Lutz Weidlich Movies
- 1992
In this free-form experimental, black-and-white film, a group of intellectuals and would-be intellectuals accept the invitation of a feuding couple to come to a party, and a great many verbal conversations and some carnal conversations take place. Occasionally one of them sings a song. Aside from its attempt to out-Warhol Warhol, the only other thing this film is notable for, according to one reviewer, is that it features an appearance by a Derek Jarman regular, actress Tilda Swinton. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tilda Swinton, Féodor Atkine, (more)
- 1989
- PG13
The US/German co-production The Rose Garden is based on an actual court case. Cast against type, Maximillian Schell plays a shabby old man who, without warning, attacks well-to-do Kurt Hubner at the Frankfurt airport. Hubner presses charges, and it looks like an open-and-shut case. But public-defender Liv Ullmann, who has witnessed the incident, is urged by her daughter to defend the poverty-stricken Schell in court. During her investigation, Ullman learns that Schell is a concentration-camp survivor who lost his sister to a hideous Nazi medical experiment, and that Hubner was commandant at the camp where this and other atrocities occurred. Hubner has been able to legally maneuver his way out of Germany, and was en route to parts unknown when Schell recognized him and attacked him. Even though she is armed with this information, Ullmann cannot be certain that justice will be served to the correct man. The Rose Garden is a provocative, compelling piece, deliberately and methodically raising more questions than can possibly be answered within its 112 minute running time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, (more)
- 1983
This film picks up the story of how Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) came to write The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), and then how the character Werther himself seemed to affect the life of his equally young, 25-year-old creator. After arriving in Frankfurt having just obtained his law degree, Goethe fell in love with Charlotte Buff, a 20-year-old woman who chose to marry a notary, Georg Christian Kestner. Goethe's suffering from his loss was channeled into the novel about young Werther, who like Goethe, not only loses his love but commits suicide in the bargain. That latter tragedy was inspired by the suicide of a friend of Goethe's, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, despondent because the woman he loved was married to another and any relationship between them was impossible. Goethe's novel soon became one of the most popular books of its time and set a model for future writers to follow. And as the character of Werther exorcised Goethe's own miseries over his first tragic love affair, the playwright, scientist, lawyer, and poet was ready for his next move to Weimar -- though he did not write very much for the next ten years. The last part of the documentary is a scene between Napoleon Bonaparte and Goethe, when the great French military strategist took time away from his campaigns to converse with the aging Goethe about the character of young Werther. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lutz Weidlich, Sunnyi Melles, (more)
- 1981
This story handles the movement to end discrimination against women - and its context, through a semi-autobiographical account of the years between 1967 and 1970 that the director Helke Sander spent in West Berlin. The activist Anni (Angelika Rommel) opens an album her son gave her on the political movement called "Ausser Parlamentarische/Opposition," and compares that with her own memory of the end of the 1970s. At the same time, her son acquired another book for himself on a commune that is fighting against the use of atomic energy and for better care of the environment. The book, the album, and Anni's reminiscences mesh to create a multisided picture of the causes that gained adherents during a particular place and time in history. With only $200,000 to make this film, Sander has accomplished a lot given her financial restrictions. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
