11/9/2022 0 Comments Reeder music academy![]() ![]() David Bowie and Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Tilda Swinton, and hundreds of others all arrived in West Berlin at one point or another in search of something that couldn’t be found anywhere else. “Those inside are free.” Others disparagingly called it the “insane asylum of the FRG,” commenting on the influx, not just of West Germans trying to escape the draft, but of an increasingly international cast of characters looking to experience the unique energy of the walled city. Young men in Western Germany were required to serve, however those in West Berlin were not.Īll of this resulted in a West Berlin that, by the 70s, had grown into a “surrealist prison,” as Hungarian composer Gyorgi Ligeti famously described it. However, perhaps most crucial to the growth of a dissident subcultural community was the lack of conscription. The Berlin Film Academy was created in 1966 to help re-birth the industry which had made the city famous in the Weimar period (though this of course also led to legions of art school students armed with Super 8s documenting the city’s decay). With culture the only remaining battleground on which to fight Eastern powers, Berlin art and music institutions were heavily subsidized, leading it to have the highest theatrical budget of any city in the country. Residents had reduced income taxes, high “Berlin supplement” salaries, and other living subsidies. As a result, West Berliners received a number of “perks” (or bribes) for continuing to stay. In a Cold War where symbolism was a potent weapon, authorities realized the need to keep West Berlin alive. Western powers could not afford to lose Berlin because it waved a flag of Capitalist power in one of the hearts of the Eastern Bloc. Berlin’s only relevance then remained symbolic. ![]() Financial investment had also migrated to Frankfurt and other large cities in the west. It was also a place of relatively little political importance, as the capital had since been moved to the western city of Bonn. West Berlin was still in ruins thanks to Allied bombing during the war, and due to its isolation, it was not a viable place to attempt to build the industries which had otherwise powered West Germany’s “economic miracle” after the war. When it became clear the Western powers would do nothing to stop the construction of a more permanent barrier, many in West Berlin felt abandoned. ![]() Travel between East and West was simple, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of people living in East Germany used this porousness to flee to the West. Although Berlin had been split with the Soviets-the eastern side being incorporated into the GDR-in the immediate decade after the war the city remained somewhat whole. Although surrounded by East Germany, this sliver of city would remain a bastion of Western influence, or so the idea went. After the split of Germany, West Berlin existed with the unique status of a protectorate of the Allied Forces (that is, the United States, Britain, and France). To understand some of this history, it’s helpful to start with the Wall. We danced the hours away to his set, and it was clear that Berlin’s ability to inspire and foster radical art was far from over.īut while the story of Mark Reeder’s time in Berlin as told by B-Movie occasionally reduces the magic to “it was the 80s, you had to be there,” it’s also true that West Berlin was a petri dish of experimental art and lifestyle thanks to a very specific set of political, economic, and social circumstances. To make the experience even more surreal, once the film had ended Mark Reeder himself walked on stage-visibly aged, but still very much the passionate and idiosyncratic music producer featured in the film. However throughout the film I couldn’t help but steal glances at the audience, who seemed to me to have stepped right out of the film themselves. I took my seat on the concrete floor and for the next hour was entranced by the story of a Berlin now 30 years gone. ![]()
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