'Heimat' director Edgar Reitz turns 90

In 1984, the Venice Film Festival invited German filmmaker Edgar Reitz to present his recently completed "Heimat" series as a world premiere at the Italian film festival. That in itself was unusual, especially since "Heimat" was originally produced as an 11-part TV series, not a film. But the festival's organizers realized it was also suitable for the big screen and turned it into a triumph for the director, and for West German cinema.

In fact, German cinema was in its finest hour. There was New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who had died only two years earlier; Volker Schlöndorff, who won the Oscar for "The Tin Drum" in 1980 and Werner Herzog and his 1982 South American epic "Fitzcarraldo," which was successful worldwide. Just a few months prior, the Palme d'Or in Cannes went to Wim Wenders for "Paris, Texas." At the 1984 Venice Film Festival, Edgar Reitz had his chance to step into the spotlight.

Film-lovers, of course, already knew Reitz. He was one of the signatories of the famous "Oberhausen Manifesto" that initiated a revolution in German cinema in 1962. But Reitz was overshadowed by his more-successful colleagues in the 1960s and 70s. Many of his films were considered too unwieldy and flopped at the box office, including the ambitious and expensive 1978 movie "The Tailor from Ulm." Its box office failure plunged the director into a deep crisis.

Reitz reinvented himself

Few could have predicted that Edgar Reitz would turn out to be the silent star of German cinema. But with "Heimat," the director reinvented himself. It became far more than a major television and cinema event: The successful TV series triggered a broad social debate in which numerous intellectuals participated. Ultimately, it led to a redefinition of the concept of home, aka "Heimat" in Germany.

In the first season, Reitz tells the story of a family in the small, fictional Hunsrück village of Schabbach. The story spans from 1919 until 1982. The viewer doesn't don't see Hitler or Goebbels marching on Nuremberg and Berlin, instead, they see the villagers' reactions to these faraway events. In the second season from 1992 titled "Die zweite Heimat - Chronik einer Jugend" ("Heimat 2 - Chronicle of a Youth"), Reitz focuses on Germany in the '60s and '70s. Again, the viewer does not see what the Baader-Meinhof left-wing terrorists were up to in Frankfurt and Berlin, but rather how a few Munich students react to these events.

For Reitz, history is not merely the depiction of historically significant events, but the portrayal of what life looked like for ordinary people at the time.

Subplots are key

His films were not about political figures like Hitler or Goebbels, but about the fates of mothers and daughters in the Hunsrück region in western Germany — or students in Munich. "A character can never can claim all the space for himself, because that would turn him back into a dramatic instrument that takes away the air from the others," Reitz said, describing his concept of splitting up the plot into many subplots.

Reitz said he was interested in tracing biographies and with people's histories. He added that "'Heimat" was always about the "joy of reunion and the sadness of parting." The director had an overwhelming, compelling way of making history accessible — in particular to open-minded, younger audiences. But for older generations, who in 1984 were concerned with authentic remembrance of the past, the "Heimat" television series was a revelation, too.

Heimat is about 'memories and childhood'

"Heimat is something lost, it is about memories and childhood, a person's early experiences," Reitz said, adding that as adults, people search and yearn for Heimat (home) again and again. Edgar Reitz wrote cinema and film history, but he also added to Germany's history and is one of the country's defining cultural figures post-World War II. 

In September 2022, Edgar Reitz's autobiography "Filmzeit, Lebenszeit" ("Film Time, Lifetime") was published. It's a personal journey through time in just under 700 pages. He wrote the book during the coronavirus lockdowns.

"In the end, I have the feeling it's similar to making a great film," he said in an interview with German SWR broadcaster on the occasion of the book's release.

This article was originally written in German in 2017, and updated to honor the director's 90th birthday.