súa obra, nin o seu nome acadou altos cumios, nin foi un autor cuxo último traballo se esperase sempre con ansia. Os motivos son varios e teñen que ver coa escasa frecuencia da súa produción, así como coa duración dalgunhas das súas obras, que dificultou a súa distribución ou programación dentro das estruturas convencionais. Con todo, a razón máis importante probablemente radique en que o cinema de Kirchheimer nunca estivo de moda no tocante ao estilo. Cando en 1963 fixo o seu debut con Colossus on the River, causaba furor o cinema directo; unha estética e unha política de imaxes e sons que a el non lle daban esperanza ningunha. Para expresalo con termos lixeiramente polémicos: o cinema directo trata
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por / by Olaf Möller
ight from the start, Manfred Kirchheimer was recognized as a major filmmaker – and yet, over the course of a career now easily six decades long, he got never championed, cultivated, turned into a name, an auteur whose latest work was always eagerly awaited. The reasons for this are several and have to do with the infrequency of his output as well as some works’ length, which made them difficult to distribute or program inside conventional structures. Yet the probably most important one is that Kirchheimer’s cinema was never fashionable in terms of style. When he debuted with Colossus on the River in 1963, direct cinema was all the rage – an aesthetic as well as politic of images and sounds that never held any promise for him. If one wants to put it in slightly polemical terms: direct cinema is all about society as spectacle, a liberal-minded play whose outcome might change from time to time but not the rules – while for Kirchheimer, human endeavour, mankind itself
