Return to Montauk

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Movie
German title Return to Montauk
Original title Return to Montauk
Country of production Germany , France , Ireland
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Volker Schlöndorff
script Colm Tóibín ,
Volker Schlöndorff
production Regina Ziegler ,
Volker Schlöndorff,
Francis Boespflug ,
Stéphane Parthenay ,
Conor Barry
music Max Richter ,
Thomas Bartlett ,
Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh
camera Jérôme Alméras
cut Hervé Schneid
occupation

Montauk (Original title: Return to Montauk ) is a feature film by Volker Schlöndorff from the year 2017 . The German - French - Irish coproduction is based on an original script by Colm Tóibín and director Schlöndorff and is dedicated to the memory of Max Frisch ( Montauk ) . The drama tells of an older writer (played by Stellan Skarsgård ), who after years meets his former lover ( Nina Hoss ) again in New York . Both then decide to spend the weekend together in the eponymous coastal town of Montauk on Long Island , where they were once happy.

The film premiered in competition at the 67th Berlinale on February 15, 2017. The regular cinema release in Germany was on May 11, 2017.

action

New York in winter: Berlin-based writer Max Zorn, in his early 60s, is traveling to the United States for a few days for a book premiere. He is supposed to present his very personal novel The Hunter and the Hunted , which tells of the failure of a great love seventeen years ago in New York. Max is already expected by his younger partner Clara. She worked as an intern at the American publisher on the publication of the English translation and has not seen Max for months.

During a reading, Max runs into his former literary mentor Walter. Max asks him for the contact details of Rebecca Epstein, the woman who inspired his novel and with whom he once had a relationship in New York. Originally from East Germany, Rebecca made a career as a public prosecutor in the city and is now working successfully as a business lawyer. When Max wants to invite Rebecca to his reading in the Public Library by phone , she cancels. He then makes his way to her office together with the publishing employee Lindsey. Rebecca receives them in the foyer, but appears distant and receives a copy of his book from Max at the end.

At the reading in the New York Public Library, Max reads a very personal passage from his novel that makes Clara feel insecure, while her colleague Roderick rebukes him for being not tactful. At the subsequent party in a club, drunk Max reacts jealously to Clara's friendship with Roderick. He leaves the place and spontaneously visits Rebecca in her elegant apartment in the city center. She had attended a concert with a friend so as not to have to attend Max's reading.

The next day, Rebecca invites Max to take a weekend trip to the coastal town of Montauk , where both were once happy. Rebecca wants to look at a beach house that is for sale. Max agrees and hides the excursion from Clara. When the realtor does not show up to unlock the beach house as agreed, Max and Rebecca spend the night at the hotel. Both sleep together. Max then makes the decision to separate from Clara and to approach Rebecca again. Rebecca is against a relationship with the erratic author. After him, she met the love of her life, a young colleague who died of a sudden heart attack. Until today Rebecca has not been able to process the loss. Max, on the other hand, had returned to Berlin after the end of their relationship and had started an affair on a book tour with a woman who had a child by him, a daughter who was now 16 years old. Max and Rebecca make the return trip to New York in silence after Rebecca suffered a nervous breakdown shortly before.

In New York, Max discovers that Clara has left the hotel together. He visits her in her shabby apartment, where she accuses him of not keeping in touch with her in the past few months. Clara also suspects Max of cheating on her with the publishing clerk Lindsey, who covered him while preparing for the trip to Montauk. Max says no and makes her promise to stay together. When Walter wanted to give the financially troubled author an original drawing by Paul Klee that had been promised for a long time , he refused to Clara's astonishment. On departure at the airport, Max Clara confesses to being on the side with Rebecca, whom he describes as a "ghost". Clara replies boldly that you can't "fuck" ghosts.

History of origin

Inspiration and script

Director Volker Schlöndorff

For the German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff , returning to Montauk was a long-cherished dream project. He had already directed the feature film Homo Faber in 1991 , based on the novel by the Swiss writer Max Frisch (1911–1991), with whom he was friends. That film, however, was largely rejected by the critics.

At Montauk Schlöndorff was published in 1975 Frisch story Montauk inspired, in which the author spends a weekend with a young woman on the East Coast. Around 2010 the producer Rainer Kölmel approached Schlöndorff with the suggestion that the book be made into a film. In contrast to Homo Faber , for whom Rudy Wurlitzer had reworked Frisch's novel into a script, Schlöndorff refused to adapt Montauk directly for the cinema. The narrative had too many flashbacks into Frisch's previous life. Instead, Schlöndorff worked with the Irish writer and screenwriter Colm Tóibín on an original script that, according to Schlöndorff, was "[...] neither a film adaptation of Max Frisch's book, nor a travelogue" and was dedicated to Frisch's memory. According to Schlöndorff, only the constellation was "stolen" by the Swiss author. “It is not a key work. Neither a key work about Max Frisch, nor a key work about myself or my co-author, who also brought in a lot of his own. So yes, this is lived life transformed into fiction, ”says Schlöndorff. Tóibín, who had no scripting experience and also did not think in dramaturgical terms, wrote the texts from which Schlöndorff then assembled the actual script. According to Colm Tóibín, he and Schlöndorff had fun working on the script. “The sadder it got, the more we laughed,” said Toíbín. Schlöndorff stated that the return to Montauk shows an author at work. The script is a kind of double autobiography, but it is full of "lies". It is the first film about Schlöndorff's own life, who has lived in New York for several years: “I finally wanted to talk about myself”.

On the side, Tóibín wrote the story together as a novel, which was not finished when shooting started. He kept supplying Schlöndorff with new manuscript pages so that he had texts in reserve. When Schlöndorff still needed dialogue, he called Toíbín at night or used sentences from his own real life.

Casting

Stellan Skarsgård 2014 (cropped) .jpg
Nina Hoss (Berlinale 2012) .jpg


Stellan Skarsgård and Nina Hoss play the former lovers Max and Rebecca.

For the leading roles of Max Zorn and Rebecca, Volker Schlöndorff engaged the Swede Stellan Skarsgård and the German Nina Hoss . Both praised Tóibín and Schlöndorff's script. Schlöndorff and the two main actors met a year before the shooting and exchanged ideas over dinner. Rehearsals took place from September 2015 to April 2016. Co-author Colm Tóibín was present during the first rehearsals and took corrective action. “When we started shooting, everything was clear - the relationships between the actors, how they treat each other, the lyrics had been tapped. As a result, we were able to get on immediately when we arrived in New York, ”says Schlöndorff.

Stellan Skarsgård called Schlöndorff a "legend". According to his own statements, he liked the character to be played immediately. “His lack of clarity, his dishonesty even with himself, his contradictions. He's like us, ”says Skarsgård about Max Zorn. During the shooting, Schlöndorff was asked to say that Skarsgård had made the character his own. In time, Max Zorn would have had a lot more from Skarsgård than from Max Frisch or the character invented by Schlöndorff. Schlöndorff speculated that the Swede had found the role of his life, even more so than in the British television series River (2015), in which he played a police inspector. Skarsgård also helped to minimize pressure during the later filming. He convinced Schlöndorff that when shooting a film digitally it didn't matter how much material was used. Schlöndorff was an "old school" director who quickly picked up the clapperboard and had experienced that the cost of the film was based on the length of the material in meters. Confronted with this new point of view, Schlöndorff then shot some scenes without interruption up to four or five times in a row, which meant that the play of his actors became a little "freer" each time.

Schlöndorff found Nina Hoss to be the ideal cast for the part of Rebecca. Hoss, in turn, was delighted with the long dialogues in the script. "I'm more of someone who plays in films where I say less and from the theater I know all the talking and that I can now combine them is really nice," says Hoss. During the filming, she would later praise the openness of the director. “He is always honest in his feelings,” says Hoss. “I also look for this honesty with my characters, and I always see that as a risk. And he makes it very easy for me to take this risk. "

Filming

A total of 25 days of shooting were planned for the film - thirteen days in New York and Montauk, twelve days in the film studio in Berlin . Filming for the location began on April 26, 2016 in New York, although the production team did not have a filming permit. According to his own account, Schlöndorff had always wanted to use the city as a filming location. Something similar happened to him in New York that happened to the characters in the film, and shooting was easy. Only a small film team was deployed while the trailers were set up a few blocks away. In Montauk, Long Island, Schlöndorff appreciated the special light. The shooting ended on June 4, 2016 with the interior shots in Berlin. Schlöndorff announced that he had seldom had so much fun shooting a film as when he returned to Montauk . "[...] I used to make films because I thought it had to be now. So it's a duty. This is a freestyle. One from the heart. I wanted to tell this story, that was very important to me. They say you can't get over anything. But I got over something with this film [...] ”, says Schlöndorff.

For the return to Montauk Schlöndorff was able to win Regina Ziegler as a producer for the first time . Ziegler immediately believed in the film. Both had known each other for a long time, as they were working together on co-productions within Germany due to the forfeiture of funding. Schlöndorff had previously received several rejections because of the many dialogues in the script. The French Pyramid Productions and the Irish Savage Production were also involved . The production costs amounted to 4.7 million euros.

Awards

Return to Montauk was shown at the Berlinale in the competition for the Golden Bear , the main prize of the film festival.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of release for return to Montauk . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 166589 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. a b c d e f Weidermann, Volker: On the beach of truth . In: Der Spiegel , July 2, 2016, No. 27, p. 126.
  3. Profile at berlinale.de (accessed on 6 February 2017).
  4. a b c "Wild Bunch | Return to Montauk ”, accessed on February 6, 2017. http://www.wildbunch-germany.de/movie/rueckkehr-nach-montauk .
  5. a b c d e f g h i j k Lueken, Verena: A conversation with Volker Schlöndorff: Art cannot take a beat . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 9, 2017, No. 34, p. 9.
  6. a b c d "'Return to Montauk' - shooting start of Schlöndorff's latest film in New York". Deutschlandfunk, accessed on February 6, 2017. http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/return-to-montauk-drehstart-zu-schloendorffs-neuestem-film.807.de.html?dram:article_id=354101 .
  7. a b Lueken, Verena: The ghosts of Colm Toíbín . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 12, 2016, No. 213, p. 11.
  8. a b c “In production: Shooting of Volker Schlöndorff's 'Return of the Montauk' finished | FILMREPORTER.de ". Accessed February 6, 2017. http://filmreporter.de/news/13916-Dreharbeiten-zu-Volker-Schloendorffs .
  9. "Start of shooting - WDR cinema production 'Return to Montauk' with star cast - Press Lounge - WDR", May 3, 2016. https://presse.wdr.de/plounge/wdr/programm/2016/05/20160503_return_to_montauk.html .
  10. a b Augsburg, Ralf. "Production News: 'Return to Montauk' ... Berlin". Spielfilm.de, accessed on February 6, 2017. http://www.spielfilm.de/news/22045/volker-schloendorff-rueckkehr-nach-montauk .