Uncompromising in its honesty, chilling in its vision and bold in its historical and contemporary discussions on ethics, moral boundaries and the human condition, Young Törless set the scene for the German New Wave in cinema, opening the door to filmmakers who would challenge, innovate and eventually topple walls in exploring Germany’s past, present and future role in Europe.
As Germany emerged from the rubble of World War II as a divided nation, the impact and legacy of the Third Reich were pervasive across private, public, political, and artistic life in both the East and the West. German New Wave Cinema emerged as a reaction to these uncomfortable and challenging debates, reigniting the fire under a German film industry that Hitler’s regime had decimated.
The once formidable German filmmaking machine had been twisted and reformed in the years leading up to and during World War II into a Nazi propaganda tool. By the time the 1950s arrived in this divided nation, the film industry had, understandably, become a haven for escapist melodrama, known as “Heimatfilme” (homeland), with movies that sought to offer comfort rather than engage in political or social debate. However, younger filmmakers were frustrated by mainstream cinema’s inability to engage directly with Germany’s past and present, and by 1962 a group of filmmakers Alexander Kluge, Peter Schamoni, Haro Senft, Franz-Josef Spieker and Edgar Reitz, had signed the “The Oberhausen Manifesto” calling for cinema to once again place creativity and risk front and centre in exploring the trauma of Nazism and its legacy in a divided country.
Emerging filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Rosa von Praunheim, Werner Herzog, and Volker Schlöndorff answered the call, and the reinvention of German cinema began, but where did it begin? Many point to “Yesterday Girl” (1966), directed by Alexander Kluge, while others look to the early 1970s and the work of Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders as the start of the German New Wave. However, like The Bridge (1959), few discuss Young Törless, a 1966 film that won the International Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for first-time director Volker Schlöndorff, who, at just twenty-five, had secured the rights to adapt Robert Musil’s acclaimed novel, over cinematic giants such as Visconti.
Austrian-born philosopher Musil published “The Confusions of Young Törless” in 1906, drawing on his experiences at a military boarding school in Burgenland. With Törless, Musil had bravely and boldly explored the darkness of the human condition, the irrational behaviours inherent in humanity, the confusion of sex and sexuality in youth and the power of collective behaviour. While the themes in Musil’s book may have come from pre-First World War Europe, they spoke directly to post-World War II Germany, reflecting upon a question we continue to ask today: “What leads people to enact heinous acts of violence and abuse on others? Is it nature, nurture or neither?”
In translating Musil’s novel – a task not easily accomplished for a book that is, in essence, a stream-of-consciousness narrative – Schlöndorff and his co-writer, Herbert Asmodi, would delicately transform Musil’s novel for the screen. Young Törless would adopt a far more linear narrative that would further highlight the discussions held in Musil’s work on ethics, individuality, ideology, and collective behaviour, while weaving in challenging historical debates on the universal human behaviours that shaped Germany’s past.
At a prestigious boys’ boarding school in a small Austrian town, Thomas Törless, played by Mathieu Carrière, is attempting to settle into a new life away from home —a life of ritual, rules, clandestine agreements, and silent, unquestioning learning in sterile classrooms. Törless is sensitive, and a philosopher by nature and his temperament neither fits, accepts, nor rejects the tradition and unspoken social rules of the school he now inhabits.
His mentor Beineberg (Bernd Tischer) is far more free-wheeling in his attitudes, openly visiting a local sex worker, Bozena (Barbara Steele), with Törless, uncomfortably in tow, while playing the system and the school masters in a practised game of cat and mouse. Despite Beineberg’s flaws, Törless recognises his need for Beineberg’s protection and finds him fascinating, somewhat alluring, and even exciting. But even more intriguing to Törless are Beineberg’s psychological views on control, subjugation and power.
When a fellow pupil, Basini (Marian Seidowsky), is caught stealing from Beineberg, Törless is intrigued by the moral complexities of his standpoint on the matter. On the one hand, he wants to turn the boy over to the school’s headmaster. On the other hand, he is intrigued by Beineberg and his friend Reiting, played by Fred Dietz, and their proposal to exploit the situation to experiment with how far they can control, humiliate, and abuse Basini.
As Beineberg and Reiting’s sadistic game of abuse and manipulation becomes more and more extreme, Törless finds himself questioning the very foundations of his moral and ethical views. Why does Basini accept this torment? How can Beineberg and Reiting justify their actions? And most importantly, why is he standing on the sidelines watching this horror unfold? As the boys make the defenceless Bassini eat dirt, whipping him, tormenting him and sexually abusing him (this is hinted at throughout but never shown), Törless never participates, merely watching, trying to understand why, how and what this means psychologically for him, Basini and his friends.
When the torment of Basini is finally discovered following a group beating involving all the boys in Törless’s dorm, our young philosopher knows Beineberg and Reiting will play the situation to their advantage, for they know the games the boys and masters play in a boarding school built on oppression and control.
However, it’s a game Törless is not willing to continue as he stands in front of the school masters and says, “Basini was a student like any other—a perfectly normal person. Suddenly, he stumbled. I’d thought of these things before – humiliation and degradation- but I’d never experienced them. But it happened to Basini. I had to admit that it was possible that man wasn’t created good or bad. We all keep changing ceaselessly. We exist only by virtue of our actions. But if we allow ourselves to change to where we become torturers or sacrificial animals, then anything is possible.” Törlesscontinues,” Then perfectly normal people can do terrible things”
It’s a statement the schoolmasters simply cannot — and will not — accept, as it challenges the very foundations of their thinking. As Törless steps out of the room, they conclude, “This young man is under such emotional strain that this school is no longer the place for him.” It’s the same conclusion they had reached with Basini, the victim of Beineberg and Reiting’s torment, abuse and control.
In Schlöndorff’s Young Törless, a restrictive, secluded boarding school in Neudorf serves as a microcosm of society, presenting a challenging and urgent discussion of a range of complex human behaviours—from control to conformity, complicity, and barbarity—that we continue to question today. For this reason, Young Törless should be a classic familiar to most readers. Yet its availability remains limited, with only Criterion Collection DVDs and a few Blu-ray copies. Maybe that’s because its themes remain uncomfortable and challenging in a world where the very human behaviours that led to untold destruction and death remain ever-present. Yet this is also a growing reason for Young Törless to receive the worldwide digital release it deserves.
Uncompromising in its honesty, chilling in its vision and bold in its historical and contemporary discussions on ethics, moral boundaries and the human condition, Young Törless set the scene for the German New Wave in cinema, opening the door to filmmakers who would challenge, innovate and eventually topple walls in exploring Germany’s past, present and future role in Europe.
Follow Us