Max Ernst: My vagabonding - my restlessness

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Movie
Original title Max Ernst: My vagabonding - my restlessness
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1991
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Peter Schamoni
script Peter Schamoni
Werner Spies
production Peter Schamoni
for Peter Schamoni Film
ZDF
music Igor Stravinsky
camera Ernst Hirsch
Peter Rosenwanger
Victor Schamoni
cut Katja Dringenberg
synchronization

Max Ernst: Mein Vagabundieren - Meine Unrest is a German documentary about the life and work of Max Ernst . The film, directed by Peter Schamoni , was released in 1991 .

action

Max Ernst is in voiceover that neither his life nor his work harmoniously and were. You see him playing boules , the film recapitulates his life.

Max Ernst was a soldier in the First World War for four years . During this time he not only made small drawings, but also got to know Paul Éluard , who also fought as a soldier on the other side in the war . A deep friendship developed when they met again after the war. Max Ernst was part of the DADA movement, which drove outbreak and revolt. Éluard bought his first two large format paintings Celebes and Oedipus Rex . He moved to Paris and lived with Éluard and his wife Gala for four years . Among other things, he painted the interior walls of the house in Eaubonne with surrealistic pictures. Years later, the artist couple's daughter visits the apartment. Settings show how Max Ernst's pictures reappear after removing the wallpaper.

Max Ernst reports how he learned from 1925 to conquer the fear of the blank sheet of paper. He incorporated organic forms into his pictures, which he created using the frottage technique. In addition to the forest, the bird becomes the main subject of his pictures. He tells of an episode in his childhood: his favorite parrot died on the day his sister was born. The connection between humans and birds has since established itself in his head and is reflected in his pictures. His marriage to Marie-Berthe Aurenche in 1927 is mentioned, followed by excerpts from the film The Golden Age , in which Max Ernst had taken on a role at Luis Buñuel's request . The year 1933 brought a decisive turning point in Max Ernst's life. His art was considered degenerate in the Third Reich. He is also shaken by the Spanish Civil War , which he processes in his work Der Hausengel .

Because he took the side of his long-time friend in the dispute between Éluard and André Breton , he was excluded from the circle of surrealist people and moved to Saint-Martin-d'Ardèche with his new girlfriend Leonora Carrington . Here he buys a farmhouse, which he decorates with cement reliefs. He was imprisoned several times in France as a German and finally fled to the USA with Peggy Guggenheim's help. He is fascinated by the art of the Indians and bought numerous sculptures and exotic sculptures. Her marriage to Peggy Guggenheim was short-lived. Max Ernst finally moves to Sedona , Arizona with his new wife Dorothea Tanning . Both build a wooden house, which is only gradually converted into a stone house. It turns out to be a heavenly place for Max Ernst, who creates his sculpture Capricorn here, among other things. Max Ernst only returned to Europe after the end of the Second World War. His pictorial vision of Europe after the rain turns out not to be entirely wrong in his eyes. In France, he realizes, he is almost forgotten. He takes over the studio of the painter William Copley ; he returned to the public eye when he received the Grand Prize at the 1954 Venice Biennale. The following year he and Dorothea Tanning move to Huismes , where they both buy a house. Cage collages now play a new role in Max Ernst's work. Like birds, cages are also fascinating as a symbol for Max Ernst, since people are also trapped in a cage for life and long to escape this cage for their entire life. Max Ernst also reflects on the work on sculptures. They are his vacation from painting.

A painter who finds himself is lost, says Max Ernst. The most important thing in his life was never to have found himself.

production

Max Ernst: My vagabonding - My restlessness arose on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday. The film mixes historical recordings, archive recordings of Max Ernst and new scenes shot on location in the USA, France and Germany, among others. In addition to original interviews with Max Ernst, partly in English and French, you can also hear quotes from the biographies of people connected to Max Ernst. Among other things, excerpts from Jimmy Ernst's biography Not exactly a still life and Dorothea Tanning's birthday are included. Film clips include scenes from Luis Buñuel's The Golden Age and Hans Richter's 8x8 .

Max Ernst: My vagabonding - my restlessness had its cinema premiere on May 9, 1991. At that time it was shown on the weekend in the communal cinema in Stuttgart as an accompanying program to the Max Ernst exhibition in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart . The ZDF first showed the film on January 30, 1994 on television. The film is dedicated to Max Ernst expert Werner Spies .

synchronization

Texts speaker
Max Ernst Max Ernst, Heiner Lauterbach
Dorothea Tanning Elisabeth of Molo
Peggy Guggenheim Linda Joy
William Copley Donald Arthur
Peter Schamoni Christian Wolff
Werner Spies Werner Spies
Jimmy Ernst Hanns Dieter Hüsch

Reviews

For film-dienst , Max Ernst: Mein Vagabundieren - Meine Unrest was an “detailed attempt, fascinating due to the abundance of material, to approach the artist and his work with reference to his life and the historical background. Formally rather conservative and leisurely, the film gives away the opportunity for an aesthetically independent reflection on Max Ernst's work and his multi-layered personality. "

Cinema estimated that the film "finds its way into arthouse cinemas with a sense of art and an audience like this" despite the awkward narrative style.

Der Spiegel found that Peter Schamoni "[a] us snippets of interviews and discoveries like a French advertising film from 1930 in which the artist campaigns for chairs from the Barbet company, from documentary photos and re-shot scenes [...] a lively, instructive 100- Minute film ".

Ernst's long-time friend Werner Spies said: “In a marvelous way he mixed the documentary material that he had or that he had shot himself over the years with staged scenes. Max Ernst, as he said, was touched by the way in which Peter Schamoni responded to him. Because he respected the artist's shyness, and in a certain way made his real subject out of this shyness and the horror of bringing one's own self into play. One should speak of indirect films, films that convey what Max Ernst argued against the personality cult of the century. "

Awards

Max Ernst: Mein Vagabundieren - Meine Unrest received the Bavarian Film Prize for Best Documentary Film in 1992 and was nominated for the German Film Prize in the category of best full-length feature film in the same year . The film won the award for best biography at the Montreal Festival International du Film sur l'art .

The film evaluation agency awarded the documentary the rating “particularly valuable”. In the jury's statement, it was praised “that it is an independent film about an independent character who, in particular, speaks not only with her artistic works, but also in documentary interviews. Congenial to the pictures: The cut and the assembly are to be emphasized. The film succeeds in conveying the ambience of each individual place where Max Ernst stayed for a long time and thus contributes to an even better understanding of his works. "

literature

  • Max Ernst: My vagabonding - my restlessness . In: Hilmar Hoffmann (Ed.): Peter Schamoni. Film Pieces . Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 22-29.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Ernst: My vagabonding - my restlessness. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ See cinema.de
  3. ^ Vagabund Ernst in the cinema and museum. In: Der Spiegel , No. 22, 1991, p. 213.
  4. ↑ Werner Spies : The world in close focus. In: FAZ , June 14, 2011
  5. ↑ Jury statement of the film evaluation office