Marlene (1984)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Marlene |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language |
German , English , French |
| Publishing year | 1984 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Maximilian Schell |
| script | Maximilian Schell Meir Lubor Dohnal |
| production |
Zev Braun Karel Dirka |
| music | Nicolas Economou |
| camera |
Henry Hauck Pavel Hispler Ivan Šlapeta |
| cut |
Heidi Genée Dagmar Hirtz |
Marlene Dietrich - Portrait of a Myth is a documentary from 1984 that the film director Maximilian Schell made about the legendary film star Marlene Dietrich . It was made possible by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) and OKO-Film and released by Futura Film, Munich , and Alive Films (USA).
background
Marlene Dietrich and Maximilian Schell played together in the film The Judgment of Nuremberg in 1961 and learned to appreciate each other. Schell had been trying to convince Dietrich, who lives in her apartment on Parisian Avenue Montaigne, to make a documentary about her life for years. She has repeatedly refused to do this. In 1982 she agreed on the condition not to appear in the picture herself. The entire documentary therefore consists of comments made by Marlene Dietrich herself on the questions asked by Maximilian Schell, on the silent films she showed and her sound films . Similarly newsreel shown about them and their vocal performances in the film. Marlene Dietrich was contractually committed to 40 hours of interviews, about half of which were conducted in German and half in English. She reports on her childhood in Berlin, the shooting of The Blue Angel , her husband Rudolf Sieber , and the work with directors such as Josef von Sternberg , Orson Welles , Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock . At one point Dietrich and Schell quote together the poem O dear, as long as you can love by Ferdinand Freiligrath ; in the end, Marlene Dietrich is moved to tears by the pathetic words.
Marlene Dietrich often ignores Schell's questions, makes hearty comments about other things, about former film partners and about published biographies. Throughout the interview, she speaks about life and death, reality and illusion, and the nature of stardom. Thanks to the extremely sensitive conduct of the conversation, Schell manages to give the viewer a deep insight into Dietrich's character, who originally wanted to reveal as little as possible about herself.
Film clips
The documentary shows excerpts from the following films:
- Tragedy of Love (1923)
- I kiss your hand, Madame (1929)
- The blue angel (1930)
- Morocco (1930)
- Dishonored (1931)
- Blonde Venus (1932)
- The Scarlet Empress (1934)
- The Devil is a Woman (1935)
- Pearls of Luck (1936)
- The Great Bluff (1939)
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- The Red Lola (1950)
- Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
- Under the Sign of Evil (1958)
- The Nuremberg Judgment (1961)
- Nice Gigolo, Poor Gigolo (1978)
Awards and nominations
The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary in 1986. He won the German Television Award .
See also
- Marlene Dietrich - Her Own Song , documentary film about Marlene Dietrich from 2002
Web links
- Marlene in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- NY Times review of film
- Marlene (including posters, film programs, advertising, reviews, photos)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marlene Dietrich: Der Liebe permanence / O dear, as long as you can love on YouTube
- ↑ I was photographed to death . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1984, pp. 164-169 ( Online - Feb. 27, 1984 ).
- ^ NY Times: Marlene . In: NY Times . Retrieved November 16, 2008.