800 times lonely - a day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz

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Movie
Original title 800 times lonely - a day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz
Country of production Germany
Publishing year 2019
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Anna Hepp
script Anna Hepp
production Anna Hepp
camera Oliver Freuwörth, Elí Roland Sachs, Christian Scholz
cut Julia Suermondt
occupation

800 times lonely - a day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz is a German documentary film by the director Anna Hepp from 2019 and also her feature film debut. The film premiered on September 6, 2019 at the 76th International Film Festival of Venice in the series Venezia Classici its world premiere . The German premiere followed on October 23, 2019 at the Hof Film Festival . The film was released in German cinemas on March 5, 2020.

action

The young director Anna Hepp meets the renowned German director Edgar Reitz , a representative of the New German Cinema . Conversations between the two filmmakers take place in Essen's historic Lichtburg cinema and at the Baldeneysee , or Reitz talks about his life, his conception of art and his sometimes philosophical point of view.

Sober, precise and also critical, Reitz, in whom the focus is not on himself but always on his art, reflects on his life, the difficulty of breaking away from the conservative and Catholic parental home and embarking on an artistic career, the emergence of the Oberhausen Manifesto , the Risk of using the memories of his family and himself as material for films, the criticism of German television and the problems with television editors who, despite his many years of professional experience, impose on him to make 11 script versions for his six-part film Heimat 3 . With the comment: "This program is too good for the people."

Reitz also reports on the professional and personal failure after the film Der Schneider von Ulm , which was denied cinema success after a negative review in the magazine Der Spiegel in 1978 . After this failure and the separation from his wife at the same time, the demoralized Reitz thought of daring to start again professionally at the age of 46. In this difficult phase for him, he remembered his homeland, the Hunsrück and as a result, the first part of the internationally known and award-winning film series Heimat was created in 1984 .

In addition to Reitz, the filmmaker Anna Hepp herself is in front of the camera and the focus of the film, as a connoisseur and admirer of Reitz and his life's work. At the beginning of the film, she announced that she could not separate the director and his films. Every feature film character that Reitz developed would be projected onto him by Hepp. In the course of the film, the title is also explained lonely 800 times . The two filmmakers look from the stage into the empty cinema hall in Essen's Lichtburg and reflect together on the cinema culture and the situation of the viewer during a film screening. Reitz feels that in a cinema - what is meant in the film is the Lichtburg in Essen - as a result of the screening discussed, 800 lonely people would become a community, so "800 times lonely."

Stylistic devices

Between the conversations between Anna Hepp and Edgar Reitz, filmed in black and white and in color, at various locations, his stories and moments without dialogue, now and then excerpts from Reitz's film works meals , Heimat - Eine deutsche Chronik , Die zwei Heimat - Chronik einer Jugend und Susanne dances (short film) interspersed. In addition, there are detailed , slow-motion and time-lapse recordings and images with instrumental music. Some members of the film team occasionally appear in front of the camera in staged and documentary sequences or take part in the conversation between Anna Hepp and Edgar Reitz.

The filmmaker Hepp justified the use of her filmic means in an interview with the cultural newspaper Münchner Feuilleton : “It was precisely this filmmaking that was important [...] from the start for my portrait of Edgar Reitz, who stands for filmmaking. This is his passion, everything he does is focused on doing, less on himself. I wanted to show that, of course, as a representative. That brings us together: the love and passion for filming. This is an important aspect for me when you, as a filmmaker, make a film about a filmmaker. In addition, I wanted to 'play', experiment, try something out in order to create contrasts over a length of 84 minutes and create variety and the unexpected. "

Production and Background

The film portrait about Edgar Reitz was produced by Hepps start-up company Portrait Me with financial support from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW , Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA) and the Board of Trustees for Young German Film . The shooting took place from September 29 to October 1, 2017 in Essen's Lichtburg and at Lake Baldeney.

The movie rental déjà vu movie brought the film on March 5, 2020 selected German cinemas .

reception

Reviews

Even if there was criticism, Einsam - Ein Tag mit Filmmaker Edgar Reitz was received very positively by parts of the German-speaking press 800 times .

As part of the world premiere at the Venice Film Festival , Patrick Wellinski from Deutschlandfunk Kultur reported on Anna Hepps' film and found it “a very moving cinematic approach to Reitz”. Bernhard Blöchl from Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der-Gilden-Dienst from Programmkino.de praised the film and see a philosophical note in it. Blöchl describes the film as a "philosophically entertaining, clever and aesthetic essay" in which wonderful sentences by Edgar Reitz such as "There is a consolation: we filmmakers can save time." And Der-Gilden-Dienst writes in His conclusion about the film: “All in all: an experimentally designed document for film, biography and, last but not least, philosophy lovers.” He also highlights one moment from the film: “A particularly beautiful scene: a couple in the cinema Dozen portraits of all actors who appeared in his films; He has to mourn some of them because they are no longer alive. "

However, in her review of the film, Esther Buss from the film service noticed that Hepps film, in contrast to the quiet Edgar Reitz, would be restless and stated: “You can see technicians running through the picture, microphone fishing, cameras, cables. In Reitz's films there are occasional film or camera-in-film moments (the main character in 'Meals', for example, works as a photographer). In '800 times lonely', however, they become more and more an intrusive element without a real motive. Even the attempts to record the repetitive loops in 'Susanne tanzt' - the filmmaker's sentences are looped - seem less playful than trying. "Ulrich Sonnenschein from epd Film contradicts this impression indirectly in his review of the film and explains:" Then the picture gets stuck stand, falls into slow motion and then into fast motion. Individual sentences are repeated, fragmented and rhythmized. It takes a while before the viewer realizes that here principles from early short films by Edgar Reitz are repeated, the form approaches its subject. "

Michael Myns from Programmkino.de would have liked Edgar Reitz and his work to have been given more space. This is where he sees the strengths of the film, “whenever he concentrates entirely on his subject, when he is entirely with Edgar Reitz. To listen to him tell of struggles, losses and successes, of the hard but necessary struggle for quality, that is inspiring and moving. It wouldn't have needed more. ”The critic is also reluctant to use stylistic devices and the filmmaker's excessive presence. “Again and again she sprinkles self-reflective moments, takes up almost as much space as Reitz, also lets cameramen or the sound engineer appear in picture and sound, in an effort to give the film an experimental, meta-textual note.” David Steinitz also sees this from the Süddeutsche Zeitung. For him, the filmmaker is just too present in the film and the “cinematic Gschaftlhuberei” would not have needed the work that Edgar Reitz shows as a “great narrator”.

Simon Hauck from Kino-Zeit considers the "film, which fluctuates between artist portraits and cinema essays" to be ambitious from the start and that this "formally and aesthetically does not correspond to the" fashion-oriented mediocrity "" that Edgar Reitz used in German film - and recognize the television landscape of the last decade. But the “colorless” film lacks the bite and “that artistic-creative imbalance continues ingloriously in the next 60 minutes, which is particularly due to intrusive microphone hooks in the image plane or unspeakably annoying sound montages and unpleasantly surprise cinephile viewers is: Especially those who know Edgar Reitz personally or who have at least met him for a long time at film festivals or panel discussions. ”Swantje Seberg from kunstundfilm also writes in her review that the film, in which everything seems“ badly improvised and unstructured ”, is Edgar Reitz wouldn't do it justice.

Silvia Hallersleben from Der Tagesspiegel, on the other hand, praises the film very much and indirectly contradicts Seberg's view of the badly improvised. First of all, she doesn't miss any film clips, of which there are only a few in Anna Hepps' film, from the life of Edgar Reitz. The interested viewer can view these in context elsewhere. Hallersleben, however, finds it a bit silly “when“ 800 times lonely ”imitates stylistic peculiarities of Reitz's work. But this does not harm the beauty and precision of this unusual film portrait, which deals with central questions of art and life in clear words and images. "Hartwig Tegeler from Deutschlandfunk also criticizes the film adaptation of Reitz's early works in the film von Hepp, but nevertheless "800 times lonely" is an exciting film because it gives Edgar Reitz the space to remember and reflect on himself and his work. "

Thomas Lassonczyk from the Munich Feuilleton also sees the film as an unconventional documentary in terms of content and form: "In '800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz', no numbers, dates and facts are prayed down, Hepp does not put one interview excerpt after the other, Rather, it creates free space again and again through atmospheric images backed by spherical sounds, which give the viewer time to let what they hear have their effect, for example Reitz quotes such as' Film is like a magnetic field, everything is based on it ',' The world is one Product of imagination 'or' My films say: This is life '. ”Lassonczyk also praised the use of Hepps stylistic devices in the film. She had succeeded in creating a “worthy and visually captivating memorial” to director Edgar Reitz. “'800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz' is what she calls her documentary, which features carefully composed, visually appealing black and white pictures (a tribute to Reitz, who often shot in B / W) and Time-lapse and extreme detail shots even feel like a small work of art. "

The author “Stefe” from Filmjournalisten.de sees in Anna Hepp's work cinematic “curiosity, playfulness and willingness to experiment from Nouvelle Vague or Beat Generation”, with which she would dedicate a pretty film essayistic wreath to the “great German filmmaker Edgar Reitz”. Hepps' film also addresses a criticism of German television and cinema for him: "Reitz makes it clear that it is not for the television editors to sit on a high horse (at his third home he wrote for 7 years and presented eleven script versions to television have to); these gentlemen are bound by instructions and obliged to the television viewer; Nobody has to be grateful to them, on the contrary, they should be indebted to the audience. [...] By pointing out that television editors of the public broadcasting service are bound by instructions, Reitz points to a basic evil in German cinema, and that it is can not thrive at all, attentive to the fact that it suffers from being bound by instructions because hardly any cinema film can be produced in this country without television and thus television has a say in practically every film, gives instructions. That turns the cinema into a functionary cinema, a subsidy cinema with subsidy stars ... "

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The guild service: The guild service No. 07-2020 , Programmkino.de
  2. ↑ Thomas Lassonczyk: "800 times lonely" - documentary about Edgar Reitz , Münchner Feuilleton, February 26, 2020
  3. ↑ 800 times lonely - a day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz on the website of the film distributor déjà-vu film
  4. ↑ Patrick Wellinski: The classic narrative cinema dominated the Lido - 76th Venice Film Festival , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, September 7, 2019
  5. ↑ Bernhard Blöchl: Monster in the head - what is it talking about? Insights and psychological studies shape the German contributions to the 53rd Hof Film Festival. , Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 27, 2019
  6. ↑ Esther Buss: 800 times lonely - the filmmaker Edgar Reitz tells about himself and his life, interviewed and filmed in the Lichtburg in Essen. , Film service
  7. ↑ Ulrich Sonnenschein: Criticism 800 times lonely - Anna Hepp in conversation with the 88-year-old director, who, among other things, put the term home in a whole new light with his work , epd Film, February 21, 2020
  8. ↑ Michael Meyns: 800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz , Programmkino.de
  9. ↑ David Steinitz: Grantler and Schelm - A documentary about the "Heimat" director Edgar Reitz shows him as a great narrator. Unfortunately there is too much cinematic fraud. , Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 4, 2020
  10. ↑ Simon Hauck: 800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz (2019) - Heimatrauschen. , Cinema time
  11. ↑ Swantje Seberg: Anna Hepp: 800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz. , kunstundfilm.de, March 3, 2020
  12. ↑ Silvia Hallensleben: Films can cost friendships - Edgar Reitz is recognized at the German Film Prize for his services to the cinema. The new documentary "With 800 times lonely" portrays the director. , Der Tagesspiegel, March 5, 2020
  13. ↑ Hartwig Tegeler: The other concept of home - Edgar Reitz documentary. , Deutschlandfunk, March 2, 2020
  14. ↑ Stefe: 800 times lonely - A day with the filmmaker Edgar Reitz. , Filmjournalisten.de, March 5, 2020