The Tin Drum
Criterion, $39.95Finding good things to say about Oklahoma is challenging enough this side of I-35. Oklahomans weren’t helping matters when, in 1996, God-fearing fundamentalists persuaded an Okie judge to declare obscene Volker Schlöndorff’s 1979 Academy Award-winning adaptation of Günter Grass’ German Lit 101 classic The Tin Drum. Preserving the safety of women and children, OKC police yanked copies from library shelves and seized videos from homes. Yeah, so Nazis used to break into people’s houses, too. Watch the ironic hilarity unfold in a documentary included among the many extras in Criterion’s release of Schlöndorff’s masterpiece of Nazi carnivalesque. Then check out the scene that had the Oklahomans for Children and Families’ panties wadded – implied oral sex between two 16-year-olds, including Oskar, a troubled and precocious boy who abhors the war lust of adulthood so much that he wills himself to stop growing at age three. A gnome once and for all, Oskar retreats from society, banging his drum and breaking glass with his voice to protest the ills he witnesses. The adult world turns madly around Oskar, making The Tin Drum a child’s funhouse interpretation of the grownup absurd. Everything, especially sex and violence, is dirty and distorted, providing for some impressive shot compositions. The film’s highlight, however, is David Bennent’s performance as Oskar, which is essential for the story’s execution. Bennent has such a frighteningly polished intensity, it is difficult to believe he was just 11 during filming. Among Criterion’s treats are an interview with a pensive Bennent, Maurice Jarre’s isolated score, Schlöndorff’s commentary, and photos of a chicken-scratch storyboarding of the oral sex scene that started the Oklahoma heat.
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This article appears in July 16 • 2004.