If happiness is a question of balance, as Margarethe von Trotta suggested with one of her film titles, then 1968 was no time for happiness.
Because back then it was about a combative either and or, not about a balanced juxtaposition of possibilities.
The two films in which von Trotta thought about these things are something like sisters themselves: "Sisters or the Balance of Happiness" (1979) and "The Leaden Time" (1981).
In the second, on one side is the revolutionary Marianne, on the other Juliane, a feminist publicist who leads an “almost bourgeois life”.
The life story of RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin, who committed suicide in Stammheim prison in 1977, was clearly visible in the background.
Margarethe von Trotta dedicated the film Die bleierne Zeit to her sister Christiane.
The overthrow of the situation or a long way with small steps of change, in the end Margarethe von Trotta also took an aesthetic position on this question.
She chose the balance that also characterizes the form of her films.
In "Sisters or The Balance of Happiness" there are ultimately three characters that are needed to balance two very different sisters.
And the way out of bad extremes requires mourning a great loss.
Looking back on her 80th birthday today, Margarethe von Trotta is primarily associated with a series of biographical films about role models for an almost bourgeois women's movement: "Rosa Luxemburg" (1986), "Vision - from the life of Hildegard von Bingen” (2009), “Hannah Arendt” (2012).
She explained that she was creating a life story for the cinema about the best-known German revolutionary by referring to her own origins.
Margarethe von Trotta comes from a German-Baltic nobility, in the family the anti-communism of Alexander Kerensky or Wolfgang Leonhard was upheld, so with the figure of Rosa Luxemburg she opposed something that was not obvious to her.
The many strong women in her work are probably all sisters in a way, too, looking for a role in society that is on an equal footing with men, but also relies on getting along with them.
She made her first film together with Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she also shared life from 1971 to 1991: "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" (1975).
She found her way to the cinema as an actress, with Fassbinder (“Götter der Pest”, 1969) and with Achternbusch (look for her in the crowd of “Bierkampf”, 1976).
At that time Munich was her world, the new German film went from one peak to the next, but remained largely a male bastion.
Margarethe von Trotta started out as a director a little later than Helke Sander or Ula Stöckl, whose careers soon faltered.
She herself had to
despite the great success of "Rosa Luxemburg", often make do with television projects, including a prestige project such as the adaptation of Uwe Johnson's "Anniversaries" (2000).
It was only in 2003 that she was able to realize a project close to her heart with "Rosenstrasse", an attempt to use the means of German female author films to connect with popular historical cinema such as "Schindler's List".
The cast reads like a who's who of the German women's movement in the cinema: Jutta Lampe, Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader - only Barbara Sukowa, probably the most important "sister" of Margarethe von Trotta, was not there at the time.
It was only in 2003 that she was able to realize a project close to her heart with "Rosenstrasse", an attempt to use the means of German female author films to connect with popular historical cinema such as "Schindler's List".
The cast reads like a who's who of the German women's movement in the cinema: Jutta Lampe, Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader - only Barbara Sukowa, probably the most important "sister" of Margarethe von Trotta, was not there at the time.
It was only in 2003 that she was able to realize a project close to her heart with "Rosenstrasse", an attempt to use the means of German female author films to connect with popular historical cinema such as "Schindler's List".
The cast reads like a who's who of the German women's movement in the cinema: Jutta Lampe, Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader - only Barbara Sukowa, probably the most important "sister" of Margarethe von Trotta, was not there at the time.
Margarethe von Trotta later told how difficult it was to get people to listen to her interests after the comedy boom in German film in the 1990s.
But it also stood at right angles to the boom in German historical cinema, which began in 2004 with “Der Untergang”.
At heart she is above all a storyteller of intimate moments and an artist of friendship.
One tribute that should be given to her might be an attempt to come up with a history of German cinema that would have listened more to women after 1980.
The legacy of Margarethe von Trotta and her sisters - despite an honorary award for their life's work, awarded by the German Film Academy in 2019 - is not yet secure.