Schultze gets the blues

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Movie
Original title Schultze gets the blues
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2003
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK without age restriction
JMK 0
Rod
Director Michael Schorr
script Michael Schorr
production Jens Körner
Thomas Riedel
Oliver Niemeier
music Thomas Wittenbecher
camera Axel Schneppat
cut Tina Hillmann
occupation

Director and screenwriter Michael Schorr
Main actor Horst Krause

Schultze gets the blues is a German fiction film from 2003. Michael Schorr directed and wrote the screenplay , and it was released in cinemas on April 22, 2004. Schorr had been working on the project since 1995. The film was shot in 2002 in Saxony-Anhalt , Texas and Louisiana .

The tragic comedy stands out - with the exception of the main actor Horst Krause - by largely unknown actors (partly amateur actors ), landscape recordings and the soundtrack with Zydeco and Cajun music as well as polka .

action

In a secluded village in Saxony-Anhalt ( Teutschenthal near Halle ), the miner Schultze and his colleagues Manfred and Jürgen are sent into early retirement . From now on, a bleak life awaits the three between the allotment garden, the pub and their fishing spot, a railway bridge over the Saale .

Schultze lives alone and occasionally visits his demented mother in the nursing home. One night he happened to hear Zydeco music from Louisiana on the radio that he couldn't get out of his head. Instead of his usual polka, after some overcoming, Schultze even plays this melody with his accordion at the annual folk music festival of his community, which, however, meets with incomprehension among the majority of the audience. Some of these viewers even refer to these unfamiliar sounds as " Negro music ".

When an invitation arrives from the American twin town of the village, New Braunfels in Texas, for a person to attend their folk festival there, Schultze is selected as a representative by the local folk music association. Soon after arriving in the USA, Schultze discovered that the local “sausage party” with yodelling and the German national anthem was nothing more than a bad caricature of the village festivals in his home in Saxony-Anhalt. He escapes the hustle and bustle and gets a small boat to go on a discovery tour. In addition to the Gulf of Mexico , this also leads him to the bayous of Louisiana, where he finally finds “his” music. When he is celebrating with his new American friends, Schultze becomes very ill. It is suggested that he will die. At the end of the film there is a funeral for Schulze in Teutschenthal, which becomes a celebration of his life.

music

The subject that Schultze accidentally caught on the radio at night and interpreted several times in the film in his own arrangements is "Zydeco from 1988" by the American band Zydeco Force.

While Schultze is looking for another station on his analog radio, he passes over a short excerpt from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony . The same excerpt can be heard in the opening sequence of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here .

criticism

“Atmospheric, unobtrusively humorous portrait of Germany and its tradition using the example of an older man who dares to start over without being rewarded. The feature film, which looks like a documentary and is narrated in an appealingly laconic manner in places, convinces with its excellent leading actor, picturesque images and his sensitive handling of music and noises. "

- Lexicon of International Films

Roger Ebert rated the film very positively with three and a half stars out of four.

Awards

  • Special Directors Award of the Venice Film Festival 2003
  • Best Film , Best Debut , Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Horst Krause) at the Stockholm International Film Festival 2003
  • Best Film , Best Director and Best Production Design at the Gijón International Film Festival 2003
  • Best production design for Natascha E. Tagwerk at the German Film Prize 2004
  • Best debut at the Flaiano International Award 2004
  • Special Prize of the Jury at the European Film Festival Cinessonne (Paris) 2004
  • The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

Nominations

  • Discovery Prize at the European Film Prize 2003
  • Best leading role (Horst Krause) at the German Film Prize 2004
  • Best German film at the Gilde Film Award 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for Schultze gets the blues . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ Schultze Gets the Blues, Soundtrack Audio CD, Normal Records 2007
  3. ↑ Roger Ebert's review of March 10, 2005 on rogerebert.com (last accessed: January 2, 2015).