The Tin Drum

Synopsis: Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

Genre: Drama, War

Director(s): Volker Schlöndorff

Actors: Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, David Bennent, Katharina Thalbach

Production: Kinowelt

Won 1 Oscar. Another 15 wins & 5 nominations.


IMDB:: 7.6
Rotten Tomatoes:: 80%

The Tin Drum Movie Quotes »

Collection Edit Watch PDF Buy

: R
Year:: 1979
: 142 min
: 437 Views

00:
00:27,485 -- 00:00:29,528
THE TIN DRUM:
2
00:
01:52,445 -- 00:01:55,906
I'll begin long before
I ever existed.
3
00:
01:57,200 -- 00:02:01,161
When the time came
for my poor mama to be born,
4
00:
02:01,287 -- 00:02:04,706
my grandmother, Anna Bronski,
5
00:
02:04,833 -- 00:02:09,419
a young and unsuspecting girl,
sat in her four skirts
6
00:
02:09,546 -- 00:02:12,089
at the edge of a potato field.
7
00:
02:12,215 -- 00:02:15,676
That was in 1899,
8
00:
02:15,802 -- 00:02:18,428
in the heart of Kashubia.
9
00:
02:20,140 -- 00:02:23,058
Something was moving
on the horizon,
10
00:
02:23,184 -- 00:02:25,394
as ifjumping about.
11
00:
02:46,124 -- 00:02:47,124
I beg you!
12
00:
03:27,916 -- 00:03:31,084
Anybody come this way?
13
00:
03:31,211 -- 00:03:32,711
Name of Koljaiczek?
14
00:
03:32,837 -- 00:03:33,921
A firebug.
15
00:
03:34,047 -- 00:03:36,131
Short with broad shoulders.
16
00:
03:36,799 -- 00:03:40,552
I saw him.
Running like a bat out of hell.
17
00:
03:40,678 -- 00:03:42,095
Which way?
18
00:
03:49,520 -- 00:03:50,979
I don't believe it.
19
00:
04:01,866 -- 00:04:02,991
He's gone.
20
00:
04:03,117 -- 00:04:04,368
Must be in Bissau.
21
00:
04:05,161 -- 00:04:06,245
If he's not here.
22
00:
04:06,371 -- 00:04:07,496
Has to be one or the other.
23
00:
04:07,622 -- 00:04:09,206
There's nowhere else.
24
00:
04:12,293 -- 00:04:14,086
And now it's raining.
25
00:
05:06,055 -- 00:05:08,015
All right, Koljaiczek.
26
00:
05:08,141 -- 00:05:09,308
My name is Joseph.
27
00:
05:27,076 -- 00:05:29,995
My grandfather was an arsonist.
28
00:
05:30,830 -- 00:05:33,081
A repeat arsonist,
29
00:
05:33,207 -- 00:05:38,003
because in all of West Prussia,
sawmills
30
00:
05:38,129 -- 00:05:41,923
were the tinder for the blazing
nationalism of the Poles.
31
00:
05:45,053 -- 00:05:49,556
Joseph and Anna
hid with the raftsmen
32
00:
05:49,682 -- 00:05:52,142
for almost a year.
33
00:
05:52,268 -- 00:05:55,228
That's how long it took the police
34
00:
05:55,355 -- 00:05:59,441
to catch up
with my grandfather.
35
00:
06:02,820 -- 00:06:03,820
Run!
36
00:
06:17,835 -- 00:06:20,212
Don't shoot him!
37
00:
06:31,182 -- 00:06:33,767
After that dive,
38
00:
06:33,893 -- 00:06:37,145
Koljaiczek was never seen again.
39
00:
06:38,064 -- 00:06:40,899
Some say he drowned.
40
00:
06:42,068 -- 00:06:43,318
Others say
41
00:
06:43,444 -- 00:06:45,278
he escaped to America,
42
00:
06:45,405 -- 00:06:47,197
where, in Chicago,
43
00:
06:47,323 -- 00:06:49,741
under the name of Joe Colchic,
44
00:
06:49,867 -- 00:06:52,077
he became a millionaire.
45
00:
06:53,037 -- 00:06:56,206
They say he made his pile in lumber,
46
00:
06:57,041 -- 00:06:59,543
in matches,
47
00:
07:00,753 -- 00:07:05,298
and in fire insurance.
48
00:
07:17,103 -- 00:07:19,020
As for my grandmother,
49
00:
07:19,897 -- 00:07:24,025
she sat year after year
in her four skirts,
50
00:
07:24,152 -- 00:07:27,237
hawking her wares in the market.
51
00:
07:29,365 -- 00:07:31,158
Geese!
52
00:
07:31,284 -- 00:07:33,952
Not too fat and not too lean!
53
00:
07:34,078 -- 00:07:35,912
And she grew older.
54
00:
07:37,832 -- 00:07:39,708
The First World War came,
55
00:
07:39,834 -- 00:07:43,753
and instead of geese,
she had only turnips to sell.
56
00:
07:57,143 -- 00:07:59,561
Turnips!
57
00:
08:01,397 -- 00:08:04,608
My poor mama grew older too.
58
00:
08:04,734 -- 00:08:08,111
She was worried
about her cousin Jan.
59
00:
08:09,530 -- 00:08:11,615
Jan had been called to war,
60
00:
08:12,950 -- 00:08:14,534
but he wanted to be near her.
61
00:
08:14,660 -- 00:08:17,078
- Name?
- Bronski, Jan.
62
00:
08:17,205 -- 00:08:19,414
- Year?
- 1898.
63
00:
08:20,458 -- 00:08:21,917
Cough.
64
00:
08:22,627 -- 00:08:24,211
Again.
65
00:
08:27,340 -- 00:08:28,924
Rejected!
66
00:
08:32,720 -- 00:08:35,889
No ass, no neck,
to the army I'm a wreck!
67
00:
08:38,142 -- 00:08:40,352
For the first time, my mother
68
00:
08:40,478 -- 00:08:43,563
held her cousin Jan in her arms,
69
00:
08:43,689 -- 00:08:45,190
and I doubt
70
00:
08:45,316 -- 00:08:49,402
if they ever embraced more happily.
71
00:
08:53,032 -- 00:08:56,785
This young wartime romance
was untroubled
72
00:
08:56,911 -- 00:09:01,790
until the appearance of Mr. Alfred
Matzerath, born in the Rhineland.
73
00:
09:01,916 -- 00:09:05,710
At the Silberhammer Hospital,
74
00:
09:05,836 -- 00:09:08,547
he was the favourite
of all the nurses.
75
00:
09:09,924 -- 00:09:11,383
What did she say?
76
00:
09:12,343 -- 00:09:15,887
She said you're a born cook,
Mr. Matzerath.
77
00:
09:16,013 -- 00:09:18,431
You know how to turn feelings
into soup.
78
00:
09:36,617 -- 00:09:40,495
The war had spent itself.
79
00:
09:40,621 -- 00:09:43,164
Danzig was declared a Free State.
80
00:
09:43,874 -- 00:09:46,960
The Poles
were given their own post office,
81
00:
09:47,086 -- 00:09:50,797
where stamp collector
Jan Bronski went to work.
82
00:
09:50,923 -- 00:09:53,216
Alfred Matzerath
also stayed in Danzig.
83
00:
09:56,929 -- 00:10:00,098
We Kashubians
have always been here.
84
00:
10:01,142 -- 00:10:03,101
Long before the Poles,
85
00:
10:03,227 -- 00:10:05,604
and, naturally,
long before the Germans.
86
00:
10:05,730 -- 00:10:08,315
That's old news, Jan.
Now we've got peace.
87
00:
10:08,441 -- 00:10:10,317
Germans, Poles, Kashubians,
88
00:
10:10,443 -- 00:10:12,235
we'll all live together in peace.
89
00:
10:16,449 -- 00:10:18,199
I don't know.
90
00:
10:19,410 -- 00:10:21,161
Well, you'll see.
91
00:
10:29,920 -- 00:10:31,796
The two men, so different
92
00:
10:31,922 -- 00:10:34,799
despite their similar feelings
for Mama,
93
00:
10:34,925 -- 00:10:37,010
liked each other,
94
00:
10:37,136 -- 00:10:39,387
and from that trinity
95
00:
10:39,513 -- 00:10:43,058
they brought me, Oskar,
into the world.
96
00:
10:45,811 -- 00:10:48,271
The Sun was in the sign of Virgo.
97
00:
10:49,148 -- 00:10:53,193
Neptune moved
into the tenth house of middle life,
98
00:
10:53,319 -- 00:10:57,113
anchoring Oskar somewhere
between wonder and illusion.
99
00:
11:29,563 -- 00:11:30,563
Push!
100
00:
11:34,402 -- 00:11:36,027
Push, Agnes, push!
101
00:
11:43,911 -- 00:11:45,954
It's coming!
102
00:
11:46,080 -- 00:11:48,373
I first saw the light of this world
103
00:
11:48,499 -- 00:11:51,626
in the form of a 60-watt bulb.
104
00:
11:52,670 -- 00:11:54,504
Alfred!
105
00:
11:54,630 -- 00:11:56,047
It's a boy!
106
00:
12:05,141 -- 00:12:07,225
I knew it would be a boy,
107
00:
12:08,436 -- 00:12:11,229
even if I sometimes said
it would be a girl.
108
00:
12:16,152 -- 00:12:17,527
Not so hot.
109
00:
12:17,653 -- 00:12:21,614
Crying and impersonating
a meat-coloured baby,
110
00:
12:21,741 -- 00:12:25,285
I listened keenly
and with a critical ear
111
00:
12:25,411 -- 00:12:27,787
to my parents'

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes

Günter Grass

Günter Wilhelm Grass (German: [ˈɡʏntɐ ˈɡʁas]; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). As a teenager, he served as a drafted soldier from late 1944 in the Waffen-SS and was taken prisoner of war by US forces at the end of the war in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted as a film of the same name, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1999, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history". more…

All Günter Grass scripts | Günter Grass Scripts

0 fans

Submitted on August 05, 2018

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

Notify me of new comments via email.

Translation

Translate and read this script in other languages:

Select another language:

Citation

Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"The Tin Drum" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_tin_drum_4247>.

The Tin Drum

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

Translation

Translate and read this script in other languages:

Citation

Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

We need you!

Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

The Web's Largest Resource for

Movie & Play Scripts

A Member Of The STANDS4 Network

Watch the movie trailer

The Tin Drum

Browse Scripts.com

The Studio:

ScreenWriting Tool

Quiz

Are you a screenwriting master?

Who portrayed the original Princess Leia from the Star Wars franchise?