In a January issue of the New Yorker posed Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck recently as a sun king, including the lap dog. Noblesse oblige, 2.05 meters wide giant of a man knows how to stage. His mother hear the title “Countess,” he told the American journalist, but they would allow probably, to call them “Anna-Maria”: “My mother considered all women as their sisters.”
the ground constantly, the Henckel von Donnersmarck, at the same time they like to decorate themselves with an Aura of nobility and cultural Superiority. As he moved after the phenomenal Oscar success of “the lives of Others” in 2007 with his family to Los Angeles, walked on the traces of the German greats like Lion Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann. Through Beverly Hills, he drove a white Rolls-Royce. Every other sentence would have been for him a number too small.
Also, under the California sun Henckel von Donnermarck casts a powerful shadow, not least on the German cinema. The current whistle-stop tour of Los Angeles means to him, a triumphant return. On Sunday in the Dolby Theatre for the 91. The Oscars awarded to his artist biography “work without the author” is one of the five nominees in the category “Best foreign language Film”, in addition to Alfonso Cuaróns lions-winner “Roma”, the European film award winner “Cold war” by Pawel Pawlikowski and Hirokazu Kore-edas “Shoplifters”, which was awarded in Cannes with the Golden palm. His cinematographer Caleb Deschanel has been nominated for a further Oscar.
Bavarian film award Golden lion
“work without an author” has won except the Bavarian film award and a “Bambi” for actor Sebastian Koch not a significant distinction. But at its world premiere in Venice, the Film was greeted in September with a standing ovation. The German criticism was, of course, irritated by the three-hour family epic between the Nazi era, the GDR and the young Federal Republic of Germany, to return constantly to the image of women, it’s a corny concept of Truth, the equating of the Holocaust and the bombing campaign of the allies, the proximity of the “Degenerate art” and in German post-war modern, a portly dramaturgy. And then the infamous scene in the gas chamber, in which the naked women cling desperately to each other. The mäkeligen reactions in this country knew Henckel von Donnersmarck from “the lives of Others”.
The US criticism is “work without the author” weighted. The trade journal “Variety” praised confirms the authenticity of the staging, the “New York Times”, the Film “is buzzing with Ambition, which is equally exhausting and exhilarating”. In America experienced, German history, cinema enjoys a high Reputation, also a bit of a commercial Film such as Christian Petzold’s GDR Drama “Barbara” found an audience.
in this Country, the Stasi touch – and NS-stories real biographies
are The varying degrees of sensitivity to understand, in this country, the Stasi and the Nazi touching stories still, the biographies of real people. Henckel von Donnersmarck told but rather of archetypes in the storm of German history. As the life story of the painter Gerhard Richter on the “work without the author” very freely, but blatantly based. Also the artists of the pompous charm of the Director, it was eventually scary. In the “New Yorker” distanced, he opted out of the Film, although the two have had many conversations.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-Mission is extremely ungrateful. In its press campaign in Los Angeles, he has to compete this week with a Film, the judge, as his alleged Confidant in the meantime, nothing more wants to know, and was also received by the German audience only lukewarm. 240 000 people have “work without the author” since the movie start at the symbolic 3. October seen. Andreas Dresens “Gundermann” – by the way of the far better German historical film had more viewers, also Emily Atefs Romy Schneider Biopic “3 days in Quiberon,” performed to a similar degree. “The lives of Others” attracted in 2006, 1.7 million people in the cinemas.
There is a feeling that a part of the film industry celebrates itself with a “work without the author”. Or the idea of what is estimated of Hollywood on German Film. The time of the nomination, as a German, Oscar nominee was clumsy chosen: a few days before the world premiere in Venice, as the criticism was allowed to make no judgment. The Rest went down in jubilation. 13 minutes should have applauded the audience, a Triumph with a voice prompt. And the German film critics as a spoilsport.
of The Director as a bad winner
As a poor winner of the Director who requested it in the “star” that now, where he is “our” man in Hollywood, all of the German cinema fans closed behind him should turned out to be. The thought of that Sunday night, movie fans in black-and-red-and-gold flags in front of the TV together, and the gold boys are cheering, is at least as absurd as the phrase “We are the Pope”. The cinema is not a football world Cup, even if Henckel von Donnersmarck’s national pathos suggests something else. The high well-born blessed the masses with that is steeped in history of entertainment cinema, the people’s soul to heal. “I have always been interested in the psychoanalysis,” he told the New Yorker.
Good cinema, the Polish Director Agnieszka Holland, in her role as chair of the European film Academy, says, however, is on national concepts. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is certainly not a Nationalist. However, he tends to be a modern-hostile belief, when he talks about art, even about the one that originated at the art Academy in Düsseldorf in the context of Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter.
German history as a self-service loading
the causes of The detuning range is probably lower. It hurt Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Ego deeply, that “work without the author” will not be brought the same sympathy as Maren Ade, “Toni Erdmann” in the Oscar night in fact, many of the thumb, expressed. The difference, however, is that “Toni Erdmann” showing off with an unprecedented ease, the different shades of Comedy (regardless of nationality). While “work without the author” is a Form of old-fashioned narrative cinema satisfied that you have mastered in Hollywood, in addition, much of the sovereign. One might even suspect: The Oscar Academy is the swaggering adepts with the nomination, your reverence.
Henckel von Donnersmarck in the choice of materials calculus, however. Mentality stories such as “work without the author”, the complex historical and social narrative arc densify, met has always been a nerve with the academic bourgeoisie. At the same time a growing sense of unease manifests itself in the face of such dramaturgy of the lowest common denominator, such as the Controversy surrounding Tarkis Strangler’s novel “Stella” or Robert about menasse’s invented Europe-Talk recently. That the German history is often seen as a self-service store is, Yes, films like “the lives of Others” or “to owe”.
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“Stella” by Takis Würger, The burden of truth
Gerrit Bartels
Who wants to swing on Sunday, but the flag, still has an Alternative. As the best documentary of the German co-production “children of the Caliphate has been nominated” about a boy Syrians, the two years with a radical Islamist family lived. Limitless Cinema.
