Karl Schneider (production designer)

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Karl Schneider (born July 19, 1916 in Berlin , † December 18, 1996 in Daun / Eifel) was a German film architect , set designer and painter . Karl Schneider worked as a film architect and set designer for numerous films since the late 1940s and television productions since the 1960s, as well as a set designer for several theaters. According to the reasons for the award of the gold film volume in 1988, he is considered “one of the most important film architects of German post-war film”.

life and work

Karl Schneider grew up in Berlin-Köpenick , attended the school farm Insel Scharfenberg from 1929 and studied painting at the Berlin Art Academy from 1933 to 1936/37 .

In 1948 he started working for the newly founded DEFA in Babelsberg , although he lived with his family in West Berlin . In the following years he designed the buildings for numerous films. His specialty was the coherent, never intrusive set of films, for which he designed rooms that opened up a variety of play options and at the same time condensed the dramaturgy visually. The films “ Der Untertan ” (director: Wolfgang Staudte ) and “ Die Elenden ” (director: Jean-Paul Le Chanois ) stand for this in a special way . As part of the “ formalism dispute ” in the GDR, controversies arose over the imaginative, experimental set-up of the fairy tale film “ The Brave Little Tailor ” (director: Helmut Spieß ), but this did not detract from the film’s success. As part of this controversy (and due to disagreements between the prospective director Wolfgang Staudte and Bertolt Brecht ) the project to film Brecht's play " Mother Courage " failed . And the film " Sonnensucher " (director: Konrad Wolf ) was initially banned for political reasons and could only be shown on GDR television in 1972. At DEFA until 1958, Karl Schneider not only worked with the directors mentioned, but also a. also with Herbert Ballmann , Erich Engel , Falk Harnack , Otto Meyer and Arthur Pohl .

After leaving DEFA in 1958 - the family moved to Düsseldorf in 1960 and to Daun / Eifel in 1967 - from the same year he set up several German film productions and worked a. a. with the directors Wolfgang Becker , Géza von Cziffra , Ernst Hofbauer , Harald Vock and Eugen York . In Israel he was u. a. worked for the film “ Der Blaumilchkanal ” (director: Ephraim Kishon ).

During the 1960s, the focus of his work shifted significantly towards television productions. He designed and produced the equipment for opera films (director: Werner Kelch), Marlitt films (director: Herbert Ballmann ), crime thrillers (including " Tatort ") and numerous television plays, including multi-part series such as "Der eiserne Gustav" (director: Wolfgang Staudte , 7 parts) and “ Blood and Honor - Youth under Hitler ” (Director: Bernd Fischerauer , 4 parts). He worked (except with the directors mentioned) a. a. with Wilm ten Haaf , Vojtěch Jasný , Gig Malzacher , Rudolf Nussgruber , Sigi Rothemund , Rolf von Sydow , Tom Toelle and Michael Verhoeven .

At the same time he was also active as a set designer, a. a. for theater performances in Baden-Baden (“Suzy Wong”, “The Thief of London”, “The King Dies”, “People and Mice”; Direction: Hannes Tannert ) and in Vienna (“The Police”, “Audience” and “ Vernissage ”; director: Vojtěch Jasný ).

In 1985 he retired from active professional life and devoted himself - together with his wife Traute Schneider - entirely to painting, which he had never let rest.

In 1988 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold ( German Film Prize , donated by the Federal Minister of the Interior) “for many years of outstanding work in German film” . At the end of the 1980s the Filmmuseum Düsseldorf took over the entire estate from his professional activity and opened its doors in 1993 with a special exhibition “Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures ”. Karl Schneider died in 1996 at the age of 80 in his adopted home Daun / Eifel.

Filmography

In brackets: the names of those who were jointly responsible for the buildings with Karl Schneider.

cinemamovies

Television work

  • 1963 The Lonjumeau postillon
  • 1963/64 lowlands
  • 1964 death around the corner
  • 1964 Walk in ... Frank Wedekind's circus world
  • 1964 The lady with the lace shawl
  • 1965 Panoptikum
  • 1965 The apostle game
  • 1967/68 What is called love
  • 1968 Just no cello
  • 1968 Carl Schurz
  • 1970 The Minister and the Duck
  • 1970 The Black Count, TV series
  • 1971 La Femme, Le Mari et La Mort, or the difficulty of killing your husband
  • 1971 wolves and sheep
  • 1971 Old film becomes young again
  • 1971 Mr. Tingling hires
  • 1971/72 When stones speak (Tatort)
  • 1972 Old Mamsell's secret
  • 1972 Monsieur Chasse or how to hunt rabbits
  • 1973 In the Schillingshof
  • 1973 spring floods
  • 1974 Auguste Bolte
  • 1974 In the house of the Commerce Council
  • 1974/75 death of a burglar (crime scene)
  • 1975 rest of life. The challenge
  • 1975/76 I can stay a little longer
  • 1975/76 Senior Citizens Switzerland; Director
  • 1976 Just not tonight, please
  • 1976/77 Finder's reward
  • 1977 Fairy
  • 1977 Finder's reward (crime scene)
  • 1977 The chain , 2 parts
  • 1978 My fat friend
  • 1978/79 The iron Gustav, 7 parts
  • 1980 mirror
  • 1980 The Countess from Chamissoplatz
  • 1980/81 Blood and Honor - Youth under Hitler , 4 parts
  • 1983/84 The beautiful, crazy Jewish girl
  • 1984 The Granitkopp

literature

  • Federal Minister of the Interior (Ed.): German Film Prize 1988 . Announcement of the German Film Prize 1988 on June 10, 1988 in the Theater des Westens, Berlin 1988
  • Filmmuseum Düsseldorf (Ed.): Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures. Catalog, Düsseldorf 1993; also: www.duesseldorf.de/en/filmmuseum/ausstellungen/publikationen.html* Seen countless times and yet hardly known, in: Dauner Zeitung No. 191, August 19, 1993
  • A painter who builds pictures , in: Trierischer Volksfreund No. 244, October 20, 1993
  • Brigitte Bettscheider: A painter who builds pictures - Karl Schneider, film architect, in: District administration Daun (ed.), District Daun, Vulkaneifel. Heimatjahrbuch 1997, pp. 132-134, also: http://www.heimatjahrbuch-vulkaneifel.de/VT/hjb1997/hjb1997.75.htm
  • Dorett Molitor: On the origin and the inventory of the scenography collection of the Filmmuseum Potsdam . Insight into the production and the set design of the failed film project "Mother Courage and Her Children" (1955) by Wolfgang Staudte, in: kunsttexte.de, No. 1, 2014 (14 pages, PDF )
  • Anett Werner: Show me how you live and I will tell you who you are . Living rooms in the DEFA films Der Untertan and Corinna Schmidt , in: kunsttexte.de, No. 1, 2014 (15 pages, PDF )
  • Anett Werner: Places of Classical Music. Scenography in DEFA literary adaptations, Weimar 2017
  • Anet Werner-Burgmann: The "real Fontaneluft" with a new heroine. Mrs. Jenny Treibel becomes CORINNA SCHMIDT (1951), in: Filmblatt, 24th year, no. 69, autumn 2019, pp. 2–21

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Federal Minister of the Interior (ed.), Deutscher Filmpreis 1988, Berlin 1988, p. 13. For a biography see Filmmuseum Düsseldorf (ed.), Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures. Catalog, Düsseldorf 1993, p. 19.
  2. ↑ See Dorett Molitor, On the emergence and inventory of the scenography collection of the Filmmuseum Potsdam. Insight into the production and the set design of the failed film project Mother Courage and Her Children (1955) by Wolfgang Staudte, in: kunsttexte.de, No. 1, 2014 (edoc.hu-berlin.de/kunsttexte/2014-1/molitor- dorett-3 / PDF / molitor.pdf).
  3. ↑ See Heidi Draheim, Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures, in: Filmmuseum Düsseldorf (Hrsg.), Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures, pp. 4–8, here p. 7.
  4. ↑ See Federal Minister of the Interior (ed.), German Film Prize 1988, Berlin 1988, p. 13.
  5. ^ Filmmuseum Düsseldorf (Ed.), Karl Schneider. A painter who builds pictures. Catalog, Düsseldorf 1993.
personal data
SURNAME Schneider, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film architect, set designer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 1996
Place of death Daun , Eifel