Alexander Kluge

Kluge is the "godfather" of New German Cinema. As one of the originators (some say the driving force) of the 1962 Oberhausen Manifesto, Kluge urged young filmmakers to rebel against the moribund German film establishment. Originally trained as a lawyer, he has written widely about aesthetic theory, film and economics, and as head of the Institut fur Filmgestaltung in Ulm, he shaped the talents and consciousness of Wim Wenders and Edgar Reitz, among others. His own films, marked by an acerbic wit, satirize political incongruities through avant-garde editing and narrative techniques.