Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) (1979)
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78% of critics liked it
(18 reviews) -
84% of users liked it
(6,860 ratings)
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… More 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; should anyone try to take the toy away from him, he emits an ear-piercing scream that literally shatters glass. As Germany goes to hell during the 1930s and '40s, the never-aging Oskar continues savagely beating his drum, serving as the angry conscience of a world gone mad. The intense and visceral Tin Drum was one of the most financially successful German films of the 1970s and won the 1979 Oscar for Best Foreign Film and the 1979 Golden Palm (which it shared with Apocalypse Now). In the late '90s, the film became the center of a censorship controversy when some U.S. videotapes were confiscated because of the film's supposed violation of a child pornography statute. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Volker Schlöndorff
- Written By
- Jean-Claude Carriere
- Genres
- Art House & International, Drama
- In Theaters
- May 3, 1979 Wide
- Studio
- Kinowelt
Critic Reviews
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R. Emmet Sweeney, Time Out New York
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.
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Sarah Boslaugh, PopMatters
If ever [the characters in] a film embodied Hannah Arendt's principle of "the banality of evil", it's The Tin Drum...
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Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine
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.
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Eric Melin, Scene-Stealers.com
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.
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Ela Bittencourt, Slant Magazine
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.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Mario Adorf
as Alfred Matzerath
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Angela Winkler
as Agnes Matzerath
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David Bennent
as Oskar Matzerath
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Daniel Olbrychski
as Jan Bronski
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Katharina Thalbach
as Maria Matzerath
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Heinz Bennent
as Greff
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Fritz Hakl
as Bebra midget
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Mariella Oliveri
as Raswitha Raguna
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Tina Engel
as The Young Anna Kollaiczek
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Ernst Jacobi
as Gauleiter Lobsack
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Ilse Page
as Gretchen Schemer
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Otto Sander
as Meyn the Musician
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Andrea Ferreol
as Lina Graff
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Charles Aznavour
as Sigismund Markus
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Roland Beubner
as Joseph Kollaiczek
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Wojciech Pszoniak
as Faingold
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Werner Rehm
as Scheffler
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Henning Schlüter
as Dr. Hollatz
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Bruno Thost
as Private Lankes
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Marek Walczewski
as Schugger-Leo
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Emil Feist
as Clown #1
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Gerda Blisse
as Miss Spollenhauer
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Berta Drews
as The Old Anna Kollaiczek
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Helmut Brasch
as Old Heilandt
