How does the film adaptation of Volker Schlöndorff's "Die Blechtrommel" work? (PDF)

Essay from the year 2001 in the subject German Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: A, University of London (Faculty of German Literature), course: German Narrative Fiction: Text and Film, language: English, abstract: 'The key to understanding The Tin Drum lies in understanding the mind of its
remarkable first-person narrator, Oskar Matzerath, that brilliantly conceived fictional
eyewitness and personification of the Third Reich, its prehistory, and its aftermath.'1
This quote stresses the importance of the narrator in Günter Grass' novel. In this essay, I
should like to compare the narrative structure in the novel with the film adaptation. As my aim
is to find out how the film version works, I would like to put forward the proposition that not
only the understanding of the narrator's mind is crucial for the understanding of the novel, but
also the understanding of the narrative structure itself within Die Blechtrommel. Therefore, I
will have a closer look at the novel first and then proceeding to the film, in order to examine
the changes Volker Schlöndorff made and what effect they may have on the understanding of
the film.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a famous German poet and critic, described Günter Grass' novel
as a
'Brocken, an dem Rezensenten und Philologen mindestens ein Jahrzehnt lang zu würgen
haben, bis es [sic] reif zur Kanonisierung oder zur Aufbewahrung im Schauhaus der
Literaturgeschichte ist.'2
This prophecy of 1959 came true and it was not until twenty years later that Volker
Schlöndorff tried the first film adaptation of this complex work of literature. Nevertheless, the
novel was a tremendous success, not only in post-war Germany. In the following paragraph, I
will start with an explanation of the elements, which make the novel's narrative structure so
complicated and multilayered.

1 Keele, Alan Frank. Understanding Günter Grass, page 11
2 Richter, Frank. Die zerschlagene Wirklichkeit. Überlegungen zur Form der Danzig-Triologie von Günter
Grass, page 7