The Tin Drum (German: Die Blechtrommel) is a 1979 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Günter Grass. It was directed and co-written by Volker Schlöndorff. Stylistically, it is a surrealistic black comedy.
The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980 at the 52nd Academy Awards.
In 1899, the grandfather of Oskar Matzerath, the main character, is being pursued by the police through rural Kashubia. He hides underneath the skirts of a young woman named Anna Bronski, with whom he later has a daughter – Oskar's mother. He evades the authorities for a year, but when they find him again, he either drowns or escapes to America and becomes a millionaire.
Anna's daughter Agnes has two lovers: her cousin Jan Bronski, a Polish Post Office worker, and Alfred Matzerath, whom she marries. The two men are great friends. Agnes gives birth to a son, Oskar. Oskar's father is uncertain; Oskar himself believes he is Jan's son.
Toni Childs, David Ricketts
there's an old man talkin
to a young boy weepin
to an old man shaking his head
there's a cool gentle breeze
in the night full of light
as the red glow wavers in the stead
there's a black man crying
and a white man dyin
and a black man's head in the air
the shock of life
feeds the fight
the fight that's in my head
holding tight in the stillness of the night
in the stillness of my thoughts
yet, I know I've only started
beating on a tin drum marching to a sound
what is it I think?
am I beating on a tin drum marching to a cause
when I don't know what it is I believe
lonely peeping chick
calling to his mother
runs amuck
in a sunken black ditch
and wilham's with the widow
while martha's in the meadow
and the lamb is a layin in sick
and the boy in back
is talking some slack
to the king of auld lang syne
and my heart goes out
but I cannot spout what I do not know inside
holding tight in the stillness of my mind
in the stillness of my thought