Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) (1979)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 18
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 2
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 6,860
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Movie Info
In Volker Schlöndorff's award-winning adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass' allegorical novel, David Bennent plays Oskar, the young son of a German rural family, circa 1925. On his third birthday, Oskar receives a shiny new tin drum. At this point, rather than mature into one of the miserable specimens of grown-up humanity that he sees around him, he vows never to get any older or any bigger. Whenever the world around him becomes too much to bear, the boy begins to hammer on his drum;
May 3, 1979 Wide
Oct 12, 1999
Kinowelt
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Cast
-
Mario Adorf
Alfred Matzerath -
Angela Winkler
Agnes Matzerath -
David Bennent
Oskar Matzerath -
Daniel Olbrychski
Jan Bronski -
Katharina Thalbach
Maria Matzerath -
Heinz Bennent
Greff -
Fritz Hakl
Bebra midget -
Mariella Oliveri
Raswitha Raguna -
Tina Engel
The Young Anna Kollaicz... -
Ernst Jacobi
Gauleiter Lobsack -
Ilse Page
Gretchen Schemer -
Otto Sander
Meyn the Musician -
Andrea Ferreol
Lina Graff -
Charles Aznavour
Sigismund Markus -
Roland Beubner
Joseph Kollaiczek -
Wojciech Pszoniak
Faingold -
Werner Rehm
Scheffler -
Henning Schlüter
Dr. Hollatz -
Bruno Thost
Private Lankes -
Marek Walczewski
Schugger-Leo -
Emil Feist
Clown #1 -
Gerda Blisse
Miss Spollenhauer -
Berta Drews
The Old Anna Kollaiczek -
Helmut Brasch
Old Heilandt
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All Critics (21) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (4) | DVD (13)
Schlöndorff has a tendency to sketch the rest of the cast as simple grotesques or symbols of decadence that are unconvincingly humanized in the final third.
Top CriticIf ever [the characters in] a film embodied Hannah Arendt's principle of "the banality of evil", it's The Tin Drum...
Criterion's release of Volker Schlöndorff's director's cut is occasion enough to bang The Tin Drum loudly. It doesn't hurt that they've provided an impressive new transfer and some choice new extras to round out the package.
There are many themes running through The Tin Drum: resistance against an unkind world, the need for acceptance, the horrors of romance and war, and the final idea that growth is inevitable and unfortunately, necessary.
In Volker Schlöndorff's restored version of his 1979 classic, Oskar Matzerath emerges as a tragic anti-hero, whose lustful imagination and prodigious magical gifts can't shield him from the juggernaut of war.
The literal adaptation doesn't transfer that well to film.
This movie rests on the small shoulders of David Bennent as 'three-year-old' Oskar Matzerath, and the undersized twelve-year-old comes up wonderful.
Context is everything. Although often mistaken as a black comedy, Volker Schlöndorff's bold adaptation of Günter Grass's abstractly autobiographical 1959 novel is an exemplary model of European magic realist cinema.
Fascinating allegory with war, death themes and little boy who won't grow up.
Technically and stylistically, The Tin Drum is an astounding work. Thematically, it strives for an importance it only sometimes achieves
the film is more memorable for its quirky commingling of the epic and the intimate and its often startling visuals than for any of its big themes
the film is more memorable for its quirky commingling of the epic and the intimate and its often startling visuals than for any of its big themes
Audience Reviews for Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)
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Foreign Titles
- Die Blechtrommel (DE)
- Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) (UK)
