“Zu asche, zu staub. Zu asche. Doch noch nicht jetzt.”
“Let’s not be shy to say it,” says Christian Buss, Der Spiegel’s cultural critic, about TV show Babylon Berlin. “[Germans] are big again — as the world champions of angst.”
If the spending behind Babylon Berlin is any indication, German angst is indeed big again. Created by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Henk Handloegten, and Achim von Borries, it had a budget of €55 million, making it the most expensive TV series ever produced in Germany. The series, which was picked up by Netflix and debuted in 2018 in the United States, Canada, and Australia, takes place towards the end of the Golden Twenties of the Weimar Republic. It taps into growing international interest for depictions of German history and the rise of Nazism, deftly exploring the anxieties swirling through many cultures today. Hailed by critics as dazzling and dynamic, the 16-part series has been likened to the “German angst cinema” of the 1920s including silent film classics The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Metropolis (1927), both of which feature landmark title sequences.
This angst is front and center in the show’s vibrant, hypnotic, and Art Deco-infused opening. The sequence, created by designer Saskia Marka, was named Art of the Title’s number one title sequence of 2018 and was one of the finalists in the 2019 SXSW Title Design Competition. Marka created a “seething energetic fireball” of bold colour, typography, and tension, everything moving ceaselessly forward like a ticking clock. The theme composed by Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer serves the same function, the notes speeding up and climbing to a higher register; a kettle about to blow. Marka, who also designed the openings to Deutschland 83 (2015) and its successor Deutschland 86 (2018), wanted to depict a Berlin that is always in motion, always changing, and dangerous. “Nothing is ever safe,” she says, and we feel it.
A discussion with Babylon Berlin title designer SASKIA MARKA.
Congratulations on your work for Babylon Berlin! It was named number one in Art of the Title’s Top 10 Title Sequences of 2018 and it was a finalist at SXSW this year.
SM: Thank you! I still can’t believe this. This is a dream come true, seriously. You and other people from America are coming to me and are interested in my work but in Germany, no one is interested in title design! When it gets on the air, everyone talks about the show but no one ever talks about the…
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