NO. CIV-97-1097-T
MICHAEL D. CAMFIELD, on his own behalf and as representative of a class of individuals similarly situated who wish to view, possess, and distribute the movie The Tin Drum,

Plaintiff,

-vs-

ClTY OF OKLAHOMA CITY, a municipal Corporation, SAM GONZALES, ROBERT MACY, et al.,

Defendants.

Plaintiffs,

-vs-

CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma Municipal Corporation, et al.,

Defendants.

Plaintiff,

-vs-

A MOTION PICTURE FILM ENTITLED "THE TIN DRUM", and

BLOCKBUSTER VIDEOS, INC., and HOLLYWOOD VIDEO, INC., and OKLAHOMA METROPOLITAN LIBRARY SYSTEM,

Defendants.

I, VOLKER SCHLONDORFF, of legal age, being first duly sworn, depose and say as follows:

1. I am a resident of POTSDAM, GERMANY. I have worked as a film director for over 30 years. I am also chief executive of Studio Babelsberg GmbH in Potsdam.

2. I read. write, and speak the German, French, and English languages fluently.

3. I was educated at the Lycee Henry IV and the Sorbonne, where I studied economics and political science, and at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographique in Paris, France. I have worked as an assistant film director with Jean-Pierre Melville, Alain Resnais, and the late Louis Malle, all well-known internationally respected film directors.

4. To date I have directed 27 feature-length films, beginning with Der Junge Torless in 1966 (titled in English Young Torless) for which I was awarded the Critics' Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival. I have written the screenplays for 17 films. I have performed as an actor in four films. I have served as an associate producer for the film Une femme francaise in 1995. I have worked extensively as a film director in the United States as well as in Europe, and I directed the actor Dustin Hoffman in an American production of Arthur Miller's Pulitzer-prize winning play Death of a Salesman. A list of these films, screenplays, and acting credits is attached to this Affidavit as Exhibit A.

5. With Jean-Claude Carriere and Franz Seitz, and with the help of Gunter Grass, I wrote the screenplay for the film Die Blechtrommel (titled in English The Tin Drum and in French Le Tambour), an adaptation of parts of the novel with the same title by Gunter Grass. In 1978 and 1979 I directed the film The Tin Drum, for which I accepted the 1979 Academy Award in the United States for Best Foreign-Language film. My film The Tin Drum and Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now were awarded a Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival, ex oequo, in May, 1979.

6. The film The Tin Drum was shot in Europe, and some scenes in it were shot in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, and Gdansk, Poland, and Paris, France. I was physically present and I directed the actions and dialogue of the actors and actresses and the work of the photographers and cinematographers during the making of every shot of every scene of the film The Tin Drum.

7. At all times during the filming of The Tin Drum the conduct of the actors, actresses, and other participants in the making of the film was in compliance with the laws of the location where the conduct occurred.

8. In the film The Tin Drum, David Bennent played the role of Oskar, and Katharina Thalbach played the role of Maria. Katharina Thalbach was born in Berlin in 1954. Ms. Thalbach was 24 and 25 years of age and a married woman at the time of the filming of The Tin Drum. The parents of David Bennent were present on the sets and were able to directly observe David Bennent throughout the making of the film The Tin Drum, including but not limited to the rehearsals and filming of the scenes in which the characters Oskar and Maria appear on the beach, in the bath-house, in bed, and, with the character Alfred Matzerath played by Mario Adorf, on a couch in a sitting room. In the film, the character of Greff was played by Heinz Bennent, David Bennent's father.

9. In the making of the film The Tin Drum, no one, including David Bennent or Katharina Thalbach, engaged in any sexual conduct or any contact with the genitals or genital areas, including oral-genital contact. Neither David Bennent nor Katharina Thalbach displayed frontal nudity in the film. No shot of any scene of the film The Tin Drum depicted actual sexual conduct by or involving a child under the age of 18 as a participant or actual sexual conduct of which a child under the age of 18 was an observer. No shot of any scene of the film The Tin Drum showed total nudity or genitals.

10. In February, 1996, in Berlin, Germany, I participated in the making and recording of an oral commentary about the film The Tin Drum for a rerelease of the film to be made in laser-disc format and to be distributed by Kino International Corporation, 333 West 39th Street, Suite 503, New York, New York (Kino). In Berlin in 1996, as I watched a video tape of the film The Tin Drum, I spoke about my experiences relating to my work as the director of that film, and my words were recorded as a commentary to play on an audio track simultaneously with the video and sound tracks of that film. My commentary is also recorded on a video tape of the film The Tin Drum labeled "**DUPLICATE** KINO INTERNATIONAL - TIN DRUM ENGLISH SUBTITLES LENGTH: 74:48 CAPTIONS, INC. 8/20/96" (the video commentary tape). I have signed and dated the label of a copy of this video commentary tape and have attached a photocopy of the label on this video commentary tape to this Affidavit as Exhibit B.

11. My recorded commentary on this video commentary tape is my past recollections as refreshed by viewing the video tape of The Tin Drum, and my recorded commentary is an explanation of the events and conditions to which it refers in the making of the film The Tin Drum. The video content of this video commentary tape was previously released by Kino in "letterbox" video tape format but with different captioning. The film The Tin Drum was previously released by Warner on video tape in a full-screen version which of necessity truncated portions of the film because the aspect ratio of the full area of a television screen is 4 to 3. The letterbox version of the film displays the video content of the film in the same proportions as it would typically appear on a full-size movie screen without truncation.

12. I am informed that there are three scenes in the film The Tin Drum that the City of Oklahoma City, District Attorney Robert Macy, and the police chief and the police officers in these litigations contend are unlawful. The scenes may be identified as the bath-house scene, the bed scene, and the sitting-room scene. Neither David Bennent nor Katharina Thalbach displayed frontal nudity in the bath-house scene, or the bed scene, or the sitting-room scene, or in any other scene in the film. Neither Mr. Bennent nor Ms. Thalbach exhibited their genitals or pubic area in any manner in any of these three scenes or in any other scene in the film. Neither Mr. Bennent nor Ms. Thalbach engaged in any actual sexual conduct or sexual acts whatsoever in any of these three scenes or in any other scene in the film.

13. In the bath-house scene, the characters Oskar and Maria are in a bath-house near the beach in Gdansk, Poland. At no time during the making of this scene did Mr. Bennent have any physical contact with Ms. Thalbach's pubic area or genitals. Quite the opposite. Throughout the making of this scene, Ms. Thalbach's entire pubic area and genitals and buttocks were completely covered at all times with a fully opaque cloth material called Duvetyne. Thus, there was a complete barrier that prevented any physical contact between the head and the torso shown in this scene.

14. In the course of the bath-house scene, the character Maria appears to push the character Oskar away from her in a shot in which Mr. Bennent does not actually appear. That shot is followed by a shot in which the character Oskar appears to be crying. The suggestion from these shots, as I recorded in my director's notes written as a diary contemporaneously with the making of the film, is that the character Oskar has bitten the character Maria and that as a result the character Maria shoves the character Oskar away from her. At no time during the making of this scene did Mr. Bennent actually bite Ms. Thalbach. Toward the end of this scene, Ms. Thalbach appears to remove an object from Mr. Bennent's lip or mouth. There was no object on Mr. Bennent's lips or mouth placed there as a result of any physical contact between Mr. Bennent and Ms. Thalbach.

15. Although there are overtones of the character Oskar's sexual awakening in the bath-house scene, the scene was not intended to depict, portray, or represent sexual conduct, but represents the character Oskar's first view of female nudity, and his reaction in rushing toward the character Maria was to seek a symbolic return to the security of the womb he experienced prior to birth as represented earlier in the film.

16. Attached to this Affidavit as Exhibit C is a copy of a storyboard I prepared for the filming of the bath-house scene in the film The Tin Drum. There are photographic images from the film The Tin Drum placed on the storyboard copy that were not part of my original drawings. These photographic images were added for the purpose of publication of the storyboard in Premiere Magazine. I provided a copy of that storyboard used in that publication. I made the storyboard for my use in explaining and illustrating the bath-house scene to Katharina Thalbach before her performance in the scene. I have translated into English each of the lines as they appear on the storyboard except the material that I previously struck out. The storyboard shows how the scene was shot without the appearance of any total frontal nudity or uncovered genitals. The portion of the storyboard between shot 8 and shot 8A shows how the pubic region of Thalbach was to be completely covered by Duvetyne held in place by Scotch tape. In the commentary tape, I used the term "tissue" as a substitute for "Duvetyne," a term which is not commonly known.

17. In another scene in the film The Tin Drum, the characters Oskar and Maria are supposed to share a bed for a night. In the making of this scene, Mr. Bennent and Ms. Thalbach did not actually share a bed for a night. Throughout the making of this scene, Mr. Bennent and Ms. Thalbach wore clothes that completely covered their pubic area and genitals and buttocks at all times. At no time during the making of this scene did Mr. Bennent or Ms. Thalbach have any physical contact with the other's pubic area or genitals. In the course of the bed scene, the character Oskar appears in one shot to have the bottom of his chin approximately two or three inches above the navel of the character Maria, and in another shot appears to be completely covered by a sheet. No actual sexual conduct is depicted in the course of the bed scene, and any suggestion of sexual activity is purely the product of the viewers' imagination as an effect of what is implied and not of the depiction of such actual conduct.

18. In another scene in the film The Tin Drum, the characters of Alfred Matzerath (Adorf) and Maria (Thalbach) appear on a couch in a sitting-room. Throughout the making of this scene, Mr. Bennent and Ms. Thalbach and Mr. Adorf wore clothes that completely covered their pubic area and genitals and buttocks at all times. At no time during the making of this scene did Mr. Bennent or Ms. Thalbach or Mr. Adorf exhibit their genitals or pubic area in any manner. At no time during the making of this scene did Mr. Bennent or Ms. Thalbach or Mr. Adorf have any physical contact with one another's pubic area or genitals. At no time during the making of this scene did any actual sexual intercourse or any other actual sexual conduct occur.

19. The sitting-room scene is portrayed in two parts, and these two parts were filmed separately. In the first part of this scene, the placement, positions, actions, and dialogue of the characters Alfred Matzerath and Maria suggest an act of sexual intercourse between those two characters (Alfred and Maria). In fact, of course, no actual act of intercourse ever occurred between the two adult actors (Adorf and Thalbach) in the making of this scene. Nor was Mr. Bennent physically present during the filming of this part of the sitting-room scene. Instead, the implied entry of the character Oskar into the room is merely suggested by the camera representing Oskar's view, thus creating the illusion that Oskar is present.

20. In the second part of the sitting-room scene, in separate shots, the action begins with the character of Oskar jumping onto the two actors on the couch. The character Alfred then pushes Oskar away. Through editing of the film, the shots in the second of the two parts of this scene create only the illusion that the character of Oskar is present from the beginning of the scene observing the characters Alfred and Maria and that Oskar's actions are a reaction to the separately filmed first part of the scene.

21. In the bath-house scene, the bed scene, and the sitting-room scene, Oskar is represented in the cinematic narrative as a character passing through and experiencing a period of development that includes changes in emotional, sexual, and self awareness. The contents of these three scenes -- including but not limited to representations of character development, and of changes in relationships between and among the characters, and of emotional, sexual, and self awareness -- also suggest parallels to the characters of the parents and grandparents of the character Oskar as they are represented in other scenes in the film. Like the film as a whole, these three scenes represent thematically the fundamental nature and quality of the development and relationships of twentieth-century European society, politics, economics, and history: Oskar is represented as a symbol and emblem and allegory of nationalism and of the values associated with the social class of his character. In order to convey these ideas effectively to audiences, it was necessary to use scenes that visually and dramatically represent stages of basic human development and basic human emotions, sexuality, and awareness in contexts that sometimes appear gentle or lyrical or affectionate and at the same time or otherwise appear violent or shocking or repulsive. These visual and dramatic effects are the results of illusions created through the craft and techniques of the arts of film-making.

22. After the making of the film The Tin Drum, it is my understanding that David Bennent has continued to live and work successfully as an actor in film and in the theater. After the making of the film The Tin Drum, Mr. Bennent has worked as an actor in Austria, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To date, the career of David Bennent has included performances in the role of Gump in the feature film Legend, directed by Ridley Scott; in the role of Chim in the feature film Canicule, directed by Yves Boisset; in the role of General Rodriguez in the feature film The Legend of the Lone Ranger, directed by William A. Fraker; and in the role of Bruce Myers in the play The Man Who, based on Dr. Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, directed by Peter Brook.

23. After the making of the film The Tin Drum, it is my understanding that Katharina Thalbach has continued to live and work successfully as an actress in more than 20 film and television productions. To date, the career of Katharina Thalbach has included performances in the role of Maria in Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, and in the role of Wanda in Sophie's Choice.

24. The film The Tin Drum is a fantasy. Using techniques of exaggeration and fairy tales, the film presents an unrealistic story against an historically realistic background. It is a fable about a small arrogant child named Oskar who becomes alienated by the pettiness, hypocrisy, and depravity of other human beings and who decides to reject the world of grown-ups and their values by refusing to grow past the age of three. Oskar expresses himself by playing a tin drum. As time passes in the fictional narrative, the character Oskar remains the physical size of a three year old as he experiences the deaths of his parents amid the ascendancy and fall of Nazi domination and the destructive tumult of World War II, as well as moments of his own attraction to and rage against individuals near him. The film The Tin Drum adapts some of the aspects of the novel The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass to cinema including some of the themes, motifs, symbols, imagery, characters, plot lines, dialogue, settings, and scenes from that novel. The film The Tin Drum adapts some elements of medieval and twentieth-century visual arts to cinema including some elements of painting, architecture, woodcarving, and sculpture. The film The Tin Drum adapts some of the elements of musical traditions to cinema in its score and its use of musical instruments, including the percussive instrument the drum. The film The Tin Drum presents as its realistic background some of the aspects of social, economic, and political history. Public events before and during World War II are used in the film to raise issues of authoritarianism, materialism, social and intellectual conformity, totalitarianism, military conquest, mass education, class conflict, and domestic violence.

25. The film The Tin Drum adapts some literary elements to cinema, including some of the traditions of fantasy and of the Bildungsroman or Entwicklungsroman like a narrative recounting the birth, youth, and young adulthood of a protagonist learning about the nature of the world, society, and human beings and their relationships. The film The Tin Drum adapts some literary themes to cinema, including themes of the conflict btween and inextricable blending of good and evil, order and chaos, love and hate, life and death, and the individual and society. The film The Tin Drum uses some dramatic devices adapted to cinema including dialogue, soliloquy, costume, make-up, props, scenery, lights, action, and the structure of organization of material into scenes. The film The Tin Drum uses some literary devices adapted to cinema including theme and variation, parallelism, archetype, imagery, allegory, iconography, and symbolism.

26. The film The Tin Drum adapts some of the devices, conventions, and traditions of other visual arts to cinema including portraiture, religious and secular symbols, and the grotesque. The film The Tin Drum adapts devices of German Expressionist painters like Max Beckmarm, Ernst Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Otto Dix, and George Grosz, including exaggeration, over-simplification, scene composition, intensification of color, starkness of light and shadow, and distortion of perspective. The film The Tin Drum sometimes makes use of brutal and gruesome photographic images to convey ideas of barbarism and savagery. Some of these images in the film The Tin Drum are adaptations of verbal images from the novel The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, whose writing sometimes shows the influence of his earlier work as an art student in Dusseldorf. In creating the visual images in the film The Tin Drum, I was influenced by the worlds of earlier German and other European film-makers, and I looked for inspiration and used many techniques from German Expressionist artists whose works were condemned and banned by Hitler, who called these artists degenerates.

27. The film The Tin Drum adapts some of the elements of musical traditions to cinema, including its use of the sounds of the drum, of military music favored by Hitler for his propaganda rallies, and the gentle music of Chopin as a grotesque contrast to the brutality of the Polish Post Office massacre.

28. By dramatizing the lives of its characters in the historical contexts of twentieth-century European Nazism and class, ethnic, and military conflicts, the film The Tin Drum shows some of the social, psychological, and political influences that may promote and thwart individual development and realization.

29. The literary, artistic, and political merits of the film The Tin Drum have received international recognition in reviews, scholarly articles and monographs, essays and books of criticism. The film The Tin Drum has been and is a subject of academic study and research in secondary schools and colleges and universities in Europe and the United States.

30. I consider Grass's novel The Ttin Drum one of the most significant works of 20th century European literature, and especially important to twentieth-century German culture. In adapting the novel to film, I attempted to recreate some of the complex and conflicting themes, characters, and images of the novel. With the encouragement and assistance of Grass, I overcame an initial belief of the impossibility of capturing on film the artistic substance of this most intricate and widely respected work of literature. Some of the scenes in this film, as in the novel, are startling and intentionally so. Artists, authors, and film-makers often use startling scenes to provoke audiences out of complacency and their customary ways of seeing in order to induce insight and thinking about the themes of the artistic object. Such provocation is a well established practice in Western artistic traditions, including German literature, art, and film-making.

31. Further more this affiant sayeth not.

32. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

EXECUTED ON the 8th DAY OF January, 1998, In Berlin

Volker Schlondorff

(NOTE: Exhibits referred to in the affidavit are not included on ODL's website.)