Julian Preece

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.… (más)