Heinz Bennent

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Heinz Bennent , actually Heinrich August Bennent (born July 18, 1921 in Atsch , Germany ; † October 12, 2011 in Lausanne , Switzerland ), was a German actor .

Bennent appeared in 110 films; He became best known for his role as the Jewish theater director in occupied Paris in François Truffaut's feature film The Last Metro , which directs events on stage from the basement. Bennent also played a decisive role in the theater, and was valued by the professional world as one of the last great, internationally active character actors in the theater. He developed his greatest mastery in the multi-layered portrayal of loners, outsiders and fools. He kept aloof from the cultural scene all his life.

Life

Heinz Bennent was born as the sixth child of an accountant. He attended grammar school up to Obersekunda and was expelled from the Hitler Youth for “lack of obedience” . Bennent himself later described himself as "extremely allergic to authority".

As a child, Bennent said he was enthusiastic about the acting profession, but on the advice of his parents he completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith from 1938 to 1939, which he did not finish. Out of “naivety” he volunteered for military service and was drafted into the Air Force's ground crew because of his apprenticeship as a locksmith . He served on an air base on the Baltic Sea , where he played theater with comrades in his free time.

theatre

Before the end of the war, Bennent passed an aptitude test to become an actor. Bennent received his actual acting training after the war from 1945 to 1946 in Göttingen with Felix Emmel and Karl Meixner . He had his first engagement in 1947 at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe as Don Carlos . He then went to the Schauspielhaus Bochum , the Stadttheater Basel , the Theater Bonn , the Lower Saxony State Theater Hanover and the Hamburg Thalia Theater (1961–1963), to name but a few. Bennent held a solitary position in the German theater landscape. After his beginnings he was no longer a member of a theater company. His acting was considered so unique that he was able to regularly dominate the stage with it. The theater critic Gerhard Stadelmaier described this as his ability to rise from the essential to the superficial, to finally cover the unadorned interior with elegance and wit.

In addition to his theater work in France and Switzerland, he was often seen at the Munich Kammerspiele . His virtuoso parody of several character actors such as Will Quadflieg , Fritz Kortner , Gustaf Gründgens and Bernhard Minetti in the play Visitors by Botho Strauss , directed by Dieter Dorn, delighted visitors and critics in 1988: “He parodied colleagues from Quadflieg to Kortner with so much malice and awe , with so much wit, verve and cunning that charging and smearing became the highest art. The hero as a clown. Seldom has anyone exaggerated so sparingly and at the same time so shamelessly understated. Gestures hurried away from her words and became independent. ”He had his last stage appearance with his own compilation of two early Chekhov texts for the solo piece I am my wife's husband .

He valued the theater work much more than filming: “You have to be in a film. Be yourself. Anyone can film. ”“ I have everything under control on stage. There I determine the rhythm. ”He practiced the rhythm of his texts publicly while walking, in front of the camera and on the stage he varied and improvised his gestures and pronunciation, which he always articulated very precisely. Bennent always conveyed a reflected, objective and highly concentrated impression on the stage beyond all theatrics. Nonetheless, Bennent was never entirely satisfied with his work; he was constantly looking for a better, more coherent expression. He once described his search for truth as saying that he had no “talent for self-satisfaction”. The director Ute Wieland , on the other hand, experienced this search positively, for her he was "an actor like a curious child, with a joy to play and curiosity about my vision."

Movies

In parallel to his theater work, Bennent began to appear regularly on German television from 1954. He initially limited himself to theater and literature adaptations. TV series also followed later. In the first season of the ZDF series Der Anwalt (1976) he played the title role. In 1977 he was directed by Ingmar Bergman in Das Schlangenei , with whom he also connected the theater work on Per Olov's Enquists From the Lives of Earthworms . Bergman encouraged him to work out his gestures even more. It was only through Bergman that he was able to accept and love himself as an actor. After a supporting role in Costa-Gavras ' Die Liebe einer Frau (1979) with Romy Schneider and Yves Montand , his language skills also gave him offers in French films. A César nomination earned him in 1981 François Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), in which he plays alongside Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu a Jewish theater director who had to hide from the Nazis in Paris during the Second World War . Other roles under Andrzej Żuławski ( Possession , 1981), Claude Goretta ( The Death of Mario Ricci , 1983) or Régis Wargnier ( A French Woman , 1995) followed, which made him more popular in France than in Germany. Bennent won the Federal Film Prize in 1989 for Ute Wieland's In the Year of the Tortoise , in which, as a 60-year-old, widowed and unemployed accountant, he met a lively student. Bennent stayed in the character privately as a depressed early retiree during the filming. In his last film role, he was seen in 2004 as Sigmund Freud , who analyzed his girlfriend and later psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte (Catherine Deneuve), a great-granddaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother .

Bennent family of artists

In 1963, Heinz Bennent married the Swiss dancer Paulette Renou (stage name Diane Mansart ), who performed at the Paris Opera . After the birth of their children Anne (* 1963) and David (* 1966), his wife withdrew from working life and was primarily involved in the family. The family liked to live secluded and spartan - in a fisherman's hut on Mykonos , a farm in a Swiss mountain village 2000 meters above sea level, and in the city apartment of Diane Bennent's mother in Lausanne. Daughter and son also appeared at an early age as actors, often they stood together on stage or appeared together in films. In Geißendörfer's drama The Parents (1973), the entire Bennent family acted in front of the camera and played the counter-image to a healthy family. The best known joint appearance was in Volker Schlöndorff's film adaptation of the bestseller Die Blechtrommel by Günter Grass . Heinz Bennent represented a greengrocer, his son David played the main role as the short drummer Oskar Matzerath. Anne Bennent has also appeared as a chanson singer with the song cycle Pour Maman in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France since 1989 . Diane Mansart-Bennent was present on stage while her daughter performed this program until her death in late 2010.

One of the family's outstanding theatrical productions was Samuel Beckett's Endspiel , with which Heinz and David Bennent have toured all of Europe since 1995. Heinz Bennent described this drama as “the piece of my life.” From 1997 to 2010 he was on another tour with his son David: After David Bennent had recited Heiner Müller's description of the picture by heart, he recited Hölderlin's novel Hyperion . He often expressed his enthusiasm for Hölderlin: “You can work on Hölderlin for a lifetime until you hit the essentials. For me, great texts and great authors are a joy. ”“ For me there is no day without Hölderlin. [...] He is and remains my breviary , my daily bread. "

Bennent moved to Switzerland in the early 1970s , where he lived between his engagements and tours until his death. The family spent the summer months on Mykonos, as the residents there had built and given them a house for Bennent's wedding in 1963. Heinz Bennent last lived in Pully , Switzerland. He died on October 12, 2011 with his family in Lausanne. Almost a year earlier, his wife Diane Bennent had died on December 10, 2010 at the age of 82.

reception

“He stopped early to be part of something. He is the greatest free actor among German actors. A different player who does not belong to a house but rather to an attitude. Great actors usually like to show what depth is in them: They climb down, so to speak, from the surface and proudly dig their abysses. Heinz Bennent went the opposite way. It always seems at first very deep, soul, pain, abyss, a not harmless bundle of anarchy. But then he pulls the surface over him like a wonderful cape , comes to himself, gets himself under control. He plays from the bottom up. His characters: wolves whose sheepskin alone can be relied on. He's always very comfortable upstairs. His outsiders, eccentricities, marginalized existences, Schiller's princes, Shakespeare's fools, Schnitzler's painters, Beckett's clowns have painful composure . "

- Gerhard Stadelmaier , 2011

“Above all, Bennent played an internal drama. His enchanting touches of ironic melancholy were like silent explosions. Heinz Bennent could justifiably be called a star - and yet it doesn't do him right. Because this man, who is extremely modest in personal encounter and who has an aura of artist and anti-bourgeois at the same time, is not one for the surface. With him, the glamor comes from within, from a stubborn character that burns without smoke. You can only feel its intensity. Like his comedy that shines in the shadow of grief. "

- Peter von Becker , 2011

“Bennent, who subscribed to melancholy eccentrics in the cinema, had his greatest successes on stage. Even if he has made trips to the screen again and again - at Schlöndorff as the boss and lawyer in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum , or as the greengrocer Greff in The Tin Drum , the film that made his son David famous. […] Bennent was also considered a brooder, a difficult ascetic, beyond his roles. Before he had his breakthrough in the seventies, in which cinema and television ultimately played a role, he had moved from stage to stage for thirty years. "

- NN , 2011

“His present stage eroticism is fascinating. [...] His creative disturbances for me and his absolute ruthlessness towards everything and everyone make him a nuisance as a teammate. For me a positive annoyance. He simply assumes that you follow him when he plays on his keyboard without limits. I was always amazed where the journey took me. "

- Gisela Stein , 2001

Filmography (selection)

Theater works (selection)

Sound carrier

Radio plays

Awards (selection)

Documentaries

  • Bennent times four - Diane, Heinz, Anne and David Bennent. Portrait of a family of artists. Documentary, Germany, 1998, 45 min., Script and director: Georg Stefan Troller , production: Kick Film in coproduction with WDR and NDR , first broadcast: December 6, 1998 on Nord 3 , summary by Kick Film , ( memento from March 25 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  • Make-up removed: Heinz Bennent. TV-portrait, Germany, 2002, 15 min, written and directed. Johanna Schickentanz, Production: ZDF , Row: abgeschminkt , Episode 10, first broadcast May 2, 2002 at ZDFtheaterkanal , movie data.

Theatrical documentary

Web links

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Heinz Bennent , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 06/2012 of February 7, 2012 (right)., In the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
  2. ↑ Heinz Bennent in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  3. ↑ Annette Bosetti: Heinz Bennent is dead - silent star on big stages. In: Rheinische Post , October 13, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b c Gerhard Stadelmaier : A hermit and anarch in the theater country: the actor who alone seems strongest. In: FAZ , July 17, 2011.
  5. ↑ a b Peter von Becker : Comedy in the shadow of grief. Diogenes without a bin: the actor Heinz Bennent on his 90th birthday. In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 17, 2011.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Hartmut Krug: Better fool than King Lear. Actor Heinz Bennent turns 90. In: Deutschlandradio , July 18, 2011.
  7. ↑ Huber, Hermann J .: Bennent, Heinz . In: Langen Müller's Actor Lexicon of the Present. Germany, Austria, Switzerland . Langen Müller, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7844-2058-3 , (accessed via World Biographical Information System ).
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Urs Jenny : One hour a day by Hölderlin . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 2000, pp. 248-252 ( online - September 18, 2000 , interview).
  9. ↑ a b NN : Brooder and eccentric. On the death of the great actor Heinz Bennent. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 13, 2011, p. 11, beginning of the article .
  10. ↑ a b Gerhard Stadelmaier : Depth is not necessary at all. In: FAZ , October 12, 2011.
  11. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek : Is there life after the theater? In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1988, pp. 278-280 ( Online - Oct. 10, 1988 ).
  12. ↑ I am my wife's husband. In: Renaissance Theater (Berlin) , 2001.
  13. ↑ Kerstin Decker : No firm hold in this country. He's out of this world. Heinz Bennent has no car, no television, no fax machine, no internet connection. But he plays like few in this world. In: Der Tagesspiegel , The Third Page, September 21, 2000, Reportage, (1,886 words), beginning of the article .
  14. ↑ Bennent quotes Hilmar Bahr: "I'm not celebrating my birthday". In: dpa / Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of July 17, 2006.
  15. ↑ a b c Christina Tilmann: I'm a nature boy. The actor Heinz Bennent about Andersen, Schiller and Chekhov. In: Tagesspiegel , April 15, 2005, interview.
  16. ^ A b Ute Wieland : Farewell to Heinz Bennent. Obituary for a veteran. At: German Film Academy , October 13, 2011.
  17. ^ Bennent in: Bennent times four - Diane, Heinz, Anne and David Bennent. Portrait of a family of artists. ( Memento from March 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Documentary by Georg Stefan Troller , 1998.
  18. ↑ bor / dpa / dapd : Heinz Bennent is dead. Mourning a modest stage giant. In: Spiegel online , October 12, 2011: "... dancer Paulette Renou (stage name: Diane Mansart) takes turns in her hometown Lausanne ..."
  19. ^ Sven Siedenberg: A portrait of the actor David Bennent. Little David's great journey. In: Berliner Zeitung , September 14, 1995.
  20. ↑ Katalin Fischer: An eternal traveler who lived out of suitcases. In: Die Welt , October 12, 2011.
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Höbel : Beckett's Idiot . In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 1995, pp. 228-230 ( Online - June 12, 1995 ).
  22. ↑ The parents at geissendörfer film and television production (gff)
  23. ↑ Chanson. Pour maman. In: Konau 25, Frohe Zukunft eV , April 24, 2010.
  24. ↑ Anne Bennent “Pour Maman”. In: Berliner Zeitung , March 7, 2001.
  25. ↑ a b Gisela Stein in: Heinz Bennent: The successful outsider. In: Münchner Merkur , October 12, 2011.
  26. ↑ Horst Schwartz: The husband of his wife ... , October 13, 2011.
  27. ↑ Anne Bennent - "Pour maman" ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Chanson evening with Anne Bennent and Joachim Kuntzsch, 2011. In: Kloster Und .  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / academy11.globart.at
personal data
SURNAME Bennent, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bennent, Heinrich August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Atsch , North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 2011
Place of death Lausanne , Vaud, Switzerland