Produced during a time of political controversy in West Germany, and a time where journalists would stop at nothing to get their name known in the field, the film digs deep into human rights violations in what should be a peaceful, democratic country, and shines a light on the vindictive nature of the tabloid press and the tendency they have to spread lies and distort the facts. The film also presents a clear condemnation of collusion between the police and the yellow press. Unlike the novel, the film ends with a scene at Tötges' funeral, with his publisher delivering a hypocritical condemnation of the murder as an infringement on the freedom of the press.[1]
The film establishes its concern with the media in its opening scene, which follows a man (Götten) who is being filmed and followed. Though she only spends one night with him, the police raid on Katharina's home, as well as her involvement with Götten, immediately becomes a media spectacle. When Katharina is released because the police can’t find the evidence to hold her, she walks into an abundance of journalists pointing cameras at her and yelling questions at her. She tries to look away, but the police officer escorting her out grabs a fistful of her hair and makes her look into the flashing lights and curious faces. He claims they’re just doing their jobs and that she needs to respect that.
The film represents the media as vindictive and scandal-obsessed. The Paper only publishes conspiracies and disregards the truth. The main reporter, Tötges, frequently makes up quotes and distorts facts to make Katharina's life fit a salacious narrative of a promiscuous woman who aids and abets anarchists and terrorists. It’s clear that the media doesn’t care if she is innocent or not. She is a story, and that is her only purpose to them. Tötges makes up Katharina's mother's dying words to make a negative impression of her and to sell papers. He finds out that her grandfather emigrated to the USSR in 1932 and uses this as proof that Katharina holds similar views. In his final scene, he makes sexual advances on Katharina and actually expects her to be happy with him for "making her famous." The fact that he dragged her name through the mud does not register with him.
In interviews for the 2003 Criterion Collection DVD release of the film, Schlöndorff and other crew members argue for the film's continued relevance today, drawing an analogy between the political climate of panic over terrorism in 1970s West Germany and the post-September 11, 2001 situation in the U.S. where unsubstantiated media hype was used to launch the invasion of Iraq.[2] Volker Schlöndorff recounted that years later while he and Von Trotta were visiting Tashkent they noticed a theater where this movie was playing. They entered at the scene where the prosecutor and the police throw themselves onto the ground after hearing one of their own guns accidentally going off. The bureaucrats are the first to be scared of their own weapons. Schlöndorff was happy that this message could be appreciated by people under the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan same as those under West Germany.[3]
Though the film ends with a journalist being shot, Volker Schlöndorff considers this only a "metaphorical shooting" and that violence is against the message of Heinrich Boll.[4]
